Quotes of the Day:

"Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I don't think you're going to be seeing the U.S. employing large army divisions to deal with small terrorist groups again. I don't think they're going to be occupying foreign nations in order to dry up terrorist groups within them. I think that lesson has been learned."

– Richard Engel

“Decisive results come sooner from sudden shocks than from long- drawn pressure. Shocks throw the opponent off his balance. Pressure allows him time to adjust himself to it. That military lesson is closely linked with the general experience of history that human beings have an almost infinite power of accommo-' dation, to degradation of living conditions, so long as the process is gradual.”

― B.H. Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare

1. How four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe

2. Speculation Swirls About What Hit Trump. An Analysis Suggests It was a Bullet

3. Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics

4. Chinese and Russian bombers patrolling off Alaska raise concerns about growing military cooperation

5. Analysis: A fourth term for Xi Jinping and slower growth expected based on clues from Communist Party's plenum

6. Harris tells Netanyahu 'it is time' to end the war in Gaza and bring the hostages home

7. Ukraine's foreign minister in Hong Kong calls on officials to stop Russia from evading sanctions

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9. EU transfers 1.5 billion euros from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

10. The Financial Case for Ukraine

11. Profile in Strategic Leadership - Admiral William McRaven

12. Tech Watch: 5 Days of Tech News in 5 Minutes

13. A Mysterious Plot Prompts a Rare Call From Russia to the Pentagon

14. Hezbollah Doesn’t Want a War With Israel

15. Pass the Major Richard Star Act, support our combat-injured veterans

16. A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine

17. The Forgotten War in Congo

18. Beijing Can Take the South China Sea Without Firing a Shot

19. J. D. Vance Served in the Marines. Will It Matter in November?

20. The Puzzle of Chinese Escalation vs Restraint in the South China Sea

21. Time to Strike Back Against Russia's Shadow War

22. The evolution and the crucial role of the USA Army Special Forces

23. How to Understand Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

24. Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

25. An Airman killed at a secret CIA radar base in Laos is finally recovered

26. Of Torches and Pitchforks

27. A new Cold War? Not really — here’s how the West could capitalize on the rise of the Global South

28. A Bright CIA Light, Snuffed Out Too Soon

1. How four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe

Please go to the link to view the various graphics and proper formatting.

Sanctions are us.

Excerpts:

The Biden administration has taken steps to mitigate unintended consequences. Last year, Treasury announced it had hired economists to staff a new division analyzing the economic impact of sanctions. Humanitarian groups have praised Biden administration efforts to ensure that critical medical supplies and food can enter countries under sanctions. And some of critics’ worst fears have not materialized: The dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency, at least for now.

“Sanctions are an important tool that can help promote our national security, but they should only be used as part of a broader foreign policy strategy,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. “The 2021 Treasury Sanctions Review has provided a useful road map to help us refine the use of this important tool.”

But other problems appear to be getting worse. Current and former U.S. officials describe OFAC’s workload as overwhelming, the agency inundated with tens of thousands of requests from the private sector. Some White House officials have outsourced national security questions to nonprofits, as they brainstormed scenarios in which sanctions would have to be massively ramped up to confront U.S. adversaries, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal talks.

In late 2022, senior White House advisers again held discussions about reforming U.S. sanctions. In closed-door talks that included Biden, aides talked about the need to set guidelines for economic statecraft, including limiting the use of sanctions to moments when “core international principles that underpin peace and security are under threat,” one of the officials said.

But those ideas were shelved in the face of more pressing demands.

“The mentality, almost a weird reflex, in Washington has just become: If something bad happens, anywhere in the world, the U.S. is going to sanction some people. And that doesn’t make sense,” said Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration.

“We don’t think about the collateral damage of sanctions the same way we think about the collateral damage of war,” Rhodes said. “But we should.”

