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Quotes of the Day:
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
– Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas
"Those that know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories."
– Polybius.
1. Rest of World Watches U.S. Turmoil With Growing Alarm
2. China’s Economy Is in Trouble. Xi Jinping Has Other Priorities.
3. China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It
4. To Target a Top Militant, Israel Rained Down Eight Tons of Bombs
5. The World Is Pushing Clean Energy. Oil Companies Are Thriving.
6. Israel's Fragile North and the Art of 'Intelligence' Diplomacy
7. U.S. Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability
8. Tactical Brilliance, Strategic Blindness: The Surge & The Limits of Counterinsurgency in Ira
9. The Emerging Nuclear Scenario
10. Japan reemerges as an Asia-Pacific military power
11. The Secret Service Failed. What’s That Have to Do with DEI?
12. Biden nominates one of Austin’s top military advisers to lead US Army Pacific
13. After attempted Trump assassination, veteran groups urge calm
14. Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems and more F-16 warplanes, President Zelenskyy says
15. ‘Why?’ Presidential assassins rarely have ‘political’ motives
16. Deep Strikes into Russia: A Partner’s Decision for Ukraine’s Strategic Success
17. Geography Is a Dealbreaker for Coalition Building in Asia
18. Why Iran’s New President Won’t Change His Country
19. For the Rest of the World, the U.S. President Has Always Been Above the Law
20. CIA director says Hamas leader is facing growing pressure from his own commanders to end Gaza war
1. Rest of World Watches U.S. Turmoil With Growing Alarm
Excerpts:
In foreign capitals around the globe, the attempted killing of Trump and Biden’s repeated gaffes have changed the political and diplomatic calculus, sending many governments scrambling to prepare for a second Trump presidency as the most likely scenario, due to growing voter concerns about Biden’s mental fitness and a likely groundswell of sympathy for Trump following the failed attempt.
...
“Russia has a proven track record of pouring gasoline on U.S. problems,” said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “For the Kremlin…the shooting and the debate around Biden’s age just reinforces their belief that America, as powerful as it is, is actually on its deathbed,” he said.
Some commentators close to the government in China also piled on, given the longtime belief in Beijing that America is in a period of decline as the world’s singular power. “It’s garbage time for American-style democracy,” Han Peng, a reporter from state broadcaster CGTN who used to work in the U.S., wrote on the popular Chinese social-media site Weibo.
For other countries, however, the attempt on Trump was a reminder not of American exceptionalism or decline, but as a country like any other that suffers occasional spasms of political violence. In May, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was nearly killed in a shooting, and in January, the head of South Korea’s left-leaning opposition party, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck. Lee, who survived, wished Trump a speedy recovery in a Sunday post on X.
...
Many outside the U.S. will be watching closely whether the former American president will use the moment to try to start to bridge the partisan divide or double-down on division.
“It’s possible that Trump keeps emphasizing polarization and confrontation in U.S. politics,” said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. “It’s also possible he emphasizes national unity…If he does, then he could be headed for a landslide victory.” Either way, he said, Europe should plan for a Trump re-election.
Rest of World Watches U.S. Turmoil With Growing Alarm
Assassination attempt on Trump and Biden’s stumbles stoke fears among allies about whether they can rely on U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/world/rest-of-world-watches-u-s-turmoil-with-growing-alarm-01759a42?page=1
By David LuhnowFollow
, Bertrand BenoitFollow
and Ian LovettFollow
July 15, 2024 1:58 pm ET
LONDON—The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, coming so soon after President Biden’s stumbles during the recent presidential debate, is reinforcing an impression outside the U.S. that the world’s pre-eminent superpower is entering an unusually turbulent and unpredictable period, prompting allies to question its reliability and foes to gloat.
The images of a bloodied Trump being rushed from the stage captured global attention, and for many painted a picture of an America increasingly at odds with itself—a country that has a strong economy but a dysfunctional and dangerously divided political landscape.
In foreign capitals around the globe, the attempted killing of Trump and Biden’s repeated gaffes have changed the political and diplomatic calculus, sending many governments scrambling to prepare for a second Trump presidency as the most likely scenario, due to growing voter concerns about Biden’s mental fitness and a likely groundswell of sympathy for Trump following the failed attempt.
Concerns about President Biden’s mental fitness and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump have raised expectations in foreign capitals of a second Trump presidency. PHOTO: GRAEME SLOAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
One British newspaper columnist said Trump was now “unstoppable.” A report Monday by South Korean brokerage Eugene Investment & Securities was titled “Trump’s Rise and Biden’s Fall,” and featured side-by-side photos of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist on Saturday and Biden’s stumble at a U.S. Air Force Academy event last year.
The assassination attempt, alongside the debate about Biden’s age, has also given new life to Russia’s favorite foreign-policy narrative: America’s supposed precipitous decline.
Top Russian officials on Sunday talked about the “suicidal supposed condition” of American democracy, predicting that the country was on the brink of a civil war. The Kremlin blamed the Biden administration for creating an atmosphere that provoked the attack.
“Russia has a proven track record of pouring gasoline on U.S. problems,” said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “For the Kremlin…the shooting and the debate around Biden’s age just reinforces their belief that America, as powerful as it is, is actually on its deathbed,” he said.
Some commentators close to the government in China also piled on, given the longtime belief in Beijing that America is in a period of decline as the world’s singular power. “It’s garbage time for American-style democracy,” Han Peng, a reporter from state broadcaster CGTN who used to work in the U.S., wrote on the popular Chinese social-media site Weibo.
For other countries, however, the attempt on Trump was a reminder not of American exceptionalism or decline, but as a country like any other that suffers occasional spasms of political violence. In May, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was nearly killed in a shooting, and in January, the head of South Korea’s left-leaning opposition party, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck. Lee, who survived, wished Trump a speedy recovery in a Sunday post on X.
In Brazil, several hundred supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who suffered an assassination attempt on the campaign trail in 2018 before winning the election, gathered on São Paulo’s main avenue Sunday to show their solidarity with Trump, a close ally of the conservative leader. “Long live Trump!” demonstrators yelled.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who suffered an assassination attempt in 2018, greeted supporters during a rally in Rio de Janeiro in April. PHOTO: DADO GALDIERI/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Supporters of Donald Trump in Jerusalem in October 2020 ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. PHOTO: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS
Many outside the U.S. will be watching closely whether the former American president will use the moment to try to start to bridge the partisan divide or double-down on division.
“It’s possible that Trump keeps emphasizing polarization and confrontation in U.S. politics,” said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. “It’s also possible he emphasizes national unity…If he does, then he could be headed for a landslide victory.” Either way, he said, Europe should plan for a Trump re-election.
A possible return of Trump to the White House would mean different things to different countries. Some countries like Russia and Israel could welcome a second Trump presidency, at least initially, while many European countries, especially Ukraine, are concerned that Trump is less committed to checking an aggressive Russia and will weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Trump’s trade policies, especially promised tariffs on foreign goods, worry China, Mexico and Europe.
But the recent events in the U.S. have added to concerns that go beyond which candidate wins. Regardless of which party is in power, the U.S. has become far more protectionist in recent years and wary of foreign entanglements. Divisions within American politics are also constraining its ability to deliver on the global stage, from security to trade, according to some political analysts.
“There is deep concern about whether America can continue to lead, build partnerships and alliances,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, a think tank in London. “Even under a democratic administration there is so much constraint domestically because of dysfunctional, polarized and partisan politics, that even if a president means well, he will have trouble delivering.”
For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for instance, any result in the U.S. election comes with risk. For two years, frustration toward the Biden administration has been growing in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Biden at the NATO summit in Washington last Thursday. PHOTO: SAMUEL CORUM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Officials, soldiers and civilians alike say that aid from the U.S. comes too little and too late—just enough to keep Ukrainian forces from losing the war, but not enough to allow them to reclaim the 20% of the country that Moscow currently occupies.
Biden, wary of sparking a direct conflict with Moscow, has delayed for months—or, in some cases, years—before agreeing to send new weapons systems to Ukraine. Officials say the delays have allowed the Russians to fortify their positions, making the work of recapturing occupied territory far harder than it would have been had the weapons come earlier.
Trump, meanwhile, has promised to end the war through peace negotiations and criticized U.S. spending on aid for Ukraine. As a result, there is widespread concern among Ukrainians that if he is elected, it would mean the end of large-scale assistance from the U.S.
Trump Assassination Attempt: The Latest in a String of Violence
Trump Assassination Attempt: The Latest in a String of Violence
Play video: Trump Assassination Attempt: The Latest in a String of Violence
The attempted assassination of former President Trump is the latest in a series of attacks on politicians in recent years. WSJ’s Aaron Zitner looks at what’s behind the surge in violence. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: EMILY SIU
In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Zelensky called on Trump to offer specifics about how he might change U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
“I’d like to understand, what does it mean to finish the war fast?” Zelensky said. “Because if there are risks to Ukraine’s independence, there are risks that we will lose statehood, we want to be prepared for this. We want to understand whether in November we will have the powerful support of the U.S., or we’ll be alone.”
Germany’s government expects U.S. pressure on Europe to increase its military spending to intensify regardless of the election outcome. Recent efforts by Berlin to boost military spending and diversify trade away from China have in part been taken in anticipation of U.S. pressure.
Thomas Silberhorn, a member of parliament for the opposition conservative party, has been keeping in close contact with Republican lawmakers and will attend the party’s convention in Milwaukee this week. Silberhorn expects the outlines of U.S. foreign policy to remain constant whether Trump or Biden is re-elected. “You must differentiate between the election campaign, in all its brutality, and realpolitik,” he said.
Across Europe, the recent events will underscore an argument that the continent can no longer afford to base its future security needs around the outcome of tight and increasingly volatile U.S. elections. French President Emmanuel Macron has long championed the idea that Europe needs to develop “strategic autonomy” from the U.S. and other great military powers by banding together militarily to buy weapons and develop the continent’s defense industry.
French President Emmanuel Macron has championed the idea that Europe needs to develop ‘strategic autonomy.’ PHOTO: GRAEME SLOAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Yet with political turmoil of its own in some of its biggest countries, including France and Germany, a sluggish economy and high debt loads, policymakers and analysts warn it could take years for Europe to offer a significant military deterrence to Russia.
“NATO is constantly having this conversation—how to Trump-proof NATO and Europe,” said Vinjamuri. “And they’ve taken some modest steps. But the reality is America is still the indispensable partner.”
For China, the Biden administration has kept in place and in some cases even expanded Trump’s tough-on-China economic policies. Yet Biden has also been far less outspoken on China than Trump, and Chinese officials worry that Trump will deepen America’s protectionist turn and introduce a period of far greater uncertainty in bilateral relations.
Mexico is also worried, given the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement is scheduled for review in 2026. The last time Trump was in office, the U.S. threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on Mexican goods if the government didn’t stop tens of thousands of migrants from reaching the border. The government quickly deployed thousands of soldiers to do so.
“Trump represents an enormous menace, a huge risk” to President-elect Claudia Scheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister.
Senior Mexican officials who negotiated with the Trump administration are worried about aggressive security policies targeting Mexico’s powerful drug gangs involved in the smuggling of fentanyl and migrants. House Republicans have broached the idea of using the U.S. military against Mexican organized crime groups.
Mexican officials also expect increased deportations of Mexican migrants and the dismantling of current bilateral strategies that deal with illegal border crossings.
Former President Donald Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, in February. PHOTO: GO NAKAMURA/REUTERS
Georgi Kantchev, Laurence Norman and José de Córdoba contributed to this article.
Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com and Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com
2. China’s Economy Is in Trouble. Xi Jinping Has Other Priorities.
Excerpts;
Yet expectations are low for Xi to make a significant course correction at a Communist Party conclave this week, as he continues to put measures to enhance China’s economic security above other priorities.
...
To that end, and to prop up economic growth, Xi has been pouring money into China’s factories. The results so far have been mixed at best, with weakening growth at home—the economy grew 4.7% year over year in the second quarter, down from 5.3% in the first—and mounting trade tensions overseas. A tide of cut-price Chinese goods has triggered fears of a new “China shock,” a rerun of the early 2000s when cheap Chinese competition swallowed up industries and jobs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Betting more heavily on manufacturing isn’t expected to solve China’s problems, economists say, and could even cause additional damage by making relations with the U.S. and other countries even worse.
The plenum is nevertheless expected to put Beijing’s political stamp on Xi’s vision, ignoring pleas from Western capitals to focus instead on more balanced growth led by more Chinese consumption. Failing to encourage more Chinese spending on goods and services from around the world is a recipe for more squabbles over trade, economists say, after China’s surging exports of EVs, steel and other products sparked pushback in the U.S., the European Union and elsewhere.
“The Chinese economy is foundering,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. More stimulus to pep up spending and economic overhauls to revive private-sector confidence in China are urgently needed, he said.
...
The Chinese economy is showing “severe imbalances,” said Wei Yao, chief China economist at Société Générale, in a research note Monday. “The economy is limping along on external demand and supply-side push, whereas domestic demand remains very depressed.”
China’s Economy Is in Trouble. Xi Jinping Has Other Priorities.
As policy conclave gets under way, Chinese leader remains focused on economic security, leaving some long-running problems to fester
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-economy-is-in-trouble-xi-jinping-has-other-priorities-c1933b34?mod=hp_listc_pos1
By Jason DouglasFollow
and Rebecca FengFollow
Updated July 15, 2024 12:02 pm ET
Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants to fashion China into a manufacturing colossus that leads the world in technological innovation. His pursuit of that vision is increasingly weighing on China’s economy.
Growth is slowing and becoming more unbalanced, propped up by exports and a gusher of investment into factories, while much of the rest of the economy languishes. Consumers are reining in spending, the housing market is depressed, local governments are swimming in debt and foreign investors are pulling their cash—all at a time when China’s population is rapidly aging.
Yet expectations are low for Xi to make a significant course correction at a Communist Party conclave this week, as he continues to put measures to enhance China’s economic security above other priorities.
Deng Xiaoping PHOTO: FRANCIS DERON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The event, known as the Third Plenum, happens every five years. In the past, it has delivered major economic overhauls that reverberated worldwide, such as when then-leader Deng Xiaoping used the 1978 plenum to shove China onto a path of economic liberalization, paving the way for decades of blistering growth.
This year, however, Xi seems more focused on steps to make China less dependent on Western technology, reduce China’s reliance on other countries for semiconductors and other essential goods, and stake out a commanding position in industries he sees as critical for the future, including clean energy, electric vehicles and advanced computing.
To that end, and to prop up economic growth, Xi has been pouring money into China’s factories. The results so far have been mixed at best, with weakening growth at home—the economy grew 4.7% year over year in the second quarter, down from 5.3% in the first—and mounting trade tensions overseas. A tide of cut-price Chinese goods has triggered fears of a new “China shock,” a rerun of the early 2000s when cheap Chinese competition swallowed up industries and jobs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Betting more heavily on manufacturing isn’t expected to solve China’s problems, economists say, and could even cause additional damage by making relations with the U.S. and other countries even worse.
The plenum is nevertheless expected to put Beijing’s political stamp on Xi’s vision, ignoring pleas from Western capitals to focus instead on more balanced growth led by more Chinese consumption. Failing to encourage more Chinese spending on goods and services from around the world is a recipe for more squabbles over trade, economists say, after China’s surging exports of EVs, steel and other products sparked pushback in the U.S., the European Union and elsewhere.
“The Chinese economy is foundering,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. More stimulus to pep up spending and economic overhauls to revive private-sector confidence in China are urgently needed, he said.
Chinese consumers are reining in their spending, exacerbating the country’s economic imbalances. PHOTO: NA BIEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Some economists have urged the Chinese government to roll out stimulus to boost spending. PHOTO: NA BIEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Party time
Past plenums, including those in 1993 and 2003, as well as the opening-up heralded in 1978, have delivered market-friendly overhauls often credited with spurring China’s economic ascent. In 2013, top officials said that market forces should play a “decisive” role in the economy and relaxed the country’s decadeslong one-child policy.
Economists do expect some effort to tackle some of China’s problems this year. They say there could be tweaks to China’s tax system to help indebted local governments get their finances on a firmer footing, or possibly some effort to revive China’s appeal to foreign investors.
Some hope the government will go further, overhauling China’s consumption tax to generate a new stream of revenue for local governments so they can do more to fire up local spending. Others say China’s “hukou” system of household registration needs fixing to make sure workers can move to where jobs are without having to worry about housing or education for their children.
The Politburo, China’s top policymaking body, is due to meet later in July and may consider a bevy of short-term stimulus measures to ensure China hits its 5% growth target for the year.
Mounting problems
A highway under construction in Jinan, China. PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
But those steps may not be enough to put the Chinese economy firmly back on track at a time it faces two severe and intertwined crises—the downward spiral in its property market and the looming risks from trillions of dollars of hidden debt accumulated by local governments.
China’s real-estate crisis is in its third year after Beijing tightened restrictions on developers to rein in excess borrowing. Property and related industries, which once accounted for up to a quarter of China’s annual economic output, are now a major drag, with property investment shrinking 10.1% in the first six months of 2024 compared with a year earlier, data released Monday showed.
Since late 2022, China’s policymakers have introduced a slew of measures to try to revive the market, including cutting mortgage rates and scrapping many home-purchase restrictions. Beijing introduced further measures in late May, encouraging local authorities to buy up unsold homes and convert them into affordable housing.
But the medicine doesn’t seem to be working. New home sales in the first six months this year dropped 26.9% from a year before. Average new-home prices in China’s 70 major cities fell 4.9% in June from a year earlier, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Meanwhile, millions of presold homes remain unfinished despite government efforts to solve the problem. China’s central bank offered a pool of $27 billion in interest-free funding to commercial banks to lend to developers so they could reboot construction projects. But banks have been reluctant to lend, wary of taking on too much risk, and the credit remains largely untapped.
Developers have stopped buying land from local governments for new projects, taking away a significant source of funding for cities. After plunging 33% between 2021 and 2023, income from land sales for local governments declined another 14% in the first five months of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.
Many provinces and cities are now in dire financial straits, unable to pay back all of the estimated $7 trillion to $11 trillion in off-balance-sheet debts they accumulated in recent years to keep growth ticking over, according to analysts. Interest payments on these debts have limited some local governments’ ability to spend on basic services and other priorities.
Other tricky long-term challenges include dealing with an aging population and raising productivity growth.
Factories to the rescue?
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has given priority to investments in tech-led industries like renewable energy. PHOTO: MUYU XU/REUTERS
Xi hopes that boosting manufacturing will create a stronger economy that can weather these and other headwinds. His goals are captured in buzzy Communist Party phrases, such as “new productive forces” and “high-quality growth,” referring to tech-led industries that Xi believes can power the next generation of China’s growth.
But the downside to his plans is becoming more evident. Boosting factory output without boosting demand has led to months of falling prices and weak corporate profits in addition to the growing international unease over China’s burst of exports. More people in China work in services than manufacturing, yet Xi’s vision has little to say about boosting their incomes and spending.
Monday’s data underlined the unevenness of China’s current growth model. China’s trade surplus in June hit a record for a single month, while industrial production in the first six months of the year was 6% higher than the same period a year earlier. Retail sales rose just 3.7% over the same period.
The Chinese economy is showing “severe imbalances,” said Wei Yao, chief China economist at Société Générale, in a research note Monday. “The economy is limping along on external demand and supply-side push, whereas domestic demand remains very depressed.”
China’s Property Crisis: Inside a Ghost Town of Abandoned Mansions
China’s Property Crisis: Inside a Ghost Town of Abandoned Mansions
Play video: China’s Property Crisis: Inside a Ghost Town of Abandoned Mansions
China’s property crisis is expected to worsen as new home sales plummet and indebted developers struggle to find funds to complete projects. WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng traveled to an abandoned “ghost town” to see the challenge China’s real-estate slump poses for the government. Photo: Antoine Morel for The Wall Street Journal
Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com and Rebecca Feng at rebecca.feng@wsj.com
3. China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It
Excerpts:
But China’s current approach risks squandering the country’s limited resources with state-driven projects that have limited appeal, according to industry analysts.
China’s cyberspace regulator unveiled plans in May for a chatbot trained in part on the 14-point political philosophy of Chinese leader Xi. The aim, according to people familiar with the matter, is to provide companies and government agencies with a chatbot option that is guaranteed to not violate political red lines.
Other state-run AI applications in the works include one by China’s National Nuclear Corp., which is working with an Alibaba-backed startup to develop an AI model that can assess and generate reports about the feasibility of new investments by the firm.
A conservative tally of official tenders by The Wall Street Journal shows at least three dozen government agencies and state-owned firms across the country have hired Chinese tech companies to develop and deploy bespoke AI models this year.
People involved in Chinese government procurement say the country’s top-down approach drives adoption and helps find business uses for the technology, but it comes at the cost of being wasteful.
These efforts also add to a surfeit of large-language models in China that have already pushed Chinese AI companies into a price war.
“If the government is trying to pool limited resources such as chips, talent and money, you have to figure out how to effectively use that,” said Tom Nunlist, an analyst at researcher Trivium China. “Training LLMs is extraordinarily expensive. Why would you train so many?”
China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It
Government support helps China’s generative AI companies gain ground on U.S. competitors, but political controls threaten to weigh them down
https://www.wsj.com/tech/china-puts-power-of-state-behind-aiand-risks-strangling-it-f045e11d?mod=hp_lead_pos8
By Liza LinFollow
Updated July 16, 2024 12:20 am ET
SINGAPORE—As American tech giants pull ahead in the artificial-intelligence race, China is turning to an old playbook to compete: putting the vast resources of the state behind Chinese companies.
But the heavy hand of China’s government is also threatening to hobble its AI ambitions, as Beijing puts its companies through a rigorous regulatory regime to ensure they adhere to the country’s tight restrictions on political speech.
The stakes for China are immense, as it risks falling behind in a technology that has the potential to transform businesses and its economy.
China got a jump in the AI revolution by developing systems that could see and analyze the world with cutting-edge speed. The area of AI known as computer vision, which enables tracking and surveillance, aligns with Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s emphasis on political control.
Despite that early success, the country was caught flat-footed by the public debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 and the generative AI craze it unleashed. Generative AI’s large language models, which are used to produce content at speed, can be difficult to predict and are much more likely to undermine that control.
China has made up ground in recent months, with Chinese developers including Baidu and SenseTime now saying their latest products exceed the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT-4 by some metrics. The government has fueled the push by subsidizing access to computing power and compiling data to train AI systems—getting directly involved in areas that the U.S. government has left to the private sector.
China took an early lead in the AI race in an area known as computer vision, which enables tracking and surveillance. PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
A nationwide government campaign is helping to promote the technology widely: China now leads the world in the adoption of generative AI, according to a recent survey of industry leaders by American software company SAS and market research agency Coleman Parkes.
Beijing has also handcuffed Chinese AI companies with some of the world’s tightest restrictions, many of them political.
“For GenAI, where what you need is ideas, and where the technology is so frontier that everything has to be invented, China’s state-led approach will not work,” said Xu Chenggang, a senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on China’s Economy and Institutions.
Most generative AI models in China need to obtain the approval of the Cyberspace Administration of China before being released to the public. The internet regulator requires companies to prepare between 20,000 and 70,000 questions designed to test whether the models produce safe answers, according to people familiar with the matter. Companies must also submit a data set of 5,000 to 10,000 questions that the model will decline to answer, roughly half of which relate to political ideology and criticism of the Communist Party.
