Quotes of the Day:

"Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard."

– Genghis Khan

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

– Rudyard Kipling

“The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

–“X” (George Kennan), Foreign Affairs, July 1, 1947.

1. Echoes of Freedom: Why Courageous Leaders Are the Guardians of Our Nation’s Soul

2. Opinion | Why American tech companies need to help build AI weaponry

3. Russia's ambassador outlines plan to overthrow US-led world order

4. One year on, the Wagner revolt changed nothing

5. Lack of Leadership is Hindering the West in Asia

6. More Americans are ending up in Russian jails. Prospects for their release are unclear

7. Zelensky’s Formidable Task: Keeping the West and His Citizens On Board

8. It’s Time To Bring the Pentagon Budget Into the 21st Century

9. Grand Strategy, Innovation and Technology-Power: Free Trade with Free People

10. US Navy leaves possible two-week aircraft carrier gap in CENTCOM

11. War Between Israel and Iran Is Inevitable

12. WikiLeaks Founder Pleads Guilty and Is Sentenced for Conspiring to Obtain and Disclose Classified National Defense Information

13. The Assange Plea and Press Freedom

14. Taiwan reports Chinese 'combat patrol', Beijing vows to hunt independence 'diehards'

15. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 25, 2024

16. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 25, 2024

17. US military takes another stab at aid delivery from floating Gaza pier

18. International court seeks arrest of Russian officials over attacks on Ukrainian power plants

19. DHS identifies over 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network

20. Attacks against defense industrial base increasing, NSA chief war

21. America’s Asian Partners Are Not Worried Enough About Trump

22. The Power of Principles​ – What Norms Are Still Good For

23. ‘Axis of impunity’: Putin-Kim deal underlines new challenges to world order

1. Echoes of Freedom: Why Courageous Leaders Are the Guardians of Our Nation’s Soul

A very nice essay. I find it impossible to find anything to criticize in this essay.

It provides a useful "checklist" to assess every political official, both as candidates for office and then for the purposes of accountability when they are in office.

And while we want to hold our political leaders accountable to these values (and virtues) we should also remember that we have to aspire to live these values as we citizens.

Echoes of Freedom

By Ronald Beaty

June 25, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/25/echoes_of_freedom_1040247.html

Echoes of Freedom: Why Courageous Leaders Are the Guardians of Our Nation’s Soul

"The Star-Spangled Banner," our national anthem, resonates with Americans from all walks of life. Its powerful melody and poignant lyrics evoke feelings of patriotism, pride, and unity. But beyond its symbolic significance, the anthem's themes of freedom, courage, and resilience offer valuable insights into the qualities we should seek in our public officials.

As we consider who should be elected to public office, we must look for individuals who embody the spirit of the Star-Spangled Banner. We need leaders who will defend our nation's values, brave the challenges of our time, and inspire us to work towards a brighter future.

First and foremost, our elected officials must be champions of freedom. They must recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every individual and work tirelessly to protect our constitutional rights. They must be unwavering in their commitment to the principles of liberty and justice for all and strive to create a society where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Second, our leaders must be courageous. They must be willing to take bold action in the face of adversity and make difficult decisions when necessary. They must be able to navigate the complexities of our modern world and find innovative solutions to the challenges we face. And they must be brave enough to challenge the status quo, and fight for what is right, even when it is difficult or unpopular.

Third, our elected officials must be resilient. They must be able to withstand the intense scrutiny and criticism that comes with public office and remain committed to their values and principles in the face of opposition. They must be able to work across party lines and build coalitions to achieve common goals. And they must be able to inspire and motivate others, even in the darkest of times.

Finally, our leaders must be dedicated to serving their community and country and upholding the Constitution. They must be able to put the needs of the many above their own self-interest, and work towards the common good. They must be able to balance the competing demands of different groups and find solutions that benefit everyone. And they must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and evolve to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.

In short, our elected officials must be individuals of high character, strong conviction, and unwavering commitment to the values of freedom, courage, and resilience. They must be able to inspire and motivate others, and work towards a brighter future for all Americans.

So, who should be elected to public office? We should look for individuals who have a proven record of public service, and a deep commitment to the values of the Star-Spangled Banner. We should seek out leaders who are courageous, resilient, and dedicated to the common good. And we should demand that our elected officials uphold the Constitution and work tirelessly to defend our nation's values and freedoms.

In conclusion, the Star-Spangled Banner reminds us of the importance of freedom, courage, and resilience in our national life. As we consider who should be elected to public office, we must look for individuals who embody these qualities, and who will work tirelessly to serve their community and country. By doing so, we can ensure that our nation remains a beacon of hope and freedom for generations to come.

Ronald Beaty is a former Barnstable County Commissioner, and a lifelong resident of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Find Ronald on X @ronbeatyjr

2. Opinion | Why American tech companies need to help build AI weaponry

Conclusion:

We do not advocate a thin and shallow patriotism — a substitute for thought and genuine reflection about the merits of our nation as well as its flaws. We only want America’s technology industry to keep in mind an important question — which is not whether a new generation of autonomous weapons incorporating AI will be built. It is who will build them and for what purpose.

Opinion | Why American tech companies need to help build AI weaponry

Autonomous weapons will be built. The only questions are who will build them and for what purpose.

By Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska

June 25, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Alexander C. Karp · June 25, 2024

Alexander C. Karp is co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies. Nicholas W. Zamiska is the company’s head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the office of the CEO. Their book, “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West,” will be published in February.

On July 16, 1945, not long after dawn, a group of scientists and government officials gathered at a desolate stretch of sand in the New Mexico desert to witness humanity’s first test of a nuclear weapon. The explosion was described by an onlooker as “brilliant purple.” The thunder from the bomb’s detonation seemed to ricochet and linger in the desert.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had led the project that culminated in the test, contemplated that morning the possibility that this destructive power might somehow contribute to an enduring peace. He recalled the hope of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and philanthropist, that dynamite, which Nobel had invented, would end wars.

After seeing how dynamite had been used in making bombs, Nobel confided to a friend that more capable weapons, not less, would be the best guarantors of peace. He wrote, “The only thing that will ever prevent nations from beginning war is terror.”

Our temptation might be to recoil from this sort of grim calculus, to retreat into hope that a peaceable instinct in our species would prevail if only those with weapons would lay them down. It has been nearly 80 years since the first atomic test in New Mexico, however, and nuclear weapons have been used in war only twice, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For many, the bomb’s power and horror have grown distant and faint, almost abstract.

The record of humanity’s management of the weapon — imperfect and, indeed, dozens of times nearly catastrophic — has been remarkable. Nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great-power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and grandchildren — have never known a world war. John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of military and naval history at Yale, has described the lack of major conflict in the postwar era as the “long peace.”

The atomic age and the Cold War essentially cemented for decades a calculus among the great powers that made true escalation, not skirmishes and tests of strength at the margins of regional conflicts, exceedingly unattractive and potentially costly. Steven Pinker has argued a broader “decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

It would be unreasonable to assign all or even most of the credit for this to a single weapon. Any number of other developments since the end of World War II, including the proliferation of democratic forms of government across the planet and a level of interconnected economic activity that once was unthinkable, are part of the story.

The great-powers calculus that has helped prevent another world war might also change quickly. But the supremacy of U.S. military power has undoubtedly helped guard the peace, fragile as it might be. A commitment to maintaining such supremacy, however, has become increasingly unfashionable in the West. And deterrence, as a doctrine, is at risk of losing its moral appeal.

The atomic age could soon be coming to a close. This is the software century; wars of the future will be driven by artificial intelligence, whose development is proceeding far faster than that of conventional weapons. The F-35 fighter jet was conceived of in the mid-1990s, and the airplane — the flagship attack aircraft of American and allied forces — is scheduled to be in service for 64 more years. The U.S. government expects to spend more than $2 trillion on the program. But as retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently asked, “Do we really think a manned aircraft is going to be winning the skies in 2088?”

In the 20th century, software was built to meet the needs of hardware, from flight controls to missile avionics. But with the rise of artificial intelligence and the use of large language models to make targeting recommendations on the battlefield, the relationship is shifting. Now software is at the helm, with hardware — the drones in Ukraine and elsewhere — increasingly serving as the means by which the recommendations of AI are carried out.

And for a nation that holds itself to a higher moral standard than its adversaries when it comes to the use of force, technical parity with an enemy is insufficient. A weapons system in the hand of an ethical society, and one rightly wary of its use, will only act as an effective deterrent if it is far more powerful than the capability of an opponent that would not hesitate to kill the innocent.

The trouble is that the young Americans who are most capable of building AI systems are often also most ambivalent about working for the military. In Silicon Valley, engineers have turned their backs, unwilling to engage with the mess and moral complexity of geopolitics. While pockets of support for defense work have emerged, most funding and talent continue to stream toward the consumer.

The engineering elite of our country rush to raise capital for video-sharing apps and social media platforms, advertising algorithms and shopping websites. They don’t hesitate to track and monetize people’s every movement online, burrowing their way into our lives. But many balk when it comes to working with the military. The rush is simply to build. Too few ask what ought to be built and why.

In 2018, about 4,000 employees at Google wrote a letter to Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, asking him to abandon a software effort, known as Project Maven, for the U.S. Special Forces that was being used for surveillance and mission planning in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The employees demanded that Google never “build warfare technology,” arguing that assisting soldiers in planning targeting operations and “potentially lethal outcomes” was “not acceptable.”

Google attempted to defend its involvement in Project Maven by saying the company’s work was merely “for non-offensive purposes.” This was a subtle and lawyerly distinction, especially from the perspective of soldiers and intelligence analysts on the front lines who needed better software systems to stay alive. Diane Greene, the head of Google Cloud at the time, held a meeting with employees to announce that the company had decided to end its work on the defense project. An article in Jacobin declared this “an impressive victory against US militarism,” noting that Google employees had successfully risen up against what they believed was a misdirection of their talents.

Yet the peace that those in Silicon Valley who are opposed to working with the military enjoy is made possible by that same military’s credible threat of force. At Palantir, we are building software architecture for U.S. and allied defense and intelligence agencies that will enable the deployment of this century’s AI weaponry. We should, as a society, be capable of carrying on a debate about the merits of using military force abroad without hesitating to provide those sent into harm’s way with the software they need to do their jobs.

What’s most concerning is that a generation’s disenchantment with and disinterest in our country’s collective defense has led to a massive redirection of resources — intellectual and financial — toward sating the needs of consumer culture. The diminishing demands we place on the technology sector to produce products of enduring and collective value are ceding too much power to the whims of the market. As David Graeber, who taught anthropology at Yale and the London School of Economics, observed in a 2012 essay in the Baffler, “The Internet is a remarkable innovation, but all we are talking about is a super-fast and globally accessible combination of library, post office, and mail-order catalogue.”

The technology world’s drift toward the concerns of the consumer has helped reinforce a certain escapism — Silicon Valley’s instinct to ignore the important issues we face as a society in favor of the trivial and ephemeral. Challenges ranging from national defense and violent crime to education reform and medical research have appeared to many people in the technology industry to be too intractable, thorny and politically fraught to be worth addressing.

One year after the revolt at Google, an uprising by Microsoft employees threatened to halt work on a $480 million project to build an augmented-reality platform for soldiers in the U.S. Army. The workers wrote a letter to Satya Nadella, the chief executive, and Brad Smith, its president, arguing that they “did not sign up to develop weapons” and demanding that the company cancel the contract.

In November 2022, when OpenAI released its AI interface ChatGPT to the public, it prohibited its use for “military and warfare” purposes. After the company removed the blanket prohibition on military applications this year, protesters gathered outside the San Francisco office of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, to demand that the company “end its relationship with the Pentagon and not take any military clients.”

Such outrage from the crowd has trained leaders and investors across the technology industry to avoid any hint of controversy or disapproval. But their reticence comes with significant costs. Many investors in Silicon Valley and legions of extraordinarily talented engineers simply set the hard problems aside. A generation of ascendant founders say they actively seek out risk, but when it comes to deeper investments in societal challenges, caution often prevails. Why wade into geopolitics when you can build another app?

And build apps they have done. A proliferation of social media empires systematically monetizes and channels the human desire for status and recognition.

For its part, the foreign policy establishment has repeatedly miscalculated when dealing with China, Russia and others, believing that economic integration can be sufficient to undercut their leaders’ domestic support and diminish their interest in military escalation abroad. The failure of the Davos consensus was to abandon the stick in favor of the carrot alone. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping of China and other authoritarian leaders have wielded power in a way that political leaders in the West might never understand.

On a visit to the United States in 2015, speaking to a group of business and political leaders in Seattle’s chamber of commerce, Xi recalled with affection reading “The Old Man and the Sea.” He said that when he visited Cuba, he traveled to Cojimar, on the northern coast that had inspired Ernest Hemingway’s story of a fisherman and his 18-foot marlin. Xi said he “ordered a mojito,” the author’s favorite, “with mint leaves and ice,” explaining that he “just wanted to feel for myself” what Hemingway had been thinking when he wrote his story. The leader of a nation with nearly one-fifth of the world’s population added that it was “important to make an effort to get a deep understanding of the cultures and civilizations that are different from our own.” We would be well advised to do the same.

Our broader reluctance to proceed with the development of effective autonomous weapons systems for military use might stem from a justified skepticism of power itself. Pacifism satisfies our instinctive empathy for the powerless. It also relieves us of the need to navigate among the difficult trade-offs that the world presents.

Chloé Morin, a French author and former adviser to the country’s prime minister, suggested in a recent interview that we should resist the facile urge “to divide the world into dominants and dominated, oppressors and oppressed.” It would be a mistake, and indeed a form of moral condescension, to systematically equate powerlessness with piousness. The subjugated and subjugators are equally capable of grievous sin.

We do not advocate a thin and shallow patriotism — a substitute for thought and genuine reflection about the merits of our nation as well as its flaws. We only want America’s technology industry to keep in mind an important question — which is not whether a new generation of autonomous weapons incorporating AI will be built. It is who will build them and for what purpose.

The Washington Post · by Alexander C. Karp · June 25, 2024

3. Russia's ambassador outlines plan to overthrow US-led world order

Excerpts:

Antonov listed several key aspects of what the Kremlin's plan to dull Western power looks like.

"Our proposals involve eliminating the regulatory and institutional vacuum in the sphere of Eurasian security, genuine and sincere recognition of the world's movement towards multi-polarity," Antonov said. "At the same time, the future system should be based on the principles of the U.N. Charter and the supremacy of international law.

"It will not be directed against anyone's interests. It will become a kind of 'insurance' against geopolitical upheavals that a model of globalization built on Western principles can lead to. It is important to prevent fragmentation and formation of opposing alliances, and ultimately to prevent the outbreak of a large-scale armed conflict."

He emphasized, however, that while diluting Western influence was a crucial objective within the framework, the idea was not to form a new coalition against any one nation or alliance.

"We are not talking about creating a new 'bloc' or 'axis' that should firmly oppose someone," Antonov said. "The foundation should be dialogue and cooperation, and with all truly interested players. A discussion, on an equal basis, on stockpiled problems and ways to solve them is of paramount importance."

The Biden administration has expressed deep skepticism toward talk of peace and cooperation from the Kremlin.

Russia's ambassador outlines plan to overthrow US-led world order

Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · June 25, 2024

By Tom O'ConnorSenior Writer, Foreign Policy & Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign 

Russia's top diplomat in the United States outlined to Newsweek the contents and core tenets of the Kremlin's bid to reshape the global order in a way that undermines Washington's international influence.

The remarks came as President Joe Biden's administration has sought to further tighten ties abroad in an attempt to isolate Moscow as it continues to wage war in neighboring Ukraine. With divisive debates playing out around the world over Europe's most devastating conflict in decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin detailed a path to ending the war during a wide-ranging speech last week at a gathering of senior diplomatic officials.

The proposals were roundly rejected by Kyiv and its international backers. But Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov argued that the West missed a key message that focused on upending the post-Cold War balance of power.

"Experts and political scientists [I'm not sure about the officials—they most likely heard everything but prefer to remain silent] seem to have ignored the key points of the president, who called on the international community, primarily on the Eurasian continent, to agree with the need for a new security architecture," Antonov told Newsweek.

"Meanwhile, ideas and suggestions included in our proposal explain a lot both in terms of opposition to the West and its 'Ukrainian project,' and with regard to Moscow's systemic efforts to deepen normal, mutually respectful cooperation with the Global South."

And despite dismissals by the U.S. and its European allies, Antonov asserted that, "the accelerating crisis of Euro-Atlanticism has long been obvious to capitals striving to get rid of unipolar dictatorship."

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert at the Hanoi Opera House in Hanoi, Vietnam, on June 20 amid back-to-back trips to North Korea and Vietnam in a bid to boost ties in Asia. Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert at the Hanoi Opera House in Hanoi, Vietnam, on June 20 amid back-to-back trips to North Korea and Vietnam in a bid to boost ties in Asia. GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/AFP/Getty Images

Long March to War

Putin's long-standing grievances with the security architecture of the post-Soviet sphere of influence have been a hallmark of the Russian leader's rhetoric since he assumed power nearly a quarter-century ago. Central to this position has been a consistent opposition to the expansion of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance within regions once dominated by the USSR's rival Warsaw Pact.

The feud first erupted into conflict in Ukraine in 2014 after an uprising ousted the government in Kyiv in favor of a pro-West administration. The events were quickly followed by Russia seizing the strategic Crimean Peninsula, later annexing it an internationally disputed referendum, and the outbreak of a Moscow-aligned insurgency in the eastern Donbas region.

The situation further deteriorated in 2021 as Russia amassed troops along Ukraine's borders and began to engage with the U.S. and NATO in negotiations toward reducing NATO presence in Eastern Europe. As discussions faltered, Putin declared a "special military operation" in which Russian troops launched a full-scale war on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, that is ongoing to this day.

While Russian troops have claimed new advances in recent months, the conflict has largely fallen into a bloody stalemate. Putin's proposal to end the war, as previously described to Newsweek by Antonov, called for the total withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from five Russia-annexed territories, Kyiv adopting a neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free stance as well as the lifting of Western sanctions, among several other components.