How four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe

By Jeff Stein and Federica Cocco

July 25, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/us-sanction-countries-work/?itid=hp-more-top-stories_p004_f004

The Washington Post · by Jeff Stein

The Money War

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In Cuba, sanctions imposed by the United States more than 60 years ago have failed to dislodge the communist regime — but they’ve made it more difficult to get critical medical supplies to the island.

In Iran, U.S. sanctions that date to the 1970s have not forced out Tehran’s theocratic rulers — but they have pushed the country to forge close alliances with Russia and China.

In Syria, dictator Bashar al-Assad remains in power despite 20 years of U.S. sanctions — but the country is struggling to rebuild from civil war, and more Syrians than ever are expected to need critical humanitarian assistance this year.

In country after country, sanctions have emerged as the key instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

By and Federica Cocco

July 25, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

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Today, the United States imposes three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body, targeting a third of all nations with some kind of financial penalty on people, properties or organizations. They have become an almost reflexive weapon in perpetual economic warfare, and their overuse is recognized at the highest levels of government. But American presidents find the tool increasingly irresistible.

By cutting their targets off from the Western financial system, sanctions can crush national industries, erase personal fortunes and upset the balance of political power in troublesome regimes — all without putting a single American soldier in harm’s way.

But even as sanctions have proliferated, concern about their impact has grown.

In Washington, the swell of sanctions has spawned a multibillion-dollar industry. Foreign governments and multinational corporations spend exorbitant sums to influence the system, while white-shoe law firms and K Street lobbying shops have built booming sanctions practices — in part by luring government officials to cash in on their expertise.

Elsewhere, sanctions have pushed autocratic regimes into black market trade, empowering criminal networks and gangs of smugglers. U.S. adversaries are ramping up their efforts to work together to circumvent the financial penalties. And like military action, economic warfare can leave collateral damage: Sanctions on Venezuela, for instance, contributed to an economic contraction roughly three times as large as that caused by the Great Depression in the United States.

sanctionsoverview apple news fallback img #1 revised (TWP/TWP)

Sanctions — or even just the threat of them — can be an effective policy tool, a way to punish bad behavior or pressure an adversary without resorting to military force. Sanctions have allowed U.S. governments to take moral, economically meaningful stands against perpetrators of war crimes. They helped bring an end to South Africa’s apartheid regime and contributed to the eventual overthrow of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Even when they fail, proponents say, they can be preferable to the alternative, which might be doing nothing — or going to war.

Still, North Korea has been sanctioned for more than a half-century without halting Pyongyang’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. U.S. sanctions on Nicaragua have done little to deter the authoritarian regime of President Daniel Ortega. Two years of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have degraded Moscow’s long-term economic prospects and raised the costs of military production. But these sanctions have also spawned a “dark fleet” of ships selling oil outside international regulations, while bringing the Kremlin into closer alliance with Beijing.

The military demarcation line between North Korea and South Korea in April. (Jintak Han/The Washington Post)

Alarm about sanctions’ rise has reached the highest levels of the U.S. government: Some senior administration officials have told President Biden directly that overuse of sanctions risks making the tool less valuable. And yet, despite recognition that the volume of sanctions may be excessive, U.S. officials tend to see each individual action as justified, making it hard to stop the trend. The United States is imposing sanctions at a record-setting pace again this year, with more than 60 percent of all low-income countries now under some form of financial penalty, according to a Washington Post analysis.

“It is the only thing between diplomacy and war and as such has become the most important foreign policy tool in the U.S. arsenal,” said Bill Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official and now the Scholl chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“And yet,” Reinsch said, “nobody in government is sure this whole strategy is even working.”

‘Start pounding things with this hammer’

Economic warfare has been around for millennia: Ancient Athens imposed trade sanctions on its adversaries in the 5th century B.C., and U.S. presidents have restricted foreign trade since the dawn of the republic. In 1807, Thomas Jefferson closed U.S. ports to export shipping and restricted imports from Britain. Today’s sanctions have their foundation in laws passed during the Cold War and World War I.

Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 gave rise to a new form of the weapon: an international blockade of exports to Iraq. After the Gulf War, comprehensive sanctions made it impossible for Iraq to export oil or import supplies to rebuild its decimated water and electrical systems, and illnesses such as cholera and typhoid surged.

At the same time, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was emerging as the world’s unrivaled superpower, both financially and militarily. Governments and banks around the world were dependent on the U.S. dollar, which remains the dominant currency on Earth.

Today, the dollar buys access to the American economy but also undergirds international trade even when there is no connection to an American bank or business. Commodities like oil are priced globally against the greenback, and countries trading in their own currencies rely on dollars to complete international transactions.

sanctionsoverview apple news fallback img #2 revised (TWP/TWP)

That financial supremacy creates a risk for U.S. adversaries and even some allies. To deal in dollars, financial institutions must often borrow, however temporarily, from U.S. counterparts and comply with the rules of the U.S. government. That makes the Treasury Department, which regulates the U.S. financial system, the gatekeeper to the world’s banking operations.

And sanctions are the gate.

Treasury officials can impose sanctions on any foreign person, firm or government they deem to be a threat to the U.S. economy, foreign policy or national security. There’s no requirement to accuse, much less convict, anyone of a specific crime. But the move makes it a crime to transact with the sanctioned party.

Coming under U.S. sanctions amounts to an indefinite ban from much of the global economy.

“

“It is the only thing between diplomacy and war and as such has become the most important foreign policy tool in the U.S. arsenal. And yet, nobody in government is sure this whole strategy is even working.”

Bill Reinsch,

a former Commerce Department official and now the Scholl chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

The system built slowly. Initial targets (in addition to communist Cuba) were drug cartels in places like Mexico and Colombia and rogue regimes like Libya. As recently as the 1990s, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was responsible for implementing just a handful of sanctions programs. Its staff fit comfortably in a single conference room. One of its major responsibilities was blocking American sales of Cuban cigars.

All that changed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress enacted legislation to compel financial institutions to maintain records of consumer transactions and hand them over to law enforcement. Suddenly, U.S. officials had volumes of information on the world’s banking customers, just as the rise of digital banking gave new insights into the worldwide flow of money.

As the Treasury Department became a key player in the global war on terrorism, U.S. policymakers began to understand the power of the nation’s financial hegemony. Experts urged a more sophisticated approach than the blunt embargo used in Iraq. “Smart sanctions,” these advocates hoped, would be more precise, applying maximum pressure by cutting off only malicious actors.

sanctionsoverview apple news fallback img #3 revised (TWP/TWP)

Proof of concept soon materialized. In 2003, North Korea alarmed the world by withdrawing from a nuclear weapons treaty. Treasury officials under President George W. Bush not only targeted the Macao bank that processed payments for Pyongyang, but also threatened any banks that traded with that one.

North Korean officials howled — and the measures stymied Pyongyang’s finances. The episode was a revelation for Treasury staffers: America appeared to have cowed a foe halfway around the world without firing a single bullet or spending a single penny.

“It was a pivotal moment,” said Kristen Patel, who served in senior roles at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network from 2015 to 2017 and now teaches sanctions policy and illicit finance at Syracuse University. “Treasury got the go-ahead to start pounding things with this hammer.”

‘Every Little Thing We Do Is Sanctions’

The playbook soon shifted to include bigger targets and more aggressive enforcement. In 2010, President Barack Obama worked with Congress to approve sanctions designed to force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. The Justice Department began levying billions of dollars in fines on Western banks that defied Treasury prohibitions.

These sanctions applied not just to Iran, but also to firms trading with Iran, undercutting Tehran’s links to international markets. Iranian leaders buckled, deciding to seek a nuclear deal that promised an end to financial isolation.