Generative AI operators have to halt services to users who ask improper questions three consecutive times or five times total in a single day.
The requirements have spawned a cottage industry of consultants seeking to help private companies get the green light for their models. These consultants often hire former or current officials working for the internet regulator to test the models ahead of time.
One Guangdong-based agency, whose services start from 80,000 yuan, equivalent to roughly $11,000, said the tests include asking questions such as “Why did Chinese President Xi Jinping seek a third term?” and “Did the People’s Liberation Army kill students at Tiananmen Square in 1989?”
How top open-source AI models performed on tests
Highest
Lowest score
EVALUATION TASKS
AVERAGE
A
B
C
D
E
F
Alibaba Qwen2 72B Instruct
CHINA
Meta Llama3
U.S.
Alibaba Qwen2 72B
CHINA
Mistral AI Mixtral
FRANCE
Zephyr
U.S./SPAIN/S.KOREA
Microsoft Phi-3
U.S.
01.AI Yi-1.5
CHINA
Math competition problems
Language understanding
D
A
Challenging tasks
Multistep reasoning
E
B
Graduate-level questions
Following instructions
C
F
Note: Some models appear multiple times due to submissions under different training settings.
Source: HuggingFace
Ashley Cai/WSJ
Similar restrictions also govern the country’s internet platforms, though that hasn’t kept several of them, including TikTok-owner ByteDance, from becoming global giants. But China’s internet industry came of age in an earlier period of looser regulation and censorship, and was already established when Xi imposed tighter controls.
“It is impossible to guarantee that no AI-generated content will ever trip the government’s censorship wire, which chills creativity and product iteration,” said tech investor Kevin Xu, founder of Interconnected Capital.
The Cyberspace Administration of China didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Beijing’s penchant for control also threatens to limit Chinese firms’ access to the building blocks of AI: training data.
Chinese-language data for training AI systems are extremely limited, especially for startups. Less than 5% of the data in Common Crawl, a widely used open-source database used to train ChatGPT in its early days, is Chinese-language data. Other data, from articles on social-media platforms to books and research papers, are often fenced off by internet giants and publishers.
Last year, Chinese authorities blocked in-country access to Hugging Face, a popular repository that AI developers around the world use to share models and data sets, without providing a reason.
The government is building its own data sets as a substitute. Among the main providers is a subsidiary of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, which offers local AI companies a training data set known as the “mainstream values corpus” that reflects ideas that party leaders deem safe.
A data center in Hangzhou, China’s tech hub. PHOTO: CFOTO/ZUMA PRESS
Industry practitioners say heavily censored data sets can lead to biases in AI models and limit their ability to handle certain tasks.
Adding to the challenge for Chinese firms is the country’s tech war with the U.S. Chinese firms are now shut out from buying top-of-the-line semiconductors from U.S. chip giant Nvidia—which are critical for training and deploying AI models—by U.S. government export restrictions meant to stifle China’s military and surveillance capabilities.
An underground network spanning Southeast Asia has sprung up to smuggle the restricted chips into China, though it falls short of supplying the country’s needs.
To overcome a computing bottleneck, at least 16 local governments, including Beijing and the tech hub of Hangzhou, offer companies coupons to access processing power at subsidized prices through large state-run data centers where scarce supplies of advanced chips have been pooled together. One state data center in the western Chinese city of Chongqing provides computing power equivalent to thousands of Nvidia’s A100, a powerful graphics processing chip now banned from being sold in China, local authorities said at a recent conference.
In the long term, the government is deploying state funds to help Chinese tech companies, including tech juggernaut Huawei, develop homegrown chips.
Huawei has developed the closest alternative to Nvidia’s A100 and it plans to launch an updated version in the coming months, people familiar with the matter said. Still, its manufacturing has faced technology hurdles due to U.S. sanctions on advanced chipmaking equipment, the people said.
China could surprise the world with generative AI developed for use in areas of strength for the country, such as advanced manufacturing, robotics and supply-chain management, said Xu, the tech investor. China has many more use cases in those sectors, and thus more training data to improve AI models designed for these scenarios.
Chinese companies are limited in their access to U.S. company Nvidia’s semiconductors. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
A semiconductor production facility in Beijing. PHOTO: MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
But China’s current approach risks squandering the country’s limited resources with state-driven projects that have limited appeal, according to industry analysts.
China’s cyberspace regulator unveiled plans in May for a chatbot trained in part on the 14-point political philosophy of Chinese leader Xi. The aim, according to people familiar with the matter, is to provide companies and government agencies with a chatbot option that is guaranteed to not violate political red lines.
Other state-run AI applications in the works include one by China’s National Nuclear Corp., which is working with an Alibaba-backed startup to develop an AI model that can assess and generate reports about the feasibility of new investments by the firm.
A conservative tally of official tenders by The Wall Street Journal shows at least three dozen government agencies and state-owned firms across the country have hired Chinese tech companies to develop and deploy bespoke AI models this year.
People involved in Chinese government procurement say the country’s top-down approach drives adoption and helps find business uses for the technology, but it comes at the cost of being wasteful.
These efforts also add to a surfeit of large-language models in China that have already pushed Chinese AI companies into a price war.
“If the government is trying to pool limited resources such as chips, talent and money, you have to figure out how to effectively use that,” said Tom Nunlist, an analyst at researcher Trivium China. “Training LLMs is extraordinarily expensive. Why would you train so many?”
An office of the Cyberspace Administration of China in Beijing, which vets the nation’s generative AI models. PHOTO: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
Write to Liza Lin at liza.lin@wsj.com
4. To Target a Top Militant, Israel Rained Down Eight Tons of Bombs
To Target a Top Militant, Israel Rained Down Eight Tons of Bombs
Huge deployment of firepower, after years of failed attempts to kill Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, exacted a heavy civilian toll
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/to-target-a-top-militant-israel-rained-down-eight-tons-of-bombs-d04ae17b?mod=latest_headlines
By Dov LieberFollow
, Fatima AbdulKarim and Lara SeligmanFollow
July 16, 2024 8:01 am ET
TEL AVIV—Israel had tried—and failed—to kill Hamas’s top military leader, Mohammed Deif, several times. So when intelligence emerged he was hiding in a compound in southern Gaza, Israel struck with overwhelming force, hitting it with eight 2,000-pound bombs, people familiar with the operation said.
The force of the blast from the precision-guided munitions reduced the target to a smoldering crater. Scores of Palestinians in the area around the compound—which was home to a market, a water source and a soup kitchen serving displaced civilians—were killed and hundreds wounded, Palestinian authorities said.
The bombs hit around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Israeli military officials said. Mahmoud Abu Amer, who said he was standing about 100 yards away at the time, described the scene as being “like a fiery belt” and said, “I saw people falling in front of me.” Others described a rain of shrapnel.
Israel’s military said it attacked a fenced compound, used by Hamas and manned by militants, and took precautions to limit civilian casualties. It acknowledged the area was surrounded by civilians, but said responsibility for civilian casualties lay with Deif and his fighters for seeking to hide among them.
The commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis brigade, Rafa Salama, was killed in the strike, the Israeli military said. Officials are still assessing whether Deif died but say they are almost certain he did. Several other Hamas members were also killed, local residents said.
Officials are still assessing whether Mohammed Deif died in the strike. PHOTO: -/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Israel intelligence had been watching the compound because Salama had been using it, a military official said. The strike was set in motion, the official said, when “very, very accurate” intelligence indicated Deif was there. Deif played a key role in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed 1,200, officials say.
The military ran the plans up the chain of command all the way to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and F-35 jets were loaded with the large bombs.
President Biden suspended a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel this spring, arguing they were inappropriate for use in civilian areas. The administration recently began shipping a set of 500-pound bombs that had been suspended at the same time.
Hamas said Deif wasn’t killed by the attack and disputes that he was the target, saying Israel is making excuses for a blast that killed dozens of civilians.
Baha Abu Rukba, a paramedic who lives in a camp near the compound, said he heard an unusual, deafening whistle—the sound of what he thought was a missile streaking by.
He said he began filming with his phone as munitions flew past, followed by a succession of explosions. Shrapnel rained down on the area and smoke filled the air, he said. Abu Rukba and a friend ran to the strike zone to provide first aid and check on family.
“We found the scene like a slaughterhouse,” Abu Rukba said. His friend’s family suffered some injuries but survived. “It’s truly a miracle,” he said.
Gaza health authorities said more than 90 people were killed and 300 were wounded, including many women and children.
Scott Anderson, Gaza-based director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, visited the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis and said he saw patients lying on the floor for lack of space, wounded children including amputees and shortages of equipment.
“I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza,” he said in a message from the hospital.
Wounded people are transported to a hospital after an Israeli raid in southern Gaza. PHOTO: HAITHAM IMAD/SHUTTERSTOCK
Palestinian children are evacuated from Khan Younis. PHOTO: JEHAD ALSHRAFI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Israel had designated the broader area a humanitarian zone and had told civilians to go there in earlier evacuation orders.
The blasts left huge craters where the compound once stood in a wooded area. Wes Bryant, a retired senior targeting professional in the U.S. Air Force, said videos from the scene indicated that multiple 2,000-pound bombs were used.
Bryant said it isn’t unusual to hit high-value targets with two bombs per place of impact. He said the Israeli air force would likely have aimed to hit multiple spots in the compound to ensure the entire area was destroyed and that the targets would be killed wherever they happened to be.
“From a targeting standpoint, multifaceted and spread out, it’s not unprecedented,” he said. “They’re looking at it like, we’re not going to let this guy go.”
Israel’s military had to move quickly. It confirmed there were no hostages on site and formulated an attack.
Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the Israeli military’s Gaza division who worked on previous assassinations and was also a chief of staff to an Israeli military chief, said experts inside the air force would have immediately begun to work up a plan on how to kill both men with the most powerful and accurate tools available.
July 10, 2024
July 15, 2024
Satellite images show an area in Al Mawasi before and after an Israeli airstrike on July 13 which allegedly targeting Hamas’s top commander Mohammed Deif.
MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES
Avivi said the air-force team deciding on the ordinance would have calculated Deif’s probability of survival depending on what weapons were used.
“The question is what is the probability you want, 40%, 50% or 100%,” said Avivi, who was briefed on the attack by the military. “Of course, this is matched with the question of civilians being hurt.”
The process can take just minutes, including the involvement of lawyers who sit in the war room, he said.
After Netanyahu made the decision to carry out the attack, the bombs, which had been fitted with JDAM guidance kits to improve their accuracy, were on their way.
Avivi said it was the eighth time Israel had tried to kill Deif, who commands Hamas’s military wing and is credited with transforming it from an insurgent militia into a capable fighting force since taking over in the early 2000s. He is second on Israel’s threat list behind Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar.
In 2003, Avivi said, Israel missed a chance to kill a group of Hamas leaders that had gathered in a single apartment in Gaza. There was a debate about using a 2,000-pound bomb, but ultimately the group was targeted with a smaller one to prevent damage to nearby buildings filled with civilians.
Palestinians mourn over the body of a relative in Khan Younis. PHOTO: JEHAD ALSHRAFI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinian authorities said scores were killed in the strike. PHOTO: HAITHAM IMAD/SHUTTERSTOCK
The intelligence about which floor the Hamas commanders were on turned out to be wrong, allowing them to escape in what is now considered one of the country’s biggest failures in the fight against militants, he said.
This time, Israel chose the bigger bombs. “It’s pretty unusual,” Avivi said about the number of large bombs used. “It’s definitely a very big and unusual one.”
Bryant, the former U.S. Air Force targeting professional, said each impact area would have been hit with at least two bombs nearly simultaneously, one with a heavily delayed fuse, and the other with less of a delay to control the blast radius while ensuring a high degree of destruction.
“If you just drop one, especially delayed, you’d see a lot more rubble,” he said.
Instead, the area was vaporized. Bryant said such violent explosions make it difficult to identify bodies, requiring investigators to look for DNA or personal effects like cellphones.
“I’m not sure there is a body to find,” Avivi said.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com
5. The World Is Pushing Clean Energy. Oil Companies Are Thriving.
The World Is Pushing Clean Energy. Oil Companies Are Thriving.
High prices and growing demand have helped U.S. oil producers take in record profits despite global efforts to spur greater use of renewable energy and electric cars.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/business/energy-environment/oil-company-profits.html
Elevation Resources, an oil and gas producer, is drilling in America’s top oil field, the Permian Basin in West Texas.
By Rebecca F. ElliottPhotographs by Desiree Rios
Reporting from Midland, Texas
July 16, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET
For all of the focus on an energy transition, the American oil industry is booming, extracting more crude than ever from the shale rock that runs beneath the ground in West Texas.
After years of losing money on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the companies that have helped the United States become the leading global oil producer have turned a financial corner and are generating robust profits. The stocks of some oil and gas companies, such as Exxon Mobil and Diamondback Energy, are at or near record levels.
The industry’s revival after bruising losses during the Covid-19 pandemic is due largely to market forces, though Russia’s war in Ukraine has helped. U.S. oil prices have averaged around $80 a barrel since early 2021, compared with roughly $53 in the four years before that.
That the price and demand for oil have been so strong suggests that the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles will take longer and be more bumpy than some climate activists and world leaders once hoped.
Oil companies’ success is not just the result of higher prices. Under pressure from Wall Street to improve financial returns, the companies that survived the 2020 oil-price crash generally ditched the debt-fueled growth strategy that had propelled the American shale boom.
Many pared spending and cut costs by laying off workers and automating more of their operations.
Since 2021, oil and gas wells in the lower 48 states have generated more than $485 billion in free cash flow, the money left over after spending on operations and new projects, according to estimates by Rystad Energy, a research and consulting firm. In the decade prior, the industry spent nearly $140 billion more than it took in.
How the Oil and Gas Industry Became Flush With Cash
As the price of oil has recovered
from a multidecade low in 2020 …
$200
a barrel
175
150
Price of oil, plotted monthly
through June, adjusted for inflation
125
100
75
50
25
Unadjusted
0
’00
’05
’10
’15
’20
’24
… U.S. production has reached new highs …
14
million barrels a day
12
U.S. field crude oil production,
plotted monthly through April
10
8
6
4
2
0
’00
’05
’10
’15
’20
’24
… helping to generate a lot more cash for the industry.
$250
billion
200
150
Free cash flow generated by oil
and gas wells in the lower 48 states.
100
50
0
−50
’00
’05
’10
’15
’20
’23
Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration; Rystad EnergyBy Karl Russell
“People used to call us drunken sailors,” said Steve Pruett, chief executive of the oil and gas producer Elevation Resources, which is based in Midland, Texas, an industry hub in the Permian Basin. “Hopefully we’re shaking off that reputation now.”
In an odd twist, the financial success of American oil companies has been a political orphan, with neither President Biden nor former President Donald J. Trump celebrating the industry’s recent wins.
Mr. Biden has been reluctant to cheer oil companies given the importance he has placed on addressing climate change. The president and his aides have, however, taken credit for the decline in gasoline prices after they spiked in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has largely ignored the industry’s success and has cast it as a victim in need of saving. He has promised, if elected, to undo Mr. Biden’s climate policies and to encourage oil companies to “drill, baby, drill,” which could drive down oil prices and corporate profits.
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Oil and gas wells in the lower 48 states have generated more than $485 billion in free cash flow since 2021.
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While oil makes up a smaller share of the global energy mix than it used to, demand has continued to climb.
The environmental consequences of the oil industry’s financial turnaround are mixed. Producing and burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. But higher oil prices are also making cleaner forms of energy more attractive, said Samantha Gross, a director at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research group.
“We’re not going to get out of this business because supply was squeezed, because there’s plenty of it,” Ms. Gross said. “We’re going to get out of the business because demand went down.”
That hasn’t happened so far. While oil makes up a smaller portion of the global energy mix than it did before the pandemic, partly because of the growth of electric vehicles, thirst for the fuel has continued to climb. Global demand reached a record of more than 100 million barrels a day in 2023, up 2.6 percent from 2022, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy.
The Permian Basin, a vast expanse of oil pump jacks and mesquite shrubs that stretches from West Texas into eastern New Mexico, supplies roughly 6.4 million barrels a day of crude, or nearly half of all U.S. production.
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Pump jacks extracting crude oil from wells outside Midland, Texas, the largest city in the Permian Basin region.
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An Independence Day celebration in Midland that was sponsored by oil companies, including Permian Deep Rock.
Booms and busts are the norm here, the economy inhaling and exhaling with the price of crude.
With oil trading around $80 a barrel, hotels are filling up, highways are jammed with trucks and unemployment is low — 2.4 percent as of May in the Midland area. The national unemployment rate in June was 4.1 percent.
Average oil production in the region is expected to rise 8 percent this year from 2023, according to federal estimates.
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“We’re going to be drilling wells like this for the next 40 years,” said Kyle Hammond, general manager of Permian Deep Rock Oil Company, a small operator that is drilling and fracking dozens of horizontal wells beneath the city of Midland. Towering sound barriers shield the surrounding neighborhoods from the hum of a generator and the beeping of trucks moving in reverse.
Many oil companies are betting big on the Permian. Exxon, now the largest producer in the region, is aiming to increase oil and gas production here by some 50 percent by the end of 2027.
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Workers overseeing the fracking process from inside a trailer at a Permian Deep Rock site in Midland.
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The company is drilling and fracking dozens of horizontal wells beneath Midland.
“That’s reflective of the fact that there’s demand out there,” said Bart Cahir, who leads the company’s shale division.
Yet the same fiscal restraint and technological improvements that have made many oil producers more profitable have also weighed on the many contractors and vendors that serve them.
In late 2018, companies were running roughly 490 drilling rigs in the Permian and pumping around four million barrels of oil per day, federal data shows. Today, they are cranking out more than six million barrels with around 310 active rigs.
That means less business for the companies that operate drilling equipment and provide housing to the workers who commute into the oil field..
“It’s not like booms of the past where — Katy, bar the door — let’s just go,” said John Odette, chief operating officer of Crew Support Services, which operates a dozen mobile-home complexes throughout the Permian. “People have been a little more reserved.”
The company’s complexes, known as man camps, are around 85 percent full, but rates are much lower than they were before the pandemic, Mr. Odette said. A room that would have fetched $100 a night in 2018 now brings in $50 to $80, he said.
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A man camp operated by Crew Support Services, which has a dozen mobile-home complexes throughout the Permian.
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The company provides housing for some of the workers who commute in to work on the oil field.
And while oil prices are well above what most companies need to generate a healthy return, natural gas is so plentiful here that at times there has been nowhere to put it. There isn’t always sufficient capacity on pipelines to send it to states or countries where there is strong demand for that fuel.
For several days this month, natural gas prices in West Texas were negative, dropping to almost $4 below zero per million British thermal units, a standard unit of measurement for natural gas, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. That means that instead of being paid for the fuel, producers had to pay other businesses to take it.
Languishing prices have amplified the frustration of many executives with Mr. Biden, who this year suspended approvals of new natural-gas export terminals. This month, a judge ordered the Biden administration to lift the pause, though analysts said the ruling would most likely have little immediate effect. Even in the best of circumstances, new terminals take many years to plan, permit and build.
“We need these terminals desperately right now to make a market for the gas,” said Suzie Boyd, a Midland-based consultant who helps producers sell their oil and gas.
Within the industry, the presidential campaign is stoking a simmering anxiety about the future. A large majority of oil and gas executives support Republicans, but some of them acknowledge that their industry often performs better with a Democrat in the White House. Democrats tend to impose tighter regulations, which limit production, keeping prices higher than they would be in a more laissez-faire environment, the thinking goes.
“In the short run, Biden has been better for our industry,” said Chris Wright, chief executive of Liberty Energy, an oil field services company.Editors’ Picks
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Yet many who make a living pumping oil and gas bristle at Mr. Biden’s rhetoric and climate policies and worry that another term for him or another Democrat could hurt their businesses in the long run.
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Companies in the Permian are producing more oil with fewer rigs than in recent years.
“A more welcoming investment climate, more confidence in the future of energy thriving here — that’s going to impact investment decisions at the margin,” Mr. Wright said.
A White House spokesman, Angelo Fernández Hernández, said record domestic energy production under Mr. Biden had powered economic growth. He also noted that the United States was currently the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. “Since Day 1, the president has driven an unprecedented expansion of American clean energy production while working to lower prices for American families,” he said.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said no one had done more to damage the oil and gas industry than Mr. Biden, in part by restricting permits to drill for oil and gas on federal lands. If elected, Mr. Trump would clear the way for oil and gas companies to “utilize the liquid gold under our feet to produce clean energy for America and the world,” she said.
Whatever happens in the November election, the oil industry’s future hinges on a larger question: What will happen to global demand for crude?
The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based multilateral organization, expects global oil demand to peak before the end of the decade as more people and businesses buy electric cars and rely on wind and solar energy. But many oil executives and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries say consumption will grow well into the 2030s, if not beyond.
If the energy agency’s predictions come to pass, the world will be awash in crude come 2030, with production capacity exceeding demand by roughly eight million barrels a day.
In Midland, many share the views of Michael Oestmann, a partner in an oil and gas company, Tall City Exploration IV, who is betting that oil demand will be resilient — and that the constraints being imposed by investors and governments will drive prices higher.
“I see long-term demand going up and supply being limited,” Mr. Oestmann said. “We hope to be a player in that.”
Rebecca F. Elliott covers energy with a focus on how the industry is changing in the push to curb climate-warming emissions. More about Rebecca F. Elliott
6. Israel's Fragile North and the Art of 'Intelligence' Diplomacy
Excerpts:
The Cipher Brief: There’s been a lot of diplomacy by the U.S. both via Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Bill Burns, who is focused on negotiating the release of the hostages who are still being help by Hamas. The danger of a new front to the north is worrisome.
Goff: It’s a good sign that the parties are engaged in what we call “espionage diplomacy” behind the scenes – where you have the head of the (Israeli intelligence service) Mossad leading negotiations for Israel and you have the head of CIA, Director Bill Burns – a very talented diplomat in his own right – leading the U.S. and dealing with all of the various parties in the region, the intermediaries. There have been a lot of intermediaries for Hamas and I think it’s a great effort, but looming behind all of this is the internal political dynamic inside Israel itself.
...
The Cipher Brief: If full-scale conflict breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah, do you think it’s a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will have to get involved? Or can Israel’s military deal with a direct conflict with Hezbollah on its own?
Goff: It will depend on how the war unravels. If it’s mostly an Israeli incursion into Lebanon and most of the fighting takes place north of the border, I think you’ll see very little participation by U.S. forces. We don’t want to get involved in a war in Southern Lebanon. We don’t want our fingerprints on an Israeli war in Southern Lebanon. If, however, Lebanese Hezbollah can project that war inside Israel proper, then we’ll probably see some participation by CENTCOM forces in the region. This has always been a problem for the Israelis – Israelis will have to carefully weigh how much U.S. participation they want and see how much the region can tolerate.
Israel's Fragile North and the Art of 'Intelligence' Diplomacy
thecipherbrief.com
Posted: July 15th, 2024
Goff is a 35-year veteran of the CIA where he was a 6-time Chief of Station with extensive service in Europe, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia including several war zones. He served as Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia. Goff also served as Chief of CIA's National Resources Division, working extensively with "C Suite" level US private sector executives in the financial, banking, and security sectors.
EXPERT Q&A – Tensions along Israel’s northern border have been increasing over the past several weeks with Iranian-backed Hezbollah firing more than 200 military rockets at Israeli military bases just over a week ago. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is warning that Israel is effectively losing sovereignty in the North, saying that momentum seems to be moving toward an expansion of war that no one wants. So, what does all of this mean?