But the U.S. and fellow supporters of Ukraine have sought to double down on military assistance to Kyiv to support President Volodymyr Zelensky against what they collectively view to be an unjustified war of aggression.

"Let me emphasize that on June 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a peaceful plan for ending the Ukrainian conflict. In response, we only saw new supplies of weapons to the Kiev regime," Antonov said. "Thus, the reaction of Washington is obvious: local politicians do not need peace. They only focus on war with the objective of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia."

Reasserting Russia's Position

Meanwhile, Putin embarked on back-to-back visits to North Korea and Vietnam to fortify Russia's relationships in Asia. Antonov dismissed the portrayal of these trips, however, as "signs of Moscow's imperial plans, or as a kind of confirmation of weakness and dependence on 'rogue states' [of course, as the West understands it]."

Putin also visited China last month to further boost relations with President Xi Jinping, with whom the Russian leader has forged a "no-limits" strategic partnership and has expanded two international organizations, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

"Our country, in local Russophobes' distorted opinion, basically does not have the right to its own opinion and to protect national interests," Antonov said, "neither in relation to the crisis around Ukraine, nor regarding the establishment of mutually beneficial relations with friendly capitals."

Today, however, Antonov saw an opportunity to reintroduce Russia's push to fundamentally modify the regional security environment that had previously collapsed in the leadup to the war in Ukraine, this time enlisting more international support from other countries whose desires to see a more multipolar world, he argued, had been spurned by the U.S. and its allies.

"The interests of Russia and other states were openly ignored, since there seemed to be no alternative to the dominance of the United States and its immediate satellites," Antonov said. "Symbolic of Western arrogance was Washington's refusal to seriously consider our initiatives, introduced at the end of 2021, on mutual guarantees based on the principle of indivisible security.

"Such pretension and expansionism, based on military force, economic sanctions and political pressure, certainly destabilize the situation in Eurasia and in the world as a whole, exacerbating controversies, new and old contradictions between countries in the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East and Asia-Pacific region."

U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands after signing a security agreement on the sidelines of the G7 on June 13 in Savelletri, Italy. U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands after signing a security agreement on the sidelines of the G7 on June 13 in Savelletri, Italy. Alex Brandon/AP

What Putin's Plan Looks Like

Antonov listed several key aspects of what the Kremlin's plan to dull Western power looks like.

"Our proposals involve eliminating the regulatory and institutional vacuum in the sphere of Eurasian security, genuine and sincere recognition of the world's movement towards multi-polarity," Antonov said. "At the same time, the future system should be based on the principles of the U.N. Charter and the supremacy of international law.

"It will not be directed against anyone's interests. It will become a kind of 'insurance' against geopolitical upheavals that a model of globalization built on Western principles can lead to. It is important to prevent fragmentation and formation of opposing alliances, and ultimately to prevent the outbreak of a large-scale armed conflict."

He emphasized, however, that while diluting Western influence was a crucial objective within the framework, the idea was not to form a new coalition against any one nation or alliance.

"We are not talking about creating a new 'bloc' or 'axis' that should firmly oppose someone," Antonov said. "The foundation should be dialogue and cooperation, and with all truly interested players. A discussion, on an equal basis, on stockpiled problems and ways to solve them is of paramount importance."

The Biden administration has expressed deep skepticism toward talk of peace and cooperation from the Kremlin.

"Russia has shown no interest in engaging in good-faith negotiations," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek. "The Kremlin launched this brutal and unprovoked war. Russia occupies nearly 20 percent of sovereign Ukrainian territory and continues to attack Ukraine every single day.

"Now, Vladimir Putin is saying the price of peace is to allow Russia to occupy even more Ukrainian territory. There's not a country in the world that can say with a straight face that this is acceptable under the U.N. Charter, international law, basic morality or common sense."

The State Department spokesperson also reiterated the Biden administration's position in supporting Ukraine's demands to put an end to the conflict, which include a total withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.

"You've all heard us say repeatedly that when it comes to diplomacy, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine," the spokesperson said. "No one wants this war to end more than Ukraine and its people, but any decisions about negotiations are up to President Zelensky.

"Any initiative for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine must be based on full respect for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter."

The spokesperson referred to Russia as "the sole obstacle to peace in Ukraine" and further accused Moscow of building a "disinformation and propaganda ecosystem," consisting of "official government communications, state-funded global messaging, cultivation of proxy sources, weaponization of social media, and cyber-enabled disinformation" to serve the Kremlin's narrative.

Future at Stake

While no apparent signs of movement have emerged in the quest to find common ground in the Russia-Ukraine war, casualties continue to mount on both sides amid battlefield clashes as strikes are conducted deeper into one another's territory.

The Biden administration's announcement last month that it would greenlight attacks by Ukrainian forces against targets within Russia's claimed and internationally recognized borders using U.S.-supplied weapons sparked new warnings of potential escalation from the Kremlin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also threatened "consequences" on Monday after a strike said to be conducted using U.S.-produced Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) munitions reportedly resulted in civilian casualties in Russia-held Crimea. In response, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters the U.S. lamented "any civilian loss of life in this war" but that such operations were authorized as "we provide weapons to Ukraine so it can defend its sovereign territory against armed aggression, that includes in Crimea, which of course is part of Ukraine."

Amid concerns over further escalations and growing nuclear rhetoric surrounding the war, Antonov portrayed the need to redefine the Eurasian security order as one critical to bringing peace to the region and avoiding future conflicts.

"The initiative outlined by the Russian president will require colossal efforts and political determination," Antonov said. "Its implementation will take years. Positions on many basic elements still need to be defined and synchronized. But work must begin immediately.

"Humanity is obliged to do this for the sake of peace, stability and economic prosperity, for the sake of future generations, for the sake of a calm sky above our heads."

About the writer

Tom O'Connor

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn

Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy and Deputy Editor of National Security and Foreign Policy at Newsweek, where he specializes in covering the Middle East, North Korea, China, Russia and other areas of international affairs, relations and conflict.

He has previously written for International Business Times, the New York Post, the Daily Star (Lebanon) and Staten Island Advance. His works have been cited in more than 1,700 academic papers, government reports, books, news articles and other forms of research and media from across the globe. He has contributed analysis to a number of international outlets and has participated in Track II diplomacy related to the Middle East as well as in fellowships at The Korea Society and Foreign Press Center Japan.

Follow @ShaolinTom for daily news on X and his official Facebook page. Email t.oconnor@newsweek.com with tips or for media commentary and appearances.

Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ...

To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.

Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · June 25, 2024

4. One year on, the Wagner revolt changed nothing

Excerpt:

The outlook remains bleak for ordinary Russian people. But Putin doesn’t care. As long as he gets to continue his Ukrainian campaign, it doesn’t matter. In Russia, nothing matters.

One year on, the Wagner revolt changed nothing

unherd.com · by Aliide Naylor

June 24, 2024 - 1:25pm

On 24 June 2023, 200 km away from Moscow, Yevgeny Priogozhin gave up. Having led his mercenary army on a march towards the capital, he reasoned that he wanted to avoid spilling more Russian blood. When the head of a coterie of violent rapists and murderers is one of the better shots your country has at political change, you’re already in a bad place. Now, one year on from the Wagner Group’s aborted midsummer rebellion, Russia seems in a more pathetic state than ever.

It was exactly two months later that Vladimir Putin appeared before an audience on state TV, smiling against the backdrop of an orchestra as news of Prigozhin’s death in a mid-air plane explosion came through. The President’s authority had been temporarily dented, and he made a public spectacle of taking it back. Since then he has further consolidated it.

There have been few, if any, significant internal challenges to Putin, though there have been small pockets of single-issue dissent such as Put Domoy, a movement against Russian men being mobilised for the war, and January’s protests in Bashkortostan in support of a jailed activist. The Kremlin has also stamped out other major threats, most notably opposition campaigner Alexei Navalny who died in suspicious circumstances in February after a difficult winter in an arctic prison colony.

It’s not just Prigozhin’s loss that has deflated any remaining confidence among dissident Russians. The country has been in a state of political ennui bordering on nihilism for years, egged on by a state propaganda machine which has encouraged the public to trust nothing and nobody.

While some Russians are against the war, support consistently stands at around two-thirds of the population. Putin’s domestic popularity actually increased in the aftermath of the invasion. People aren’t challenging the regime, largely because they don’t want to. Even Prigozhin and his supporters were irate that the Russian army wasn’t killing Ukrainians effectively enough. Those who oppose the conflict are either powerless or reluctant to do anything about it, and many Russians are simply more concerned with their own standard of living than the fact their country is conducting acts of terror abroad. Some view themselves as the “real” victims.

Politically, Putin’s regime is reorienting. The central syndicate remains the same, just reshuffled into different positions of seniority, while the slightly lower-downs are the fall guys, of whom the internal security apparatus makes an example in an attempt to cow others into submission. And the President has clearly seen the need for some actual changes if he wants to stand a chance of fighting a protracted war. Ironically, it seems that Putin is finally starting to realise that Prigozhin may have been right about the flagging war effort.

Last month, Putin finally replaced longtime defence minister Sergey Shoigu with a technocrat, Andrei Belousov, in order to improve the war’s economic efficiency. Russia is trying to prove that it is not completely isolated on the world stage — an attempt somewhat undermined by having recently reached out to the hermit kingdom of North Korea as an ally.

Wagner, too, has changed shape. While some Prigozhin loyalists were reluctant to start cooperating with Russia’s official structures, many were easily integrated back into the country’s system under the control of the Ministry of Defence, the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), or other affiliated paramilitaries. Wagner is still active on the African continent, albeit under the new name of “Africa Corps”, and with different leadership. Old habits die hard, however: a rare recent piece of reportage documented how Russian paramilitaries have been drugging and raping teenage girls in the Central African Republic.

The regime has continued to crack down harshly on the few meaningful acts of resistance, as well as media freedoms. Russian-American Ksenia Karelina, for example, is currently on trial for donating $50 to a pro-Ukraine charity. Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Ukraine, either dead or wounded, and its brightest and best have fled abroad.

The outlook remains bleak for ordinary Russian people. But Putin doesn’t care. As long as he gets to continue his Ukrainian campaign, it doesn’t matter. In Russia, nothing matters.

Aliide Naylor is a journalist and the author of The Shadow in the East: Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front

5. Lack of Leadership is Hindering the West in Asia

Excerpts:

All the above [below] is to say that while US and Western power and influence may be waning in parts of the world, there is a base to rebuild and reinvigorate. However, leadership is essential to stake a vision with clear and tangible deliverables to the ‘global common good’ which was a hallmark of US leadership in the 20th century.

Former Obama official Ben Rhodes recently penned an article in Foreign Policy echoing these sentiments. He called for a recalibration of foreign policy based on a post-unipolar world, where America and the West writ large have to learn to build bridges, leverage partnerships, strengthen alliances, and relearn the art of diplomacy. In essence this is to abandon unilateralism, maximalist agendas, and to stop trying to make the world as you would like it; instead, act within the bounds as it is. Wise words indeed.

President Trump signaled to the world the seeming end of US support for global free trade when he withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership upon taking office and subsequently undermined the WTO. There have no grand strategic visions present since. All the while, China continues to invest massively in its Belt and Road Initiative which is funneling trade and growth back to Beijing. All this is to say there is a lack of supply of ideas and vision with tangible benefits to sell to Asia, which remains open to American ideas and leadership.

The United States is the only Western country and incumbent regional power with the capability to support and push back on China’s growing power. However, a clear, coherent and credible strategy must be present by leaders that are up to the task. National interests, not short-term political goals, must come to the fore among Western leaders. Sadly, this is not currently the case.

Lack of Leadership is Hindering the West in Asia

https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/lack-of-leadership-is-hindering-the-west-in-asia/

OPINION - June 25, 2024

By William J. Jones

Two recent blunders of Western leaders are signposts of the critical lack of visionary, cleareyed and competent leadership. US President Joe Biden’s absence at Zelensky’s ‘peace summit’ in Switzerland and British Prime Minister Sunak’s early exit from D-Day commemorations are glaring examples of absent leadership in critical times. The former chose to attend a Hollywood campaign fundraising event where he raised a record $30 million. The latter chose to skip out early on commemorations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day to get back on the campaign trail and interviews ahead of early elections.

Centrists status quo parties took a beating in European Union elections early in the month with critical voices gaining ground. This prompted France’s Macron to call snap parliamentary elections in order to save face. Even EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen is facing resistance in her bid for a second term, a position once considered a shoe in for incumbent candidates. German Chancellor Scholz noted after the EU elections that “no one is well advised to simply go back to business as usual,” yet this is what Western leaders have done.

During periods of relative stability where mundane issues of domestic politics consume executive attention and periodically distracted leadership is not exceedingly consequential, missteps can be overlooked. However, in periods of tumult, where foreign policy issues are taking center stage and overshadowing domestic politics, executive leadership is essential to steer the ship of state, reinsure allies and keep those sitting on the fence leaning toward your side.

In Western capitals none of the above appear present. The war raging in Eastern Europe is threatening to consume and fragment NATO while the war in Gaza is destroying Western moral standing in the eyes of the Global South. All the while, Western leadership appears indecisive with foreign policy stances that lack the quality of clear strategic thinking.

The Ukraine War

Biden and Sunak’s blunders couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time, with Russia clearly taking the upper hand in its war in Ukraine and Sino-Russo cooperation on display for the world to see at the BRICS foreign ministers meeting.

Regarding Ukraine, the US-led West has continued doubling down in support of Ukraine. Yet rather than support Ukraine to the hilt, Western support has come in bits and bobs, first with sanctions, then money and arms, then HIMARS, then Western battle tanks, now ATACMS for use on Russian soil, with F-16s soon to appear.

There are only three ways to read this 2+ years of escalation. First, Western leaders planned on a quick sanctions-induced victory. When this did not happen as planned it would appear that they have been making it up as they go along ever since. Second, Western leaders are slow rolling the world into World War III, fearing dramatic escalation in favor of trickles of support so as not to spook their publics. Third, Western leaders are slowly recognizing their gamble in Eastern Europe and are now cooling their support for their Ukrainian proxy. None of these views inspire confidence.

It is unclear which of the scenario’s is correct but it does not bode well for the Western world on any of the above. If Russia is victorious in Ukraine, the results could be catastrophic for Western institutions and prestige. The loss could bring into question the viability and existence of NATO but more importantly ‘Western hegemony and dominance’ will be forever shattered. Estonian PM Kaja Kallas has starkly noted that “we have no Plan B for a Russian victory.” The all-or-nothing gambit is a game of the highest stakes which requires exceptional leadership.

The Western war against Russia in Ukraine, coupled with massive trade tensions and tariffs have pushed China and Russia into a ‘friendship without limits nor areas of cooperation.’ This is something American strategic planners warned of for decades. The tariff war which began under President Trump has only escalated with advanced semiconductors, chips and EV’s the latest casualties in the trade row.

The foreign policy view from Asia looks like on of intransigence with Western capitals and leaders digging in their heals on security matters while resorting to protectionism and rolling back globalization on the economic front. This contradicts with the previous five decades of Western policies. The view from afar is one of confusion and perception of instability.

The View from Asia

The United States is distracted by the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. This is taking valuable geopolitical bandwidth which has implications for the Asia-Pacific region. Asia will be driver of future economic growth and prosperity. China as the local power is set to take over the mantle of leadership if the United States does not get its act together, and soon. China is the world’s number one manufacturing country, outstripping manufacturing in the United States and the EU combined. Over the previous decade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has invested trillions of dollars in infrastructure to regions thirsty for investment and connectivity. China’s vision is clear, tangible and delivering benefits and this is drawing more and more countries into its sphere of influence.

The State of Southeast Asia Survey revealed that among ASEAN states, China’s influence has far outdistanced the United States. In economic influence, China came in at nearly 60% favorability while the USA at 14%. This is counterbalanced by 67% worried about Chinese economic influence and 65% welcoming America’s influence. With political influence China is viewed as the most influential, 44% and the USA, 26%. Respondents with a negative view stood at 73% for China while welcoming American political influence at 41%. When asked which country is best to align with strategically respondents chose China at 50.5%, USA at 49.5%. This is in stark contrast to 2023 when China was at 38.9%, USA at 61.1%. This is reflective the erratic and unstable security policy coming from Washington during the Biden administration in its war with Russia in Ukraine and seemingly contradictory policy on trade with China.

The trends cited above are stark and clear. US influence economically and politically is eroding fast and the last vestige of strong US power and influence – security – is on the same track.

The United States still has a strong base of cultural, economic, and societal support throughout East Asia. To back this up are a string of treaty alliances that string across the first and second island chains. In Southeast Asia, the Philippines has welcomed the reestablishment of US military bases. America is a naval and aerospace military power which still has a good degree of support, but this is waning fast.

All the above is to say that while US and Western power and influence may be waning in parts of the world, there is a base to rebuild and reinvigorate. However, leadership is essential to stake a vision with clear and tangible deliverables to the ‘global common good’ which was a hallmark of US leadership in the 20th century.

Former Obama official Ben Rhodes recently penned an article in Foreign Policy echoing these sentiments. He called for a recalibration of foreign policy based on a post-unipolar world, where America and the West writ large have to learn to build bridges, leverage partnerships, strengthen alliances, and relearn the art of diplomacy. In essence this is to abandon unilateralism, maximalist agendas, and to stop trying to make the world as you would like it; instead, act within the bounds as it is. Wise words indeed.

President Trump signaled to the world the seeming end of US support for global free trade when he withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership upon taking office and subsequently undermined the WTO. There have no grand strategic visions present since. All the while, China continues to invest massively in its Belt and Road Initiative which is funneling trade and growth back to Beijing. All this is to say there is a lack of supply of ideas and vision with tangible benefits to sell to Asia, which remains open to American ideas and leadership.

The United States is the only Western country and incumbent regional power with the capability to support and push back on China’s growing power. However, a clear, coherent and credible strategy must be present by leaders that are up to the task. National interests, not short-term political goals, must come to the fore among Western leaders. Sadly, this is not currently the case.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

6. More Americans are ending up in Russian jails. Prospects for their release are unclear

More Americans are ending up in Russian jails. Prospects for their release are unclear

AP · by DASHA LITVINOVA · June 25, 2024

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — One was a journalist on a reporting trip. Another was attending a wedding. Yet another was a dual national returning to visit family.