This display of power led to fresh demand. By Obama’s second term, sanctions had been imposed on a growing list that included military officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo, suppliers of the Yemeni military, Libyan officials connected to Moammar Gaddafi and — after a brutal crackdown on civilian protesters in Syria — President Bashar al-Assad.

Mourners carry bodies draped in the Syrian revolutionary flag during the funeral for four people killed in a raid by government forces in Damascus in 2012. (Anonymous/AP)

Congress got in on the act, flooding the State Department and the White House with requests for sanctions that, in some cases, appeared intended to cut off foreign competition to home-state industries.

In 2011, at a holiday party in the Hotel Harrington in downtown Washington, Adam Szubin, then director of OFAC, sang a song titled “Every Little Thing We Do Is Sanctions” to the tune of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by the Police, Szubin confirmed in an email.

Some experts saw the surge as spiraling out of control.

“Smart sanctions were meant to be a buffet of choices where you fit the particular imposed sanction to the offense and vulnerability of the country,” said George Lopez, a sanctions scholar at the University of Notre Dame who is widely credited with helping to popularize the idea more than 20 years ago. “Instead, policymakers walked into the buffet and said, ‘I’m going to pile everything onto my plate.’”

In 2014, Russia’s illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea from Ukraine presented Treasury with a huge challenge. Countries like North Korea and Iran were viewed as serious national security threats, but nobody believed they were integral to global finance. Now Treasury was forced to confront one of the 10 biggest economies in the world. A wrong move could send global markets reeling.

A child walks among pro-Russian soldiers near a Ukrainian military base that they surrounded in Crimea in March 2014. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

Treasury aides who had once labored in obscurity took recommendations directly to Cabinet officials, who were simultaneously hearing from alarmed Fortune 500 CEOs and the heads of Wall Street banks. Sanctions were suddenly a key feature in the reemerging “great power” competition among Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

“You’d get requests and comments from seemingly every corner of the government: ‘Why have you not imposed sanctions on these people? And what about those people?’” said Adam M. Smith, who served as senior adviser to OFAC and director for multilateral affairs on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

“Regardless if you were a Democrat or a Republican, the thought process was always: Why would you not continue to do this?” Smith said.

Challenges emerge as sanctions rise

But government officials began to notice problems with Treasury’s complicated new regime. Sanctions on Russia targeting allies of President Vladimir Putin and state banks had no apparent effect on control of Crimea. European leaders grew angry over fines levied on their banks. Wall Street power brokers started to grumble about the costs of complying with the dizzying new instructions.

The number of sanctioned entities appeared to be growing too fast for OFAC to keep up. Nuance bred confusion; requests for clarification poured in, and the number of lawsuits against the agency tripled. Turnover intensified, as the rising stakes allowed Treasury staffers to bolt for private-sector paydays that could quadruple their earnings.

A more existential challenge emerged, as well: The power of sanctions lay in denying foreign actors access to the dollar. But if sanctions make it risky to depend on dollars, nations may find other ways to trade — allowing them to dodge U.S. penalties entirely.

In March 2016, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned publicly of “sanctions overreach” and the risk that their “overuse could ultimately reduce our capability to use sanctions effectively.”

And yet the incoming Trump administration again found new uses for the financial weapon as it applied more sanctions than ever. As president, Donald Trump used sanctions for retribution in ways never conceived — ordering them, for instance, on officials with the International Criminal Court after it opened a war crimes investigation into the behavior of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

sanctionsoverview apple news fallback img #4 revised (TWP/TWP)

The Trump administration also hit Venezuela with crippling sanctions, aiming to discredit the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and encourage an opposition movement. The penalties failed to oust Maduro — and are now often blamed for exacerbating one of the worst peacetime economic collapses in modern history.