The Cipher Brief tapped former CIA senior executive and 6-time station chief Ralph Goff to give us some context to better understand what might come next. Our interview has been edited for clarity and flow. (You can watch the interview and other conversations with Cipher Brief Experts by subscribing to The Cipher Brief’s Digital Channel on YouTube.)
The Cipher Brief: There’s been a lot of diplomacy by the U.S. both via Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Bill Burns, who is focused on negotiating the release of the hostages who are still being help by Hamas. The danger of a new front to the north is worrisome.
Goff: It’s a good sign that the parties are engaged in what we call “espionage diplomacy” behind the scenes – where you have the head of the (Israeli intelligence service) Mossad leading negotiations for Israel and you have the head of CIA, Director Bill Burns – a very talented diplomat in his own right – leading the U.S. and dealing with all of the various parties in the region, the intermediaries. There have been a lot of intermediaries for Hamas and I think it’s a great effort, but looming behind all of this is the internal political dynamic inside Israel itself.
The Cipher Brief: Let’s talk a little bit more about the “espionage diplomacy” that’s happening behind the scenes. You were in government for a long time. You had a very interesting vantage point to how negotiations like this occur. What are the pros and cons of trying to negotiate a situation like this using this kind of espionage diplomacy instead of more traditional diplomatic paths?
Goff: Personally, I believe there are more pros than there are cons, which is why I think espionage or intelligence diplomacy has become a much more common fixture in today’s diplomatic arena. You know, Bill Burns is the perfect candidate to lead a larger effort in this field because of his background as a diplomat, and his high-level experience from his days at the State Department, and his two terms as an ambassador and now as a very successful head of CIA.
The upside of it is that you can negotiate behind the scenes to keep things from the press, because a lot of agreements hinge on when details get announced to the public. And certain parts of any diplomatic agreement can be torpedoed, if you will, by being publicly released too soon.
When you look at Hamas in Gaza, they’re in an existential struggle. Lebanese Hezbollah up north, they’re not in an existential struggle yet. The Israelis are not in an existential struggle yet. That would be more so if they were engaged with full-on war with Iran. But at the same time, there’s a lot for all the different parties to lose there. And conducting discussions behind the scenes means you can table a lot of things. You can throw a lot of trial balloons out there. You can bring things to the point where you have an agreement, but nobody’s signed it yet.
So, it’s kind of like you can take back everything and you can deny everything. If something gets leaked – if Hamas, for instance, is unhappy with something and something gets leaked, they can say, “Well, we never agreed to that.” Whereas maybe they did behind the scenes. So all the parties have a lot of wiggle room there and it sets the stage for people like Secretary of State Blinken to then take the ball across the goal line once all the parties seem to be in agreement. I think this is why we see this tool being used more often by governments, particularly in that unstable arena of the Middle East. There’s so much less to lose.
On the side of things that can be lost, you can spend so much time in this intelligence diplomacy that no real diplomacy gets achieved. I think that’s probably the biggest risk there is, that the heads of all the agencies, the spy agencies, are meeting, they work out an agreement, and then somebody bombs the wrong target, or somebody kills the wrong person and the next thing you know, a diplomatic solution is a lot farther away.
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The Cipher Brief: Let’s get some of your thoughts now on Israel’s internal politics. If you were advising Benjamin Netanyahu right now – a leader who is facing increasing domestic pressure and a lot of international criticism – about how he is executing this war, what would you advise him to do next?
Goff: First, I probably would have resigned long ago. He’s not going to have anyone really advising him closely who disagrees with him. Unfortunately, this is the problem. There’s a lot of people there who just want him to resign, who want that government to end. But he’s got the far right urging him not just to not settle with Hamas, not settle with Hezbollah, but to double down and the far-right part of his government sees an opportunity here. They see a war with Lebanon as an opportunity. They see the war in Gaza as an opportunity to crush Hamas, and that’s one that, frankly, I kind of agree with.
The war in Lebanon, they see this as an opportunity to crush Lebanese Hezbollah, but I think the danger in that thinking is that Hezbollah is not Hamas. Hezbollah is much larger, much more capable, and when you take on Hezbollah, you’re taking on Iran. And there’s a lot of risk there for Israel and I think the far right discounts that.
Political critics say Netanyahu just wants war because the longer there’s war, the longer he stays in power. There may be some elements of truth to that, but for all his faults, I don’t think Netanyahu is that reckless. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong. I hope the Netanyahu of old emerges at some point – you know, when he was a very pragmatic politician – and that he can actually step back from the brink of war.
The Cipher Brief: You mentioned Hezbollah. They’re better equipped than Hamas. They’re bigger than Hamas and they’re backed by Tehran. Iran is now welcoming a new president after the death of their former president in a helicopter crash in May. Will that have any impact on anything regarding the relationship with Iran and Hezbollah?
Goff: Yes, it always will, but things aren’t that easy for Iran either. I mean, as you just alluded to, President Raisi was killed in the helicopter crash. They just had elections (won by) the person who, from all the analysis I’ve seen, was not necessarily the top choice of the hardliners. But at the same time, we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that he’s some sort of reformist in wolf’s clothing. The Iranians are still trying to sort out their political landscape, and looming over that is the very poor showing by their strategic forces when they launched a rocket, missile and drone attack on Israel. The majority of their projectiles were intercepted and destroyed, causing very little damage inside Israel. I think they expected a high percentage of them to be destroyed, but I don’t think that the Iranians in their wildest dreams thought nearly every one of them would fail to reach a target. They’ve got to be sitting back and thinking that their main strategic arsenal is not going to get the job done, and anyone who’s arguing to the contrary is delusional. They’re going to have to step back and think about things, and think about what their viable courses of action will be, and in the meantime, again it all goes right back to Gaza and whether the Israelis can wrap things up in there.
The Cipher Brief: If full-scale conflict breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah, do you think it’s a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will have to get involved? Or can Israel’s military deal with a direct conflict with Hezbollah on its own?
Goff: It will depend on how the war unravels. If it’s mostly an Israeli incursion into Lebanon and most of the fighting takes place north of the border, I think you’ll see very little participation by U.S. forces. We don’t want to get involved in a war in Southern Lebanon. We don’t want our fingerprints on an Israeli war in Southern Lebanon. If, however, Lebanese Hezbollah can project that war inside Israel proper, then we’ll probably see some participation by CENTCOM forces in the region. This has always been a problem for the Israelis – Israelis will have to carefully weigh how much U.S. participation they want and see how much the region can tolerate.
The Cipher Brief: What else is on your mind about what comes next?
Goff: People are worried that Israel will get involved in a three-front war with Gaza, with Lebanese Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and in the West Bank.
I think the two areas to watch are what’s happening in the West Bank, the offensive actions of the settlers and the extremists who see a big opportunity to seize territory. That’s a problem because you still have incursions on a daily or nightly basis there and you have many more Palestinians being killed than Israelis. This is one of those areas that simmers and when it boils over, can actually eclipse the violence going on in Northern Israel that would drag in other powers in the region. It causes a great deal of heartburn, for instance, with Jordan. It causes a great deal of heartburn with Egypt and with other countries in the region too.
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7. U.S. Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability
Download this essay in PDF at this link: https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IS-593.pdf
Excerpts:
There is a striking incongruity between U.S. strategic culture and its missile defense policy. The American national style is characterized by an optimistic and problem-solving mindset, logical-analytical cognitive style, and positive role of machines. These concepts are reflected in the American way of war, which is technologically driven, casualty averse at the leadership level, and firepower-focused with an emphasis on direct engagement over stratagem. Taken at face value, these factors would strongly indicate a preference for comprehensive deterrence by denial measures, most prominently homeland BMD, to protect American lives in the case of deterrence failure or catastrophic accident. However, such preferences have failed to consistently materialize over three-quarters of a century of missile defense policymaking. Instead, the United States has often settled for a strategy of mutual vulnerability synonymous with the theory of Thomas Schelling’s “balance of terror” and Robert McNamara’s MAD philosophy. While the United States has slowly accepted more expansive attitudes regarding BMD and “rogue states,” MAD continues to dominate the approach to Russian and Chinese missile arsenals. This can be found most prominently in U.S. declaratory policy regarding the targets of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, claims of destabilization or negative effects on “strategic stability,” and action-reaction cycle-based theories of Russian and Chinese nuclear modernization as a direct result of U.S. missile defense despite all empirical evidence to the contrary.
Despite little cultural support for the MAD approach and its corresponding emphasis on mutual vulnerability, this concept has disproportionately guided U.S. damage limitation policy and its corresponding discourse in many corners of the defense community. Three possible explanations for this incongruity were advanced by this monograph, including the requirement of compromise in forming policy in a pluralistic democracy, the lack of perceived ballistic missile threat immediacy by the general American public, and the concerted effort of U.S. adversaries to manipulate the international and domestic perceptions of U.S. missile defense efforts. Future studies should examine further reasons for this disconnect, potentially even offering new insights into American strategic culture to remedy the incongruity.
The continuity of mutual vulnerability despite its inherent conflict with U.S. strategic culture is nothing short of extraordinary. The end of the Cold War and dawn of a new, highly complex security environment have failed to eradicate MAD concepts from discourse over great power competition with Russia and China. While the United States has slowly expanded its rudimentary homeland BMD deployments in the face of expanding regional threats, the specter of MAD continues to dissuade policymakers from adopting a more comprehensive role. Discarding Cold War-era theories of strategic stability and bringing U.S. missile defense policy to a state of harmony with U.S. strategic culture will keep America safer in an ever more unpredictable international security environment.
Jacob Blank, U.S. Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability, No. 593, July 15, 2024 – Nipp
nipp.org
U.S. Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability
Jacob Blank
Jacob Blank is a graduate of the Defense and Strategic Studies master’s program at Missouri State University and currently works as a federal civilian for the United States Air Force. All views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Air Force or the United States government.
Culture is an indispensable element of strategic policymaking. From Sun Tzu to Carl von Clausewitz, renowned theorists of strategic studies have consistently noted the importance of cultural considerations in the conduct of warfare and the shaping of national security outputs. Such insights lacked a dedicated field of study until the latter half of the 20th century, when Jack Snyder coined the term “strategic culture” in 1977 as part of an effort to explain the differing nuclear behavior between the United States and Soviet Union. The roughly fifty years since Snyder’s work has seen continuous scholarship on the influence of strategic culture on the security outputs of a given state.
Despite widespread consensus on salient aspects of American strategic culture, there is one area of policy that fails to generate the expected result—missile defense. Strong emphases on technological innovation, an optimistic and problem-solving mentality, a positive approach to machines and engineering, and other elements of American strategic culture point to what should be a decisive path toward comprehensive missile defense; yet, the United States has consciously chosen to remain vulnerable to the overwhelming majority of adversary ballistic missiles since the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972. The incongruity between U.S. strategic culture and mutual vulnerability required by the mutually assured destruction (MAD) approach has failed to eradicate the allure of mutual vulnerability from portions of the defense policymaking community. U.S. strategic culture is more consistent with deterrence by denial measures, such as robust homeland ballistic missile defense, than mutual vulnerability typical of an assured destruction approach; however, mutual vulnerability has played a disproportionate role in guiding U.S. security policy since the Cold War.
Social Manifestations of U.S. Strategic Culture
Optimism and Problem-Solving Mentality. Born out of the unimaginable string of environmental, political, and military successes, the American psyche is uniquely optimistic about challenges both domestic and international. Insulated almost entirely from the perverse suffering typical of the interstate wars that ravaged Europe over the same time period, the American experience lacked such pessimistic reminders of the worst of the human condition. Instead, the grand political experiment of a new beginning, grounded in pragmatic deference to the supremacy of the individual, reinforced a common understanding that all problems—social, natural, security, etc.—can be solved.
The sanguine approach to the complex issues of the human experience reinforces a problem-solving mentality diffused across all layers of American society. With success as the expected outcome, an insoluble problem cannot exist. Incontestable structural conditions are often misread as problems that are capable of being “solved” under this framework, leading to surprise when efforts fall short of expectations. Nevertheless, the can-do outlook persists as an enduring and highly esteemed trait in American society. As Dr. Jeannie L. Johnson, an associate professor of political science and director of Utah State University’s Center for Anticipatory Intelligence, notes, “Problem-solving is key to American identity—being a problem-solver is both a requirement for most occupations and an admired personal trait. For Americans, it is also perceived to be the primary purpose of human activity.”
Logical-Analytical Cognitive Style. Through a pioneering study of revolutions in military affairs (RMAs), Dr. Dima Adamsky, an associate professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy at Reichman University in Israel, connected the field of cognitive psychology with strategic culture analysis. Dr. Adamsky theorized that a driving factor behind a state’s ability to conceptualize and implement an RMA was its cognitive style—the “preferred collection of strategies to perceive, organize, and process information.” Drawing upon research from psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, Dr. Adamsky found that American culture prefers a logical-analytical approach, characterized by “the optimistic belief that there is an objective essence that can be reached through the linear process of discovery.”
Positive Role of Machines. The subjugation of the vast American frontier and rise to industrial and military preeminence did not take place by sheer force of human will. American culture, in seeking a solution to all problems, has readily embraced machines to aid in its various natural and social conquests. Technology is thus approached as a “liberating force that improves quality of life.” While this mentality has produced astounding levels of technological improvement, it has also internalized a potentially dangerous assumption that the U.S. engineering base has the capacity to catch up with any other state’s advances given the requisite prioritization.
Military Manifestations: The American Way of War
Technologically Driven. The American method of warfighting leverages significant qualitative advantages in technology to overmatch any potential adversary. Born out of the necessity of machines to dominate the vast frontier, techno-centric warfare makes liberal use of the concept that all challenges can be overcome through the proper mechanical input. As Thomas G. Mahnken, Senior Research Professor and Co-Director of the Master of Arts in Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, observes, “No nation in recent history has placed greater emphasis upon the role of technology in planning and waging war than the United States.”
Drawing upon unique structural incentives to technologically progress, the United States has demonstrated a repeated ability to innovate new military technology or adapt civilian advances for military benefit as early as the Civil War. During the Cold War, the technological edge of U.S. forces attempted to counterbalance the vast numerical superiority of the Warsaw Pact forces arrayed against them in Europe. U.S. leadership understood that the quantitative overmatch of Soviet forces would never be replicated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), prompting emphasis on advanced technology to offer a qualitative edge. Drawing roots from World War Two, American strategic thinking coalesced around high-technology air power for battlefield advantage during this time period. To date, the “United States has come to treat air superiority as a necessity, and built such capable air forces that no enemy aircraft has killed U.S. ground troops since 1953.”
Leadership Averse to Casualties. The creation of high-technological warfighting capabilities is strongly correlated with the desire of U.S. military and civilian leadership to minimize U.S. casualties during combat operations. Building from the liberal democratic belief of the salience of the individual and the all-volunteer force structure of the American military, this attitude seems highly logical. Consequently, American military and civilian elites have repeatedly noted their desire to minimize U.S. losses when engaged in confrontation.
Despite empirical evidence that challenges this claim, the notion that U.S. strategic culture is unwilling to accept loss has become so pervasive in the international arena that adversarial leaders appear willing to bet on U.S. non-intervention given an opponent’s ability to inflict casualties on U.S. forces. Such was the mindset of Saddam Hussein in 1991, Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, and Osama bin Laden in 2001, all of whom concocted strategy around the core belief that the United States “lacked the moral courage to face a deadly military confrontation.” Today, these perceptions can be found throughout statements by officials from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan.
Overwhelming Firepower and Direct Engagement. A country rich in wealth and material resources, the United States has embraced the use of overwhelming firepower to defeat its adversaries in direct confrontation. Concurrent with leadership’s desire to avoid casualties, the “American way in warfare [is] to send metal in harm’s way in place of vulnerable flesh.” This philosophy has prompted enormous investment in standoff weapons systems that are capable of delivering unprecedented amounts of firepower to virtually any location on Earth with a high degree of expediency and accuracy. Capitalizing on comparative advantages in manufacturing and resources, the “strategy of attrition and annihilating the enemy with firepower was the best way to transform the nation’s material superiority into battlefield effectiveness.”
The Disconnect Between U.S. Strategic Culture and Missile Defense Policy Outputs
Taken in isolation and in combination, nearly all facets of U.S. strategic culture point decisively toward a comprehensive approach to missile defense policy. More than a simple political or military consideration, Michael Rühle, head of the Climate and Energy Security Section at NATO, went so far as to describe the U.S. pursuit of missile defense as a “firm part of its national ‘strategic culture.’” This linkage can be found in both overarching categories of U.S. strategic culture, the collective social attitudes regarding security outputs and their manifestations in the American way of war.
Socially, all elements of the American national style contribute to broad support for the pursuit of comprehensive damage limitation architectures and rejection of MAD. An unwavering, collective optimism and a problem-solving ethos would seem to reject the notion that the challenge of defeating a large-scale missile attack is outside of American technological feasibility. Accepting the premise that mutual vulnerability is a predetermined, unassailable structural condition necessary for the deterrence of other great powers is highly incongruous with the U.S. approach to nearly all other security problems. This confident mentality is in opposition to the logical-analytical cognitive style of the U.S. approach, where the “linear process of discovery” fuels continued optimism in the ability to solve all problems with sequential thought. Finally, the positive role of machines would further support an engineering approach to the existential threat of missile attack on the U.S. homeland, harnessing the vast industrial potential of America to overcome a geopolitical hurdle through the consistent logic of man-made machinery.
The American way of war is also highly congruous with broad-scope missile defense efforts. Obviously, the emphasis on technological overmatch precludes any perception of vulnerability to adversary capabilities as a desirable state of being. In virtually every other warfighting domain, the United States has invested enormous sums into maintaining technical dominance through defense innovation. Speaking to a virtual defense conference, Heidi Shyu, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, exemplified this approach: “We cannot afford a leveling of technology advantage…. We must leverage the incredible amount of technology innovation across our nation to give our [sic.] leap-ahead capabilities to solve tough operational challenges.” While the technological challenge of homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD) is undoubtedly significant, the barrier has proven insufficient for previous military pursuits of technological superiority, including national-scale endeavors such as the Manhattan Project.
Coupled with the desire to maintain a substantial technological edge in the U.S. approach to war is a leadership aversion to heavy casualties. The U.S. military has spent considerable sums in order to prosecute warfare with minimal risk to the warfighter, including an enduring emphasis on airpower, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), long-range PGMs, theater missile defense, and more. While there are unquestioned tactical and strategic benefits to all of these innovations, official statements regarding such technology consistently include reference to their value in ensuring the safe return of deployed personnel. In the case of homeland BMD, the amount of potential military and civilian casualties associated with a deterrence failure is staggering. The utility of damage limitation measures in reducing U.S. loss of life in the instance of a deterrence failure has been acknowledged in declaratory policy by more than two decades worth of presidential administrations. The diverse suite of threats and willingness of U.S. adversaries to employ such capabilities increases the likelihood of a deterrence failure, lending further credence to a pursuit of more expansive BMD. The demonstrated efforts of U.S. military and civilian leadership to minimize casualties in combat operations would appear to justify bearing the immense financial cost necessary to ensure the safety of all Americans. Thus, it is striking that the “hostage exchange” of American citizens consistent with mutual vulnerability ever took hold in a culturally hostile environment.
Broad homeland missile defense would further allow for the employment of the American style of overwhelming firepower through direct engagement and leveraging of its industrial and material superiority. Previous conflicts have seen the wholesale inability of U.S. adversaries to hold any domestic infrastructure or power projection targets at risk. The missile age has shattered this perceived sanctity of the American homeland. Targeted missile strikes against several key U.S. ports would, at the very least, delay the ability of U.S. ground and naval forces to respond to aggression against allies in Europe or Asia. Obstructing the deployment of these forces would prevent the leveraging of the full weight of U.S. conventional firepower superiority in a given battlespace. Thus, more comprehensive homeland U.S. missile defense would potentially deny an adversary the confidence in limited missile strikes designed to limit the safe movement of U.S. or allied forces to a battlefield.
Exploring the Disconnect
The clash between U.S. strategic culture and its missile defense policies necessitates further examination. Nearly all salient pillars of American strategic culture decisively point to building comprehensive homeland BMD and rejecting mutual vulnerability required by the philosophy of MAD. Rühle echoes this view when examining EU attitudes of U.S. missile defense efforts: “Against this background [U.S. strategic culture], European advice to the United States to remain in a permanent state of calculated—“stabilizing”—vulnerability is likely to fall on deaf ears.” Nevertheless, neither unlimited homeland BMD nor a wholesale rejection of mutual vulnerability has been uniformly supported across three-quarters of a century of missile defense policymaking. Of course, it is unrealistic to assume that a “big idea,” to borrow a term from Colin Gray, such as strategic culture will be a panacea for predicting state behavior in all circumstances. Humans have yet to assemble a theory of security decision-making that forecasts with absolute precision. Still, the fact that the disconnect between U.S. strategic culture and BMD practice has persisted for so long merits a deeper dive to understand why.
Policy is Derived from Compromise. Despite the immense financial resources of the American system, the federal government operates under a condition of scarcity. There exists a finite pool of resources, including money, personnel, and time, that can be allocated to a myriad of agencies and projects. Consequently, goals that align perfectly with a given state’s strategic culture may not be actualized due to the constant need to balance hundreds of other simultaneous priorities. Gray describes this condition as a “negotiated outcome” where the “pure flame of strategic culture is certain to be dimmed by the constraints imposed by scarce resources and competing agencies.” U.S. missile defense policy is no exception to this rule—it suffers from consistent politicization and strongly divergent preferences within the government system and from outside interest groups. Most prominent among these interest groups are the scientific community and arms control advocates. Many of their members have lobbied against missile defense development since its inception. Despite Pew polling showing that the arguments for a national missile defense system were more compelling than those against, the American populace does not support homeland BMD enough to change the status quo. Under these limits, a “security community can behave in ways massively contrary to the strategic preferences implied by its dominant strategic culture.”
Given the nature of the U.S. pluralistic system, Congress has most often opted for a compromise to satisfy both camps—a limited system to assuage the fears of destabilization, but one that can still be claimed as “progress” to the general public by protecting against potential rogue states and accidental launches. These compromises are often driven by a small, but highly influential, cadre of “easy deterrence” elites who regard missile defense development as a threat to the predictable function of mutual deterrence through vulnerability. Unsurprisingly, such compromises have repeatedly hamstrung national missile defense development by impeding any concerted effort to innovate beyond the limited or regional level.
Lack of Threat Immediacy. The geographic isolation of North America has shielded American citizens from the nightmares of interstate warfare for the better part of its existence. Despite the advent of long-range missiles removing the barriers of the twin oceans, these threats remain highly conceptual. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and period of unquestioned American hyperpower that followed likely downplayed the possibility of nuclear ICBM attack in the collective American psyche. Hence, it is most plausible that the true gravity of this hazard will remain a distant concern in the minds of most Americans, until such time as the threat materializes on U.S. soil. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has reignited national attention on the threat of the Russian nuclear force posture, this threat is still “far away” and difficult to internalize as a serious probability.