All are U.S. citizens now behind bars in Russia on various charges.

Arrests of Americans in Russia are increasingly common with relations sinking to Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of using U.S. citizens as bargaining chips, but Russia insists they all broke the law.

While high-profile prisoner exchanges have occurred, the prospects of swaps are unclear.

“It seems that since Moscow itself has cut off most of the communication channels and does not know how to restore them properly without losing face, they are trying to use the hostages. … At least that’s what it looks like,” said Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who quit after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Who is known to be in Russian custody?

EVAN GERSHKOVICH — The 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter faces trial Wednesday on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government deny. He was detained in March 2023 while reporting in the city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying. Russia alleges Gershkovich was “gathering secret information” at the CIA’s behest about a facility that produces and repairs military equipment. It provided no evidence to support the accusations.

PAUL WHELAN — The 54-year-old corporate security executive from Michigan was arrested in 2018 in Moscow where he was attending a friend’s wedding, convicted two years later of espionage, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He maintains his innocence, saying the charges were fabricated.

TRAVIS LEAKE — The musician was arrested in 2023 on drug charges. An Instagram page describes him as the singer for the band Lovi Noch (Seize the Night). Court officials have said he is a former paratrooper.

MARC FOGEL — The Moscow teacher was sentenced to 14 years in prison, also on drug charges. The Interfax news agency said Fogel taught at the Anglo-American School in Moscow and had worked at the U.S. Embassy. Interfax cited court officials as saying Fogel has admitted guilt.

GORDON BLACK — The 34-year-old staff sergeant stationed at Fort Cavazos, Texas, was convicted June 19 in Vladivostok of stealing and making threats against his girlfriend, and was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. He had flown to Russia from his U.S. military post in South Korea without authorization and was arrested in May after she accused him of stealing from her, according to U.S. and Russian authorities.

ROBERT WOODLAND — Woodland, a dual national, is on trial in Moscow on drug- trafficking charges. Russian media reported his name matches a U.S. citizen interviewed in 2020 who said he was born in the Perm region in 1991 and adopted by an American couple at age 2. He said he traveled to Russia to find his mother and eventually met her on a TV show. Woodland was charged with trafficking drugs as part of an organized group — punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

ALSU KURMASHEVA — Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, was arrested in 2023 in her hometown of Kazan. The Prague-based editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service was visiting her ailing mother. She faces multiple charges, including not self-reporting as a “foreign agent” and spreading false information about the Russian military.

KSENIA KHAVANA — Khavana, 33, was arrested in Yekaterinburg in February on treason charges, accused of collecting money for Ukraine’s military. Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona identified her by her maiden name of Karelina, and said she had U.S. citizenship after marrying an American. She returned to Russia from Los Angeles to visit family. The rights group Pervy Otdel said the charges stem from a $51 donation to a U.S. charity that helps Ukraine.

DAVID BARNES — An engineer from Texas, Barnes was arrested while visiting his sons in Russia, where their mother had taken them. His supporters say the woman made baseless claims of sexual abuse that already had been discredited by Texas investigators but he was convicted in Russia anyway and sentenced to prison.

What’s the process for negotiations?

Gershkovich and Whelan have gotten the most attention, with the State Department designating both as wrongfully detained. The designation is applied to only a small subset of Americans jailed by foreign countries.

Those cases go to a special State Department envoy for hostage affairs, who tries to negotiate their release. They must meet certain criteria, including a determination the arrest came solely because the person is a U.S. national or part of an effort to influence U.S. policy or extract concessions from the government.

The U.S. successfully negotiated swaps in 2022 for WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Trevor Reed — both designated as wrongfully detained. Moscow got arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence, and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, serving 20 years for cocaine trafficking.

It’s unclear how many Americans are jailed in Russia or if negotiations are in the works for them.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told The Associated Press after her arrest he hoped the U.S. government would use “every avenue and every means available to it” to win her release, including designating her as wrongfully detained.

Is the West holding anyone Russia wants?

In December, the State Department said it had made a significant offer for Gershkovich and Whelan but Russia rejected it.

Officials did not give details, although Russia has been said to be seeking Vadim Krasikov, serving a life sentence in Germany in 2021 for the killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

President Vladimir Putin, asked about releasing Gershkovich, appeared to refer to Krasikov by pointing to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for “liquidating a bandit” who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

Beyond that, Russia has stayed silent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says such swaps “must be carried out in absolute silence.”

Historically, when relations are better, “the exchanges seem to be smoother,” said Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

She cited prisoner swaps between the USSR and Chile in the 1970s, as well as those with the U.S. and Germany shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev took office in the 1980s involving dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky and Natan Sharansky.

Ultimately, the decision “is only in Putin’s hands,” Khrushcheva said.

In Gershkovich’s case, an exchange might also involve concessions, possibly related to Ukraine, said Sam Greene of the Center for European Policy Analysis.

“Even if the immediate reason to get people around the (negotiating) table is Evan and a prisoner exchange, that allows them to get right up to the line and to say: ‘OK, we’ve got 98% of the deal, but if you really want to get this done, there’s this other thing we’d really like to talk about,’” like sanctions or another Ukraine-related issue, he said.

“The Kremlin is perfectly happy to hold onto Evan as long as it possibly can. And so its incentive is to get as much for him as possible,” Greene said.

___

Tucker reported from Washington.

AP · by DASHA LITVINOVA · June 25, 2024

7. Zelensky’s Formidable Task: Keeping the West and His Citizens On Board

Excerpts:

In Europe, political support for Zelensky remains solid across the continent, with some officials thinking that Washington is overreacting to specific decisions. Despite the problems, European officials said, the Ukrainian leader’s government has managed the challenges of the war reasonably well, maintaining foreign support, keeping the economy running and maintaining the defense. 

 “They have been living in a bunker for almost 2½ years,” one senior European official said of the Zelensky administration. “They have a decent record of delivery.”

European officials say that Zelensky has pushed through a range of useful anticorruption reforms and measures to strengthen judicial independence even during the difficult circumstances of the war. 

They warn that interfering too much in personnel decisions is a mistake. Instead, they point to Ukraine’s EU accession process and the obligations that will come with recovery aid for Kyiv as the opportunity to build on Ukraine’s tentative reforms and create cleaner, more efficient institutions.

“The risk here is if you personalize your concerns, I think you get nowhere,” said one senior European diplomat dealing with Ukraine. “Ukraine is doing reforms…Two steps in the right direction and one step backward. The important thing is making strong institutions. At the end of the day, it’s not up to us to pick the people.”

Zelensky’s Formidable Task: Keeping the West and His Citizens On Board

Ukraine’s president has maintained support at home and in Europe despite emerging tensions with the U.S. and a shortage of troops

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/zelenskys-formidable-task-keeping-the-west-and-his-citizens-on-board-694df7dd?mod=latest_headlines

By Ian LovettFollow and Laurence NormanFollow

Updated June 26, 2024 12:02 am ET

KYIV—Ukraine’s battle-weary troops are desperate for reinforcements. Civilians want to keep up the fight but are less eager to pick up rifles. The West is dangling membership in political and military blocs and feeding military aid but not enough for a breakthrough.

As Russia’s invasion enters a third summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is juggling competing domestic and international priorities even as Ukrainians and their Western allies agree: Russia can’t be allowed to win.  

On Tuesday, Ukraine officially began negotiations to join the European Union, a symbolic step toward the West, and a small victory for Zelensky. 

Still, EU accession is, at best, years away, much like Ukraine’s avowed aim of ousting Russia from its lands. Membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a more valuable prize for Ukraine than joining the EU, is even more distant. 

Biden, G-7 Leaders Agree to Finance Ukraine With $50 Billion Loan

Biden, G-7 Leaders Agree to Finance Ukraine With $50 Billion Loan

Play video: Biden, G-7 Leaders Agree to Finance Ukraine With $50 Billion Loan

President Biden and G-7 leaders agreed to finance Ukraine with a loan backed by profits on frozen Russian assets. Biden also signed a long-term security agreement to support Ukraine. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty

“The presidential goal is to liberate all our territory,” a senior Ukrainian official said. But at the moment, he added, “the current task is holding the line.”

For now, the line is more or less stable. Ukraine was able to halt a Russian offensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region. After months of delays, the U.S. approved a large military aid package, and weapons are now making their way into the country. In addition, a Ukraine-led peace summit in Switzerland earlier this month brought some support from dozens of world leaders and pushback against the Kremlin’s latest demands for ending the war.

But mounting challenges cloud the horizon, as both Ukraine and its Western partner recognize the huge investment—financial, military and human—that will be required even for Ukraine to hold its current defensive lines. 

Tensions with the U.S. are flickering into view, with Washington concerned about Kyiv’s anticorruption efforts, and Zelensky pleading for faster and bigger deliveries of military equipment. Questions loom over Western strategy as elections in the U.S. and Europe could bring populists to power who have decried excessive spending on Ukraine. 

Domestically, efforts to mobilize more troops to fight are reshaping Ukrainian life. Military officials are pulling men off the street and sending them to the front, often with little training. Some men stay at home all day, afraid they will be forced into the armed forces on the way to work. 

European officials said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has managed the war with Russia reasonably well, including maintaining the country’s defense.  PHOTO: HANDOUT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

A Russian strike May 26 hit a hardware supermarket in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine. PHOTO: SERGEY BOBOK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Complaints from soldiers have also grown louder, since last year’s counteroffensive failed to retake significant territory. A small number of military families have begun occasionally protesting in Kyiv, demanding that men who have been fighting for two years be allowed to demobilize. 

This week, Zelensky dismissed the commander of the country’s armed forces in eastern Ukraine, after a prominent military officer publicly accused the commander of having “killed more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.” 

Still, Zelensky remains broadly popular, with around 60% of Ukrainians saying they trust him, according to a poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology released earlier this month. Though that number has fallen from 90% two years ago, it would be enviable for most leaders in the West. 

“I think it’s a miracle” that his approval remains so high, said Oleksiy Kovzhun, a Ukrainian political consultant, who said he didn’t vote for Zelensky in 2019 but has been impressed by his work since the war began. He added, however, that power had been increasingly concentrated around the president, with few checks from parliament. “He’s doing a very good job, but the system of decision-making is, let’s say, not ideal,” he said. 

U.S. concerns have risen in recent months, buttressed by demands in Congress for Ukraine to show U.S. military and civilian assistance isn’t going to waste. In May, Oleksandr Kubrakov, the infrastructure minister, was fired. Several weeks later, Mustafa Nayyem, the head of Ukraine’s restoration and infrastructure development agency, resigned, citing “constant confrontation, resistance and artificial obstacles.” 

Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, was fired in May. PHOTO: JULIA KOCHETOVA/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Both U.S. and Ukrainian officials said they thought Kubrakov and Nayyem were targeted in part because they maintained close ties with Western partners, which the president’s office viewed as a threat. After Kubrakov’s dismissal, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine posted a message of support for him on X. 

A spokesman for Zelensky didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

In Europe, political support for Zelensky remains solid across the continent, with some officials thinking that Washington is overreacting to specific decisions. Despite the problems, European officials said, the Ukrainian leader’s government has managed the challenges of the war reasonably well, maintaining foreign support, keeping the economy running and maintaining the defense. 

 “They have been living in a bunker for almost 2½ years,” one senior European official said of the Zelensky administration. “They have a decent record of delivery.”

European officials say that Zelensky has pushed through a range of useful anticorruption reforms and measures to strengthen judicial independence even during the difficult circumstances of the war. 

They warn that interfering too much in personnel decisions is a mistake. Instead, they point to Ukraine’s EU accession process and the obligations that will come with recovery aid for Kyiv as the opportunity to build on Ukraine’s tentative reforms and create cleaner, more efficient institutions.

“The risk here is if you personalize your concerns, I think you get nowhere,” said one senior European diplomat dealing with Ukraine. “Ukraine is doing reforms…Two steps in the right direction and one step backward. The important thing is making strong institutions. At the end of the day, it’s not up to us to pick the people.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received support from dozens of world leaders at a summit in Switzerland this month. PHOTO: URS FLUEELER/POOL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Zelensky displayed his people skills on a trip to France to commemorate D-Day on June 6, recalling his earlier ability to define the conflict as a battle for Western values by crouching to embrace a 99-year-old U.S. veteran who called him a savior. 

At the core of the EU accession process are efforts to entrench the rule of law, judicial independence and transparent public administration in candidate countries. EU member states have in recent years frontloaded those issues as the first to be tackled among 35 detailed chapters of alignment of rules and laws Ukraine will have to complete.

Tuesday’s talks in Luxembourg will see the EU share with Ukraine its negotiating mandate for membership talks, which are ultimately aimed at aligning Ukraine laws and rules with more than 100,000 pages of EU legislation. 

Some countries, such as North Macedonia, spent almost two decades as EU candidate applicants without their membership talks beginning. Against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s accession push has been far swifter.

Yet even Croatia, a country at peace whose EU membership was widely supported across the bloc, spent six years in membership negotiations with Brussels from 2005-2011. It was the last country to join the bloc in 2013. 

Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com

8. It’s Time To Bring the Pentagon Budget Into the 21st Century

Excerpts:

How important are these changes in today’s defense environment? At a time when China can obtain new weapons systems five to six times faster than the Pentagon; and complete the development to fielding cycle 2.5 times faster; getting a planning, programming, and budgeting system that can keep up with technological as well as strategic changes, isn’t just a good idea. It’s imperative.[1]

Likewise, when an experienced Pentagon program manager handling a multi-billion dollar submarine program can’t make a $10 million change without permission; and small companies with great ideas and breakthrough technologies can’t afford to wait two or more years before becoming a full-fledged defense program—the waiting period known in the defense business the “valley of death”—then it’s time for a new way to allocate money and resources for our nation’s defense.

A bureaucratic process that’s been built up over decades and handles an $880 billion budget isn’t going to change overnight. But thanks to the challenges posed by China, Russia, and Iran in today’s complex security environment, the need for change-even radical change couldn’t be more glaring.

Fortunately, Congress in its NDAA for fiscal year 2025 fully recognizes that need. It’s time for the Biden administration to recognize it as well and endorse implementing the Commission’s reforms—before we have to characterize Pentagon budget reform with what James Thurber said were the saddest words in the English language: “too late.” 

It’s Time To Bring the Pentagon Budget Into the 21st Century

By Arthur Herman

June 26, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/26/its_time_to_bring_the_pentagon_budget_into_the_21st_century_1040488.html?mc_cid=d549dc996e&mc_eid=70bf478f36

As the world crisis grows, with America involved in wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East and possibly facing a major conflict over Taiwan, calls for increasing our defense spending have reached a crescendo. The new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) from Congress increases the Pentagon budget to $880 billion—an all-time high in terms of dollars spent. A prominent senator has even urged raising that amount annually to 5% of GDP—which is still barely half of the percentage spent during the Cold War.

However, just as important—or even more important—than what the Pentagon spends, is how it spends it. A Congressionally appointed blue ribbon commission has set on the policy table a list of recommended reforms to bring the Pentagon’s budget system into the 21^st century. The battle now begins to implement those changes, changes that could not only mean using defense dollars more wisely and effectively; they could make the difference between victory or defeat in any future war.

The existing Pentagon Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process governing defense spending dates back to the 1960s. Despite occasional fixes and changes, it’s no longer up to the challenge of meeting today’s rapid technological changes, or the complex challenges posed by China’s and Russia’s militaries, from drones and hypersonics to naval forces and space.

To address this issue, Congress set up its 14-person PPBE Reform Commission in February 2022. After 24 months and more than 140 hours of deliberations, after hearing from more than 1,100 expert witnesses ranging from industry to senior defense officials, the commission released its final report in March (full disclosure: I was involved in drafting and editing that report). 

Among the commission’s 28 detailed recommendations, four stand out.

The first is replacing the existing PPBE Process with a new Defense Resourcing System (DRS), consisting of the four discreet stages of the old system with three interlocking stages. The first stage will be focused on meeting strategic goals; the second on allocating resources, including dollars, to meet those goals; the third on carrying through on execution. The goal is to ensure that Pentagon spending aligns with current overall strategic goals, e.g., confronting China’s growing naval threat, and to gain more efficient performance at all levels of the allocation process.

The second recommendation is finding ways to strengthen the Pentagon’s analytic processes and measurement metrics, for a more accurate system of adjusting resource allocation, i.e., how much money is needed as well as how it’s spent, to fit with overall strategy.

The third is transforming the budget’s overall structure, by creating a seamless top-down flow from Service/Component and Major Capability Activity Area, e.g., UAV’s or submarines or Space Systems, to individual systems and programs throughout their life cycle. This will help to make sure budgets stay on track with important strategic as well as technological changes, while also giving a clearer picture to Congress and the public of how DoD money is spent, and why.

The fourth involves consolidating the different budget activities (BA’s) that fall under the heading of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E). Today the division of these activities into separate discreet boxes hampers DoD’s ability to keep pace with the speed of innovation. It also denies the reality that technology develops very differently and much faster from the way budget managers like to imagine—especially software, which is crucial to the success or failure of today’s weapons systems from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Tomahawk missiles and nuclear submarines.

Anyone who knows Washington knows great reforms don’t sell themselves. An implementation plan is needed, as the Commission noted in its final report.

Fortunately, Congress has now taken up the challenge in the new NDAA. Both House and Senate versions are calling for establishing “a cross-functional team to implement the recommendations of the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform.” In addition, Senate and House language requires “annual reports on the implementation of the recommendations of the PPBE Commission.”

How important are these changes in today’s defense environment? At a time when China can obtain new weapons systems five to six times faster than the Pentagon; and complete the development to fielding cycle 2.5 times faster; getting a planning, programming, and budgeting system that can keep up with technological as well as strategic changes, isn’t just a good idea. It’s imperative.[1]

Likewise, when an experienced Pentagon program manager handling a multi-billion dollar submarine program can’t make a $10 million change without permission; and small companies with great ideas and breakthrough technologies can’t afford to wait two or more years before becoming a full-fledged defense program—the waiting period known in the defense business the “valley of death”—then it’s time for a new way to allocate money and resources for our nation’s defense.