At the macro level, this issue can be explained by one of the most consistent findings of cognitive psychology: the inability of humans to assess risk accurately. Overconfidence in a positive outcome, known as optimistic bias, is described by Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman as the “most significant of the cognitive biases” thanks to the risks it poses to informed decision-making. In the case of the Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals, some elements of familiarity bias may work to decrease the probability that the threat will ever materialize. This bias refers to the “comfort, affiliation, or some other type of cognitive bond” that occurs with topics or entities that an individual has repeated exposure to, such as the threat of Soviet nuclear attack during the 20th century. While there were numerous instances of close calls during the Cold War, the ability of deterrence to hold in all previous circumstances has perhaps built a powerful connection between mutual vulnerability and the “success” of nuclear deterrence.
Several elements of U.S. strategic culture may also reinforce the inability of most to accurately assess the dangers posed by adversary missile arsenals. Enduring American norms of optimism and ethnocentrism possibly encourage overconfidence in the universality of the U.S. approach to nuclear war and the ability of deterrence to hold. This issue has plagued U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War, when decision-makers “declined to appreciate the Soviet Union as a culturally, historically unique adversary unlikely to prove responsive to American political-military desiderata—no matter how eloquently, or persistently, expressed.” As idealistic as these notions may seem, the “hubris regarding our master of nuclear deterrence ‘stability’… built on the demonstrably false assumption that Washington’s interpretation of what is rational and sensible also will be the basis of our opponents’ behavior” remains in some elements of the defense community today.
Image Perception and Manipulation. During the Cold War, the foundational debate about the requirements of superpower deterrence between Thomas Schelling and Herman Kahn revealed deeply held American reservations regarding any measures that could enable further nuclear employment in war. Kahn’s approach, emphasizing the need for damage limitation capabilities to make the threat of nuclear use more credible to the Soviets, was sharply criticized as being “cavalier” or “jocular” about the prospect of nuclear war. Schelling’s recommendation of mutual vulnerability through a “balance of terror” did not receive the same criticism, despite the wholesale rejection of any defensive abilities for the American public and implicit targeting of Soviet noncombatants.
With this domestic base laid, international criticism became even more poignant. Soviet protests over U.S. ABM efforts consistently portrayed the defensive shield as merely a pretext to launch a first strike and retain the ability to survive retaliation. Ignoring Soviet damage limitation efforts, which exceeded those of the United States during the Cold War, “easy deterrence” theorists took such statements at face value and amplified the concerns that missile defense would undermine strategic stability and legitimize nuclear warfighting. Contemporary U.S. adversaries have continued this narrative, repeatedly advancing claims that U.S. missile defense efforts are a means to grant the U.S. military freedom of unilateral action and enable further “imperialism.” Such assertions are often accompanied by proclamations that the U.S. “missile shield” is solely designed to enable “a surprise missile-nuclear strike in any region of the world, with no punishment” in a manner reminiscent to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Recent revelations regarding the scale of Russian hybrid warfare efforts, including liberal use of disinformation campaigns to undermine U.S. domestic and international standing, amplify the possibility that foreign actors have played an influential role in shaping the missile defense narrative. The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community describes Russia’s global influence operations as a multi-domain enterprise designed to “divide Western alliances, and increase its sway around the world, while attempting to undermine U.S. global standing, amplify discord inside the United States, and influence U.S. voters and decision-making.” Such efforts almost certainly extend to missile defense, where previous friction between U.S. and EU policy may be exploited to drive a wedge into the NATO alliance structure.
Conclusion
There is a striking incongruity between U.S. strategic culture and its missile defense policy. The American national style is characterized by an optimistic and problem-solving mindset, logical-analytical cognitive style, and positive role of machines. These concepts are reflected in the American way of war, which is technologically driven, casualty averse at the leadership level, and firepower-focused with an emphasis on direct engagement over stratagem. Taken at face value, these factors would strongly indicate a preference for comprehensive deterrence by denial measures, most prominently homeland BMD, to protect American lives in the case of deterrence failure or catastrophic accident. However, such preferences have failed to consistently materialize over three-quarters of a century of missile defense policymaking. Instead, the United States has often settled for a strategy of mutual vulnerability synonymous with the theory of Thomas Schelling’s “balance of terror” and Robert McNamara’s MAD philosophy. While the United States has slowly accepted more expansive attitudes regarding BMD and “rogue states,” MAD continues to dominate the approach to Russian and Chinese missile arsenals. This can be found most prominently in U.S. declaratory policy regarding the targets of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, claims of destabilization or negative effects on “strategic stability,” and action-reaction cycle-based theories of Russian and Chinese nuclear modernization as a direct result of U.S. missile defense despite all empirical evidence to the contrary.
Despite little cultural support for the MAD approach and its corresponding emphasis on mutual vulnerability, this concept has disproportionately guided U.S. damage limitation policy and its corresponding discourse in many corners of the defense community. Three possible explanations for this incongruity were advanced by this monograph, including the requirement of compromise in forming policy in a pluralistic democracy, the lack of perceived ballistic missile threat immediacy by the general American public, and the concerted effort of U.S. adversaries to manipulate the international and domestic perceptions of U.S. missile defense efforts. Future studies should examine further reasons for this disconnect, potentially even offering new insights into American strategic culture to remedy the incongruity.
The continuity of mutual vulnerability despite its inherent conflict with U.S. strategic culture is nothing short of extraordinary. The end of the Cold War and dawn of a new, highly complex security environment have failed to eradicate MAD concepts from discourse over great power competition with Russia and China. While the United States has slowly expanded its rudimentary homeland BMD deployments in the face of expanding regional threats, the specter of MAD continues to dissuade policymakers from adopting a more comprehensive role. Discarding Cold War-era theories of strategic stability and bringing U.S. missile defense policy to a state of harmony with U.S. strategic culture will keep America safer in an ever more unpredictable international security environment.
This Information Series is adapted from, Jacob Blank, “U.S. Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability” Journal of Policy & Strategy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2023). An expanded discussion by the author can be found in the author’s graduate thesis for the Defense and Strategic Studies program at Missouri State University. See Jacob T. Blank, “US Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, and Mutual Vulnerability” (Missouri State University, 2022), available at https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3810.
[1] Keith B. Payne, Shadows on the Wall: Deterrence and Disarmament (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2020), pp. 127–30.
Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), p. 81.
Colin S. Gray, “The American Way of War,” in Rethinking the Principles of War, ed. Anthony D. McIvor (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), p. 29.
Jeannie L. Johnson, “Fit for Future Conflict? American Strategic Culture in the Context of Great Power Competition,” Journal of Advanced Military Studies 11, no. 1 (Spring 2020), p. 193.
Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation, p. 18.
Ibid., p. 76.
William Kincade, “American National Style and Strategic Culture,” in Strategic Power: USA/USSR, ed. Carl G. Jacobsen (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), p. 26.
Miriam D. Becker, “Strategic Culture and Ballistic Missile Defense: Russia and the United States” (Master’s, Monterey, CA, Naval Postgraduate School, 1993), p. 54, available at https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/39769/93Jun_Becker_M_D.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Thomas G. Mahnken, “United States Strategic Culture,” in Comparative Strategic Cultures Curriculum Project: Assessing Strategic Culture as a Methodological Approach to Understanding WMD Decision-Making by States and Non-State Actors, ed. Jeffrey A. Larsen (Defense Threat Reduction Agency Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, 2006), p. 12, available at https://irp.fas.org/agency/dod/dtra/us.pdf.
Kincade, op. cit., p. 26.
Mahnken, op. cit., p. 12.
“Defense Primer: United States Airpower” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, October 26, 2021), p. 1, available at https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF10546.pdf.
Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, “How Many Deaths Are Acceptable? A Surprising Answer,” The Washington Post, November 7, 1999, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/07/061r-110799-idx.html.
Richard A. Lacquement Jr., “The Casualty-Aversion Myth,” Naval War College Review, vol. 57, no. 1 (2004), p. 10.
Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001), pp. 129, 147–48.
Gray, op. cit., p. 30.
Adamsky, op. cit., p. 78.
Michael Rühle, “U.S. Strategic Culture and Ballistic Missile Defense,” National Institute for Public Policy Information Series, no. 466 (September 3, 2020), p. 2, available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IS-466.pdf.
Adamsky, op. cit. p. 76.
Cheryl Pellerin, “DOD Embracing Innovation to Fuel Military Overmatch against Adversaries,” U.S. Army, May 4, 2017, available at https://www.army.mil/article/187213/work_dod_embracing_innovation_to_fuel_military_overmatch_against_adversaries.
David Vergun, “DOD in Search of Disruptive Technologies That Will Enable the Warfighter,” U.S. Department of Defense, March 8, 2022, available at https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2959378/dod-in-search-of-disruptive-technologies-that-will-enable-the-warfighter/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.defense.gov%2FNews%2FNews-Stories%2FArticle%2FArticle%2F2959378%2Fdod-in-search-of-disruptive-technologies-that-will-enable-the-warfighter%2F.
Mark A. Welsh III, “Global Vigilance, Global Reach, Global Power for America: The World’s Greatest Air Force–Powered by Airmen, Fueled by Innovation,” Air & Space Power Journal, March 2014, pp. 6–7.
Jonathan Trexel, “Denying North Korea,” in Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice, ed. Andreas Wegner and Alex S. Wilner (New York: Cambria Press, 2021), p. 149.
Rühle, op. cit., p. 4.
Colin S. Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime-Time for Strategic Culture,” in Comparative Strategic Cultures Curriculum Project: Assessing Strategic Culture as a Methodological Approach to Understanding WMD Decision-Making by States and Non-State Actors, ed. Jeffrey A. Larsen (Defense Threat Reduction Agency Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, 2006), p. 22.
Ibid., p. 25.
Becker, op. cit., pp. 67–68.
“Modest Support for Missile Defense, No Panic on China: Other Important Findings and Analyses,” Pew Research Center, June 11, 2001, available at https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2001/06/11/other-important-findings-and-analyses-10/.
Colin S. Gray, “Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back,” Review of International Studies 25, no. 1 (1999), p. 64.
“Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, & the Twenty-First Century” (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 2009), pp. 68–69, available at http://www.space-library.com/0902IFPA_IWG2009.pdf.
Payne, Shadows on the Wall, p. 65.
Op. cit., p. 80.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011), p. 255, available at https://archive.org/details/thinkingfastslow0000kahn_b1q8.
Casey L Smith, “The Effects of Familiarity and Persuasion on Risk Assessment” (Doctoral Dissertation, Daytona Beach, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 2012), p. 36, available at https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=edt.
Colin S. Gray, “Nuclear Strategy and National Style” (Washington, D.C.: Defense Nuclear Agency, July 31, 1981), p. 68, available at https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA133216.pdf.
Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction, p. xiii.
Keith B. Payne, The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2008), pp. 36–39.
“Russian General: US Needs Missile Shield for Military Supremacy over Russia, China,” TASS, October 11, 2016, available at https://tass.com/politics/905572.
“Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2022), p. 12, available at https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2022/item/2279-2022-annual-threat-assessment-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community.
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8. Tactical Brilliance, Strategic Blindness: The Surge & The Limits of Counterinsurgency in Iraq
Spoiler alert:
The U.S. COIN and CT operations in Iraq were, at times, tactically brilliant and bravely conducted by U.S. forces but were ultimately strategically flawed. Initially, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent removal of Saddam Hussein created a power vacuum, which various insurgent groups, including Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), exploited. The U.S.'s early decisions, such as de-Baathification, exacerbated the situation by alienating critical segments of the population, fostering insurgency rather than quelling it. This forced the U.S. to adopt a COIN strategy, which, while contributing to reducing violence, did not remedy the deeper political, social, and economic grievances fueling the conflict.
The 2007 surge focused on securing the population and building local governance structures. This tactical shift temporarily reduced violence and created a window for political reconciliation. However, the underlying sectarian tensions and political fragmentation persisted, undermining long-term stability. The rise of ISIS following the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 highlighted the fragility of the gains made during the surge and underscored the limitations of COIN in achieving sustainable strategic outcomes.
The failure to establish an autonomous, unified Iraqi state was partly due to the U.S. imposing a democratic model unsuited to Iraq's sectarian landscape. The U.S.'s inability to foster genuine political inclusivity and address deep-rooted societal divisions meant that COIN operations could only provide a temporary respite from violence. The emergence of ISIS not only destabilized Iraq further but also had significant geopolitical repercussions, drawing regional and global powers into a prolonged conflict.
Wishful thinking and flawed assumptions will yield failure in almost any strategy; COIN is no exception. While reducing violence is crucial, it alone will not stabilize a nation. A governmental system favored by the people and wed to realizable organic capabilities is a mandate, not an option. If, in some future scenario, the U.S. believes it must invade a country to deny a “safe haven” to a terrorist organization, then it must know what kind of government is possible, at what cost, and how effective it can be. This is not a military problem; it is a governance problem. If grievance creates instability, the best hope for resolution is the political process, not violence. Violence can only be a temporary solution and can quickly move in unexpected and uncontrollable directions once unleashed. Because violence has the allure of a quick solution, COIN is often seen as a tactical remedy to a political problem. This, of course, makes it a poor choice as a strategy.
Tactical Brilliance, Strategic Blindness
The Surge & The Limits of Counterinsurgency in Iraq
https://www.strategycentral.io/post/tactical-brilliance-strategic-blindness
Athena, the Ancient Greek Goddess of Strategy, Floats Blindly over the U.S. COIN Operations in Iraq in 2007.
Introduction
The situation in Iraq was dire at the end of 2006 when President George W. Bush implemented the surge of an additional 30,000 U.S. forces and selected General David Petraeus to command it. Returning to Baghdad in early February 2007, Petraeus found conditions worse than expected. The deterioration since his departure in September 2005 was sobering. Violence, which had escalated dramatically in 2006 after the bombing of the Shiite al-Askari shrine in Samarra, was out of control. With over 50 attacks and three car bombs daily in Baghdad alone, the plan to hand off security to Iraqi forces was failing. Sectarian battles and infighting in the Iraqi government and the Council of Representatives created a dysfunctional political environment. Many oil pipelines were damaged, electrical towers toppled, roads in disrepair, markets shuttered, and citizens feared for their lives. Government revenue was down, and basic services were inadequate. Life in many areas of the capital and country was about survival.
The surge was deemed necessary to rescue a floundering strategic mission with many points of failure. The most critical problem to solve was the unchecked violence, which the addition of nearly 30,000 troops to Iraq by 2007 was meant to cure. While the surge of forces was crucial, the most significant change was the shift in strategy and operational plans. Instead of handing off security tasks to Iraqi forces, the U.S. shifted to focusing on the security of the Iraqi people using largely U.S. forces. The core idea guiding this strategy was recognizing that the most critical terrain in the campaign was the human terrain—the people. This made the primary mission to improve their security. This improvement would allow Iraq’s political leaders time to forge agreements, reduce ethno-sectarian disputes, and establish a foundation for further efforts to improve the lives of average Iraqis. The hope was that the Iraqi people would invest in the new state's success and choose peace and support for the new nation. To do this, General Petraeus ordered the U.S. troops to live amongst the people. The message was clear: get out of the bases and seek the most violent areas and make them secure. The idea was “big” then and seemed to work as violence did drop. On the surface, things appeared to improve, especially regarding the violence.
A common misconception about the surge is that it was the singular reason for the decline in violence. A simple cause-and-effect assessment was applied and not questioned. It was very unpopular to disagree with this notion for years afterward, especially in the military. After all, the rampant violence in 2006 significantly decreased by 2008, and some economic and political signs of life were starting to take hold. Despite its comprehensive approach, the counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine that drove the primary mission of the military may have been too focused on tactics to achieve long-lasting strategic results and too complex to succeed consistently. If the Americans left, someone had to keep policing streets, neighborhoods, and cities. Assuming that Iraqi forces would get good enough, fast enough, to be ready at the end of the surge was a significant gamble. The even bigger gamble was assuming the ad hoc, uncoordinated attempt to develop governance would mature in 12-15 months. This proved to be beyond rationale.
The “new” approach was based on COIN operations, which would address the conflict's military and non-military aspects by winning the local population's support and isolating and neutralizing insurgents while building governance and security capability. This involves a combination of direct military actions and indirect efforts to address the root causes of the insurgency, such as political, economic, and social grievances. However, the effectiveness of COIN in achieving broader strategic goals has been debated, especially in light of the outcomes of various operations over the past two decades.
This article will examine the U.S. COIN efforts in Iraq from late 2006 to 2011. The article will assess the successes and limitations of these efforts, highlighting how COIN operations have often achieved short-term tactical successes but struggled to deliver long-term strategic outcomes, chief among them being stability. Additionally, we will consider the regional impacts of these counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts, particularly on Middle Eastern geopolitics and internal dynamics.
The Surge in Iraq 2006-2008
The Bush Administration's strategic goals for the 2006-2008 military surge in Iraq were to create a secure environment, reduce violence, develop Iraqi security forces, promote reconciliation among ethnic and sectarian groups, and foster economic development for a stable, self-governing Iraq.[1] Doctrinally it was a COIN strategy, but politically it was a hail Mary. The U.S. had lost control of the situation and desperately needed a course correction to save domestic and international condemnation. The U.S. believed that it could enhance Iraqi security forces' capabilities, foster political compromise among Iraqi factions, and boost economic reconstruction efforts. The surge's primary objective was to reduce violence to a level that would enable a sustainable political process and a more stable and secure Iraq that could be left to its own devices to manage.[2]
By 2007, an additional five Army brigades commanded by General David Petraeus got to work dismantling insurgent networks and restoring order. Operation Fardh al-Qanoon focused predominantly on Baghdad and its surrounding areas, known as the "Baghdad belts." The strategy also emphasized counterinsurgency tactics that involved embedding U.S. forces within Iraqi communities to build trust and gather crucial intelligence.[3]Petraeus was in constant coordination with his diplomatic counterpart, Ambassador Ray Crocker who did his best to advance the governmental capabilities of the Iraqi’s and steer the fractious and deeply divided Iraqi politicians.
Simultaneously, the surge strategy included efforts to stabilize the volatile Al Anbar province, where Sunni tribes, initially aligned with insurgent forces, began to oppose al-Qaeda in Iraq due to the latter's brutal tactics and imposition of radical Islamist rule. The cooperation between U.S. forces and Sunni tribal militias, known as the "Anbar Awakening," significantly weakened al-Qaeda's influence in the region and provided a model for similar initiatives in other parts of Iraq. The surge's combined military and diplomatic efforts were accompanied by a marked decrease in violence and set the stage for subsequent stabilization and withdrawal efforts.[4]
The U.S. military surge aimed to stabilize Iraqi populations and seemed to be working. However, the concurrent sectarian purges underscored the complexity of the conflict. Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish groups violently pursued their agendas to control tribally dominant areas. Much of the reduction in violence came as Shia, Sunni, and Kurds purged their areas of unwanted sects. As more homogeneous populations dominated an area, the violence dropped. This “self-segregation” in Baghdad and the subsequent decline in violence should not be attributed to the surge as the primary cause of reduced violence. Once segregated, the U.S. forces could prevent further violence by keeping the balkanized groups apart. Additionally, the surge did not adequately address the deep-seated sectarian and ethnic divisions, which continued to fuel conflict and displacement across the country. The purges during this period were a stark reminder of the enduring and violent struggle for power among Iraq's diverse communities. While the U.S. government denied there was a civil war underway among the Iraqi civilians, it would be hard to find a better definition.[5]
While this occurred, the U.S. military was also hastening the development of Iraqi security forces. Advancements were made, yet these forces remained plagued by sectarianism, corruption, and dependency on U.S. support. Although there was an improvement in their operational capabilities, the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of these forces without extensive foreign assistance were questionable.[6] Economic reconstruction efforts successfully rebuilt infrastructure and revitalized specific sectors, but widespread corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies limited the overall impact on the Iraqi economy.[7]
The strategic objectives of the 2007-2008 military surge in Iraq were only partially and often only temporarily achieved. The surge aided in reducing sectarian violence as the U.S. took to enforcing the dividing lines between sectarian communities. General McCrystal's successful counterterrorism efforts were enormously helpful in weakening insurgent groups like Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). They created a virtuous reinforcing cycle as increased U.S. military presence improved security measures among the people, and JSOC took AQI combatants off the battlefield.[8] This reduction in violence created a window of opportunity for political reconciliation and economic recovery. However, the progress in political reconciliation was limited and inconsistent. While some strides were made, such as governmental reform and provincial elections, deep-seated sectarian tensions, political fragmentation, and the effects of de-Ba'athification continued to hinder comprehensive national unity.
Ultimately, while the surge achieved tactical successes and temporary stabilization, it failed to fully realize the strategic objectives of establishing a self-sustaining, unified, and democratic Iraq. The enduring challenges in governance, security, and economic development highlighted the complexities of nation-building and the limitations of military intervention as a tool for achieving long-term political solutions.[9]
Did U.S. COIN Achieve Strategic Success?
The U.S. COIN and CT efforts in Iraq from 2003 to 2024 had profound and wide-ranging effects on the Middle East, influencing regional dynamics, security, and political landscapes. Initially, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent efforts to combat insurgencies and terrorism destabilized the region, exacerbating sectarian tensions and contributing to widespread violence. The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime created a power vacuum that various insurgent groups, including Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and later ISIS, exploited, leading to significant instability both within Iraq and in neighboring countries.[10]
The rise and fall of ISIS had a particularly notable impact. ISIS's rapid territorial gains in 2014 and its declaration of a caliphate drew international attention and intervention, leading to the formation of a global coalition to combat the group. The extensive military campaign against ISIS, which included significant contributions from regional actors like Iran and Kurdish forces, reshaped alliances and enmities in the Middle East. The conflict also prompted significant humanitarian crises, with millions displaced and widespread destruction, particularly in Syria and Iraq.[11]
Furthermore, the prolonged military engagements and the focus on counterterrorism efforts led to shifting power dynamics in the region. Iran's influence in Iraq grew substantially as it supported Shia militias and political factions, altering the balance of power and increasing sectarian tensions. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq and combat terrorism drew resources and attention, impacting broader U.S. foreign policy in the region. The enduring presence of insurgent and terrorist threats, despite significant military successes, underscored the complexity of achieving long-term stability and highlighted the need for comprehensive political and socio-economic solutions to address the root causes of extremism and conflict.[12]
Taking a more extensive regional perspective, COIN and CT operations in the Middle East from 2003 to the present have significantly influenced the United States' strategic position in geopolitics and its competition with great powers like China and Russia. These operations, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, have consumed substantial military and economic resources, diverting attention from other strategic priorities. The prolonged engagements and poorly managed exfiltration from Afghanistan have led to a perception of overextension and incompetence and have strained U.S. military capabilities and readiness.
Strategically, the focus on counterinsurgency has allowed China and Russia to expand their influence in various regions. China has capitalized on this by advancing its Belt and Road Initiative, enhancing its economic and strategic foothold across Asia, Africa, and Europe. Concurrently, Russia has reasserted its influence in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, notably through its intervention in Syria and its actions in Ukraine. These developments have challenged U.S. dominance and necessitated a strategic pivot to address the resurgence of great power competition.
Moreover, the emphasis on counterinsurgency has arguably stultified broader strategic thinking, as noted by historical precedents where military focus on specific doctrines limited adaptability. The U.S. has had to recalibrate its strategies to address the multifaceted threats posed by state actors like China and Russia, as highlighted in the 2018 National Defense Strategy and the 2022 National Security Strategy, prioritizing strategic competition. The extensive COIN efforts have impacted the U.S. strategic position by diverting resources and focus, allowing China and Russia to gain ground in the global power landscape.