A bureaucratic process that’s been built up over decades and handles an $880 billion budget isn’t going to change overnight. But thanks to the challenges posed by China, Russia, and Iran in today’s complex security environment, the need for change-even radical change couldn’t be more glaring.

Fortunately, Congress in its NDAA for fiscal year 2025 fully recognizes that need. It’s time for the Biden administration to recognize it as well and endorse implementing the Commission’s reforms—before we have to characterize Pentagon budget reform with what James Thurber said were the saddest words in the English language: “too late.” 

Arthur Herman is Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of "Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II." 

9. Grand Strategy, Innovation and Technology-Power: Free Trade with Free People

I have pasted the entire article below this short introduction on Real Clear Defense. (at this link: https://longwalls.substack.com/p/grand-strategy-innovation-and-technology?utm=)

Grand Strategy, Innovation and Technology-Power

By Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg

June 26, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/26/grand_strategy_innovation_and_technology-power_1040487.html?mc_cid=d549dc996e&mc_eid=70bf478f36

Grand Strategy, Innovation and Technology-Power:  Free Trade with Free People

The pace of technological innovation has accelerated dramatically over the past couple of hundred years, and there is no end in sight. Technical innovations generally take one of three forms: Cost reductions for existing products and services, functionality improvements (including fundamentally new kinds of functionality), and changes in the form in which a given kind of functionality can be delivered - for instance, making the same functionality available in a smaller or lighter form.

Dramatic technological innovations, when followed through with implementation at scale, have the power to make prior technologies obsolete very rapidly. As the world has become more networked, the potential has grown for new technologies to disrupt the balance of military power rapidly and comprehensively. It is frequently the case that highly innovative new technology can, at very low cost, make enormous investments in prior technologies both obsolete and irrelevant. If we look at the race toward ever more effective technologies as a component of warfare, then these opportunities to spend modest sums to develop highly disruptive technologies are a form of asymmetric warfare.

In short, technology-power consists of:

The ability to develop and deploy new technologies at scale faster and more effectively than a nation’s adversaries;

• The ability to thwart or disrupt economic activity and technological development within the sovereign ambit of adversary regimes, by withdrawing either key goods or key technologies; and
• The perception by adversaries of dependence on technologies and high-technology goods that may (or may not) in fact be compromised.

A grand strategy for the United States that recognizes the fundamental importance of technology-power should seek, first, to recognize the differences among key goods, commodities, and strategic goods; second, to advance not only innovation but also implementations; and, third, to export dependency on the United States and its allies for trailing edge innovations while withholding cutting edge goods and technical processes from adversaries.  

This paper concludes with an overview of how the United States should enhance some of its institutional and cultural advantages in the arena of tech-power.

Michael Hochberg earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech and is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University. He is the President of Periplous LLC, which provides advisory services on strategy, technology, and organization design. He co-founded four companies, representing an exit value over a billion dollars in aggregate, spent some time as a tenured professor, and started the world's first silicon photonics foundry service. He co-authored a widely used textbook on silicon photonics and has published work in Science, Nature, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Gatestone, Fast Company, and Naval War College Review. Michael's writing can be found at longwalls.substack.com, and his Twitter is @TheHochberg.

Leonard Hochberg taught at Stanford University (among other institutions), was appointed a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (i.e., STRATFOR). He has published work in Social Science History, Historical Methods, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Orbis, National Review, Gatestone, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Cartographica, and Naval War College Review. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and serves as the Coordinator of the Mackinder Forum-U.S. (www.mackinderforum.org). Len earned his PhD in political theory and European history from the Department of Government, Cornell University.

Read the rest here:

https://longwalls.substack.com/p/grand-strategy-innovation-and-technology?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1497016&post_id=145795389&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=lpfz9&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Grand Strategy, Innovation and Technology-Power

https://longwalls.substack.com/p/grand-strategy-innovation-and-technology?utm=

Free Trade with Free People

MICHAEL HOCHBERG

JUN 19, 2024

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Michael Hochberg, PhD

President, Periplous LLC   

Leonard Hochberg, PhD

Coordinator, Mackinder Forum—U.S.

INTRODUCTION

The pace of technological innovation has accelerated dramatically over the past couple of hundred years, and there is no end in sight. Technical innovations generally take one of three forms: Cost reductions for existing products and services, functionality improvements (including fundamentally new kinds of functionality), and changes in the form in which a given kind of functionality can be delivered - for instance, making the same functionality available in a smaller or lighter form.

Dramatic technological innovations, when followed through with implementation at scale, have the power to make prior technologies obsolete very rapidly. As the world has become more networked, the potential has grown for new technologies to disrupt the balance of military power rapidly and comprehensively. It is frequently the case that highly innovative new technology can, at very low cost, make enormous investments in prior technologies both obsolete and irrelevant. If we look at the race toward ever more effective technologies as a component of warfare, then these opportunities to spend modest sums to develop highly disruptive technologies are a form of asymmetric warfare.

Innovation has huge value as a driver of national power, both from an economic and a military point of view. In fact, Eric Schmidt, of Google, has coined the term ‘innovation power’. In a recent volume of Foreign Affairs, Schmidt argued that Ukraine’s initial, unexpected military success over larger Russian military forces owed much to the introduction of weapons technology:

Ukraine’s success can be credited in part to the resolve of the Ukrainian people, the weakness of the Russian military, and the strength of Western support. But it also owes to the defining new force of international politics: innovation power. Innovation power is the ability to invent, adopt, and adapt new technologies. It contributes to both hard and soft power. High-tech weapons systems increase military might, new platforms and the standards that govern them provide economic leverage, and cutting-edge research and technologies enhance global appeal. There is a long tradition of states harnessing innovation to project power abroad, but what has changed is the self-perpetuating nature of scientific advances. Developments in artificial intelligence[,] in particular[,] not only unlock new areas of scientific discovery; they also speed up that very process. Artificial intelligence supercharges the ability of scientists and engineers to discover ever more powerful technologies, fostering advances in artificial intelligence itself as well as in other fields—and reshaping the world in the process.

INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY-POWER

However, in its focus on the development of new technology, rather than on the entire technology landscape, Schmidt’s assessment neglects some key points:

First, not all innovations are created equal. How are policy makers, who by and large are not technically savvy, to understand which technologies and innovations are worthy of reinforcement and protection, because they are critical to national security? Halford John Mackinder, the founder of modern geopolitical thought, provided a simple and very compelling way to view this set of dilemmas, by separating “key” goods from ”strategic” and ”commodity” goods. Key goods, in his view, were the ones that were required by broad swaths of the economy; if they became unavailable, even if they were not in themselves very expensive or high-value, they would have an outsized effect on downstream supply chains.  Computer chips, for instance, are nowadays a key good. Strategic goods and commodity goods are obvious and flow from the distinction between military and civilian activities. Strategic goods are those that were required for warfighting. And commodity goods are ones where they could be obtained from multiple sources, at relatively low risk, and sold in a civilian market place.

In his formulation of a grand strategy for a great maritime power such as the United Kingdom on the eve of World War I, or perhaps even the United States on the eve of conflict with the autocratic Eurasian powers of Russia, Iran, and Communist China, Mackinder (here and here) drew a distinction between “money-power,” or how finance and wealth advances international influence and “man-power,” which represented the “idea of fighting strength but also that of productivity.” Although Mackinder was interested across his long career in new technologies, including most notably the impact of the Trans-Siberian railway on Eurasian power configurations, he neglected to mention (here) technology power as a force multiplier in military affairs for strategic goods and the civilian market for commodities. In point of fact, technological innovation can occur across commodities, strategic goods and key goods.

However, modern technologies are not necessarily physical in nature, in the sense that technologies are much harder to stop from being stolen or trafficked overseas; they travel in the heads of engineers, or often on hard disks in the form of data and designs. So, identifying the truly key and truly strategic technologies that are deserving of strong protection is of the essence; while, at the same time, it is crucial to limit the dispersal of key technologies to adversarial and enemy regimes. Almost any economic interaction with an adversarial regime is, in effect, an increase in the attack surface for the extraction of key and strategic technologies. This is a powerful argument for decoupling from regimes like Russia, Iran, and most especially China.

A second significant point that Schmidt neglects to mention is the importance of implementation, rather than just innovation. Developing the math for a nuclear weapon is one thing; building the first pile in Chicago was another. But harnessing the industrial might of the United States for the Manhattan project was something else entirely. Having an experienced workforce, world class infrastructure and physical plant, and highly effective engineering and innovation culture are essential to harnessing innovations into products that generate both economic and military impact. Obviously, having a skilled national “man-power” and an overwhelming advantage in “money-power” enhances the prospects for actually implementing a new innovation at scale.

The third point is that a critical element in the exercise of technology power is that of excludability. Particularly for key and strategic goods, a recurring question revolves around what happens if this good becomes unavailable? Will the United States become dependent on an adversary regime for access to such goods? One significant pillar of any technology strategy must be to export as much dependency as possible: By creating and exploiting technologies more effectively than one’s adversaries, it becomes possible to make nuanced decisions about what to export and when, in order to heighten uncertainty for adversaries who are also seeing to use technology power to advance their international influence.

For instance, in the microchip industry, a policy can range from ‘free market, export anything’ to ‘export nothing’. All-or-nothing options miss the point that a more nuanced approach provides. In between, there are options to export only chips that are a couple of generations old. Or to only export advanced chips as part of completed end-user systems. All these choices have different implications for manufacturing, industrial capacity, and dependency. In general, exporting only full systems is better than exporting components to one’s adversaries, and exporting trailing-edge technologies that are 2-3 generations old (i.e. 5-10 years old) creates dependency without subsidizing adversaries to catch up. Export of very advanced tools and especially of tools-to-make-the-tools is fraught with danger and should be avoided at all costs. For example, ASML, the company that makes the world’s most advanced scanners for making microchips, is currently forbidden from selling their most advanced machines to China, while they are allowed to sell less-advanced tools.

Fourth, technology-power is not solely about capability, but also about perception. For instance, for many years, every cutting-edge computer processor has been designed within the liberal-democratic regimes of the world. ARM is UK and US based; Intel and AMD and Nvidia are all based in the US. There is no cutting-edge processor design company operating in China or Russia. It is possible that the US intelligence community has worked with these companies to build back doors into their products. Even if not, the people in the best position to find and exploit security weaknesses are the people who designed these chips. So, any adversary who depends on the use of these chips must currently consider several possibilities: 

First: the loss of access to the latest and greatest chips;

Second: the loss of access to trailing-edge chips that are nevertheless key components of their critical systems; and, 

Third: that the systems they are using have been compromised and set up with back-doors which can be exploited by their adversaries at will. Such back-doors, implemented at the hardware level, could be made all-but-impossible to detect.

In short, technology-power consists of:

• The ability to develop and deploy new technologies at scale faster and more effectively than a nation’s adversaries;
• The ability to thwart or disrupt economic activity and technological development within the sovereign ambit of adversary regimes, by withdrawing either key goods or key technologies; and
• The perception by adversaries of dependence on technologies and high-technology goods that may (or may not) in fact be compromised.

TOWARD A GRAND STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY POWER

The United States needs to act to increase our technology-power, particularly relative to China, both by enhancing our own ability to innovate (including through collaboration with our allies) and by acting to undermine and thwart technological development in China.

To do so, it is necessary to preserve the distinctive advantages of our capitalist, open system for producing and fostering innovation, by allowing for competition and specialization not just among firms but also among allied states. We need to resurrect the Western entente of the Cold War, not just as a military alliance but also as an exclusive trade zone for high technology goods. The free trade in high-tech goods with free peoples, those who share our values and our strategic interests, ought to inform the economic policies of a newly revived liberal-democratic alliance.

China, Russia, Iran, and their allies and clients should no longer be allowed access to our high-tech goods and services, and should be comprehensively frozen out of access (for instance) to the entire semiconductor ecosystem. This most especially should include the tools to build and design semiconductor chips, the raw materials and fine chemicals needed as inputs to the factories, and the spares required for their existing factories. The price of participation in the Western ecosystem for our allies will necessarily be a strong commitment to preventing their citizens and companies from working with PRC-controlled and allied entities in the semiconductor space. This same regime will need to be expanded over time not only to other industries producing ‘key’ and strategic goods but also to the research universities and institutes of technology that train scientists and engineers from adversarial regimes. Only by doing this will it be possible to preserve the distinct advantages of an open market among the free peoples of the world. An open market among free peoples, does not necessarily mean that it needs to be open to adversary regimes, where autocrats rule.

The key point vis-a-vis competition and decoupling with China is this: The United States and our allies must band together to maintain a pace of technological innovation and implementation that significantly exceeds what China is able to achieve. By denying access to our markets and making it impossible for liberal-democratic institutions to collaborate with or locate teams in China, we will remove China’s ability to leverage IP theft and industrial espionage, two activities which have dramatically reduced China’s research and development costs. Decoupling will realistically be driven primarily by government policy (or a deliberate implementation of policy chaos) rather than by any long-term assessment of self-interest by business leadership. Since there is too much sunk investment in the PRC for western business leaders to drive hard decoupling, and because CCP capital controls prevent the outward flow of money, divesting from China has become maximally painful for Western corporations. Furthermore, in strategic and key industries, China will continue to provide outrageous blandishments to Western international businesses to locate factories and R/D teams on shore, where their IP and technology can be expropriated.

In a world where hard decoupling is already occurring, what is the appropriate role of university research teams, national labs, corporate labs, and ‘Manhattan projects’? How can these institutions and projects be mobilized to achieve truly disruptive, surprising technical goals as opposed to incremental change?

One decisive challenge in fostering innovation -- especially using government resources to do so -- is in recognizing and overcoming the politics of failure. Truly cutting-edge research and development necessarily involves outsized risk; most projects will, on their own terms, generate failures. Now, these failures may produce all sorts of secondary benefits such as trained experts, unanticipated secondary discoveries and new goods, useful new procedures, technological progress, etc. But for government funding agencies, failure produces an intense dilemma: Failures, especially very well-funded ones, tend to generate scandal and harm the careers of the people responsible for funding them. The word ‘boondoggle’ tends to get thrown around. So, government agencies like the National Science Foundation often demand from their researchers that they do cutting-edge, high-risk research, while at the same time assuring the funders that there is a very low chance of actual failure. These two positions are intrinsically contradictory and, as a result, the selection of projects can end up depending less on the intellectual merit of the proposal or the expertise of the team, and more on the prestige of the proposing institution, the network of the PI’s, and on the quality of the proposal regarding broader societal impacts.

Despite this bureaucratic and political dilemma, the United States retains several decisive advantages in developing and implementing high technology. The United States remains an attractive place to live for the world’s technical elite, and for the most motivated young people. Regrettably, our immigration system actively pushes such people away, and needs radical reshaping to confront China and the other autocracies of Eurasia. One obvious response is to create a golden visa program that brings top technical talent to the US, along with their families; thereby reducing not only the incentive that such individuals will have to return to their country of origin but also the leverage of that regime over their family. The United States and its allies should implement a policy explicitly promoting “Brain Drain”. 

A second advantage is the venture capital industry in the United States. Our VC industry, DARPA, and several other institutions are highly skilled at allocating capital to high-tech projects. These institutions need to be reinforced by a dramatic increase in budgets for basic research funding from DOD and other gov’t programs; the creation of strong incentives for the growth of VC and corporate R/D investment with matching funds and tax breaks for investment on-shore; and the imposition of tariff barriers on anything involving key or strategic technologies coming from China, or the import of goods containing China-sourced key technologies.

In situations where an existential national threat has been recognized, the United States has a history of running large-scale, complex, world-leading advanced research and development projects. This cultural capital has not been lost, though it has diminished somewhat since the end of the Cold War. A revival of such projects is now required. For instance, it is necessary to formulate 2-3 national scale projects to inspire people to go into STEM fields, and fund them well enough that they can actually compete with commercial industry careers. Even if they fail on their own terms, the secondary effects of such projects will be extremely positive. These could be funded through tax incentives, or through large phased prizes for technical and business milestones being offered for industry participation, similar to the British Longitude Rewards.

The United States has first-rate universities, though they have decoupled themselves from industry to an astonishing degree over the past 40 years or so. The ties between universities and industry need to be renewed specifically through a reform of the Bayh-Dole Act, which places all IP with the universities. If a university isn’t actively commercializing the tech, then it should be placed back in the hands of the inventors with a formulaic payout to the university when commercialization occurs. The formulaic payout could be overridden by a mutual agreement between the universities and the inventors, on a case-by-case basis. In addition, a policy should be implemented that forces universities to accept industry-sponsored students and allow a non-exclusive license of their work to their employer, contingent on the industry sponsor paying the same tuition that the federal government pays when providing fellowships.

Any new grand strategy for the United States must incorporate an appreciation of technology power. How else will the United States and its allies located along the maritime periphery of Eurasia gear up for the military and economic confrontation with the autocracies of Russia, Iran, and China, which will have, for the foreseeable future, an advantage in man-power? In achieving this grand strategic goal, the government of the United States should enhance the workings of the free market by backstopping venture capitalists, corporations, and universities as they seek to advance the prospect of technological innovation in the realms of key and strategic goods.

Subscribe to Long Walls

By Michael Hochberg · Launched 5 months ago

Geopolitics, Grand Strategy, Economic Statecraft, Technology, Policy, and the defense of the West

10. US Navy leaves possible two-week aircraft carrier gap in CENTCOM

US Navy leaves possible two-week aircraft carrier gap in CENTCOM

The USS Dwight D Eisenhower departed the CENTCOM into the EUCOM AOR on 22 June 2024, with its replacement sister ship USS Theodore Roosevelt still in South Korea.

https://www.naval-technology.com/news/us-navy-leaves-possible-two-week-aircraft-carrier-gap-in-centcom/?cf-view

Richard Thomas

June 25, 2024

The USS Dwight D Eisenhower has departed the CENTCOM AOR, with its replacement vessel in South Korea. Credit: US DoD

As the US Navy shuffles its aircraft carrier pack around to accommodate the various tasks and demands placed upon the fleet, a potential two-week carrier-borne combat air capability gap has emerged in the US Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR).

This has been created by the transit of the USS Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group (CSG) out of CENTCOM’s AOR on 22 June 2024, into the US-European Command in the Mediterranean.

It is understood the USS Dwight D Eisenhower CSG will be positioned in the eastern Mediterranean for a period of time, before heading back to the US at the conclusion of a more than seven-month-long deployment.

A US Department of Defense (DoD) spokesperson on 24 June declined to state whether its deployment was related to potential flash points between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, nor outline the likely duration of its mission in the eastern Mediterranean.

However, the CSG of the USS Theodore Roosevelt will take some time to arrive in the CENTCOM AOR from the Asia-Pacific region, where the aircraft carrier is due to undertake joint exercises with South Korean forces. The USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Busan on 22 June.

See Also:

• US Navy leaves possible two-week aircraft carrier gap in CENTCOM 
• Royal Navy heads toward autonomous maritime aviation 

Travelling by the most expeditious route from Busan, South Korea, to the US Navy’s Naval Support Activity at Mina Salman in Bahrain, home of the Fifth Fleet, is a journey of some 13,000km. At a speed of 30 knots, which would be at the top end of any naval transit, this would take around ten days.

Taking precautions such as avoiding transiting through Taiwan Strait would add more time to the journey.

The DoD spokesperson confirmed on 24 June that the USS Theodore Roosevelt would begin its transit “to the CENTCOM AOR” after completing its exercise in the Indo-Pacific “next week”.

Responding to media queries, the DoD spokesperson said the US Navy maintained destroyers in the EUCOM and CENTCOM AORs to provide maritime security, as well other “aircraft and ISR” capabilities.

US Navy gaps inevitable, but where are Europe’s carriers?

The US Navy maintains ten Nimitz– and one Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in its fleet, which are the largest (Ford) and second largest (Nimitz) warships in the world at more than 100,000 tonnes displacement, each class able to accommodate up to 100 aircraft in their embarked air wing.

While the US operates other naval assets in CENTCOM’s AOR as part of the Fifth Fleet, currently tasked with escort and maritime security operations in the Red Sea to protect shipping from attacks by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, the absence of an aircraft carrier in the Middle East region for what could be a number of weeks, is notable.

The absence of a US Navy carrier in the Middle East for a period comes after European allies were unable to fill a previous gap, despite France, the UK, and Italy all operating aircraft carriers.

Italy’s aircraft carrier ITS Cavour was operating briefly in the Red Sea region in early June, but has since left to Middle East, arriving in Singapore on 24 June for exercises in the Asia-Pacific region.

The French Navy is also currently operating its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the eastern Mediterranean, as part of wider Nato collective defence efforts.

The UK Royal Navy’s own Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are enduring a difficult spell, suffering with propulsion issues that have impact recent planned operations.

During the concept development of the class, which replaced the smaller Invincible carriers, UK naval officials espoused a vision to “slot into” the US Navy’s own force movements, driving the design of the Queen Elizabeth class to an eventual displacement of 70,000 tonnes.

A UK carrier not scheduled to transit through the Suez Canal and into Red Sea and wider Indian Ocean until 2025, with the deployment of HMS Prince of Wales to the Asia-Pacific region.

11. War Between Israel and Iran Is Inevitable

Analysis many may not want to read

Conclusion:

Yet Israel doesn’t have another year. The longer it waits to move on Hezbollah, the more likely a real rupture with America becomes. Constant mobilization is eroding military and economic morale in Israel. There should be rapid action in the north, with or without American approval. It should take the form of a large-scale air campaign that hits Iranian command nodes and Iranian allies in Syria and Lebanon. The strategic conditions aren’t ideal, but waiting won’t make them any better.

War Between Israel and Iran Is Inevitable

The question is now or later. Strategy argues for now, even if the politics might be better later.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/war-between-israel-and-iran-is-inevitable-mideast-8fdee671?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s

By Seth Cropsey

June 25, 2024 12:23 pm ET

ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GOTHARD

Israel faces a strategic choice with regard to Iran—war now or war later. The political conditions for war now are poor. The strategic conditions later will only grow worse.

Iran’s goal is to destroy Israel as a uniquely Jewish state through a strategy of attrition. The mullahs hope to bind Israel in a series of conflicts and pressure it from multiple angles while using diplomacy and media manipulation to prolong the conflict. Tehran understands the potency of Israel’s military, which has adapted well to difficult urban and subterranean combat conditions in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces field formidable air, artillery and armored units that, if unleashed in the north, would threaten the existence of Hezbollah, Iran’s most capable proxy. The Iranian deterrence strategy couples pressure on the U.S. with the threat of large-scale rocket and missile attacks against critical Israeli infrastructure.

Hamas is the most apparent element of Iran’s strategy. Iran wants the terrorist organization not only to maintain control of Gaza but to catapult itself into control of the Palestinian movement. The best way to do that is to compel the Israelis to accept a cosmetically appealing “peace agreement” involving the Arab states that allows Hamas to integrate into the Palestinian Authority and co-opt its necrotic rival, Fatah. The West Bank could then become another axis of pressure on Israel.

The only way for Israel to prevent this is through a de facto occupation of Gaza. Israel must demonstrate to Gazans that whatever the formal governing authority in the territory, the IDF won’t allow Hamas or a similar terrorist organization to return. As in all totalitarian regimes, Hamas has created overwhelming incentives for cooperation, and killed all possible opposition. Only by demonstrating staying power can the IDF break this cycle and encourage an alternative political structure.

Iran understands this and has activated a network of global Islamist sympathizers to ramp up public pressure on Israel. The goal is to get Western politicians to back a cease-fire that will achieve Iranian objectives. By slowing the conflict down and splitting Israel from the U.S. and its allies, Iran aims to make Israel an international pariah. In the mullahs’ wildest dreams, migration would hollow out Israel, setting the stage for its conversion from a Jewish State into an Arab Islamic one.

Since the mid-2000s, Israel’s Iran policy has been one of deferred confrontation. Israel built the Iron Dome air-defense system to destroy low-tech rocket and mortar salvos from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon, mitigating the need for ground operations in all but the worst circumstances. Throughout the 2010s, Israel executed a persistent air campaign in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to interdict Iranian supply lines. Israel also conducted cyberattacks, sabotage efforts and assassinations in Iran to hamper Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Nothing worked to eliminate the threat, but the strategy bought time and established a balance of forces that discouraged aggressive action. This balance was upended on Oct. 7. The only way to reset it is by eliminating one of Iran’s threats. The obvious candidate is Hezbollah.

By manipulating the U.S. into restraining Israel, Iran hopes to keep Israel frozen and slowly erode its will. At some point in the coming months, Iran expects a cease-fire that will allow it to capture the West Bank and threaten Israel’s existence.

Israel isn’t the first power faced with an unpleasant choice between undermining an alliance relationship and acting decisively against a threat. France had a similar dilemma in the 1930s. From 1935 through 1940, France balked at acting alone against Nazi Germany even though it had several opportunities to do so with reasonable chances of success. The French political establishment assumed that when war with Germany came, France would fight alongside Britain in a revived Entente Cordiale. France ended up facing the German threat in 1940 in its preferred strategic format. Paris fell regardless.

Israel’s situation is remarkably similar. The Jewish state is small and vulnerable. Lacking naval forces to protect its maritime depth, Israel requires American military resupply and relies on the U.S. to deter other great-power interventions. Yet this has become a strategic straitjacket, in part because of poor Israeli communication but primarily because of American strategic irrationality. The result is a growing assumption that war in Lebanon can be deferred until next year, once the U.S. president is free of political pressure, and ideally with a friendlier administration in the White House.

Yet Israel doesn’t have another year. The longer it waits to move on Hezbollah, the more likely a real rupture with America becomes. Constant mobilization is eroding military and economic morale in Israel. There should be rapid action in the north, with or without American approval. It should take the form of a large-scale air campaign that hits Iranian command nodes and Iranian allies in Syria and Lebanon. The strategic conditions aren’t ideal, but waiting won’t make them any better.

Mr. Cropsey is president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as a deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”

WSJ Opinion: Don't Blame Israel First

WSJ Opinion: Don't Blame Israel First

Play video: WSJ Opinion: Don't Blame Israel First

Wonder Land: World opinion should impose more pressure on Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar. Image: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

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

Appeared in the June 26, 2024, print edition as 'War Between Israel and Iran Is Inevitable'.

12. WikiLeaks Founder Pleads Guilty and Is Sentenced for Conspiring to Obtain and Disclose Classified National Defense Information

From DOJ.

WikiLeaks Founder Pleads Guilty and Is Sentenced for Conspiring to Obtain and Disclose Classified National Defense Information

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

justice.gov · June 25, 2024

Julian P. Assange, 52, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Chelsea Manning, at that time a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, to unlawfully obtain and disclose classified documents relating to the national defense. After obtaining classified national defense information from Manning, and aware of the harm that dissemination of such national defense information would cause, Assange disclosed this information on WikiLeaks.

The guilty plea concludes a criminal matter that dates back to March 2018, when Assange was first indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia. There, and in superseding indictments, Assange was charged with conspiring with Manning, then a “Top Secret” U.S. security clearance holder, to further Manning’s unlawful acquisition and transmission of bulk classified information, including Manning’s use of a government computer to illegally download hundreds of thousands of classified documents and transmit them without authorization to WikiLeaks.

Assange was detained in the United Kingdom based on the U.S. charges for the last 62 months, while he contested extradition. As part of the plea agreement, Assange was transported to the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands to enter his felony guilty plea and be sentenced on the morning of June 26 (Saipan local time) in a U.S. courtroom, with the venue reflecting Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States to enter his guilty plea and the proximity of this federal U.S. District Court to Assange’s country of citizenship, Australia, to which he will return. At today’s proceeding, Assange admitted to his role in the conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act and received a court-imposed 62-month time-served sentence, reflecting the time he served in U.K. prison as a result of the U.S. charges. Following the imposition of sentence, he will depart the United States for his native Australia. Pursuant to the plea agreement, Assange is prohibited from returning to the United States without permission.

Beginning in late 2009, Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of “Most Wanted Leaks” that sought, among other things, bulk classified documents. As set forth in the public charging documents, Assange actively solicited and recruited people who had access, authorized or otherwise, to classified information and were willing to provide that information to him and WikiLeaks—and also solicited hackers who could obtain unauthorized access to classified information through computer network intrusions. Assange publicly encouraged his prospective recruits to obtain the information he desired by any means necessary, including hacking and theft, and to send that information to Assange at WikiLeaks.

Between January 2010 and May 2010, in the course of the conspiracy with Assange, Manning used U.S. government computer systems to download hundreds of thousands of documents and reports, many of them classified at the SECRET level and relating to the national defense, which signified that unauthorized disclosure could cause serious damage to United States national security. In total, Manning downloaded four nearly complete U.S. government databases that contained, among other things, approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activity reports, 800 Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF GTMO) detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables. Manning also downloaded files regarding rules of engagement in the Iraq war, most of which were classified at the SECRET level and which delineated the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces would initiate or conduct combat engagement with other forces.

After downloading digital reams of classified documents and files, Manning electronically sent them to Assange to be publicly posted on WikiLeaks’s website. During Manning’s bulk exfiltration and passage of classified materials to WikiLeaks, Manning and Assange communicated regularly via online platforms about Manning’s progress and what classified information Assange wanted. For example, after sending the classified JTF GTMO detainee assessment briefs to Assange, Manning told Assange “thats [sic] all I really have got left.” To encourage Manning to continue to take classified documents from the United States and provide them to Assange and WikiLeaks without authorization, Assange replied, “curious eyes never run dry in my experience.”

In or about 2010 and 2011, Assange publicly disclosed via the WikiLeaks website hundreds of thousands of documents that Manning had taken without authorization and given to him, including approximately 75,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, classified up to the Secret level; 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activity reports, classified up to the Secret level; 800 JTF GTMO detainee assessment briefs, classified up to the Secret level; and over 100,000 State Department cables, some of which were classified up to the Secret level.

Unlike news organizations that published redacted versions of some of the classified documents that Assange obtained from Manning and then shared with those organizations, Assange and WikiLeaks disclosed many of the raw classified documents without removing any personally identifying information. Specifically, in many instances, the classified documents Manning unlawfully provided to Assange were later released publicly by Assange and WikiLeaks in a raw or unredacted form that placed individuals who had assisted the U.S. government at great personal risk. Assange’s decision to reveal the names of human sources illegally shared with him by Manning created a grave and imminent risk to human life. For example, the State Department cables that WikiLeaks disseminated included information from journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents who had chosen to provide information to the United States in confidence at significant risk to their own safety. By publicly releasing these documents without redacting the names of human sources or other identifying information, Assange subjected these individuals to serious harm and arbitrary detention. Assange even acknowledged in public statements that he knew that publicly disclosing unredacted classified documents containing the names and other identifying information of people who had shared information with the U.S. government in confidence could put those people at risk of harm.

The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in securing Assange’s arrest and in litigating Assange’s extradition. The United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service, National Extradition Unit (and its predecessor in the Metropolitan Police Service), and Central Authority also provided significant assistance to the extradition proceedings over the past five years. Logistical support was also provided by the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency’s Joint International Crime Centre, U.K. law enforcement agencies, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES), U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands (NMI), and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia handled the case. U.S. Attorney Shawn N. Anderson for the District of Guam and NMI, CES Deputy Chief Matthew McKenzie, and National Security Cyber Section Trial Attorney Jacques Singer-Emery represented the United States in the NMI proceedings. CES Trial Attorneys Nicholas Hunter and Adam Small, and Trial Attorney Rachel Yasser and Legal Advisor/International Affairs Coordinator Amanda June Chadwick of the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided substantial assistance.

justice.gov · June 25, 2024

13. The Assange Plea and Press Freedom

Was Assange a journalist?

Excerpt:

At the same time, the logic of the deal is that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day, and that we absolutely need them to engage in. In this respect the case establishes a terrible precedent, even if it’s not one the courts have fully endorsed. (It’s worth asking why the Justice Department required Assange to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge, rather than to a charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which would have raised far fewer press freedom concerns.) Assange and Biden are closing a chapter, certainly. But the case will have a legacy for press freedom, and for the public’s right to know. As I told Reuters, the case will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in the United States but around the world.

The Assange Plea and Press Freedom

by Jameel Jaffer

June 25, 2024

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing U.S. defense secrets. According to news reports, the Justice Department will recommend to a U.S. district court for the Northern Mariana Islands that Assange be released to Australia, his country of citizenship, given the more-than five years he has already served at Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom. A video circulating on social media shows Assange boarding a plane after his release from Belmarsh yesterday, and a Justice Department letter indicates that the district court has scheduled a hearing regarding the plea for Wednesday morning.

For Assange, the deal ends what the New York Times describes as a “long and bitter standoff with the United States.” Assange has been held in severe conditions at Belmarsh for more than five years; before that he was effectively imprisoned for seven years at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he’d sought refuge amid fears – justified, as it turned out – that the United States intended to seek his extradition. I visited Assange at the Embassy in 2014 and saw firsthand the conditions in which he was living: He was confined to a small conference room and intimately supervised by armed guards; a speaker on the windowsill was blasting white noise meant to frustrate surveillance; and the Embassy itself was surrounded by trenchcoated men biding their time in unmarked cars, presumably representatives of a cross-section of the world’s intelligence agencies. It was clear to me then that Assange had already paid a heavy price for publishing government secrets. Almost a decade later, he and his supporters will be deeply relieved if his tribulations are coming to an end.

The Biden administration will be thrilled to close this case, too. It was the Trump administration, remember, that filed the indictment; while the Obama administration had considered charging Assange under the Espionage Act, it ultimately demurred because of concerns about the implications for press freedom. Those concerns were well-founded. It’s largely forgotten that, at the time the Obama administration was considering indicting Assange, some prominent legislators were pressuring it to indict major newspapers as well for printing some of the same secrets that WikiLeaks had published.

It’s doubtful that Biden administration officials, many of them holdovers from the Obama administration, were ever very enthusiastic about the case. But having inherited the file, they actively pursued Assange’s extradition for three years, and so the case now belongs to them as much as it does to the Trump administration. Press freedom and human rights groups – including the Knight Institute – repeatedly criticized the administration for pursuing the case, arguing that the prosecution of Assange for publishing government secrets was impossible to reconcile with the administration’s stated commitment to press freedom. When the administration announced new rules limiting the use of subpoenas against the press, the announcement was complicated by its continuing pursuit of Assange. The administration will surely be relieved to step beyond such an obvious contradiction.

But this doesn’t mean the plea deal is a big win for press freedom. It’s true that the deal averts the possibility of a judicial ruling endorsing the government’s broadest statutory and constitutional arguments – in particular, the argument that the solicitation and publication of government secrets is both prohibited by the Espionage Act and unprotected by the First Amendment. That kind of ruling would have been a true catastrophe for national security journalism, whether or not Assange himself is properly considered a journalist, as I explained in expert testimony submitted to the U.K. magistrate’s court.

At the same time, the logic of the deal is that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day, and that we absolutely need them to engage in. In this respect the case establishes a terrible precedent, even if it’s not one the courts have fully endorsed. (It’s worth asking why the Justice Department required Assange to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge, rather than to a charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which would have raised far fewer press freedom concerns.) Assange and Biden are closing a chapter, certainly. But the case will have a legacy for press freedom, and for the public’s right to know. As I told Reuters, the case will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in the United States but around the world.

14. Taiwan reports Chinese 'combat patrol', Beijing vows to hunt independence 'diehards'

Taiwan reports Chinese 'combat patrol', Beijing vows to hunt independence 'diehards'​

26 Jun 2024 02:10PM

channelnewsasia.com

TAIPEI: Taiwan's defence ministry said on Wednesday (Jun 26) that China had carried out another "joint combat readiness patrol" near the island, as Beijing said it would track down and punish "diehard" independence supporters wherever they are.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has made no secret of its dislike of President Lai Ching-te, whom it views as a "separatist", and staged two days of war games after he took office last month.