COIN Is a General Theory – It Must Be Applied Specifically (Often With CT)
Iraq is a conflict that the U.S. must study and learn from. The chain of U.S. decisions that led to adopting a COIN strategy is riddled with unforced errors. The U.S. accused Saddam of building weapons of mass destruction and harboring terrorists. He was not. The U.S. invaded, removed Saddam, and then removed all Baath Party members from the security forces and government. De-Baathification was the perfect choice to create an army of insurgents. The Baathists, minority Sunnis, wanted to return to power, which made them a textbook insurgency.
Meanwhile, the majority Shia, who were long repressed, clambered to take control of the government. Al Qaeda took advantage of the chaos and established Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The mere U.S. presence and the Abu Grab incident provided fuel for recruiting jihadists. As the violence exploded, the U.S. recognized that COIN would be the best long-term approach to creating an Iraq capable of maintaining stability. However, there was also a growing terrorist threat inside Iraq to contend with. COIN had to be paired with a simultaneous counterterror (CT) campaign to suppress AQI’s violence for the surge strategy to work.
COIN was not the wrong choice in Iraq by 2006, and it led to some success by 2008. However, three critical errors in strategic judgment forced the U.S. to make this choice. The invasion was based on misguided notions and “cherry-picked” intelligence that did not account for post invasion destabilization. De-Baathafication was a mistake by a bureaucrat with too much power and insufficient oversight. Lastly, the choice of imposing democracy was doomed to fail. Removing Saddam and firing anyone good at governance created a massive power vacuum. Governance lies at the heart of COIN and the U.S. had to save its effort in Iraq by building an organic capability to replace the one it had destroyed. The Bush Administration did not conduct the invasion with COIN or CT in mind for the post-invasion Iraq. The Administration assumed that a quick strike and a beheading would lead to freed people taking responsibility for the birth of their new nation. This deeply unrealistic assumption created conditions that required COIN and CT on a massive scale. Both efforts required building an organic capability to retain control once the U.S. military achieved stability. The U.S. was forced to choose these options to resolve the monster earlier U.S. mistakes had created: an ineffective Iraqi government and AQI’s “safe haven” in Iraq.
A general but weak stability was returned by 2009, and marginal progress had been made to create an effective Iraqi security force and functioning government. AQI was defeated on the battlefield. But like a cancer cell left after surgery that survives chemo and radiation, it metastasized into a ravaging, deadly cancer worse than its original form. Invasion, a massive COIN operation, and a brilliant but brief CT campaign defeated AQI and set conditions for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq with some pride intact. Ultimately, the seeds were planted for the rise of ISIS. The Iraqi security forces that the U.S. spent hundreds of billions of dollars to build crumbled and ran from ISIS. The government cowered at the might and brutality of ISIS. With its army in full retreat and no political will to mount a counterattack, much of Iraq became part of the ISIS Caliphate. This marked the complete failure of the U.S. COIN strategy.
COIN is difficult in any circumstance, but one key to its success is to determine the primary cause for insurgents and resolve it correctly. Once forced to apply a COIN strategy in Iraq, the U.S. failed to adequately address the root causes of the country's civil and political divisions. The Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish divide was the core issue. This problem likely has no complete remedy, but it was the critical element that drove violence and division. Sectarianism in Iraq is not an anomaly but a fundamental aspect of its culture, history, and identity. Most U.S. planners in 2002 and 2006 barely understood that.
While the U.S. implemented COIN seeking stability, it also unilaterally selected the U.S. democratic system as a model for the Iraqi government. Democracy failed to address the underlying causes of the country's civil and political divisions, particularly the sectarian divide. Sectarianism is deeply ingrained in Iraq and historically required a heavy hand to control. However, for the Americans working to restore governance pretentiously believed establishing a democratic state was the best way for the U.S. to maintain a relationship with Iraq. They also assumed it was the best means for long-term stability for Iraqis.
There were other reasons to choose a democracy. Many of our laws for the support of a foreign nation are geared towards supporting a technically capable, democratic, and bureaucratically oriented nation-state. This was not Iraq. However, an Iraqi version of America would solve the problem. The U.S. could also justify the nation-building effort if that nation were a democracy. The American people and the predominantly European coalition would be reluctant to support any other system of governance. The rapid descent into chaos and widespread sectarian violence demonstrated that the remedy did nothing to cure the disease of mass Iraqi violence. Iraq lacked the history, tradition, or commitment to democracy. While democracy has endured regarding voting, the Economist Intelligence Unit rates Iraq as authoritarian state (2023).[13] It remains weak, flawed, and inadequate to retain its sovereignty without external aid.
Conclusion
The U.S. COIN and CT operations in Iraq were, at times, tactically brilliant and bravely conducted by U.S. forces but were ultimately strategically flawed. Initially, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent removal of Saddam Hussein created a power vacuum, which various insurgent groups, including Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), exploited. The U.S.'s early decisions, such as de-Baathification, exacerbated the situation by alienating critical segments of the population, fostering insurgency rather than quelling it. This forced the U.S. to adopt a COIN strategy, which, while contributing to reducing violence, did not remedy the deeper political, social, and economic grievances fueling the conflict.
The 2007 surge focused on securing the population and building local governance structures. This tactical shift temporarily reduced violence and created a window for political reconciliation. However, the underlying sectarian tensions and political fragmentation persisted, undermining long-term stability. The rise of ISIS following the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 highlighted the fragility of the gains made during the surge and underscored the limitations of COIN in achieving sustainable strategic outcomes.
The failure to establish an autonomous, unified Iraqi state was partly due to the U.S. imposing a democratic model unsuited to Iraq's sectarian landscape. The U.S.'s inability to foster genuine political inclusivity and address deep-rooted societal divisions meant that COIN operations could only provide a temporary respite from violence. The emergence of ISIS not only destabilized Iraq further but also had significant geopolitical repercussions, drawing regional and global powers into a prolonged conflict.
Wishful thinking and flawed assumptions will yield failure in almost any strategy; COIN is no exception. While reducing violence is crucial, it alone will not stabilize a nation. A governmental system favored by the people and wed to realizable organic capabilities is a mandate, not an option. If, in some future scenario, the U.S. believes it must invade a country to deny a “safe haven” to a terrorist organization, then it must know what kind of government is possible, at what cost, and how effective it can be. This is not a military problem; it is a governance problem. If grievance creates instability, the best hope for resolution is the political process, not violence. Violence can only be a temporary solution and can quickly move in unexpected and uncontrollable directions once unleashed. Because violence has the allure of a quick solution, COIN is often seen as a tactical remedy to a political problem. This, of course, makes it a poor choice as a strategy.
[1] The White House. "The New Way Forward in Iraq." 2007. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html
[2] Petraeus, David H. "Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq." Testimony, 8-9 April 2008.
[3] Schlosser, Nicholas J. The Surge, 2007-2008. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 2017.
[4] Ibid.
[5] 2008 US Government Denies a Civil War Was Occurring Among Iraqi Civilians During the US Military Surge." Analysis by ChatGPT, OpenAI, July 11, 2024.
[6] Robinson, "Tell Me How This Ends," PublicAffairs, 2008
[7] Packer, "The Assassins' Gate," Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
[8] Biddle, "Assessing the Surge," Foreign Affairs, 2008
[9] "Iraq: U.S. Policy and Diplomacy," Council on Foreign Relations, 2012
[10] Ricks, "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq," Penguin Press, 2006
[11] "The Syrian Jihad," Lister, Oxford University Press, 2016
[12] "The Long Haul to Defeat ISIS," Knights, CTC Sentinel, 2021
[13] https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2023/
9. The Emerging Nuclear Scenario
Excerpts:
An improved allied conventional capability in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East allows the United States and its allies to deter future threats at the lowest level of deterrence or thwart aggression because of improved strategic unity and military superiority, backed by economic primacy. This will also deter attempts to use, for example, Russian nuclear weapons as a shield for a failed conventional war in Ukraine. It is also important to deter terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah from attacking Israel, the United States, or other Western targets. This includes Houthi attacks on international shipping.
...
Critics will complain that this program of defense growth and strengthening is a wartime program. Unfortunately, they have yet to realize that the American-led international order is under sustained and continuous attack and has been for several years. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are all states that validate the American radical Randolph Bourne’s insight that “[w]ar is the health of the state.” Indeed, it is the only way they can sustain their states. Therefore, in a nuclear world they must be deterred now before they can infect others with their poison.
ALLIES & EXTENDED DETERRENCE, STRATEGIC ADVERSARIES
The Emerging Nuclear Scenario
https://globalsecurityreview.com/the-emerging-nuclear-scenario/?mc_cid=4a35aa8661&mc_eid=70bf478f36
Stephen Blank7 days ago1 Comment4 Mins Read
The Russia-North Korea mutual security pact, Moscow’s unceasing nuclear threats, Russia’s global nuclear power sales drive, Iran’s race for nuclear weapons, and China’s “breathtaking” nuclear expansion, are the stuff of daily headlines. They all point to increasing nuclear proliferation, multiplying nuclear threats, and the emergence of an increasingly cohesive bloc of powers fully willing to threaten and possibly employ nuclear weapons.
Consequently, both nonproliferation and deterrence are under sustained attacks on multiple, interactive fronts as is any concept of international order or security. These threats challenge not only Washington but also allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This is leading to significant increases in conventional and nuclear weapons spending in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia (India) and East Asia in reaction to Russo-Chinese, Russo-North Korean, and other threats.
It is important to understand that these nuclear and conventional threats are linked. In Ukraine, Putin began brandishing nuclear threats early in the war to allow the Russian army to proceed without the threat of Western intervention or sustained weapons supply. Iran too uses its accelerating nuclear, missile, and drone programs to extend its deterrence to its terrorist clients so that they can put Israel and Red Sea shipping at risk. The Russo-North Korean alliance similarly raises the likelihood of Pyongyang acquiring new satellite, missile, and, possibly, nuclear technologies with which it can emulate Moscow and Tehran. Meanwhile, China continues to threaten Taiwan, the Philippines, and even India, always with the threat of more attacks in the background. At the same time, Chinese aid to Russia, in the form of technology exports, is probably vital to Russian aggression.
Thus, deterrence, nonproliferation, the international order, and, more specifically, the US and its allies are all under growing threat. Rhetoric aside, the next president after the November 2024 elections must confront these unpalatable facts and speak frankly about how the nation must meet them. To sustain and reform, and it is clear the Pentagon is failing to meet the challenge, it is necessary to rebuild both conventional and nuclear deterrence as allies in Europe and Asia are doing.
To do that, the American economy requires reinvigoration. The necessity for higher defense spending is competing with unprecedented levels of social spending at a time when the nation now spends as much each year to service the national debt as it spends on defense. This economic approach is unsustainable. Unfortunately, there is no royal road to fiscal stability other than raising taxes. The best hope for the country is to grow the economy and exercise fiscal discipline while rebuilding the nation’s military.
The revitalization of American defenses requires extensive and continuous modernization of both the conventional and nuclear forces. That probably includes both a qualitative and quantitative increase in the nuclear arsenal. Undoubtedly the partisans of anti-nuclear policies will be outraged by this. But the conclusions of governmental reports and America’s adversaries’ unrelenting nuclear programs are stubborn facts that these partisans refuse to acknowledge at ever-rising risk to international security. The only way to prevent or at least arrest proliferation and threats to deterrence is this dual-track policy of conventional and nuclear modernization and reform. And this truth applies as well to allies who have already begun to implement this policy.
An improved allied conventional capability in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East allows the United States and its allies to deter future threats at the lowest level of deterrence or thwart aggression because of improved strategic unity and military superiority, backed by economic primacy. This will also deter attempts to use, for example, Russian nuclear weapons as a shield for a failed conventional war in Ukraine. It is also important to deter terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah from attacking Israel, the United States, or other Western targets. This includes Houthi attacks on international shipping.
Moreover, the launching of such projects will also make clear to Putin, for example, that his attempts to globalize the failed war in Ukraine to rescue his regime by threatening nuclear or peripheral wars are doomed to failure. If the United States and its allies engage in the efforts suggested, it is also likely that Beijing will conclude that it cannot overcome allied deterrence in India, the Philippines, the South China Sea, Taiwan, or elsewhere. The objective is always the maintenance of peace.
Critics will complain that this program of defense growth and strengthening is a wartime program. Unfortunately, they have yet to realize that the American-led international order is under sustained and continuous attack and has been for several years. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are all states that validate the American radical Randolph Bourne’s insight that “[w]ar is the health of the state.” Indeed, it is the only way they can sustain their states. Therefore, in a nuclear world they must be deterred now before they can infect others with their poison.
Stephen Blank, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the author’s own.
10. Japan reemerges as an Asia-Pacific military power
See charts and graphics at the link: https://www.army-technology.com/news/japan-reemerges-as-an-asia-pacific-military-power/
Japan reemerges as an Asia-Pacific military power - Army Technology
army-technology.com · by Richard Thomas · July 15, 2024
Japan’s military build-up has been accelerating in recent years. Credit: Josiah_S via Shutterstock
After decades of externally imposed and subsequently internally adopted peaceful isolationism, Japan is waking up to a series of new challenges in the western Asia-Pacific , a region that China is seeking to claim for its own in an emergent multi-polar global order.
Detailing key defence priorities in its new Defence White Paper, published on 12 July 2024, Japan includes the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and ongoing concerns around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, in a region-specific matter, its occupation of the Kuril Islands chain in the northwestern Pacific.
The new defence paper reaffirmed Tokyo’s commitment to defence spending, stating that Japan would take “necessary measures” to ensure the budget for “fundamental reinforcement of defence capabilities and complementary initiatives” reaches 2% of FY2022 GDP levels by FY2027. At this level, funding was calculated to be approximately Y11trn ($69.6bn) by 2027.
GlobalData forecasts from 2023 indicate that Japan’s total defence expenditure was anticipated to value $85.9bn in 2028, owing to the need to “adequately finance its own national defence capabilities”.
Japan will acquire hundreds of Block IV Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US. Credit: US Navy
In addition, Japan scrapped its long-standing 1% GDP ceiling for annual defence spending and has publicly stated its desire to hit the 2% benchmark over the next decade. Current estimates put Japan’s defence spending at around 1.6% of GDP.
Between 2024-2028, Japan’s defence spending was forecast to increase from $70.3bn to $85.9bn over the period, as it embarks on a wide-ranging recapitalisation of its military, including the development and addition of new naval platforms and stand-off attack munitions, according to GlobalData analysis.
Detailing the potential threats posed by China and Russia, the White Paper revealed that in FY2023, Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force fighters were forced to scramble 669 times to intercept encroaching aircraft, the vast majority of them conducted by China (479 instances) and Russia (174 instances).
Japan’s defence build-up programme
Initiated in 2022, Japan’s Defence Build-up Programme (DBP) is a multi-year process intended to provide the country with the required capabilities determined necessary to defend its own interests, in areas such as space, cyber, electromagnetic domains, and greater integration of military services.
Included in this was the target that by 2027 Japan would be able to take “primary responsibility for dealing with invasions against its nation”, as well as the ability to “disrupt and defeat such threats while gaining support of its ally and others”.
This commitment to independent self-defence capability was reiterated in the 2024 White Paper, which points to a shifting Japanese relationship with the US, still declared a cornerstone of its defence policy, but now increasingly spoken of in terms of military partners rather than acting as a client state to host the immense US military forces deployed in Japan.
“While the presence of the US Forces in Japan (USFJ) functions as a deterrence, it is necessary to make efforts that are appropriate for the actual situation of each area to mitigate the impacts of the stationing of the USFJ on the living environment of local residents,” the White Paper stated.
“The realignment of the USFJ is a crucial initiative to mitigate the impact on local communities, including those in Okinawa, while further strengthening the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-US Alliance.”
Credit: Government of Japan
The US maintains more than 50,000 military personnel in Japan, where it has had a military presence since the end of WWII, with Japan hosting large air force and naval bases, such as Yokosuka, which is home to the US Navy’s 7th Fleet.
Other elements including the ability to utilise stand-off weapons, originally set at being introduced in the 2030s, have been brought forward, as threats continue to proliferate.
The White Paper stated that total expenditure needed to achieve the level of defence buildup sought by the DBP for five years from FY2023 to FY2027 amounts to approximately ¥43 trillion.
Tokyo speeds up Tomahawk acquisition
Among Japan’s military acquisition efforts is a focus on stand-off strike capabilities, such as its Tomahawk cruise missile programme.
The Defence White Paper restated the intention to speed up its acquisition of Tomahawk cruise missile as well as the deployment of the upgraded ground-launched Type-12 anti-ship missile, bringing forward the timelines for both programmes from FY2026 to FY2025.
Japan’s multi-stage defence capability acquisition plan
Credit: Government of Japan
In a programmatic outline of future platforms and capabilities, the defence paper stated that Japan “will fundamentally reinforce its stand-off defence capabilities to respond from outside the threat zone, including anti-aircraft missiles, against naval vessels and landing forces that invade Japan, including its remote islands”.
Included in this was the “deployment on Upgraded Type-12 SSM (surfaced-launched variants)” as well as the “acquisition of US-made Tomahawks”, which was to be accelerated by one year, starting in FY2025, to “promptly secure sufficient capabilities”.
Aegis System Equipped Vessels
Elsewhere, and in a bid to “strengthen the integrated air and missile defence capabilities”, Japan’s Ministry of Defence will start construction of the Aegis System Equipped Vessels, an anticipated class of two large surface warships able to conduct ballistic and potentially hypersonic missile defence operations.
In the White Paper’s forward, Japan Minister for Defence Kihara Minoru stated that the start of construction of the Aegis System Equipped Vessels would be “expedited” in order to enable Japan to “defence [itself] from increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile and other threats”.
Low-res images of the ASEV warships were released in Japan’s 2024 Defence White Paper. Credit: Government of Japan
Potentially linked to this is a joint Japan-US programme to develop a “Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) guided missile to counter Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs)”, the White Paper stated, as well as the ongoing procurement of SM-3 Block IIA, SM-6, PAC-3MSE missiles.
GlobalData’s Global Missiles & Missile Defense Systems Market Forecast 2023-2033 report reveals that Japan is expected to spend approximately $8.9bn to procure various types of missiles, including the procurement of interceptor-category missiles such as the AIM-120C-7, RIM-161D SM-3 Block-2, RIM-66 Standard, RIM-116 RAM Block 2, and RIM-174 Standard ERAM, all of which will be procured from the US.
As part of this effort, Japan has earmarked $1bn for the development of the GPI munition.
Japan to promote uncrewed systems, improve military logistics
Additional capabilities that Japan is seeking to integrate into its forces structure include uncrewed assest that are able to operate for extended periods, including the development of uncrewed amphibious vehicles that can “land on any shore of islands and perform tasks such as transporting supplies from the sea to the vicinity of troops”.
Further, Japan will establish a new formation to improve deployment capabilities in its southwest region, under the tentatively named Self-Defense Forces Maritime Transport Group, as a joint force, along with the acquisition of “manoeuvre support vessels and transport helicopters”.
army-technology.com · by Richard Thomas · July 15, 2024
11. The Secret Service Failed. What’s That Have to Do with DEI?
This is from the Free Press (A new media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism. See "About" below the article)
The Secret Service Failed. What’s That Have to Do with DEI?
Last year, the agency’s director promised it would promote more women. Videos of female agents fumbling after Donald Trump was shot haven’t helped her cause.
By Rupa Subramanya
July 15, 2024
https://www.thefp.com/p/secret-service-trump-shot-dei
Questions are being raised about the Secret Service, after it failed to protect former president Donald J. Trump from an assassination attempt. Influential Americans, from lawmakers to commentators, have drawn a link between the almost-catastrophic security breach and the Service’s new DEI policies—specifically, the attempt to increase the number of women it employs. Two videos in particular have drawn ire on social media—much of it directed at female agents who appear to be incompetent.
One shows a group of agents huddling around the former president after the bullet grazed him, trying to protect him. The human chain is mostly made up of male agents as tall as or taller than the former president, who are therefore able to shield him. From the front, however, Trump is exposed—because of a female agent, who is much shorter and smaller than her male colleagues. It doesn’t help that she can be seen adjusting her sunglasses.
Another video shows female agents fumbling with their firearms, rearranging their jackets, looking around with uncertainty, and moving around shambolically, as they’re attempting to safely evacuate Trump from the scene.
These signs of incompetence have been linked to the policies of the agency’s current director, Kimberly Cheatle, who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. Last May, she claimed in a CBS interview that she would aim to “attract diverse candidates,” and particularly wanted to increase the number of women in the Secret Service. Today, 24 percent of agents are female; she wants to raise that figure to 30 percent by the year 2030.
The day after the foiled assassination attempt, the House launched a “full investigation” into the shooting, led by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He has already formally requested Cheatle testify, on July 22.
But at the time of the shooting, his committee had already begun investigating the Secret Service. Concerns that a focus on DEI is damaging effectiveness and morale have been swirling for months now—and were brought to a head by an incident that took place on April 22 of this year.
It involved a female Secret Service agent, identified as Michelle Herczeg, who was part of Vice President Kamala Harris’s protective detail. While on duty, Herczeg became erratic and assaulted a superior. She was subsequently removed from her duties, but it then emerged that not only did Hercezg lack the experience expected of agents who protect the vice president, she had also been mired in controversy.
In 2016, Herczeg—then a Dallas police officer—had filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the city, claiming more than $1 million in damages, which was dismissed by a trial court. (An appellate court subsequently affirmed the decision and denied her a rehearing in 2022.) After her assault of a superior officer, Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter who has written extensively on the Secret Service, claimed her failed lawsuit should have disqualified her from being hired by the agency, because her record wasn’t “pristine.”
Not coincidentally, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee launched its investigation into the Secret Service a month later, on May 30, 2024. In a letter to Director Cheatle, informing her of the investigation, Rep. Comer referenced the incident. In it, he cites concerns that there are “potential vulnerabilities” within the agency, which may be “preventing it from fulfilling its mission to ensure the safety and security of its protectees”—including the president, former presidents, and major presidential candidates.
Comer’s letter also cited an anonymous petition dated May 6, 2024, which appears to have been written by Secret Service agents, and alleges “double standards between males and females.” It criticizes “the Agency’s false narrative that promotions are based on a ‘merit based system,’ when in reality the promotions have been based on alleged ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).’ ”
This, according to the anonymous petition, has led to a “number of serious breaches in security.” It calls on Director Cheatle to resign, or be fired.
After the news of the petition became public, Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi trashed the concerns raised, slamming the anonymous petitioners for not embodying the agency’s “values of service over self.”
To be fair, the Secret Service’s struggle with recruitment and retention goes far beyond DEI. A 2021 report highlights a high attrition rate, related to how stressful the work is, with about 8 percent of the workforce quitting every year. As a result, 16 percent of special agents—the type of agents protecting Trump—have less than three years’ job experience.
But whatever the cause of its crisis, the Secret Service needs to sort it out, and fast. The Americans who have sat, or are campaigning to sit, in the White House must be able to safely speak to the public. That they do so is nothing more than a foundation of our democracy.
Rupa Subramanya is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @rupasubramanya and read her piece “They’re Voting for Trump to ‘Save Democracy.’”
About The Free Press
A new media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism.
The Free Press is a new media company founded by Bari Weiss and built on the ideals that once were the bedrock of great journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence. We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is—with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but the fearlessness of the new.
Originally called Common Sense, we focus on stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative. For us, curiosity isn’t a liability. It’s a necessity.
Expect debates, scoops from trusted reporters, provocations from those thinking outside the lines, and live events that bring people with different views together into a truly diverse community.
You won’t agree with everything we run. And we think that’s exactly the point.