Last week, China threatened to execute "diehard" Taiwan independence separatists in extreme cases, a further ramping up of tensions that drew condemnation from Lai and his government, as well as the United States.

Taiwan's defence ministry said that starting at 7am on Wednesday, it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters, operating to the north, centre and south of Taiwan, carrying out a "joint combat readiness patrol" with Chinese warships.

Taiwan frequently reports such missions, part of a pattern of what it says is Chinese harassment that has escalated in the past four years.

China's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing, a spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office said the government had the legal right to protect the country's territorial integrity, defending last week's new guidelines to punish what Beijing views as separatism.

"National law enforcement and judicial organs will pursue all Taiwan independence diehards who test the law to the end no matter where they are and severely punish them in accordance with the law," Zhu Fenglian told reporters.

Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan and it is not clear how China could seek to enforce any judgements outside its borders.

Lai has repeatedly offered talks with China but been rebuffed. He rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Source: Reuters/ec

15. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 25, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 25, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-25-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Two major international bodies—the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) — announced decisions on June 25 confirming Russia's long-term perpetration of war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine.

• Russia and Venezuela signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at countering "coercive measures," likely to demonstrate to the West that the Kremlin holds influence in the Western hemisphere.

• Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike on a Russian ammunition depot in Voronezh Oblast on June 25 and recently conducted strikes on Pantsir-S1 air defense systems in Belgorod Oblast with unspecified weapons.

• Russia imposed countersanctions against 81 European Union (EU)-based news outlets on June 25 following EU sanctions against four Russian state-affiliated news outlets on June 24.

• Dagestan Republic Head Sergei Melikov ordered investigations into the personal records of senior Dagestani officials following the June 23 likely Wilayat Kavkaz terrorist attacks in Dagestan, indicating that the Kremlin may be intensifying efforts to address Islamist extremist threats in the North Caucasus as it attempts to maintain a veneer of stability and normalcy.

• Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan met with Lithuania-based Belarusian opposition leader Svitlana Tsikhanouskaya on June 20 in Vilnius amid deteriorating Armenian-Belarusian relations.

• Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions in Vovchansk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Siversk and Avdiivka.

• A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian Volunteer Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy of Russia (DOSAAF) will begin training unspecified Russian military personnel on October 1, 2024.

16. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 25, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 25, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-25-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei expressed foreign and nuclear policy views on June 25 that closely align with ultraconservative hardline presidential candidate Saeed Jalili’s views, possibly indicating that Khamenei endorses Jalili in the upcoming election. Khamenei’s views also signal the supreme leader’s opposition to reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian.

• Gaza Strip: Israel assesses that it will complete the intense phase of ground operation in the Gaza Strip within a few days. Hamas will very likely exploit the Israeli raid system to reconstitute its combat units and reassert its governing authority across the Gaza Strip.



• Hamas is disrupting Israeli efforts to create nascent governing authorities that exclude Hamas’ political wing. Hamas reportedly killed two clan leaders in the central and southern Gaza Strip as part of this effort.

• Jordan: Iranian-backed groups are continuing to recruit members and smuggle and manufacture weapons, likely to destabilize Jordan and facilitate Iranian efforts in the West Bank.

• West Bank: Hamas and the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades infiltrated Israeli territory near Tulkarm and fired at IDF soldiers.

• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein warned Hezbollah that the group cannot rely on the United States to prevent Israel from conducting an attack into Lebanon.

• Iraq: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting an unspecified “military target” in Haifa, Israel.

​17. US military takes another stab at aid delivery from floating Gaza pier

US military takes another stab at aid delivery from floating Gaza pier

militarytimes.com · by Leo Correa and Ami Bentov, The Associated Press · June 25, 2024

With U.S. soldiers within shouting distance of Gaza’s bombed-out coast, the American military is taking another stab at delivering aid to hungry Palestinians by sea.

After several fits and starts, a $230 million pier is up and running again. The U.S. military invited reporters for a tour of it on Tuesday, marking the first time international media has witnessed its operations firsthand.

RELATED

US humanitarian pier reanchored to the coast of Gaza

U.S. defense officials said the temporary humanitarian aid pier has been reanchored to the beach in Gaza.

International journalists have not been allowed to enter Gaza independently since the Israel-Hamas war began Oct. 7.

The project, which first launched in mid-May, resumed operations last week after a recent pause due to rough seas.

As journalists looked on Tuesday, U.S. soldiers with machine guns directed the pier’s operations. U.S. vessels carrying trucks loaded with humanitarian aid docked at the pier.

Israeli and Cypriot drivers drove the trucks off the vessels and headed down the 437-yard causeway to the beach, where they unloaded pallets of aid.

The trucks then returned to the vessels to be ferried to large cargo ships and reloaded. The cargo ships travel across the Mediterranean Sea from Cyprus.

Col. Samuel Miller, the commander of a joint task force, U.S. Army 7th Transportation Brigade, said the vessels can ferry aid to the pier at least five times a day.

“Our mission out here is to receive those humanitarian assistance pallets offshore from a larger vessel onto that floating pier,” he said, shouting over waves crashing against the pier. “Over time, we are learning organization and we’ve gotten better.”

RELATED

Three US troops on Gaza pier mission sustain non-combat injuries

U.S Central Command leaders said two of the injuries were minor, while a third required evacuation to an Israeli hospital.

The floating pier was anchored back on Gaza’s shoreline on June 19 after heavy seas and high winds led the military to disconnect it from the beach. In May, similar conditions forced a two-week pause in operations after the pier broke apart and four U.S. Army vessels ran aground, injuring three service members, one critically.

Since coming back online, the pier has been delivering hundreds of pallets of aid a day to the shore, Miller said.

From the pier, Associated Press journalists could see aid piling up against a backdrop of near-total destruction. Israeli army vehicles slowly moved between blown-out buildings along the coast. Tents stood on beaches in the distance.

The U.S. military said about 6,800 tons of aid have so far been delivered from the project to Gaza’s shore.

As journalists looked on Tuesday, U.S. soldiers with machine guns directed the pier's operations. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

While aid from the pier is reaching the beach, it’s still difficult to get it to Palestinians in Gaza. The U.N. World Food Program has suspended aid delivery from the pier due to security concerns after the Israeli military appeared to use the area in a June 8 hostage rescue. Lawlessness around the pier, with hungry Palestinians seizing aid off trucks headed to delivery zones, also is a major concern.

The U.S. launched the project to bring relief to Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive against Hamas has displaced over 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people and unleashed a humanitarian disaster. International officials say hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine.

U.N. and other international aid officials have voiced skepticism over the pier, saying its effectiveness is limited and it is no substitute for Israeli-controlled land crossings into the territory.

U.N. officials told the AP on Tuesday that they are considering suspending all aid operations across Gaza unless steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers. That would plunge Gaza into an even deeper humanitarian catastrophe.

Palestinians in Gaza are heavily reliant on U.N. aid, which has only trickled into the territory since Israel’s incursion in early May into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, shut down a major land crossing and slowed deliveries from another major crossing.

Still, the soldiers operating the pier Tuesday were hopeful.

“I talk to my sailors on a daily basis,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Joel Stewart. “They understand that our aid is necessary for the people of Gaza that are suffering under the conditions of war.”

Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this story.

18. International court seeks arrest of Russian officials over attacks on Ukrainian power plants

Is the ICC trying to counter its perceived bias and show more balance by going after real malign actors and criminals?

International court seeks arrest of Russian officials over attacks on Ukrainian power plants

AP · June 25, 2024

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Tuesday it issued arrest warrants for Russia’s former defense minister and its military chief of staff for attacks on Ukraine’s power plants, the third time the global court has accused senior Russian leaders of war crimes.

There is no immediate likelihood of either former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu or chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov being detained to face charges of war crimes and the crime against humanity of inhumane acts. Russia isn’t a member of the court, doesn’t recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to hand over suspects.

Still, the move heaps more moral condemnation on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The warrant is the global court’s latest effort to intervene in a major conflict. Earlier this year, the court’s chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and three leaders of the Hamas militant group over the militants’ deadly attacks in southern Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Last year, the court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. That has occasionally complicated his travel though the practical implications have been limited.

Russia’s Security Council dismissed the arrest warrants as “null and void” on Tuesday.

“That is empty talk, considering that the ICC’s jurisdiction does not include Russia and the decision has been made as part of the West’s hybrid warfare against our country,” it said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

The court said in a statement that warrants were issued Monday because judges considered there were reasonable grounds to believe that Shoigu and Gerasimov are responsible for “missile strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure ” from Oct. 10, 2022, until at least March 9, 2023.

Judges who approved the prosecutors’ request for warrants said the suspects are charged with inhumane acts because there is evidence they “intentionally caused great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” of civilians in Ukraine.

Under the leadership of Shoigu and Gerasimov, the Russian military has launched waves of missile and drone strikes that have killed thousands and damaged the country’s energy system and other vital infrastructure.

Moscow has insisted that it only has targeted military facilities despite daily casualties in civilian areas. The court alleged missile attacks covered in the warrant targeted civilian installations.

It added that in the case of any installations that could have been considered military targets “the expected incidental civilian harm and damage would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the warrants in a post on social platform X, saying both men are accused of “heinous crimes against civilians in Ukraine during Russia’s reckless bombing of Ukrainian critical civilian infrastructure. These barbaric missile and drone strikes continue to kill people and inflict damage across Ukraine.”

He added: “Every criminal involved in the planning and execution of these strikes must know that justice will be served. And we do hope to see them behind bars.”

Details of the warrants were kept under seal to protect witnesses, the court said.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement that the decision to issue warrants “reflects my office’s continued commitment to give meaningful effect to the protection that the law provides to civilians and protected objects.”

Khan said his prosecution office “remains focused in pursuing multiple, interconnected lines of investigation in Ukraine.”

Putin removed Shoigu as defense minister in a Cabinet shakeup in May as he began his fifth term as president.

Shoigu, 69, has been widely seen as a key figure in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Russia had expected the operation to quickly overwhelm Ukraine’s much smaller and less-equipped army.

Instead, the conflict galvanized Ukraine to mount an intense defense, dealing the Russian army humiliating blows, including the retreat from an attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and a counteroffensive that drove Moscow’s forces out of the northeastern region of Kharkiv and from around Kherson in the south in the fall of 2022.

Shoigu, who had personal ties with Putin, got a soft landing with the high-profile post of secretary of Russia’s Security Council. At the same time, Shoigu’s entourage faced purges. A longtime associate and deputy, Timur Ivanov, and several other senior military officers were arrested on corruption charges, and other senior Defense Ministry officials lost their jobs.

Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff since 2012, has so far kept his job. The 68-year-old career military officer has directly overseen Russian military operations in Ukraine.

In addition to the warrant against Putin, the court issued arrest warrants in March for two high-ranking Russian military officers on charges linked to attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine that judges said happened “pursuant to a state policy.”

Last year, Russia announced indictments in absentia for a judge and prosecutor at the International Criminal Court who issued a warrant against Putin.

___

Find more coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · June 25, 2024

19. DHS identifies over 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network

As an aside you would think NBC news would be supporting the Biden. This will certainly be used against him in the Presidential debate.

On the other hand it is the administration and HLS that is providing this information. But it will not get any credit for such transparency.

But all politics aside, the bottomline is that we cannot take our eye off the ball of the terrorist threat to the US. 

DHS identifies over 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network

Over 150 have been arrested, but the whereabouts of over 50 remain unknown, officials said. ICE is looking to arrest them on immigration charges when they are found.

NBC News · by Julia Ainsley and Tom Winter

The Department of Homeland Security has identified over 400 immigrants who have come to the U.S. from Central Asia and elsewhere as “subjects of concern” because they were brought by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network, three U.S. officials tell NBC News.

While over 150 of them have been arrested, the whereabouts of over 50 remain unknown, the officials said, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to arrest them on immigration charges when they are located.

“In this case, it was the information that suggested a potential tie to ISIS because of some of the individuals involved in [smuggling migrants to the border] that led us to want to take extra care,” said a senior Biden administration official, “and out of an abundance of caution make sure that we exercised our authority in the most expansive and appropriate way to mitigate risk because of this potential connection being made.”

The official added that since ICE began arresting migrants brought to the U.S. by the ISIS-linked smuggling group several months ago, no information has emerged tying them to a threat to the U.S. homeland.

Many of the more than 400 migrants crossed the southern border and were released into the U.S. by Customs and Border Protection because they were not on the government’s terrorism watchlist, according to the three officials, and the agency did not have information raising concerns at the time.

But recent terrorist attacks in Russia have fueled heightened concern about ISIS and its offshoot ISIS-K. In recent months, DHS has been looking more closely at migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Russia, countries where ISIS-K has been active.

“The fact that the whereabouts were unknown is clearly alarming,” said former FBI counterterrorism section chief Christopher O’Leary, who now works at security consulting firm The Soufan Group.

O’Leary said ICE is likely looking to make these arrests to get people who may pose a threat to national security into custody, even when there is no evidence they’re plotting an attack.

“I believe the [U.S.] is scrambling to locate these individuals, and using the immigration charges is not uncommon,” O’Leary said. “They are in violation of that law. And if you need to take somebody off the street, that’s a good approach to do it.”

Thousands of migrants from those countries are already inside the U.S. awaiting court decisions on whether they can stay.

Two officials said federal law enforcement agencies are “not panicking” about those people now identified as “subjects of concern,” but are prioritizing them for arrest on immigration charges out of an abundance of caution.

Some of the 150 who were arrested have already been deported, the officials said. The whereabouts of other people in 17 states are known, and they may be arrested soon. Other migrants may have already left the U.S. voluntarily.

Some of those detained or deported to date have been charged with immigration violations. None have been charged with terrorism-related offenses.

Earlier this month, ICE arrested eight Tajik men in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles for their suspected ISIS affiliation.

NBC News was first to report on the similar arrest of an Uzbek man in Baltimore whose home country alerted the U.S. that he was affiliated with ISIS. He was arrested in April after living in the U.S. for over two years, two U.S. officials said. At the time he entered the U.S., there were no indicators he had any link to terrorism.

Counterterrorism officials say the threat of terrorism from migrants crossing the U.S. borders has historically been low. Since October, the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada that authorities have matched with names on the terrorism watchlist has made up .014% of all CBP encounters, or slightly less than one out of every 7,000 migrants vetted, according to CBP data.

Recently, however, some current and former U.S. officials are sounding the alarm that vetting at the U.S. border needs to be improved for the sake of national security. They point to an increase in immigration from countries like Venezuela, China and across the Eastern Hemisphere that do not routinely share law enforcement information and criminal data with the U.S. as reason for concern.

NBC News reported in April that an Afghan named Mohammad Kharwin, 48, whose name was on the U.S. terrorist watchlist, was released by CBP because they did not have enough information at the time he crossed. He spent nearly a year inside the U.S. before he was arrested in San Antonio in February. He was released again on bond after a court hearing and then arrested again hours after NBC News published a story on his case.

The DHS Office of Inspector General recently outlined problems with vetting at the U.S. southern border, saying in a report, “The Department of Homeland Security’s technology, procedures, and coordination were not fully effective to screen and vet non citizens applying for admission into the United States.”

In a letter to DHS on Monday, the Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee asked for the unredacted version of that Inspector General report to “evaluate DHS’s handling of this important national security matter.”

NBC News · by Julia Ainsley and Tom Winter

20. Attacks against defense industrial base increasing, NSA chief war

Attacks against defense industrial base increasing, NSA chief warns

The Pentagon is pushing ahead with zero trust plans to build automated defenses to future threats

BY PATRICK TUCKER

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR, DEFENSE ONE

JUNE 25, 2024 06:09 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

BALTIMORE, Maryland—Adversaries like China and Russia are taking aim more frequently at the companies that make up the United States’ defense industrial base, Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told the crowd at TechNet Cyber on Tuesday.

The defense industrial base—the companies that produce goods and services, and conduct research for the Defense Department—comprises more than 160,000 domestic and foreign companies, employing 9 percent of the U.S. workforce, he said. But that base“is being actively targeted by our adversaries and competitors, particularly by the People's Republic of China,” Haugh said.

U.S. government officials have called China a top cyber threat for years. But this year, officials and lawmakers have been issuing increasingly dire warnings about China’s rising risk tolerance for cyber operations, as evinced by the Volt Typhoon campaign, which targeted key elements of U.S. infrastructure.

In response to a question from Defense One, Haugh did not expressly say that China was also employing Volt Typhoon against partner militaries, like the Philippines, but did say it was a “serious concern, not just to the United States, but also to our allies.”

The NSA and Cyber Command are devoting more time and energy to threats posed by AI-enabled cyber attacks, as well as working on how to employ AI for cyber security within the Defense Department and within the industrial base, he said, pointing to the 2023 stand-up of the NSA’s AI cybersecurity center.

Last June, NSA and Cyber Command also announced they were expanding the size of little-known program called Under Advisement, which links together private cybersecurity companies, companies within the defense industrial base, other businesses of national security relevance, and government cyber security experts, with the goal of expediting information sharing about threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks.

“Since 2021, researchers have identified over 20,000 distinct cybersecurity vulnerabilities each year, with 29,000 discovered last year,” he said.

The Defense Department and Zero Trust

NSA and Cyber Command aren’t the only entities in the Defense Department looking to make better use of artificial intelligence for cyber defense. Brian Hermann, the director and program executive officer for the Cyber Security and Analytics Directorate at the Defense Information Systems Agency, told reporters Tuesday that according to his estimates, some 75 percent of cybersecurity actions could be automated for far faster and better defense—particularly against attacks that adversaries have also scaled up through AI.

“We're not real close at all,” to reaching that percentage, he warned. But as the Pentagon continues to implement elements of its zero-trust architecture roadmap, the possibility of better AI-enabled cyber defense is rising, he said.

By the end of 2025, Zero-Trust Network Access should be implemented across Defense Department sites. That will put the Pentagon in a much better position to begin to better implement new, cutting-edge AI tools for defense across the entire DOD.

“I can tell you … we had to start in a couple of different places. The first is the streamlining of our data,” he said. “We've artificially defined cyber data versus data that is for network operations functions; and the truth is, it's all cyber data.”

Getting Defense Department data out of individual silos into a common data lake, where analysts—perhaps using AI tools—can scour it for indications of threats and intrusion is key to defending against future AI-enabled attacks, he said.

“One of the most notable things that comes as part of zero trust is the connection of the tools to each other. So historically we had protections at the perimeter; we had protections at the local user’s desktop station; we had firewalls that existed in the various parts of our infrastructure, and they didn't really talk to each other very much. That's the difference. Now they're starting to talk to each other. They're providing common data sets that allow us to say, ‘If I'm seeing something over here, and it seems to be hitting this endpoint’...That's the approach that we're taking, is establishing … a data lake architecture with a federated search capability, and then modernizing the tools at various stages.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

​21. America’s Asian Partners Are Not Worried Enough About Trump

Well, if Trump is re-elected I can tell you for sure who will not be considered for Ambassador to South Korea (as he was last time).

This essay will stir things up in Asia (and especially South Korea)

Conclusion:

Trump’s policies could deliver outcomes some Americans think they want: smaller trade deficits, a consolidated military footprint focused more clearly on China, a modus vivendi with rogue actors such as Kim, and greater cost sharing by allies. But China’s influence in Asia will inevitably grow if the United States becomes just another transactional player in the region. The United States’ Asian allies can better prepare for a second Trump term by increasing their defense spending; highlighting their investments in U.S. supply chains, which help create jobs in the United States; and reiterating why the United States needs to remain a benevolent regional hegemon. And they must act in concert: even if one U.S. ally in Asia manages to stabilize its own bilateral relations with Trump, a deterioration of the United States’ relationships with surrounding countries will put the region’s overall security in a more precarious state. Most important, however, is that Asian leaders realize that no matter how much they try to stroke Trump’s ego, the ride is likely to be bumpier and more unpredictable a second time around.

America’s Asian Partners Are Not Worried Enough About Trump

How His Return Could Destabilize the Region

By Victor Cha

June 26, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Korea: A New History of South and North · June 26, 2024

One cannot have a political conversation in Asian capitals today without getting pulled into a discussion about Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House. The Japanese have even coined a phrase, moshi-tora (“if Trump”)—shorthand for “What happens if Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November?” Speculation abounds about how a second Trump term might differ from Joe Biden’s first term, during which Washington focused on deepening alliance partnerships and building coalitions to compete with China economically and to bolster Taiwan’s deterrence.

Trump has been vocal about his desire to prioritize America’s narrow self-interest and do less to help U.S. partners. And yet many Asian analysts and political leaders evince a degree of calm over the prospect of a second Trump term. Over the past four years, the U.S. Congress achieved some bipartisan consensus on strengthening alliances, diversifying supply chains, and protecting U.S. markets against competition from China, and some leaders in Asia hope that reasonable lawmakers might guide Trump’s policies. Others believe that because they managed an erratic Trump during his first term relatively successfully, they can do so again.

But this confidence is misplaced. A second Trump administration is likely to be far more disruptive for Asia than the first one was. In Trump’s first term, his most radical foreign policy instincts were blunted by the presence of seasoned appointees; these figures will not be present in a second term. If Trump gets a second chance at the presidency, he is even more likely than before to see allies as trade adversaries, reduce the U.S. military footprint worldwide, befriend autocratic leaders, and challenge the norms that have thus far secured nuclear nonproliferation in Asia. Washington’s Asian security partners will need to become far more self-reliant for their defense as America becomes simply another transactional, self-interested player instead of the benevolent patron that has long supported the liberal order in the region. All U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, including close ones such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, need to wake up to the reality that a second Trump term will bring new and challenging surprises.

SUNSET PROVISION

To be fair, Asian governments are trying to prepare for another Trump presidency. Conference halls from Seoul to Manila teem with panels of experts predicting what his second-term policies might be. Former Trump officials and would-be appointees are the hottest speakers on Asian conference circuits. Asian embassies in Washington have set up special policy-research units to cover the presidential campaigns and identify and befriend members of Trump’s brain trust.

In some cases, Asian countries are trying to preempt policy disputes with a second Trump presidency. The Japanese and South Korean governments, for example, have started the process of renegotiating existing defense burden-sharing agreements to avoid having to contend with the exponentially higher, multibillion-dollar demands Trump might make on them. White House officials, meanwhile, are racing to institutionalize multilateral arrangements such as the myriad U.S.–Japanese–South Korean defense- and economic-cooperation initiatives that emerged from a key 2023 Camp David summit with Japan and South Korea; the Australia–United Kingdom–United States trilateral security arrangement on nuclear propulsion submarines (known as AUKUS); the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework geared toward building more resilient supply chains; and the Indo-Pacific maritime democracies trilateral between Japan, the Philippines, and the United States, so that Trump cannot undo them.

This legwork makes good sense. During his first term, Trump moved to tear up agreements that he believed “suckered” the United States. On the first day of his administration, he pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement; he also obsessed over the United States’ relationship with allies that he perceived were free-riding on U.S. security guarantees while fleecing the United States economically with trade surpluses. Trump even required that all his briefing papers for a meeting or a call with a world leader start with whether the leader’s country had a merchandise trade surplus with the United States.

Yet Asian leaders coped with this uncertainty by exploiting, where they could, Trump’s idiosyncrasies to further their own political goals. For instance, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo befriended Trump during the transition between his 2016 election and his 2017 inauguration—and then used Trump’s calls for greater defense cost sharing by security allies to press forward with Japan’s rearmament despite domestic opposition. South Korean President Moon Jae-in used Trump’s infatuation with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to pursue an engagement strategy with North Korea. And hard-liners against China leveraged Trump’s obsession with the trade deficit to pursue policies to curtail China’s competitiveness across the board of security and economic issues. In other words, given a lemon, Asian leaders tried to make lemonade.

HOMEWORK PROBLEM

But allies’ belief that they can make the best of a second Trump term is misplaced. For starters, officials who figure they could handle a second Trump presidency just as well as the first erroneously assume they will have a similar caliber of interlocutors in the White House with whom to engage. During his first term, however, Trump populated his administration with a number of experienced policymakers who had served in previous Republican presidential administrations. These veterans are not likely to return. Trump is much likelier to forgo experience and expertise in favor of loyalty when he selects his cabinet members and his national security team.

Trump’s guiding principle on foreign policy is not the defense of freedom, democratic values, or the rules-based international order. Instead, Trump is motivated primarily by mercantilist instincts and egoism. He will surely claim that the United States shoulders no global responsibility. He will treat the United States’ historic allies not as partners but as trade adversaries and seek to befriend autocratic, adversarial leaders such as Kim, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and China’s Xi Jinping. Although such moves might seem familiar, in a second Trump term they will prove especially disruptive to U.S. allies in Asia because both the United States and Asia are in a different position than they were in 2016. Biden has restored trust with key allies and backed new, cooperative initiatives between countries in the region. This long list of initiatives includes improving force integration between the U.S. and Japanese militaries, strengthening the United States’ deterrence on the Korean Peninsula, providing for new U.S. military arrangements in Australia and the Philippines, expanding the United States’ capacity to help Taiwan defend itself, and making new supply chain arrangements with multiple allies.

No amount of institutionalization can really Trump-proof these advancements. For instance, Trump has the executive authority to scrap the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which has already bolstered clean energy, decarbonization, infrastructure, and supply-chain resilience projects in Asia. He will likely also seek to renegotiate any existing defense cost-sharing agreements on the grounds that Biden’s deals allowed allies to cheat the United States.

Both the United States and Asia are in a different position than they were in 2016.

And he will not be happy about the state of U.S.-Asian trade. Currently, seven out of eight of the United States’ core allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific (India, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand) have merchandise trade surpluses with the United States, totaling over $200 billion. Because he could not get rid of them in his first term, Trump will fixate on reducing these imbalances, perceiving that the United States’ allies are playing the country like suckers. Smaller Southeast Asian economies with trade surpluses, such as Vietnam ($103 billion) and Malaysia ($25 billion), will not be spared, either. Trump may well target all U.S. allies with tariffs of ten percent or more, irrespective of the tens of billions of dollars these countries have recently invested in the United States to build resilient supply chains. Beyond their economic impact, these tariffs will send a message to allies that the United States is looking out for itself alone and can no longer be relied on as a patron.

Trump will likely try to continue Biden’s efforts to build new semiconductor chip supply chains, claiming—correctly—that that decoupling from China in the realm of emerging technologies was his administration’s idea. He will almost certainly increase the United States’ already substantial Section 301 trade tariffs against China, probably launching a full-blown trade war; he might even consider suspending permanent normal trading relations with China. But the way Trump pursues these economic policies will be complicated by his personal affinity for dictators and strongmen. Trump cannot resist the global television extravaganzas afforded by summit meetings with Kim, Putin, and Xi, and even as tensions rise over trade, he will surely talk positively about his relationship with all these men. His behavior, however, is likely to put Xi in a stronger position: if Trump seeks a deal with Putin on Ukraine, Xi will take the opportunity to expand China’s industrial and defense cooperation with Russia while appearing to stabilize relations with the United States. This kind of deal will likely lead U.S. allies in Asia to hedge rather than to draw closer to the United States economically or militarily.

INFLUENCE PEDDLING

When it comes to security, Taiwan’s new president, William Lai, can be somewhat confident that little will change on the surface. The U.S. Congress will continue to support the island’s deterrence and defense. Trump, too, will support Taiwan’s defense, call for increased defense spending by Taipei, and continue to sell Taiwan weapons in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act. Some potential future Trump appointees have even said that they believe the United States should consider establishing formal security commitments and diplomatic relations with Taiwan, moving away from strategic ambiguity.

But any superficial continuity in the United States’ Taiwan policy will be undergirded not by Trump’s sense that Taiwan is a beacon of democracy that needs support from the United States but by his willingness to use Taiwan as a potential bargaining chip with China. Trump’s Taiwan policy will thus be fundamentally unpredictable. In an April Time magazine interview, Trump was asked whether he would defend Taiwan if China invaded. He did not answer in the affirmative. “I’ve been asked this question many times,” he said, “and I always refuse to answer it, because I don’t want to reveal my cards.” This suggests that Trump cherishes unpredictability on the Taiwan issue as a form of leverage over Xi. If Trump sold Taiwan down the river in some deal with China, any ally could reasonably feel that it would be next.

Although Trump, in a second term, may use the right words to describe the United States’ solidarity with its Asian allies, he will increasingly insist that he wants U.S. allies to pay more and the United States to pay less. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he told Time. He will almost certainly want to gut all U.S. participation in any joint military exercise unless allied partners are willing to pay for the whole thing. The result could be an alliance structure that looks unchanged—the U.S.–Japan–South Korea Camp David trilateral summit, for example, will almost certainly continue to exist—but runs the risk of being hollowed out.

It is not at all clear that Trump would support Australia’s new nuclear submarine and technology project, nor is it clear that he will want to pay for a planned new U.S. military presence in western Australia. By demanding billions of dollars in cost-sharing payments from Japan and by defunding military exercises, Trump could also undercut Japan’s watershed investments in its military posture, including increased defense spending and the operational integration of its troops and U.S. forces stationed there. New trade tariffs on Japan could also create a bad political optic with this longtime, loyal U.S. ally. Trump could even decouple the United States outright from Japan’s security concerns by saying he would not back Tokyo in a conflict with Beijing over the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China) or if Pyongyang’s missiles fall on Japan. Abe was known as “the Trump whisperer,” but managing Trump came at a high cost to Japan’s sense of equity with the United States and Abe’s own personal pride. It is not clear that Japan’s current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, or his successor could, or would, do the same.

CHAIN REACTION

A second Trump term could most fundamentally change the Korean Peninsula. This year’s growing drumbeat of North Korean ballistic missile tests will put Trump in a position similar to the one he faced in 2017. But he is unlikely to respond by threatening to rain “fire and fury” on Kim. He already appears, instead, to be considering an overhaul of his North Korea approach, prioritizing cutting a deal with Kim to stop nuclear testing in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions.

North Korea could seal the deal by offering some less important but tangible form of denuclearization—such as handing over a limited quantity of fissile material or a first-generation nuclear device—that Trump could brag about. Trump loves easy victories. He could insist he has “won” and neutered the North Korean nuclear threat without ever disarming Kim of his huge arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles, and tactical nuclear weapons.

Trump might then also pull U.S. soldiers from South Korea. His desire to do so (as well as to pull troops from Europe and other parts of Asia) is well established. As early as 1990, in a Playboy interview, Trump claimed that South Korea is very wealthy and takes advantage of the U.S. troop presence there; he has repeated this claim frequently in the decades since. His former national security adviser, John Bolton, warned in his memoir that he “feared Trump’s ultimate threat—withdrawing our troops from any country not paying what he deemed to be an adequate amount—was real in South Korea’s case.”

China’s influence in Asia will grow if the United States becomes just another transactional player in the region.

Such a scenario would almost certainly result in the nuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula. A majority of the South Korean public already strongly supports developing nuclear weapons, but their enthusiasm is counterbalanced by a distaste for nuclearization among the country’s strategic elites—figures such as academics, think-tank experts, and business and political leaders. But in a January–March 2024 survey of these elites conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a majority of respondents agreed that their views on nonnuclearization would change if the United States pulled back from its commitments to South Korean security.

If South Korea launched a nuclear weapons program, that would give China and North Korea dangerous incentives to preempt its capabilities. And South Korea’s nuclearization could trigger wider mimicry: Myanmar, for instance, has shown interest in uranium enrichment and in North Korea’s nuclear weapons designs. Although Japan currently embraces nonnuclear norms, the country also has nearly 50 tons of fissile material at its fingertips—enough to make 5,000 nuclear weapons. Taiwan might not want to be left out of the club.

Trump’s policies could deliver outcomes some Americans think they want: smaller trade deficits, a consolidated military footprint focused more clearly on China, a modus vivendi with rogue actors such as Kim, and greater cost sharing by allies. But China’s influence in Asia will inevitably grow if the United States becomes just another transactional player in the region. The United States’ Asian allies can better prepare for a second Trump term by increasing their defense spending; highlighting their investments in U.S. supply chains, which help create jobs in the United States; and reiterating why the United States needs to remain a benevolent regional hegemon. And they must act in concert: even if one U.S. ally in Asia manages to stabilize its own bilateral relations with Trump, a deterioration of the United States’ relationships with surrounding countries will put the region’s overall security in a more precarious state. Most important, however, is that Asian leaders realize that no matter how much they try to stroke Trump’s ego, the ride is likely to be bumpier and more unpredictable a second time around.

• VICTOR CHA is Professor of Government at Georgetown University and Senior Vice President for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a co-author, with Ramon Pacheco Pardo, of Korea: A New History of South and North.

Foreign Affairs · by Korea: A New History of South and North · June 26, 2024

22. The Power of Principles​ – What Norms Are Still Good For

Do we believe in and want to support the rules based international order? (my answer: yes)

Excerpts:

To save the system, Washington must be proactive. Norms need maintenance—they must be cultivated, enforced, and sometimes adjusted—and maintenance requires long-term thinking and accepting some short-term costs. The United States, for example, could push to expand the number of permanent members on the UN Security Council to include representatives from Africa and Latin America. Doing so might dilute Washington’s voice but would also earn it more support from the global South and prevent the council from sliding into irrelevance. The United States could also provide more financing to compensate poorer states for the damages wrought by climate change, a move that would cost money now but create buy-in for climate mitigation later.

It won’t be easy for the United States to revive international norms, and it will be impossible to do so alone. The country badly damaged the norms regarding wartime conduct through its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its support for Israel’s war on Hamas is further undermining norms meant to protect civilians. And political polarization has made it hard for the United States to convey strong support for even the most basic norms, such as the one against conquering entire states, without fierce partisan debate. With the Republican Party captured by former President Donald Trump, Washington appears to be at odds with itself: torn between people who believe current global norms are worth defending and those who do not.

Not all critics of today’s norms are malicious, or even wrong. In a world in flux, it is worth asking what given international principles are good for, such as norms affecting trade that impose few constraints on multinational corporations—even if they may benefit the United States. But if the foundational norms of the post-1945 order erode, it will not be the result of a careful cost-benefit analysis. It will be because American politicians gave up on these ideals in a fit of pique. The result will be a world in which everyone is worse off.

The Power of Principles

What Norms Are Still Good For

By Tanisha M. Fazal

July/August 2024

Published on June 18, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War · June 18, 2024

For those who believe that might should not make right, the world today seems to offer little hope. Russia is still trying to seize territory from Ukraine in its illegal war of conquest, and U.S. support for Kyiv appears to be waning. China is asserting ownership of international waters. In the Middle East, Hamas murdered some 1,200 people in its October 7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s response has destroyed hospitals and killed tens of thousands of civilians. In South America, Venezuela is laying claim to more than half the territory of Guyana, its much smaller neighbor. Across the global South, countries are calling on richer states to compensate them for the damage of climate change caused by centuries of industrialization in the North, but their requests have mostly been ignored.

In the age-old battle between power and principle, it would be easy to look at these examples and conclude that a much-vaunted constraint in international relations barely exists anymore: norms. International norms are guidelines that tell states which actions are and are not appropriate and provide metrics against which to judge others’ conduct. For decades, especially after the Cold War, many—especially in the West—believed that governments should and would abide by such principles. But today, that view feels quaint. It often seems as if norms are simply a function of power. The strong do what they want.

Yet beneath the surface, norms in fact work as a powerful motivator and constraint. They lie at the heart of the biggest foreign policy debates in Washington. Whether to support Ukraine, what to do about China, how to handle Israel—plenty of the most contested questions are, at base, arguments over whether to promote certain principles. The idea that norms are purely a function of power, moreover, is mistaken. Why else, for example, would the United Kingdom send money to Kenya to make amends for colonial-era misdeeds? Sometimes, countries take costly steps that are arguably against their own interests, even though no superior power has pressured them to do so.

Norms are not entirely divorced from strength, of course. They are often launched with the support of powerful countries, and they require maintenance from those states. And yet time and again, norms have taken on a life of their own, exerting a powerful pull.