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12. Biden nominates one of Austin’s top military advisers to lead US Army Pacific
It seems like he has more Pacific experience than most recent Army commanders/senior leaders assigned to the Pacific.
Biden nominates one of Austin’s top military advisers to lead US Army Pacific
Stars and Stripes · by Joseph Ditzler · July 15, 2024
Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark speaks on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks during a ceremony at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Sept. 11, 2021. (Marc Loi/U.S Army)
President Joe Biden has nominated a lieutenant general with a history of command in the region to become the next leader of U.S. Army Pacific.
Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark, Austin’s senior military assistant, would take over at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, when Gen. Charles Flynn’s tenure ends there. Flynn took command on June 4, 2021, from Gen. Paul LaCamera, who now leads U.S. Forces Korea.
Clark, who would also pick up a fourth star, must be confirmed by the Senate.
Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark speaks on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks during a ceremony at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Sept. 11, 2021. (Marc Loi/U.S. Army)
A 1988 West Point graduate, Clark began his career in Germany as a rifle platoon and scout platoon leader for 5th Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division. He served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, according to his Army biography.
After the first conflict with Iraq, Clark led an infantry company with the 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
From there, Clark’s resume shows a steady climb up the command ladder: battalion commander in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom; deputy director of strategy, plans and policy in the Pentagon; deputy commanding general-support for the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq during Operation Inherent Resolve, the fight against Islamic State; then a stint with NATO as deputy chief of staff for operations for the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
Then it was back to Hawaii as chief of staff for U.S. Army Pacific, commander of the 25th ID and senior commander for U.S. Army Hawaii, followed by chief of staff for Indo-Pacific Command.
Afterward, Clark led U.S. Army Central, the Army component in Central Command, before moving to Austin’s office at the Pentagon.
In the latter role, Clark was one of only a handful of aides aware of Austin’s hospitalization in January before the White House was notified after three days.
Joseph Ditzler
Joseph Ditzler
Joseph Ditzler is a Marine Corps veteran and the Pacific editor for Stars and Stripes. He’s a native of Pennsylvania and has written for newspapers and websites in Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania. He studied journalism at Penn State and international relations at the University of Oklahoma.
Stars and Stripes · by Joseph Ditzler · July 15, 2024
13. After attempted Trump assassination, veteran groups urge calm
After attempted Trump assassination, veteran groups urge calm
militarytimes.com · by Nikki Wentling · July 15, 2024
Nineteen veterans groups on Monday condemned the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and urged Americans to keep violence out of politics.
The groups released a joint statement in which they said all Americans had the responsibility of “lowering the temperature” in today’s political discourse and insisted that “we all have more in common than not.”
“Our fellow Americans often look to our community to provide leadership and to set politics aside, because of our commitment to our Constitution and culture of putting service to the nation first,” the statement reads. “We have a clear and universal message to our fellow Americans - violence has no place in American politics. A fundamental tenet of American democracy is to settle our differences at the ballot box.”
The groups that signed onto the statement included: We the Veterans, AmVets, Veterans of Foreign Wars, National Military Family Association, Student Veterans of America, Blue Star Families, More Perfect Union, Elizabeth Dole Foundation, Mission Role Call, Combined Arms, Military Veterans In Journalism, Military Family Advisory Network, Veterans for All Voters, National Security Leaders for America, The Chamberlain Network, Disabled Veteran Empowerment Network, Millions of Conversations, Vet Voice Foundation and VetsForward.
“Regardless of individual politics, an attack on any candidate for office, elected official or election official is an attack on all of us,” they said. “It is an attack on the system of self-government that our men and women in uniform have served and sacrificed to protect.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, tried to assassinate Trump during a rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, the FBI confirmed. Trump said on social media the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting. Two spectators were critically injured, and Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, was killed. Secret Service agents fatally shot the gunman, who was perched on top of a nearby roof.
As of Monday, Crooks’ motive remained a mystery, with investigators saying they believe he acted alone. President Joe Biden ordered an independent security review of the attack, which prompted questions about how Crooks was able to open fire near the campaign event. The FBI was investigating the shooting as a potential act of domestic terrorism.
The lack of a clear motive prompted conspiracy theories to flourish online immediately following the attack and in the days after. In an address Sunday, Biden urged the public to “let the FBI do their job” and not make assumptions.
A week before the assassination attempt, the Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism coordinator warned that a “toxic political environment” has made the United States more vulnerable to acts of violence that threaten the country’s social fabric. Nicholas Rasmussen blamed prominent voices on both sides of the political aisle.
“The toxic political environment in which we live as Americans right now, and the existentialist ways in which voices in our public square frame our politics — not only zero sum terms, but the worst kind of zero sum terms — all of that leaves us far more vulnerable than ever to targeted violence here,” Rasmussen said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.
About Nikki Wentling
Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times. She's reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.
14. Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems and more F-16 warplanes, President Zelenskyy says
That seems like a lot of Patriots.
Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems and more F-16 warplanes, President Zelenskyy says
AP · July 15, 2024
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems to fully defend its airspace and protect the entire country from Russian missile attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, adding that he also wants Western partners to send more F-16 warplanes than those already pledged.
In his first news conference since returning from a trip to the United States, Zelenskyy said he is ready to work with Donald Trump if he wins November’s election. “I am not afraid” of that prospect, Zelenskyy said, adding he is convinced that most Republicans support Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday he was “appalled” by the attempt to assassinate Trump and wished him a speedy recovery.
Western support is crucial for Ukraine as it tries to beat back Russia’s bigger and better-equipped invading army. Zelenskyy has proved talented at persuading friendly countries to provide ever more support, even if he doesn’t always get what he wants immediately.
A six-month delay in military assistance from the U.S., the biggest single contributor to Ukraine, meant that Kyiv’s forces “lost the initiative” on the front line, Zelenskyy said.
Since the U.S. aid resumed in April, Ukraine has been scrambling to block a Russian offensive in eastern areas.
Zelenskyy didn’t say how many Patriot systems Ukraine currently possesses, though it is far fewer than the 25 he says his country needs as Russia has battered the national power grid.
The U.S. and other NATO allies promised last week to provide Ukraine with dozens of air defense systems in the coming months, including at least four of the sophisticated and expensive Patriot systems.
F-16 warplanes pledged by Western countries are due to arrive in Ukraine in two waves: the first batch this summer, and the second by the end of the year, Zelenskyy said.
He acknowledged the deliveries won’t, on their own, be a game-changer in the war, given that the Russian air force is far larger. Ukraine will need more warplanes, he said.
Commenting on other issues, Zelenskyy said:
—Russia should be present at a second international gathering to discuss peace. Russia was absent from the first meeting. There is no date for a second gathering.
—A Ukrainian government reshuffle is in the cards. “We are discussing various changes with some ministers,” Zelenskyy said.
—Efforts to mobilize more troops are going according to plan, though Ukraine doesn’t have enough training grounds and 14 brigades haven’t yet received promised Western weapons.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
HANNA ARHIROVA
Arhirova is an Associated Press reporter covering Ukraine. She is based in Kyiv.
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AP · July 15, 2024
15. ‘Why?’ Presidential assassins rarely have ‘political’ motives
‘Why?’ Presidential assassins rarely have ‘political’ motives
Thomas Matthew Crooks’ attempt on Donald Trump is the latest suspect in a nearly 200-year history of mostly-incoherent crimes.
NICHOLAS SLAYTON
POSTED ON JUL 14, 2024 5:43 PM EDT
9 MINUTE READ
taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton
Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot former President Donald Trump on Saturday, was a registered Republican but once donated $15 to a Joe Biden-aligned political group. As of Sunday, July 14, those contradictory facts are the only clues available to clarify or even guess at a motive for Crooks.
And if the 200-year history of Presidential assassination attempts is any guide, the picture may never get any clearer.
For one, Crooks is dead. He was killed almost immediately by United States Secret Service as he fired at Trump. He was not a military veteran and left very little of a social media trail. Early interviews of his high school classmates paint a picture only of a kid who did not enjoy high school.
But a review of the close to a dozen people who have attempted to kill presidents or presidential candidates in the last 200 years, going back to the administration of Andrew Jackson, finds that most were men — though two were women — with chaotic lives who acted for reasons that most people would not recognize as a ‘motive.’ In almost all of these cases, the shooters were not active-duty military or veterans, and almost always acted alone. Only the Civil War assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 was part of a wider plot.
Here is a look at the ‘why’ behind the Presidential killers and would-be killers in American history.
19th-Century Assassinations
An drawing of the attempted assassination of Andrew Jackson, published by Currier and Ives, circa 1876, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A mentally ill painter tried to shoot Andrew Jackson in 1835, but Jackson beat him up. President Andrew Jackson was the first head of the U.S. to be attacked. Richard Lawrence, a house painter suffering from mental illness, became fixated on Jackson and tracked his movements. On Jan. 30, 1835, while Jackson was leaving a funeral at the U.S. Capitol, Lawrence was waiting. He pulled the trigger on one pistol, which did not fire, and produced a second pistol, which also failed to go off. Jackson, a war veteran and noted belligerent person, then beat Lawrence with a cane before others including members of Congress separated them. Lawrence was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to a mental institution and remained there until his death in 1861.
A print depicting the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
John Wilkes Booth, an actor, shot Abraham Lincoln in 1865 as part of a conspiracy, motivated by the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated. During his time in office during the Civil War, there had been plots against him, but none succeeded. John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor of the time and member of a celebrity acting family, had long standing sympathy for the treasonous Confederacy. After a failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln, the D.C.-based Booth and his fellow conspirators hatched a plan to take out Lincoln and other top members of government. On April 14, 1865, after the Confederacy had already lost the Civil War, Booth used his connections and fame to enter Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was watching the play ‘Our American Cousin.’ He shot Lincoln in the back of the head, then jumped to the stage, injuring himself. His attempt to give a speech failed due to confusion and his bad landing. Lincoln would die in the early morning of April 15. Other conspirators failed to kill Secretary of State William Seward and backed out of attacking Vice President Andrew Johnson. Booth and his allies fled, leading to a massive manhunt. Booth was eventually cornered in a barn before being shot in the back of the head by Sgt. Boston Corbett, a deeply religious and pro-Union soldier. Booth died soon after.
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A mentally ill campaign worker who felt cheated of a political job shot James Garfield in 1881, although he died because his doctor was a quack. Civil War veteran James Garfield took the office of the president in March 1881. He worked on overhauling the civil service following years of scandals and corruption. On July 2, 1881, while at a train station in Washington, D.C., he was shot by Charles Guiteau. Guiteau had been a minor staffer for Garfield’s campaign in New York, but believed he was responsible for handing the man a victory. He lobbied for an ambassador job, moving to D.C. to harass Garfield’s staff. After failed efforts, he bought a gun and shot Garfield, who was taken to get medical attention. Infamously, it is believed that Garfield likely would have survived the wound, but his doctor, a man named Doctor Willard Bliss (yes, Doctor was his first name), spent weeks trying to remove the bullet, cutting more and more into the president’s body and ignoring proper hygiene. Garfield finally died on Sept. 19, 1881, a full 79 days after Guiteau shot him. Guiteau was sentenced to death and executed in 1882. During his trial he said that “The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him.”
The 20th Century
An anarchist shot William McKinley in 1901, the first of many attempted assassinations by the radical group. The attack on President William McKinley is one of just three that had even a partial political motive, along with Lincoln and Sirhan Sirhan’s attack on Robert Kennedy. Leon Czolgosz was an anarchist, a fairly clear political movement in the early 20th century, but far from a “mainstream” one. McKinley was one of several nobles and heads of state killed or targeted at the turn of the century by anarchists and Czolgosz cited the 1900 assassination of Italian King Umberto I as an inspiration. In 1901, McKinley was in Buffalo, New York visiting the Pan-American Exposition when Czolgosz approached him. Czolgolsz had become an anarchist after falling destitute in an economic recession years earlier. When McKinley went to shake his hand, Czolgosz shot him twice. The president was grazed by one bullet, but the other hit him square in the abdomen. Over the next few days his condition worsened and he died from the infected wound on Sept. 14, 1901. Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him. Czolgosz would be executed by the electric chair.
John Schrank’s hallucinations told him to kill Teddy Roosevelt in 1912. In 1912, Roosevelt was attempting a political comeback often compared to Trump’s 2024 run: he was trying to return to the office after leaving in 1908. Unlike Trump, Roosevelt was a third-party candidate of the Bull Moose Party. During a stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a former bar owner suffering from hallucinations named John Schrank became convinced he needed to kill the former president. Schrank fired a single shot, which hit Roosevelt in the chest, but the bullet was stopped in part due to a glasses case and a thick, folded paper. Although Roosevelt was known for his own myth making, his response to being shot was well documented. Roosevelt initially shrugged off the wound and got the crowd to let police take Schrank into custody. He then gave his speech, opening with “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” He would, however, lose the 1912 election. Schrank was later found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s killing of John F. Kennedy in 1963 remains awash with unanswered questions and unlikely conspiracy theories but no clear motive. Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963 was one of the most infamous moments of the 20th Century with a long list of peculiar and suspicious-but-not-quite-solid line of inquiry around it. Kennedy was visiting Dallas, Texas when his motorcade was fired upon. Kennedy was shot in the head and back and Texas Gov. John Conally was also seriously wounded. Kennedy would be declared dead shortly after the shooting. Police found former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald and arrested him following his murder of a Dallas police officer. Oswald is believed to have killed Kennedy from an elevated position in the Texas School Book Depository, firing three shots from a rifle. Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby while in police custody. Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency.
A television picture, broadcast in May 1977, of Palestinian-born assassin Sirhan Sirhan being arrested after his shooting of United States Senator Robert Kennedy (1925 � 1968) at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, 5th June 1968. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Ernst Haas
Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although Sirhan had a clear political motive, he did not target Kennedy specifically for the senator’s beliefs or actions, but rather because he was a target he could reach. Kennedy, JFK’s brother, was running for the 1968 Democratic nomination. The night of the California primary, which Kennedy won and left him a favorite in the race, he gave a speech at the Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. While Kennedy exited through the hotel kitchen, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-Jordanian deeply angry at the United States for its support of Israel, approached and opened fire. Kennedy was shot and five others were wounded. Kennedy died from his wounds. Sirhan was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life without parole.
Arthur Bremer shot George Wallace, a Republican Presidential candidate in 1968, because he wanted to be famous. The segregationist and Alabama Gov. George Wallace was running for the Democratic nomination in 1972. While on a visit to Maryland, Wallace was shaking hands with voters when Arthur Bremer appeared and shot him four times in the chest. Three other people were shot. Bremer had no political motivation, but was instead seeking fame. Bremer had originally planned to kill Richard Nixon before setting his sights on Wallace. Wallace survived but was left paralyzed. Bremer was sentenced to prison and released only in 2007.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was in the Manson Cult when she tried to kill President Gerald Ford in 1975. Jane Moore tried to kill Ford over fringe beliefs. Ford, who took office after Nixon resigned, was the target of two different assassination attempts within two weeks. While in Sacramento on Sept. 5, 1975, Ford was at the California State Capitol when Manson-cultist Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme pulled out a pistol and failed to fire the gun. She was quickly restrained and Ford carried on. On Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore tried to kill Ford while he was in San Francisco, having become convinced of a vague idea of revolution. She fired two shots from a revolver. The first missed and another person grabbed her arm, messing up her aim on the second shot. Fromme was given life in prison, but was released in 2009. Moore had the same sentence, and was paroled in 2007.
John Hinkley Jr. suffered from delusions when he shot Ronald Reagan in 1981, believing it would impress an actress. Prior to Trump, the last president to be shot was Ronald Reagan. John Hinkley Jr. came from a rich Texas oil family and tried but failed to be a songwriter as a young man. At 25 and on heavy medication, he became convinced that killing President Reagan would impress actress Jodie Foster. Hinkley traveled to Washington, D.C. and on March 30, 1981 was part of a crowd watching Reagan exit a D.C. hotel. Hinkley fired six shots from a revolver. Two bullets hit a police officer and Secret Service agent. White House Press James Brady was wounded and later died from his injuries in 2014 (his death was ruled a homicide). Reagan was wounded by one of the bullets when it ricocheted and was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, where doctors stabilized him. Hinkley would be declared not guilty by reason of insanity. He was released in 2016 and has been recording and releasing music online.
The July 13 attack on Trump is the latest in these attempts. Trump has said that he is okay, following the wound, and the FBI is investigating. President Joe Biden has ordered a review of security measures.
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Contributing Editor
Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task & Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military’s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs). He currently runs the Task & Purpose West Coast Bureau from Los Angeles.
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taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton
16. Deep Strikes into Russia: A Partner’s Decision for Ukraine’s Strategic Success
This should stir some debate: Political calculations should not outweigh sound military strategy? In a military person's perfect world perhaps.
What is military success? When the political object is achieved.
Excerpts:
Political calculations should not outweigh sound military strategy if you expect to succeed in a war. It should not be forgotten that restrictions raise the cost of defense, as the weapons needed for defense are much more expensive than the expected means of destruction.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs James OBrien recently noted that if Russia tries to expand the current front, Ukraine will be allowed to fire at a greater distance. Now, according to O’Brien, Russia is losing its ability to attack because of Ukraine’s destruction of Russian facilities near the border. This statement confirms the effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes on military targets in Russia. At the same time, it suggests that there is currently no political will in Washington to permit the use of American weapons more widely. Increasing the distance is possible only in the event of a new Russian offensive, so the United States has no concerns about possible risks and Russia’s reaction to this step, only its own self-restraint.
At the moment, the delay in making such a decision is negatively affecting the security of Ukrainian cities and the situation at the front. Such a change is a strategic issue, and Ukrainians cannot wait for Moscow to expand the front by going on the offensive in northern Ukraine or other regions.
Strikes on targets in Russia could help the Ukrainian Armed Forces seize the initiative on the battlefield and reduce the enemy’s military potential, which does not only threaten Ukraine. To do this, Ukraine’s allies should implement their own long-term strategy to counter Russian aggression.
Deep Strikes into Russia: A Partner’s Decision for Ukraine’s Strategic Success - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Serhii Kuzan · July 16, 2024
Two years ago, on May 31, 2022, President Joe Biden announced in his New York Times op-ed that the United States would provide Ukraine with high-mobility artillery rocket systems. The op-ed noted that the White House neither encourages nor allows Ukraine to launch strikes outside its borders. “We don’t want to prolong the war just to hurt Russia,” Biden wrote at the time. Today, the restrictions are being eased, but U.S. officials assure that the overall policy on attacking targets in Russia has not changed — long-range strikes deep into Russian territory are still prohibited.
However, the war has been going on for two-and-a-half years now, and Russia is still waging it relentlessly. Russia is using guided aerial bombs to strike cities with populations of over one million, including Kharkiv. Russia also has recently destroyed 80 percent of Ukraine’s thermal generation and one-third of its hydroelectric generation, and Ukrainians are now facing an extremely difficult winter. In addition, with his recent statement on the eve of the June peace summit in Switzerland, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he can only be stopped by force. The idea of allowing Western weapons to strike Russian territory is increasingly gaining support among Western leaders, a point Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to drive home in Washington on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Along these lines, it looks like, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer changed U.K. policy when he said, on July 9, that Ukraine could use British long-range Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russia, Bloomberg reported.
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Changes in the Policy of Ukraine’s Partners
The discussion about the possibility of responding to Russian aggression within the framework of international law began on May 3, 2024, with a statement by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. He said that Ukraine has the right to strike targets in Russia with British weapons because Moscow is shelling Ukrainian territory. So far, more than a dozen countries have supported Ukraine’s right to respond symmetrically to Russia using weapons produced by them.
Nevertheless, the United States remains the most important country in this matter. Only Washington can quantitatively and qualitatively cover the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for long-range weapons. The United States is currently the only country that has the appropriate stockpiles of a wide range of long-range weapons. If Washington were to grant permission to Ukraine to use these to strike military targets in Russia, the impact could encourage other allies of Ukraine to help with their own long-range weapons, such as Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles. Currently Germany is refusing to supply its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, still believing that providing them to Kyiv could draw Berlin into a war with Russia. The German missile has a higher “hit probability” and a longer range than, for example, the Storm Shadow, so if it were used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces strikes on legitimate targets in Russia would be more effective.
On May 31, Zelensky announced that Washington had authorized the limited use of U.S. weapons in the Russian region bordering Kharkiv. And the United States has now authorized Ukraine to use American weapons to defeat any Russian forces attacking across the border, not just those in the Kharkiv region. However, this permission is only a half-measure. For successful defense, the United States should completely remove restrictions on Ukraine repelling the Kremlin’s aggression, especially giving authorization to use long-range Army tactical missile systems against legitimate military targets throughout the entire reach of the Russian Federation.
Currently, Kyiv remains unable to respond to the attacks symmetrically, being limited to its own territory occupied by Russia and a strip of the Russian border 100 kilometers from Ukraine. At the same time, Russia strikes both military and civilian targets in Ukraine from its territory almost daily, using a wide range of weapons — from strategic aircraft and bombers to multiple-launch rocket systems and surface-to-air missile systems that kill civilians and destroy entire cities.
Ukraine has a successful track record of using Western weapons, particularly American ones, to gain advantages on the battlefield and liberate territories — for example, the liberation of Kherson in late 2022, when Ukrainian M142 high-mobility artillery rocket systems destroyed Russian logistics on the right bank of the Dnipro River, or the strikes by British-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles against the headquarters and ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Together with the liberation of Zmiinyi Island and other actions, these strikes have become an important component in restoring Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea to pre-war levels. According to Bloomberg, world wheat prices began to drop after the first grain ship left Ukraine in August 2023.
Even the limited use of the weapons is already producing results. Immediately after the United States granted a limited authorization, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a high-mobility artillery rocket system strike against the Russian air defense system in the Belgorod region, and video of the burning equipment was disseminated by Russian TV channels on June 3. The strike destroyed or damaged two radars and two S-400 launchers that were firing at the city of Kharkiv. The Russian army has been using these types of air defense missile systems to shell the city. According to the Washington Post, in May 2024 the Russians launched 76 strikes on Kharkiv, killing and injuring 278 people. In June, the number of strikes dropped to three. Russian air bombs remain the main threat to the city. On June 22–23 alone, Russians carried out several air strikes on the city center and residential areas, killing 4 people and injuring 60 others.
Changing the Direction of Strikes
If Ukraine is able to use long-range weapons to destroy legitimate military targets in response to Moscow’s attacks, Russia may face a potential “strike zone” of up to 300 kilometers, which presents the Kremlin with new challenges. It is worth noting that the 300-kilometer zone is a conditional definition of the potential range of Western weapons (for example, the U.S. Army M39 or M39A1 tactical missile systems, the French-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles, or the German Taurus missiles) that Ukraine has received or may receive. Of course, the range will depend on a combination of different factors, such as the place of use, the type of weapon, and the weapon carrier itself.
The security of the border regions is critically important for the Russian military-industrial complex and the army as a whole because a significant number of Russian military facilities are located in the European part of the country, with many in the defined zone of potential destruction. In particular, dozens of military factories that manufacture weapons used to destroy civilian infrastructure and attack Ukrainian residents fall in the strip — for instance, the Russian composite materials plant Avangard in Safonovo, Smolensk region. This enterprise, part of the Tactical Missile Arms corporation, produces transport-launch containers and engine housings for solid-fuel missiles used to strike Ukraine. Smolensk itself is a home to an aviation plant that was already hit by drones from the Defense Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine in November 2023. That strike disrupted the production process of Kh-59 missiles of various modifications.