ROUGH IDEAS

Norms have existed since ancient times. In The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides reported that the Melians appealed to principles of fairness and justice in an effort to persuade the invading Athenians not to conquer their island and to respect their neutrality. In the Middle Ages, European royal families had a norm of holding each other’s members hostage, treating them as guarantors to ensure compliance with interfamilial agreements. One family, for example, might take another family’s daughter and hold her until they had passed safely through the other family’s territory. During China’s Ming and Qing dynasties, foreign envoys followed a norm of paying tribute to the royal court. And for centuries, European countries believed they had an obligation to “civilize” other races through colonization.

For most of this time, the effect of ideas on international relations went unexamined. Only in the early twentieth century did it become a serious subject for researchers. At that time, the field was dominated by lawyers who believed that rules were important and who thought they could use rules to constrain states’ behavior. Thinkers such as the historian James Shotwell, the philosopher John Dewey, and the lawyer Salmon Levinson worked to construct the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, in which over 60 countries (including the United States) condemned and renounced war “as an instrument of national policy.” The pact, Shotwell argued, would eliminate violence. “The old predatory world of conquest and violence is no longer an ideal of governments,” he declared.

Even before World War II proved such optimism misplaced, idealists were derided by realists, who argued that the world was shaped by power alone. Writing in 1939, before the outbreak of war, the British historian E. H. Carr criticized “the science of international politics” as “markedly and frankly utopian,” arguing that “no political utopia will achieve even the most limited success unless it grows out of political reality.” Black international relations scholars such as Merze Tate, who understood all too well the role of power in global politics, were similarly critical. As Tate wrote in The Disarmament Illusion in 1942, “The limitation of armaments is not a matter of mathematics nor of morals but of politics.”

But when it came to policy, norms continued to shape history. Shaken by the horrors of World War II, states again embraced norms as a way to curtail conflict and protect populations. Dozens of countries, including the Soviet Union and the United States, agreed to rules that oblige occupying powers to protect civilian populations. In the late 1940s, Eleanor Roosevelt chaired a group of lawyers, representatives from nongovernmental organizations, and state bureaucrats from around the world who produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the foundation for today’s human rights regime. Activists, lawyers, and politicians made a renewed push to establish a norm against territorial conquest.

Powerful actors can bend norms in their favor, but that doesn’t mean they are immune from norms.

These efforts, however, were largely ignored by mainstream international relations scholars. By the end of the 1970s, the field was dominated by debates between neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz and neoliberals such as Robert Keohane, both of whom constructed theories of global politics that left little room for the role of ideas. But norms did not disappear entirely from the discipline. Hedley Bull published The Anarchical Society in 1977, which argued that modern states “conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with each other, and share in the working of common institutions.” In 1980, John Meyer pioneered “world-systems theory,” arguing that global social forces, especially economic modernization, made states resemble one another. Three years later, John Ruggie argued that, unlike the overlapping sovereignties of the feudal system that preceded it, the modern state system rested on notions of private property and exclusive jurisdiction.

These theories continued to be tested in the real world. Moscow and Washington routinely intervened in the affairs of sovereign states, for example. Realists, accordingly, sidelined thinkers who highlighted the role of ideas. But the end of the Cold War—in which the Soviet Union collapsed without being defeated by the U.S. military (an outcome unpredicted by realism)—breathed new life into scholarship on norms. John Mueller argued that great-power war, like aristocratic dueling, had gone the way of the dodo. In The Culture of National Security, a group of scholars further demonstrated that states often behave in ways contrary to what realists predict. Richard Price, for example, illustrated that a stigma against chemical weapons was a necessary condition for states to refrain from using them in World War II. Similarly, Nina Tannenwald argued that a taboo against the first use of nuclear weapons helped explain why Washington never went nuclear in Vietnam.

Today, norms are a central part of international relations theory. Experts have examined how global social and legal norms in favor of racial equality helped topple South Africa’s apartheid system. They have explored how international humanitarian norms have led rebel groups to produce manuals on the laws of war. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink have even given the word “norm” a canonical definition: “a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity.” Since then, scholars have focused not just on whether norms successfully constrain state behavior but also on the strength, substance, and cycles of norms. Norms, they argue, are about more than whether a state follows a specific rule. They are also about how states engage with that rule—including how they react when other states violate it, and how they behave when they themselves are running afoul of it.

This nuance has given the field a clearer idea of how norms shape international behavior. Consider the United States’ covert interventions in countries such as Chile and Iran during the Cold War. In some ways, it might have been more effective for Washington to outright invade these countries and impose friendly regimes by force. But doing so would have violated norms of sovereignty. Partially as a result, it decided to operate covertly.

MIGHT AND RIGHT

Not all norms are based on how states interact. Some have to do with how countries should treat their own citizens (such as not disappearing people), and others with how corporations should interact with society (such as not using child labor). But one of the most consistent scholarly findings is that norms are most powerful when they align with the interests of governments rather than those of nonstate actors. There are many wartime norms that states observe, including offering medical care to enemy prisoners of war. But this norm does not constrain governments from detaining and torturing members of rebel groups. International humanitarian norms have been established in part by treaties, in which, historically, states are both the primary negotiators and the signatories. As Bridget Coggins has argued, even the norm of states being the primary actors in the international system—and related rules governing which polities are recognized as states—is a function of power. The state is a remarkably strong institution, one that won out over alternative forms of political organization, and today’s states limit who can join their ranks. The unrecognized country of Somaliland, for example, has a much more effective government than Somalia (from which it has functionally seceded). But it is the latter that holds the seat at the UN, in part because many UN members have a vested interest in discouraging secessionism.

Norms have long served the interests of powerful countries. The rule against forcibly taking territory from other governments was conveniently championed by the United States after, not before, it had completed its westward expansion. The nuclear taboo serves powerful states just as it serves weaker ones, because it protects them, too, from annihilation.

Yet the fact that powerful actors can bend norms in their favor doesn’t mean they are immune from norms. The norm against territorial conquest didn’t stop Russia from invading Ukraine, but it does help explain why Moscow is paying such a high price for its land grab. The United States and its allies placed costly sanctions on the Russian economy, and many of these countries have provided lethal aid to Kyiv. So flagrant was Russia’s violation of the norm that even countries it has close relationships with, such as China and India, have avoided expressing public support for the invasion. Indeed, public statements by Chinese officials on the war generally mention the importance of territorial integrity.

Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya addressing the Security Council, New York City, May 2024

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

Norms reflect power, but they are not just reflections of power. The emergence and acceptance of a norm generally requires at least the assent of powerful states, but it does not always further those states’ immediate desires. China, for example, would certainly prefer not to be constrained by norms against territorial conquest when it comes to Taiwan. But on balance, Beijing benefits from the norm because it does not want other countries infringing on its own land. Countries will exercise self-restraint, accepting normative constraints to protect their greater interests.

States will sometimes be aggressive in the name of norms, championing such principles in an effort to expand their power. There are times when might makes right, but right can sometimes make might. When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein tried to annex Kuwait, the United States headed a broad international coalition that forced him to withdraw, which increased Washington’s global influence. By the same token, right can undermine might. The unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the United States 13 years later drew few partners and seriously damaged the country’s reputation.

Governments understand this dynamic. That is why they rarely admit to violating norms, even when the transgression is utterly transparent. The United States claimed it needed to invade Iraq to protect the norm against using weapons of mass destruction. Putin has justified his invasion of Ukraine by denying that it had ever achieved “real statehood,” casting it instead as a temporarily detached part of Russia that therefore had no sovereignty to violate. China makes a similar argument about Taiwan, claiming that the island is a renegade province. By invading Taiwan, according to this logic, China would not be violating norms but upholding them, with a long-overdue crackdown on a secessionist entity.

Beijing’s claims about Taiwan illustrate that norms are often open to interpretation and abuse. They are not always codified in or coterminous with international law. There is no international norm against detaining migrants, for example, even though the Global Compact for Migration, which calls for states to avoid the practice, carries some international legal power as a resolution of the UN General Assembly. Too many countries lock up migrants to build a global consensus that detention is unacceptable.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Norms can have intrinsic strength. States abide by norms even when it is not in their immediate interest, and they are penalized when they violate those norms. But the power of norms is never guaranteed, and the world’s current normative architecture is under threat. Some of the challenges are direct, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Others are oblique, such as China’s attempt to expand its territorial reach by building artificial islands in the South China Sea.

The global South can be used as a bellwether to assess the effects of these transgressions. Developing countries played a much smaller role in constructing the world’s current normative architecture than richer powers did, so their behavior is a good indicator of whether the system of norms still holds. And unfortunately, their responses suggest that the challenges to current norms may succeed. Some developing countries have strongly condemned what Martin Kimani, Kenya’s UN ambassador, called Moscow’s “irredentism and expansionism.” But the global South has not been uniformly critical. A consistent bloc of about 40 countries—all outside the West—has either abstained from or voted against UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion.

These votes are partly a result of Moscow’s politicking in the global South, but they are also the product of Western hypocrisy. People in developing countries have understandably wondered why Ukraine has received so much more U.S. humanitarian support than Congo, Honduras, and Sudan. They have questioned why Ukrainians fleeing conflict receive refuge in Western states when Syrians and Yemenis generally do not. And they have asked what the difference is between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The technical answer to that last question is that Russia is demanding Ukrainian territory rather than just regime change. But to people in the global South, who have suffered from decades of weak governance, corruption, and civil war (which are not clearly prohibited by current norms)—as well as interventions by major powers—that distinction seems rather thin. It suggests, again, that norms matter only when powerful countries say so.

Not all critics of today’s norms are malicious, or even wrong.

Key international norms are on life support, and the potential demise of these norms should alarm U.S. policymakers. They should be concerned, in part, for human rights reasons. By preventing invasions, limiting war crimes, and constraining aggressive behavior, norms help protect hundreds of millions of people. But Washington should also be concerned for geopolitical reasons. The United States has benefited immensely from the system it helped build. The current normative architecture, for example, has helped the U.S. economy flourish by creating an international system conducive to trade. Washington could therefore lose influence if this system falls apart, giving China an opening to promote an alternative normative order that would be far less liberal.

To save the system, Washington must be proactive. Norms need maintenance—they must be cultivated, enforced, and sometimes adjusted—and maintenance requires long-term thinking and accepting some short-term costs. The United States, for example, could push to expand the number of permanent members on the UN Security Council to include representatives from Africa and Latin America. Doing so might dilute Washington’s voice but would also earn it more support from the global South and prevent the council from sliding into irrelevance. The United States could also provide more financing to compensate poorer states for the damages wrought by climate change, a move that would cost money now but create buy-in for climate mitigation later.

It won’t be easy for the United States to revive international norms, and it will be impossible to do so alone. The country badly damaged the norms regarding wartime conduct through its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its support for Israel’s war on Hamas is further undermining norms meant to protect civilians. And political polarization has made it hard for the United States to convey strong support for even the most basic norms, such as the one against conquering entire states, without fierce partisan debate. With the Republican Party captured by former President Donald Trump, Washington appears to be at odds with itself: torn between people who believe current global norms are worth defending and those who do not.

Not all critics of today’s norms are malicious, or even wrong. In a world in flux, it is worth asking what given international principles are good for, such as norms affecting trade that impose few constraints on multinational corporations—even if they may benefit the United States. But if the foundational norms of the post-1945 order erode, it will not be the result of a careful cost-benefit analysis. It will be because American politicians gave up on these ideals in a fit of pique. The result will be a world in which everyone is worse off.

• TANISHA M. FAZAL is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and the author of Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War.

Foreign Affairs · by Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War · June 18, 2024

23. ‘Axis of impunity’: Putin-Kim deal underlines new challenges to world order

Axis of impunity (or evil, aggressors, dictators, authoritarians, totalitarians, malign actors, or just plain bad guys).

‘Axis of impunity’: Putin-Kim deal underlines new challenges to world order

Two leaders signed mutual defence pact during Russian president’s high-profile visit to North Korea, his first in 24 years.

Al Jazeera English · by Al Jazeera Staff

Shortly after signing a new comprehensive strategic partnership between their two countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un showed off their closer ties by going for a spin in a Russian-made Aurus limousine.

In a carefully choreographed public relations exercise, it was Putin who took the wheel first while Kim sat on the passenger side, grinning broadly. After Putin brought the car to a stop, a white-gloved aide opened the vehicle’s doors to allow the two men to swap seats.

Robert Dover, professor of intelligence and national security at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera that photographs from the visit appeared to show “a genuine empathy” between Kim and Putin.

The two countries’ latest pact, which includes a mutual defence agreement, is a sign of just how far the relationship has come since Putin embarked on his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Where once Moscow, a veto-holding member of the United Nations Security Council, worked with the international community to rein in Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes, it now appears to be giving its explicit support to the world’s most-isolated regime.

The agreement “should not come as a surprise,” wrote Eugene Rumer, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and the director of its Russia and Eurasia programme, in a commentary after North Korea released additional details of the agreement.

“The embrace of the North Korean dictator is the logical extension of Putin’s course after he launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine. He staked his entire tenure on victory. When triumph proved elusive, he went all in, hell-bent on winning even if it meant destroying his country; severing the critical diplomatic, security, and trade ties with the West; and weaponizing everything at his disposal.”

The latest deal replaces the Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness Treaty that the two countries signed in 2000, just after Putin became president for the first time and North Korea was under the rule of Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un.

But its contents more closely echo the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance that was signed in 1961 when Russia was the dominant power in the now-defunct Soviet Union.

Putin and Kim, who is known for his love of luxury cars, go for a ride in a Russian Aurus, a gift given in breach of international sanctions [KCNA via Reuters]

As well as the mutual defence deal, which has attracted the most attention, it also includes provisions for cooperation in healthcare, medical education and science, as well as plans for a road bridge across the Tumen River.

North Korean state media released what it said was the full version of the text. Kim was effusive, describing the deal as an “alliance” and declaring Russia his country’s “most honest friend and ally”.

Putin, who was feted by smiling children on Kim Il Sung Square, and driven through streets adorned with giant portraits of his own face as well as Russian flags, appeared slightly more restrained.

The deal was a “breakthrough document”, Putin said, and reflected the two countries’ desire to lift their “relations to a new qualitative level”.

‘Axis of impunity’

The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of sending weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine, where its soldiers are locked in brutal battles with Ukrainian forces along a more than 1,000km-long (600 mile) front line.

The same week that Putin and Kim met, the US State Department said North Korea had “unlawfully transferred dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to aid Russia’s war effort” in recent months.

UN sanctions inspectors, in their final report before a Russian veto ended their mandate, said fragments of North Korean ballistic missiles had been found in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city and currently the target of renewed Russian assaults.

Moscow is thought to be providing technological expertise in return for such assistance. Just two months after Kim and Putin met at Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome last September, North Korea successfully placed its first spy satellite into orbit. An earlier attempt, just three weeks before the trip, was a failure.

Some analysts have warned the agreement is another sign of a strengthening alignment between countries opposed to the US and the “rules-based international order”, which has provided the framework for international affairs since the end of World War II.

Going into his visit to Pyongyang, Putin spoke of Russia and North Korea standing up to supposed “US pressure, blackmail and military threats” and “accelerating the building of a new multi-polar world”.

Pyongyang was decorated with Putin’s portrait and Russian flags [Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Pool via Reuters]

Describing “an emerging axis of impunity”, Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said that while power was “everything” to authoritarian states, their relations were likely to be less stable than those between the US and its allies in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere.

“Pyongyang and Moscow lack the shared institutions, rule of law, and functional interdependence that make US alliances with Japan, South Korea, and NATO countries credible and durable,” Easley said in emailed comments.

Others point to a more transactional relationship between the two countries.

“History tells us that North Korea-Russia ties are mainly driven by interests,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor in international relations at King’s College London. He noted that economic and security ties fell apart after the collapse of the Soviet Union and that Putin himself abandoned Pyongyang to back UN sanctions in 2006. He did not meet Kim, who became North Korean leader after his father’s death in 2011, until eight years later.

“Were Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to end for any reason, it would not be surprising if it distanced itself from North Korea and sought stronger relations with other countries – including South Korea,” Pacheco Pardo wrote in an analysis of the trip.

The China question

And then there is China, long North Korea’s biggest ally and economic benefactor, and a country that has also been deepening its ties with Russia.

It was China where Putin decided to make his first overseas trip after securing a sixth term as president.

Beijing afforded Putin a red carpet welcome outside the Great Hall of the People and he later drank tea with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a terrace in the Zhongnanhai leaders’ compound. Bilateral trade between the two countries hit a record high of $240bn in 2023, and China, which says it is neutral in the Ukraine war but has not condemned Moscow for its full-scale invasion, is now Russia’s number one trade partner.

In contrast with the condemnation from Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, Beijing’s response has been more muted.

When asked about Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian noted the “bilateral” nature of the agreement.

“The cooperation between Russia and the DPRK is a matter between two sovereign states,” Lin said on Friday referring to North Korea by its official name, and declining further comment.

Putin was feted in Pyongyang although his state visit lasted less than 24 hours in total [Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Pool via AFP]

Analysts say the stress on the bilateral nature of the relationships – whether between Russia and North Korea, North Korea and China or China and Russia – is key, given that Beijing is also trying to stabilise ties with Washington and develop warmer relations in Europe as well as with its regional neighbours.

Indeed, last month, Beijing resumed high-level talks with South Korea and Japan for the first time in more than four years.

“China wishes to keep its options open rather than being bogged down by Russia and the DPRK in a bipolar arrangement in Northeast Asia and the broader regional, or even global power equilibrium,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China programme at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Given China shares Russia’s vision of a remodelled international order, however, there are complex issues at play.

“There is clearly an anti-Western bloc forming and what we need to be looking at carefully is the activism of China and Russia across the whole of Africa, but particularly sea-facing countries, in Latin America and the Middle East,” Dover said.

Russia has already shown its willingness to hamper the responses of institutions, such as the UN Security Council, that have been the core institutions of global governance for nearly 80 years.

The drive in the Aurus was not only a sign of the two leaders’ closeness but an indication that the Russia of 2024 is more than willing to thwart the very UN sanctions it once helped frame.

Al Jazeera English · by Al Jazeera Staff

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com