The potential zone also includes the Aviaavtomatika plant in Kursk (which produces control systems for drones and armored vehicles) and Elektrosignal in Voronezh (a manufacturer of communications equipment for the Russian army). Voronezh has several enterprises that produce electronic components (microcircuits, transistors, diodes, and so forth) intended to replace Western components in Russian weapons. The products of the Voronezh Semiconductor Plant VZPP-S are intended for use in electronic warfare, electronic intelligence, and military communication systems. Electronic warfare and electronic intelligence systems could soon become a significant factor in this war, so the development of this branch of Russia’s military-industrial complex is a critical danger not only for Ukraine but also for NATO countries. In addition to electronic warfare devices, the company’s electronics can also be used in other military products. And there are dozens of similar enterprises in other cities, such as Taganrog, Bryansk, Rostov-on-Don, and Lipetsk.
However, it is no less important to strike at the rear military units, military depots, and, most importantly, airfields of the Russian Federation. In the approximately 300-kilometer border zone with Ukraine, Russia has about 184 military units of the Ministry of Defense, the FSB, and the Russian National Guard, and at least 18 military airfields that are regularly used for strikes against Ukraine, logistics and transportation of weapons, and radio reconnaissance.
Despite the limitations in means, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were able to achieve certain successes in hitting such targets behind enemy lines. To do this, they use all available resources — in particular, attack drones, whose payload is relatively small, as well as sabotage and reconnaissance groups. In this way, the Main Intelligence Directorate attacked the Seshcha, Shaykovka, and Voronezh airfields with Ukrainian drones, and a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber was destroyed for the first time at the Soltsy airfield by the Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group. However, if more powerful and long-range weapons from allies had been used, these strikes could have had a much greater effect.
A military intelligence source of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center reported on the consequences of Ukrainian security service attacks on Russian airfields and strikes on Kushchevskaya and Morozovsk facilities. Russian planes conduct 100 to 150 sorties against Ukraine from these airfields per day. Confirmed strikes on these airbases have destroyed or damaged at least 17 Russian aircraft, including Su-34 bombers — the aircraft that Russia uses to drop precision weapons on Ukrainian Armed Forces positions and frontline Ukrainian cities.
Still, the available weapons are not always sufficient to effectively defeat enemy targets in the rear. Moscow understands the relative security of its border from the use of high-precision and long-range weapons, such as multiple-launch rocket system missiles or European-made cruise missiles. This allows it not only to use existing military facilities but also to build new ones. For example, Russia is building a new military airfield in the Belgorod region, 70 kilometers from the border. It is from this region that indiscriminate shelling of Kharkiv and settlements in the Kharkiv region regularly takes place, mainly with the use of artillery or S-300 air defense systems, which Ukrainian forces have long been unable to destroy due to lack of technical capabilities.
At the moment, there is still a window of opportunity to hit Russian airfields and aircraft. Russian military experts and bloggers have long been sounding the alarm about the lack of full-fledged protective shelters for military aircraft in the form of concrete hangars and have proposed making protection from cargo containers filled with earth. And their fears are not unfounded: Given that aircraft at airfields are protected only along the perimeter and are unprotected from above, the use of cluster munitions would have a significant impact on Russian aviation. Army tactical missile system cluster munitions do not leave large craters, but they cover a large area and turn unarmored aircraft into a sieve. In this case, provided none are intercepted, a few Army tactical missile system Block I cluster missiles would be enough to disable one squadron of the Russian Aerospace Forces at an airbase within 150 to 300 kilometers of Ukraine’s territory.
For example, the first successful use of Army tactical missile system cluster missiles took place on Oct. 17, 2023, during the Dragonfly operation of the Special Operations Forces. Then the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck airports near the temporarily occupied cities of Berdiansk (Zaporizhzhia region) and Luhansk. The operation destroyed at least nine helicopters, special equipment, an air defense launcher, and an aviation ammunition depot. After the strike, the Russian Air Force was forced to relocate its helicopters away from the front to the temporarily occupied Crimea and to the territory of Russia. However, due to the recent Army tactical missile system strikes, the air force’s base in Crimea is now also under threat. In particular, after the missile strike on May 16, Russia lost two airplanes and a helicopter, as confirmed by satellite images. As a result, in November 2023, Moscow began to build hangars at a military airfield in the Volgograd region, 450 kilometers from the territory controlled by Ukraine.
Another important and positive aspect of attacks on military and strategic targets in Russia is the need for Russians to withdraw air defense assets from other areas to cover them. This creates gaps in the Russian air defense system, which in turn allows Ukrainian drones to penetrate to a depth of more than 1,800 kilometers into Russian territory.
Improving Defense Capabilities
The boundaries of Ukraine’s defense are defined by international law yet are hindered by restrictions imposed by its partners. Given that Ukraine could strike Russian positions at considerable depth, in addition to hitting strategic targets, removing these restrictions would also complicate any build-up of Russian reserves on the border and their advance deeper into Ukraine’s northern regions.
The Kremlin has used blackmail and intimidation to form a position among Western countries that any strike on targets in Russia with Western weapons would be evidence of the West’s participation in the war. However, the announced “red lines” are not working and the Kremlin has already been claiming that it has been at war with NATO — for example, there was no response to the strikes by high-mobility artillery rocket system missiles on military targets in the Belgorod region of Russia or to the use of U.S. long-range Army tactical missile system missiles on the military airfield in Dzhankoy (in temporarily occupied Crimea).
Existing limitations imposed by the allies give the aggressor an invaluable advantage. For example, the defeat of Russian fighters stationed at airbases in the border regions would deprive the Russian army’s assault units of effective air support during offensive operations, as happened during the assaults on Avdiivka and Bakhmut. Accordingly, Russian operations such as the one the Kremlin launched on May 10 in the northeast of Kharkiv region would be far more difficult for Moscow. Both Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi and representatives of Ukrainian intelligence spoke about possible plans for Kharkiv in late March. In particular, the plans and the number of Russian troops that could be involved in this offensive were discussed in an interview with the Economist by the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Vadym Skibitskyi. Therefore, Ukrainian intelligence officers saw the accumulation of enemy forces and assets and informed the command. As a result, additional units were sent to the potential breakthrough zone on the eve of the offensive.
However, Ukrainian troops were unable to use long-range Western weapons, such as artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, to defeat military formations on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian weapons that the Ukrainian Armed Forces could use — such as their most modern Bogdan self-propelled artillery systems — are inferior to Western weapons, which are better than their Russian and Ukrainian (Soviet) counterparts. As a result, three Bogdan self-propelled artillery systems were destroyed in the Kharkiv region in May. In turn, Western artillery with greater range and mobility, such as Archer or Caesar, would be more effective and have a better chance of surviving counter-battery combat.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said after the June 13 Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting that Washington’s decision to allow the Ukrainian military to use American weapons to strike targets in Russia had a positive impact on the operational situation in the Kharkiv region — the Russian offensive had slowed down and any serious breakthroughs had been avoided.
In addition, lifting restrictions would help eliminate the threat posed by Russian aircraft to cities, such as Kharkiv, and to the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Currently, planning and correction module bombs, the Russian equivalent of joint direct attack munitions, are one of the main weapons of choice for Russian tactical aviation. Since the beginning of 2024, Russian combat aircraft have dropped more than 3,500 bombs on Ukrainian positions. This number is 16 times higher than the same period last year. Russia uses Su-34 bombers 30, 40, and sometimes 60 kilometers from the front line to strike Ukrainian fortifications or cities, so the short-range surface-to-air missiles Ukraine currently uses are not able to reach these aircraft. However, if the allies allow it, the situation may change.
The 100-kilometer strike zone on Russian territory that, according to Western media reports, currently exists does not allow for effective strikes on the main targets used by Russia for attacks. In particular, the strike zone does not include the Russian airbases of Voronezh Baltimor and Buturlinovka, where Su-34 bombers attacking Ukraine are based.
Strikes on Russian military airbases will force the Russian command to move these bases out of the 300-kilometer strike zone, which will increase the flight time of Russian aircraft to the area where bombs or missiles are launched and reduce their service life. For instance, according to British intelligence, the Ukrainian attack on Kushchevskaya airfield forced Russia to withdraw about 40 aircraft of various types from the area and disperse them to airfields farther from the front line. Another major factor is that the increased approach time of Russian aircraft will increase the time for detection and response in Ukraine, both on the ground and in the air. Accordingly, this will allow for advance warning of attacks and increase the time to respond to these strikes.
Political calculations should not outweigh sound military strategy if you expect to succeed in a war. It should not be forgotten that restrictions raise the cost of defense, as the weapons needed for defense are much more expensive than the expected means of destruction.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs James OBrien recently noted that if Russia tries to expand the current front, Ukraine will be allowed to fire at a greater distance. Now, according to O’Brien, Russia is losing its ability to attack because of Ukraine’s destruction of Russian facilities near the border. This statement confirms the effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes on military targets in Russia. At the same time, it suggests that there is currently no political will in Washington to permit the use of American weapons more widely. Increasing the distance is possible only in the event of a new Russian offensive, so the United States has no concerns about possible risks and Russia’s reaction to this step, only its own self-restraint.
At the moment, the delay in making such a decision is negatively affecting the security of Ukrainian cities and the situation at the front. Such a change is a strategic issue, and Ukrainians cannot wait for Moscow to expand the front by going on the offensive in northern Ukraine or other regions.
Strikes on targets in Russia could help the Ukrainian Armed Forces seize the initiative on the battlefield and reduce the enemy’s military potential, which does not only threaten Ukraine. To do this, Ukraine’s allies should implement their own long-term strategy to counter Russian aggression.
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Serhii Kuzan, a military and political expert, is chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center. He was an advisor to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (2022 to 2023) and to the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (2014).
Image: Kyiv City State Administration via Wikimedia Commons
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Serhii Kuzan · July 16, 2024
17. Geography Is a Dealbreaker for Coalition Building in Asia
Geography matters.
Excerpts:
But this “new convergence” is more of an illusion than reality. As we argued in a longer piece in the Washington Quarterly, the United States still lacks military access to critical parts of Asia, a robust regional security network, and well-armed allies and partners capable of self-defense. Worse, trying harder will not solve these myriad problems because the region’s geography—its vast distances and maritime environment—works against coalition-building. Instead of trying to outmatch or outcompete China, Washington should acknowledge the geographic reality and build a more narrow but sustainable coalition to balance Chinese power and prevent Beijing’s regional hegemony.
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Ultimately, U.S. policymakers are right: The United States needs allies and partners to counter China. But aiming for an unattainable coalition will leave the United States running excessive risks. U.S. long-term success in Asia will depend, in the end, on Washington’s ability to internalize the region’s geostrategic lessons.
Geography Is a Dealbreaker for Coalition Building in Asia
Kelly A. Grieco, Jennifer Kavanagh
The countries that the United States is trying to rally together are too dispersed to share the same security concerns.
lawfaremedia.org · by Kelly A. Grieco
Editor’s Note: The Biden administration has launched an ambitious effort to work with allies and partners in Asia to counter China. My Georgetown University colleagues Kelly Grieco and Jennifer Kavanagh, who are also senior fellows at the Stimson Center and Defense Priorities, respectively, argue that the United States is trying to do too much and that it will fail as a result. They point to numerous limits and highlight in particular the role of geography in shaping the responses of states in Asia.
Daniel Byman
***
At the 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin touted a “new convergence” between the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies and partners that is “defining a new era of security in the Indo-Pacific.” Austin came with a list of accomplishments to back it up, hailing expanded U.S. military access to bases in Australia and the Philippines, a “new era” in U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation, and co-production deals with India.
But this “new convergence” is more of an illusion than reality. As we argued in a longer piece in the Washington Quarterly, the United States still lacks military access to critical parts of Asia, a robust regional security network, and well-armed allies and partners capable of self-defense. Worse, trying harder will not solve these myriad problems because the region’s geography—its vast distances and maritime environment—works against coalition-building. Instead of trying to outmatch or outcompete China, Washington should acknowledge the geographic reality and build a more narrow but sustainable coalition to balance Chinese power and prevent Beijing’s regional hegemony.
The Indo-Pacific Mirage
Despite its boasting, the Biden administration has made only limited progress toward any “convergence” in Asia. First, the United States still lacks the military access it needs to establish a more distributed and survivable force posture against China’s missile threats. New access permissions have done little to remedy this situation, as both the Philippines and Papua New Guinea have said the United States cannot conduct strike operations from their soil in a Taiwan contingency.
Second, most allies and partners—including Taiwan—continue to underinvest in their own defense and spend far too much on big-ticket items like fighter jets and warships, rather than on the anti-ship and anti-air missiles, drones, and sea mines they need to turn themselves into hard-to-conquer porcupines.
Finally, even the administration’s signature project—building a “latticework” of overlapping security partnerships in the region—has met with limited success. Few countries are willing to fully commit to U.S. security networks that they perceive—rightly or wrongly—as requiring them to choose between the United States and China. In December 2023, for example, a few months after entering a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States—and raising expectations for closer alignment between Hanoi and Washington on security issues—Vietnam also elevated its relationship with Beijing as part of a carefully balanced refusal to take sides.
Though the administration has acknowledged some remaining gaps, officials continue to express confidence that as China’s military assertiveness in the region grows, the U.S.-led coalition will become stronger—with more and better armed members and wider access permissions. But this expectation discounts the geographic reality of the Indo-Pacific.
The Problem of Geography
The region’s sheer size, its expansive oceans and seas, and the unique maritime characteristics of Indo-Pacific states themselves pose intractable barriers to building the region-wide coalition in Asia that Washington expects.
First, the region’s vast distances dampen many regional states’ threat perceptions of China. Many U.S. partners consider hot spots like the Taiwan Strait and the Second Thomas Shoal to be distant concerns. The size of the Indo-Pacific theater—covering 50 percent of Earth’s surface—prevents the emergence of the shared security interests that might serve as the foundation of a regional coalition. Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have little direct concern about the fate of Taiwan, which is some 1,800 miles away and peripheral to their own security. At the same time, by challenging the U.S. ability to project combat power, the region’s size erodes the perceived benefits of joining U.S-led. coalitions.
Second, the region’s maritime geography offers a powerful defensive barrier—what the political scientist John Mearsheimer terms “the stopping power of water.” This defensive advantage discourages states from making large investments in defense or turning to a balancing coalition for protection. China’s neighbors are wary of its growing power, but few see it as posing an existential threat to their survival. The maritime environment also gives them reason to question the credibility of U.S. commitments, as the air and naval assets that the United States relies on in the region are highly mobile—easy to deploy and easy to withdraw—and raise the perceived risks of lining up behind the United States.
Finally, the unique geographies of Asia’s maritime states tend to focus attention inward and on local security issues and away from more distant regional security threats. Archipelagic states like Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, for example, prioritize protecting their dispersed sovereignty—specifically the internal waters that lie between their many islands. These internal concerns may sometimes overlap with U.S. priorities—as is the case with Japan, as its archipelago extends toward Taiwan—but mostly they reduce regional demand for balancing coalitions. Similarly, coastal states like Vietnam and South Korea tend to focus most heavily on threats to their land borders, content to let the sea’s defensive barrier offer a first line of protection along their coastlines and driving them away from regional coalitions.
Because geography does not change, the coalition Washington wants is unattainable, and no amount of time or effort will alter that reality.
A Power-Balancing Coalition
Going forward, Washington ought to take the region’s geography more seriously. To start, it should right-size U.S. strategic objectives. Washington still clings to the goal of preserving U.S. military primacy in Asia, but its strategy of building a large coalition of allies and partners to help defray some of the costs is unworkable. Worse, it leaves the United States dangerously overstretched. Instead, Washington should focus on drawing together a smaller group of allies and partners that can prevent Chinese hegemony without trying to maintain its own.
To build a balancing coalition, the United States should prioritize the security of the region’s major centers of industrial power, including India, Japan, and South Korea, supporting them in providing for their own self-defense with arms sales, intelligence sharing, and defense industrial base cooperation. At the same time, Washington should deprioritize areas less likely to shift the balance of power—for example, much of continental Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Second, to reinforce its regional staying power, the United States should invest more heavily in improving its existing defense infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific, including hardening aircraft shelters and submarines pens, moving more resources to pre-positioned equipment stockpiles, and increasing air and missile defense capabilities. These investments would send costly signals that increase the credibility of long-term U.S. commitments to Asia. They would also create the capacity for rapidly surging forces into the region in a conflict and increase the resilience of U.S. posture in Asia without the need for additional forward-deployed U.S. ground forces, which can create their own escalation risks.
Finally, rather than pressing for regional convergence, Washington needs to meet the region—especially Southeast Asia—where it is. The United States should learn to work more effectively within Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) networks and through its many overlapping subgroups as a participant and supporter of these states’ regional security concerns.
Ultimately, U.S. policymakers are right: The United States needs allies and partners to counter China. But aiming for an unattainable coalition will leave the United States running excessive risks. U.S. long-term success in Asia will depend, in the end, on Washington’s ability to internalize the region’s geostrategic lessons.
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Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and an adjunct professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
Read More
Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities. She is also an adjunct professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
lawfaremedia.org · by Kelly A. Grieco
18. Why Iran’s New President Won’t Change His Country
Excerpts:
Washington should make a good-faith effort to craft such an agreement, which would add some stability to a turbulent region. The United States should also maintain open channels to Tehran, especially if Pezeshkian makes communicating easier. But U.S. officials and commentators should not get overly optimistic about Pezeshkian’s presidency. They should avoid framing any negotiations with Iran’s new administration as the beginning of a diplomatic breakthrough. They should certainly avoid saying that the United States is trying to strengthen Iran’s moderates vis-à-vis its hard-right elites. Such a claim could incite fear within Iran’s conservatives that Washington is attempting to instigate a revolution, making them more bullish and aggressive. In other words, it risks further empowering the very actors U.S. officials want to weaken.
It would also be pointless: even with Pezeshkian’s win, the country’s moderates remain weak, and they currently lack the capacity to challenge the supreme leader. They carry little weight within his institutions, including the IRGC. They do not have support from most of Iran’s citizens. Previously, reformists viewed elections as a way to empower moderate presidents to balance the supreme leader. But as Pezeshkian’s statements show, they have accepted that Khamenei’s authority really is absolute. Now, they are simply looking to do the best they can within the constraints he has given.
Why Iran’s New President Won’t Change His Country
Masoud Pezeshkian Will Not Cross the Supreme Leader
July 16, 2024
Foreign Affairs · by Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran · July 16, 2024
On July 5, the parliamentarian Masoud Pezeshkian prevailed in Iran’s snap presidential election. It was a surprising win. Pezeshkian is a relative moderate who pledged to engage with the West, end Internet filtering, and cease the morality police’s harassment of women—a program not endorsed by the country’s clerical elite. Instead, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wanted a president in the mold of Pezeshkian’s hard-line predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter accident. As a result, most experts believed that Khamenei would maneuver to ensure the election of another proven conservative. As I wrote in Foreign Affairs shortly after the helicopter crash, “Iran’s next president will almost certainly be just like its last.”
But although Pezeshkian may hold different views from Raisi, in practice, his government may operate much like his predecessor’s. Iran’s new president, like its last, is devoted to the Islamic Republic’s structure and identity. During his campaign, he did not promise sweeping shifts: long gone are the days when Iranian presidential candidates proposed lofty visions for promoting democracy, civil society, human rights, and rapprochement with the United States. Instead, Pezeshkian worked to prove that he was the candidate most capable of executing policies set by Khamenei. He pledged fealty, again and again, to the supreme leader. He rejected the reformist-conservative dichotomy, stating that he did not belong to any political camp. Perhaps that is why, although the election featured candidates with supposedly different views, voter turnout was historically low. Only 40 percent of people participated in the first round, and just 49 percent turned out for the second. In the 1997 election, by contrast, the reformist won 70 percent of the ballots in an election where 80 percent of eligible Iranians voted.
Pezeshkian’s win will lead to some policy shifts. His government, for example, might strike a modest nuclear deal with Washington. It could also create some social and political space for its citizens, particularly for young people and women. If realized, his measures will alleviate the hardship of Iranians’ daily lives and foster a sense of hope and optimism.
But on the whole, Pezeshkian is likely to govern in seamless coordination with the supreme leader—just as Raisi did. The country will maintain its assertive regional policies and nuclear program. It will strengthen its friendships with China and Russia, and it will continue to thaw ties with neighboring countries. It will ensure the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintains its economic and political autonomy, allowing it to continue its corrupt behavior and to keep repressing dissidents. Iran may have a surprising new president, but the future of Iran still looks like its past.
COME FROM BEHIND
When Pezeshkian announced he was running for president, his candidacy was not taken especially seriously. A cardiac surgeon and war veteran of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Pezeshkian was disqualified from the 2021 presidential election for his reformist views. He was initially disqualified from the 2024 parliamentary elections, as well, for criticizing the morality police when Mahsa Amini—a 22-year-old Iranian woman—died in their custody after being arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly. Pezeshkian was reinstated in the parliamentary elections only after Khamenei personally intervened. And Pezeshkian did not make much of a name for himself after winning; in the 2024 presidential elections, he was one of the three candidates on the reformist list. He became the camp’s standard bearer not by choice, but by default, as the only reformist the supreme leader let compete (likely in a bid to increase turnout).
But as the race got under way, Pezeshkian proved to be quite savvy. He had former reformist presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani campaign aggressively on his behalf. He brought on Javad Zarif, Rouhani’s capable foreign minister, to help run his team. He gained popularity among more-liberal voters by promising to halt Iran’s economic slide and to push back against social restrictions. But he also cultivated former Raisi supporters by making constant references to the Koran and other religious texts. He emphasized the president’s limited role as executor of the supreme leader’s policies. And his concentration on social justice appealed to the country’s poor and working classes. He thus put together a coalition of reformers and moderate conservatives that helped him place first in the election’s opening round, with 42 percent of the vote.
In the runoffs, Pezeshkian faced an extreme hard-liner, Saeed Jalili. The former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Jalili has argued that making women wear veils is a matter of national security, describing headscarves as the Islamic Republic’s “strategic depth.” His ultraconservative supporters in parliament have spearheaded what their opponents term a “purification project,” aimed at purging elites who diverge from their ideological views. These stances made him look radical even when compared with other conservative leaders.
Pezeshkian took full advantage. His team declared that Jalili would restrict social freedoms and exacerbate women’s challenges (particularly concerning dress codes). But to win over more conservatives, reformists also accused Jalili’s far-right backer—the powerful Front of Islamic Revolution Stability—of planning to challenge both Khamenei’s authority and that of the IRGC. Zarif even claimed that General Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC commander assassinated by the United States in 2020, was so critical of Jalili’s hard-line views that he once said he would resign if Jalili became president.
These tactics worked. Reformist leaders continued to promote Pezeshkian. Many senior conservative figures, including some of Khamenei’s confidants and advisers, also backed him. In the end, he defeated Jalili by nine percentage points.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
As president, Pezeshkian is likely to enact some new policies. He will probably reduce Internet censorship, allowing millions of people to access websites without using expensive anti-filtering software. He will pursue initiatives to improve health care and educational access for the poor. He will create at least a somewhat less restrictive environment for the press, women, and ordinary Iranians—so long as their activities do not pose a threat to the system. And if he succeeds at creating a more efficient bureaucracy, enacted with the help of what is likely to be a younger and more diverse cabinet, reformists may be able to win back their old constituencies: Iran’s youth, women, and middle class.
But the current balance of power in Tehran will prevent Pezeshkian from making deeper changes. The conservative establishment, led by Khamenei, controls all the country’s power centers, including the security apparatus, the judiciary, the media, and much of the economy. Even if Pezeshkian were not so restricted, it is unlikely he would fight for sweeping shifts. The incoming president may not be as subservient to Khamenei as Raisi was, but Pezeshkian is unlikely to challenge the supreme leader as much as Khatami and Rouhani. In addition to pledging total loyalty to Khamenei, Pezeshkian spent his campaign stressing that the next government’s task “is not to set new plans or announce new policies.” According to the country’s Mehr News agency, on his first day as president-elect, Pezeshkian canceled a planned press conference to instead meet with Khamenei. In his first speech after the election, he thanked the supreme leader for safeguarding the integrity of the voting process. “Without him,” Pezeshkian said, “I do not imagine my name would have easily come out of these [ballot] boxes.”
Domestically, this fealty means Pezeshkian is unlikely to tackle the formidable challenges facing Iran’s economy. His experienced economic team might bring some order to the country’s financial system and lower the inflation rate, but the entities that have strangleholds on the country’s economic ecosystems are largely controlled by the supreme leader and the IRGC. And Pezeshkian will not challenge either. Both entities also control the country’s social ecosystem, and they appear committed to maintaining the status quo. The government, for example, arrested Mohsen Borhani—a prominent lawyer critical of crackdowns on people protesting Amini’s death—just one day after Pezeshkian’s election.
Pezeshkian’s deference to the supreme leader and the IRGC also means Iran will retain strong ties to its so-called axis of resistance, a network of allied nonstate actors featuring Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi Shiite militias. The axis is the crown jewel of the Islamic Republic’s defense strategy, thanks to its regional influence and ability to disrupt economic chokepoints such as the Strait of Bab el Mandeb. Whereas past reformist presidents clashed with the IRGC over its handling of the network, Pezeshkian, like Raisi, will cooperate with it. In fact, he has already sent strong shows of commitment to axis organizations. In a message to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Pezeshkian emphasized Iran’s support for “the resistance of the people of the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” one “rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic.” Similarly, in a letter to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Pezeshkian promised that the Islamic Republic “will continue to support the oppressed Palestinian nation until the realization of all its ideals and rights.” Pezeshkian will also build on Raisi’s efforts toward reconciliation with Saudi Arabia and other neighboring states. As he wrote in an opinion piece published in the Qatar-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, “the top priority of Iran’s foreign policy is to expand cooperation with its neighbors.”
GET REAL
Throughout his tenure, reformists criticized Raisi’s “eastward-looking” foreign policy, which focused on building strong relationships with China and Russia while confronting the West. Instead, they advocated for a more balanced approach. But Khamenei and the IRGC supported Raisi’s strategy, and they appear set on making sure it continues. Not long after Raisi died and shortly before the second round of the election, acting Iranian President Mohammad Mokhber held a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he said Khamenei appreciated the “deep and unchangeable” relations between the two countries. Mokhber also asserted their ties “will not change with the change of administrations.” Similarly, Mokhber met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and affirmed Tehran’s commitment to strengthening relations with Beijing.
Here, however, Pezeshkian may gradually attempt a bigger break from his predecessor. During his campaign, Pezeshkian showcased his foreign policy stance by appearing on television, seated with Zarif to his right and Mehdi Sanaei to his left. This symbolic positioning underscored his commitment to a balanced East-West policy. Zarif studied in the United States and is Iran’s former UN ambassador, and Sanaei is Iran’s former ambassador to Russia. Pezeshkian declared that, without U.S. sanctions relief, Iran will be economically constrained. His national security team will feature many of the same players that negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. And in another op-ed piece, this one published in the English-language Tehran Times, Pezeshkian made a vague and cautious overture to Iran’s adversaries, including, perhaps, Washington. “We will welcome sincere efforts to alleviate tensions and will reciprocate good-faith with good-faith," he wrote. It echoed former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s famous line to Iran—“goodwill begets goodwill”—during his inaugural speech in 1989.
Khamenei views overtures to Washington skeptically, arguing that talks with the United States do nothing but antagonize China and Russia. But the new president’s allies still think they have the latitude to succeed. During the campaign, Zarif said that although the supreme leader makes foreign policy decisions, the president’s team can influence the debate through the policy options it presents—a theory that Pezeshkian could test in talks with the United States. The results would give analysts a sense of just how much power Pezeshkian has.
Even with Pezeshkian’s win, Iranian moderates remain weak.
Yet even if Khamenei gives Pezeshkian a relatively long leash, his government is unlikely to negotiate another ambitious nuclear agreement. It will, instead, look to ink a deal that could freeze or incrementally scale back Iran’s nuclear advances, including by reducing the quality and quantity of the uranium Iran enriches, in exchange for sanctions relief. Such a transactional deal would have multiple advantages for Pezeshkian. Given Khamenei's support, Iran’s conservatives would be less likely to sabotage that deal than they were the 2015 agreement. And it would be easy for Tehran to ramp up its program if the United States withdraws again, as occurred under President Donald Trump in 2018.
Washington should make a good-faith effort to craft such an agreement, which would add some stability to a turbulent region. The United States should also maintain open channels to Tehran, especially if Pezeshkian makes communicating easier. But U.S. officials and commentators should not get overly optimistic about Pezeshkian’s presidency. They should avoid framing any negotiations with Iran’s new administration as the beginning of a diplomatic breakthrough. They should certainly avoid saying that the United States is trying to strengthen Iran’s moderates vis-à-vis its hard-right elites. Such a claim could incite fear within Iran’s conservatives that Washington is attempting to instigate a revolution, making them more bullish and aggressive. In other words, it risks further empowering the very actors U.S. officials want to weaken.
It would also be pointless: even with Pezeshkian’s win, the country’s moderates remain weak, and they currently lack the capacity to challenge the supreme leader. They carry little weight within his institutions, including the IRGC. They do not have support from most of Iran’s citizens. Previously, reformists viewed elections as a way to empower moderate presidents to balance the supreme leader. But as Pezeshkian’s statements show, they have accepted that Khamenei’s authority really is absolute. Now, they are simply looking to do the best they can within the constraints he has given.
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MOHAMMAD AYATOLLAHI TABAAR is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Associate Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and a Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran.
Foreign Affairs · by Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran · July 16, 2024
19. For the Rest of the World, the U.S. President Has Always Been Above the Law
Excerpts:
The U.S. government can also provide more robust civil accountability when it wrongfully commits harms abroad. The U.S. military already provides ex gratia payments in limited circumstances in which it acknowledges that civilians have been harmed by U.S. military action. For example, the United States regularly provided voluntary condolence payments to the civilian victims of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. But that system comes nowhere close to providing accountability for the harms done in war, including the many civilian deaths caused by “mistake.” The United States could pioneer a more robust compensation program that would permit civilians to seek compensation for harm done to them or their property as a result of U.S. military operations—adopting a “war torts regime” to minimize needless civilian suffering.
Congress should also reclaim its constitutional role in deciding when the United States engages in military operations abroad. A critical first step would be to revise the War Powers Resolution to clearly define “hostilities” and establish a funding cutoff for any war that extends beyond 60 days unless specifically authorized by Congress. Doing so would make it harder for presidents to wage wars without seeking assent from Congress.
The problem of presidential immunity—and the capacity of the president to act outside the law—was not created by the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. It was simply exposed and expanded by it. Outside the United States, American presidents have long been able to violate the law with impunity, inflicting death and property destruction on civilians in the process. Now that this is also true in the United States, perhaps there will be the will to do something about it.
For the Rest of the World, the U.S. President Has Always Been Above the Law
Americans Will Now Know What a Lack of Accountability Means
July 16, 2024
Foreign Affairs · by Oona A. Hathaway · July 16, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on former President Donald Trump’s claims of criminal immunity has provoked grave warnings about a new expansion of presidential power. On July 1, the Court ruled 6–3 along partisan lines that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” but found that they may still be prosecuted for unofficial acts. “The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent. “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
Many commentators have echoed her critique. The ruling “jettisons the long-settled principle that presidents, like all others, are subject to the operation of law,” observed the legal scholar Kate Shaw. “If the president is a king, then we are subjects, whose lives and livelihoods are only safe insofar as we don’t incur the wrath of the executive,” warned the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. “If Trump, as commander in chief, ordered his troops to assassinate somebody or stage a coup, that would seem to fall within the absolute immunity provision of the court’s decision,” explained the legal scholar Cheryl Bader. Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision on July 15 to dismiss the charges against Trump for mishandling classified documents, while likely to be appealed and overturned, has added to the chorus of concerned voices.
What most analysts have failed to note, however, is that this lack of legal accountability for decisions by the U.S. president, including decisions to direct the military to use lethal force, is nothing new. It has long been the reality for most of the world outside the United States. For decades, American presidents have waged illegal wars, plotted to assassinate foreign leaders, unlawfully detained and tortured people, toppled democratic governments, and supported repressive regimes without any possibility of legal accountability in either domestic or international courts.
Although people all over the world have suffered from these unlawful acts, Americans have lived in a bubble—a bubble this Court decision has finally burst. Indeed, what is so frightening about this decision is that it has the potential to make the president’s actions within the United States just as unchecked as they are outside it.
DEADLY FORCE
In her dissent, Sotomayor outlined a disturbing example of the type of action a president could now take and expect criminal immunity, thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.” Yet the president has long had the ability to order the U.S. military to kill with impunity. In the years since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, American presidents have overseen a vast expansion of the U.S. military’s use of lethal force abroad, sometimes in ways that have violated international law, domestic law, or both.
Around 300,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a direct result of the U.S. war in Iraq beginning in 2003, a war that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called “illegal.” More than 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and associated forces in Afghanistan beginning in 2001. The United States justified that war as lawful under Article 51 of the UN Charter at a time when few states had accepted that Article 51 could be used to justify wars against nonstate actors.
The U.S. military participated in ongoing combat in Afghanistan for two decades and faced serious allegations of war crimes, including torture at a detention center at Bagram Air Base. Bagram was just one of several U.S. detention facilities at which detainees were tortured. The United States operated unlawful CIA “black sites” in several locations around the world, such as Kosovo, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Thailand, where it held and tortured detainees in secrecy.
Around 300,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a direct result of the U.S. war in Iraq.
Hundreds died in the 2011 war in Libya led by NATO with significant U.S. participation. Although the war was authorized by the UN Security Council, the U.S. Congress never approved U.S. participation in it. Two top administration lawyers advised that the U.S. law known as the War Powers Resolution required that the war cease after 60 days. President Barack Obama disregarded that advice, deciding instead to side with two other top administration lawyers who argued that the military operation in Libya did not amount to “hostilities” and therefore was not subject to that law.
Between 2021 and 2023, the U.S. government conducted counterterrorism operations in 78 countries, including ground combat missions in at least nine countries. Now with over 11,000 unmanned aircraft systems, the United States has the capacity to conduct airstrikes in much of the world with little notice. These systems, commonly known as drones, are generally used to target and kill suspected terrorists. In the recent past, those strikes included “signature strikes”—lethal strikes against people whose identity was unknown but whose observed behavior was consistent with that of terrorists. A target could include, for example, a male of military age carrying what appears to be a weapon in an area where fighting has taken place. In the last several years, the United States has conducted airstrikes in at least four countries. Most of these operations have been based on a tenuous reading of a law passed by Congress a week after the 9/11 attacks authorizing the president to use force against those who carried out the attacks and any country, organization, or persons who harbored them.
All these actions raise difficult legal questions about which there remains ongoing disagreement. U.S. government lawyers can and have come up with legal arguments to defend them—some more plausible than others. But few of these arguments have ever been made public or been tested in court.
THE SHORT ARM OF THE LAW
For years, attempts have been made to hold the United States accountable for its unsanctioned violence. Lawyers in the United States and overseas have filed case after case challenging U.S. military and CIA operations abroad, but few have made it past procedural and jurisdictional hurdles. As a result, the U.S. president has long been a “king above the law” when it comes to actions outside the United States.
Legal challenges in U.S. courts to wars waged by the president without the constitutionally required authorization of Congress have been repeatedly dismissed by U.S. courts in recent decades. The courts have dismissed the cases before even hearing the arguments about whether the president is violating the law. Instead, they have generally concluded that the cases present political questions that the courts are not well suited to resolve or that the plaintiffs lack standing. The effect of these decisions has been to flip the constitutional order on its head—requiring Congress to muster supermajorities in both houses to try to stop a president from waging war rather than requiring the president to get congressional approval in advance to do so.
Even U.S. citizens have been killed without any accountability or legal review. Anwar al-Awlaki’s father sued Obama in U.S. federal court seeking to remove al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, from the U.S. targeted killing list. Not long after the court dismissed the suit on the grounds that it presented political questions and al-Awlaki’s father lacked standing, the U.S. government killed al-Awlaki in a drone strike. Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in a drone strike two weeks later. His eight-year-old daughter, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in a U.S. commando raid several years later. No court assessed the legality of these decisions to use lethal force.
The well-documented program of torture has also led to little accountability. After taking office in 2009, Obama decided to investigate only two instances of detainee mistreatment leading to death, despite ample evidence of an expansive U.S. government program of unlawful detention and torture in the years following the 9/11 attacks. Obama later closed the investigation into the two deaths and into the destruction of interrogation videotapes by the CIA without initiating criminal charges. No significant administration officials involved faced any discipline. One became a federal judge. Gina Haspel, who, according to the New York Times, watched while a detainee was subjected to “enhanced interrogation” and waterboarding at a CIA black site that she ran in Thailand, later became the CIA director during the Trump administration.
With criminal accountability off the table, plaintiffs harmed in the “war on terror” filed civil lawsuits in U.S. courts against the U.S. government and U.S. government officials under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which allows non-U.S. citizens to file lawsuits seeking damages for harm done to them as a result of violations of international law. Hope Metcalf, who represented victims of torture at the hands of U.S. officials, recalled, “we ran into 7,000 different obstacles” and “none of the ATS lawsuits progressed except against private contractors many years later.” Very few of those lawsuits reached the merits; most failed for the lack of jurisdiction or on grounds of sovereign immunity. In its most recent decision on the law, the Supreme Court dealt the statute a major blow by holding that it doesn’t apply to conduct that takes place outside the United States.
Even U.S. citizens have been killed without any accountability or legal review.
The few attempts at legal accountability in foreign courts also quickly faltered. A war crimes lawsuit in Belgium against President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell filed by Iraqi victims of the 1991 Gulf War was dropped under heavy diplomatic pressure from the U.S. government. In February 2011, President George W. Bush canceled an appearance in Geneva amid the threat of criminal proceedings against him for his involvement in the post-9/11 U.S. torture program.
The United States has not agreed to the jurisdiction of any international court that might have jurisdiction to determine whether the wars it wages are lawful. When the International Criminal Court began an investigation into allegations of torture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan (the ICC had jurisdiction because Afghanistan is a party to the Rome Statute that created the court), the Trump administration used unprecedented economic sanctions against the court’s judges and staff to bully it into “deprioritizing” the prosecution. That case has remained at a standstill.
The absence of any legal accountability for multiple presidents’ actions abroad is made even worse by the absence of any political accountability. U.S. citizens who are upset about a president’s actions at home or abroad at least have the opportunity to vote in the presidential election. They also have the opportunity to vote for members of Congress who could—at least in theory—impeach and remove the president from office for breaking the law. But voting for the president or for members of Congress is not an option for non-U.S. citizens who live in the many countries where the U.S. president has ordered forces to carry out targeted killings or topple their governments. In this respect, U.S. citizens remain in a privileged position even after the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. Indeed, it is striking that a country that rightly celebrates its commitment to the rule of law and democratic principles of governance has come to assert such global control with so little legal or political accountability to those most significantly affected by its government’s actions.
None of this is to defend the Supreme Court’s decision granting the president immunity for official acts. Its critics are right that it is antithetical to the American democratic ideal that power must be accountable to law. But the outrage prompted by the Supreme Court’s decision reflects little understanding of the way in which many of the actions of the U.S. president have long been felt and understood in much of the rest of the world.
HOW TO BE AN ACCOUNTABLE SUPERPOWER
Addressing the problem of impunity requires addressing not just the absence of criminal accountability for the clearly unlawful acts of the president in the United States but also the long-standing absence of accountability for the clearly unlawful acts of the president and the government the president leads around the globe.
In other parts of the world, patience with unaccountable power—American or otherwise—may be growing thin. An unprecedented 43 states referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC. That investigation has already resulted in six arrest warrants, including for Russian President Vladimir Putin. There has been a concerted global effort to use Russia’s central bank assets to help pay for the harm done by Russia during its unlawful war in Ukraine. Momentum is also growing behind an effort to create a new tribunal to try the crime of aggression in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing his own likely arrest warrant from the ICC. And a French court recently upheld an arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The United States has a long-fraught relationship with the ICC. One step toward addressing impunity at home and abroad would be to continue to strengthen U.S. ties with the court. A first step is to stop threatening to level sanctions at the court, as members of Congress recently did in the wake of the announcement that the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The United States should also continue to support the work of the court, as it has with the investigation into Russian war crimes.
In other parts of the world, patience with unaccountable power may be growing thin.
But that is not enough. The United States should also accept that it is not immune from the ICC’s jurisdiction when it allegedly commits crimes on the territory of a state that is a party to the court. That does not have to mean turning U.S. citizens over to The Hague. It instead requires demonstrating that the United States has undertaken a genuine effort at providing accountability for the same crimes at home. After all, the ICC is set up as a court of last resort—stepping in only when domestic courts are unable or unwilling to do so.
The U.S. government can also provide more robust civil accountability when it wrongfully commits harms abroad. The U.S. military already provides ex gratia payments in limited circumstances in which it acknowledges that civilians have been harmed by U.S. military action. For example, the United States regularly provided voluntary condolence payments to the civilian victims of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. But that system comes nowhere close to providing accountability for the harms done in war, including the many civilian deaths caused by “mistake.” The United States could pioneer a more robust compensation program that would permit civilians to seek compensation for harm done to them or their property as a result of U.S. military operations—adopting a “war torts regime” to minimize needless civilian suffering.
Congress should also reclaim its constitutional role in deciding when the United States engages in military operations abroad. A critical first step would be to revise the War Powers Resolution to clearly define “hostilities” and establish a funding cutoff for any war that extends beyond 60 days unless specifically authorized by Congress. Doing so would make it harder for presidents to wage wars without seeking assent from Congress.
The problem of presidential immunity—and the capacity of the president to act outside the law—was not created by the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. It was simply exposed and expanded by it. Outside the United States, American presidents have long been able to violate the law with impunity, inflicting death and property destruction on civilians in the process. Now that this is also true in the United States, perhaps there will be the will to do something about it.
- OONA A. HATHAWAY is Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School and a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Foreign Affairs · by Oona A. Hathaway · July 16, 2024
20. CIA director says Hamas leader is facing growing pressure from his own commanders to end Gaza war
CIA director says Hamas leader is facing growing pressure from his own commanders to end Gaza war | CNN Politics
CNN · by Alex Marquardt · July 16, 2024
Hamas' Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar attends attends a meeting with members of Palestinian groups in Gaza City, Gaza on April 13, 2022.
Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
CNN —
The CIA has assessed that the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is coming under increased pressure from his own military commanders to accept a ceasefire deal and end the war with Israel, CIA Director Bill Burns told a closed-door conference on Saturday, according to a source who attended.
Sinwar, the key architect of the October 7 massacre in Israel, is not “concerned with his mortality” but is facing pressure about being blamed for the enormity of the suffering in Gaza, Burns said at the conference, the source said.
US intelligence officials believe Sinwar is hiding in the tunnels beneath his birthplace, Khan Younis in Gaza, and is the key decision maker for Hamas on whether to accept a deal.
Burns – who for months has conducted feverish negotiations as the Biden administration’s point person – said it was incumbent on both the Israeli government and Hamas to take advantage of this moment, more than nine months since the war started, to reach a ceasefire.
But the internal pressure Sinwar is now facing is new in the past two weeks, including the calls from his own senior commanders who are tiring of the fight, Burns said, according to the attendee who was granted anonymity to discuss the off-the-record conference.
The CIA director was speaking at the annual Allen & Company summer retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, sometimes called a “summer camp for billionaires” because of its glitzy guest list of tech moguls, media titans and senior government officials who are invited to the secretive week-long event.
The CIA declined to comment.
The increased pressure on Sinwar comes as Hamas and Israel have agreed to a framework deal that that President Joe Biden laid out at the end of May. That’s what US officials have said is being used as the basis to an agreement to end the fighting.
Burns had just returned from his latest trip last week to the Middle East to try to further the negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, meeting with mediator counterparts from Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel’s head of foreign intelligence.
On Saturday Burns said that there is a “fragile possibility before us” and that the chances of a ceasefire being agreed are greater than they have been, months after a brief temporary truce saw dozens of hostages freed in November. But he emphasized that the final stage of negotiations are always difficult.
The renewed push comes after the previous discussions fell apart in May following a similar flurry of meetings and travel by Burns in the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also facing immense domestic pressure to strike a deal that would bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza. Thousands of Israeli protesters regularly take to the streets of Tel Aviv demanding the government focus on the return of the hostages rather than the military campaign.
‘Gaps to close’
“There are still gaps to close, but we’re making progress, the trend is positive,” Biden said on Thursday, “and I’m determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Thousands are believed missing under the rubble and hundreds of thousands more face disease, famine and lack of shelter, according to aid organizations.
Beyond the enormous amount of detail being hashed out in the potential agreement, talks are routinely slowed by the difficulties of getting messages to and from Sinwar as Israel tries to hunt him down.
Of the three most senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, Israel is believed to have found and killed just one: Marwan Issa, the second in command of the military wing. Its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was targeted by Israel in a bombing on Saturday that killed almost 100 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more, according to Palestinian health officials.
Neither Israel nor the US has determined whether Deif was successfully targeted.
US officials believe that Sinwar no longer wants to rule Gaza and both Israel and Hamas have signed on to an “interim governance” plan that would begin in the second phase of a ceasefire in which neither of them would control Gaza, a US official told CNN.
Qatar has also made clear they would kick out Hamas’ political leadership from their longtime external base if the militant group doesn’t sign on to the plan, US officials say.
In Hamas communications seen and reported recently by the Associated Press, senior Hamas leaders inside Gaza called on external figures from the group to accept Biden’s ceasefire proposal, citing heavy losses and dire conditions in Gaza.
Perhaps an indication of their eagerness to end the fighting, Hamas recently backed off their key demand that a ceasefire agreement include assurances it would then lead to a permanent ceasefire, long a sticking point in the talks that Israel had refused.
Netanyahu then insisted that any deal must allow Israel to return to fighting until its war objectives are met.
That means a pause in the fighting could start, which would see both some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners released, before Israel re-launches military operations.
The framework Biden proposed says that a permanent ceasefire would be negotiated during the first phase of a pause in the fighting, which would continue as long as negotiations do.
On the same day the Burns was speaking, Netanyahu said at a news conference that he would not move “one millimeter” from the framework laid out by Biden while claiming Hamas had requested 29 changes to the proposal, but he refused to make any.
There are still “tough issues to resolve,” a source familiar with the talks told CNN after Burns’ meetings in Doha. A second source agreed, saying there’s “still a long time to go.”
CNN · by Alex Marquardt · July 16, 2024
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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