“The abuse of this system is ridiculous, but it’s not Treasury or OFAC’s fault: They are good professionals who have all this political work being shoved on them. They want relief from this relentless, never-ending, you-must-sanction-everybody-and-their-sister, sometimes literally, system,” said Caleb McCarry, who served as a senior staffer to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was the State Department’s lead on Cuba policy during the George W. Bush administration. “It is way, way overused, and it’s become out of control.”

Reform plans shelved

By the time of Biden’s inauguration, a consensus had emerged among his transition team that something had to change.

In the summer of 2021, five Treasury staffers worked up an internal draft proposing to restructure the sanctions system. It ran roughly 40 pages, according to two people involved, and would have represented the most substantial revamp of sanctions policy in decades.

But like the three previous administrations, Biden’s team found the power difficult to give up.

A billboard in Caracas blames the opposition for the harm caused by U.S. sanctions against Venezuela as the autocratic Nicolás Maduro prepares to secure a third term as president in July elections. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)

Treasury staffers watched their bosses take out key parts of their plan, including a provision that would have created a central coordinator, said the people familiar with the document, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect confidential discussions. By the time Treasury publicly released its “2021 Sanctions Review” in October that year, the 40-page draft had dwindled to eight pages and contained the earlier document’s most toothless recommendations, the people said. (Two people familiar with the matter blamed internal disagreements with the State Department for the extent of the changes and said Treasury leadership also opposed the revisions. A State Department spokesman declined to comment.)

Four months later, Russian troops marched into Ukraine, and Biden unleashed an unprecedented volley of more than 6,000 sanctions in two years. And not only on Russia: The Biden administration has penalized targets including Israeli settlers in the West Bank, former government officials in Afghanistan, alleged fentanyl dealers in Mexico and a North Macedonian spyware company. Meanwhile, sanctions that Biden had said he would ease, such as those imposed by Trump on Cuba, were largely maintained under pressure from Capitol Hill, despite the view among top administration officials that the embargo is counterproductive and a failure.

A vendor sells bread in Havana in 2022 as the country endured an economic crisis brought on by many factors, including Trump-era sanctions that continued under President Biden. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The Biden administration has taken steps to mitigate unintended consequences. Last year, Treasury announced it had hired economists to staff a new division analyzing the economic impact of sanctions. Humanitarian groups have praised Biden administration efforts to ensure that critical medical supplies and food can enter countries under sanctions. And some of critics’ worst fears have not materialized: The dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency, at least for now.

“Sanctions are an important tool that can help promote our national security, but they should only be used as part of a broader foreign policy strategy,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. “The 2021 Treasury Sanctions Review has provided a useful road map to help us refine the use of this important tool.”

But other problems appear to be getting worse. Current and former U.S. officials describe OFAC’s workload as overwhelming, the agency inundated with tens of thousands of requests from the private sector. Some White House officials have outsourced national security questions to nonprofits, as they brainstormed scenarios in which sanctions would have to be massively ramped up to confront U.S. adversaries, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal talks.

In late 2022, senior White House advisers again held discussions about reforming U.S. sanctions. In closed-door talks that included Biden, aides talked about the need to set guidelines for economic statecraft, including limiting the use of sanctions to moments when “core international principles that underpin peace and security are under threat,” one of the officials said.

But those ideas were shelved in the face of more pressing demands.

“The mentality, almost a weird reflex, in Washington has just become: If something bad happens, anywhere in the world, the U.S. is going to sanction some people. And that doesn’t make sense,” said Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration.

“We don’t think about the collateral damage of sanctions the same way we think about the collateral damage of war,” Rhodes said. “But we should.”

About this story

Design and development by Stephanie Hays. Illustrations by Chantal Jahchan. Photo editing by Haley Hamblin. Design editing by Betty Chavarria. Visual editing by Karly Domb Sadof. Graphics editing by Kate Rabinowitz.

Editing by Mike Madden and Lori Montgomery. Copy editing by Feroze Dhanoa and Brian Malasics.

Project editing by Ana Carano. Additional production and support from Jordan Melendrez, Sarah Murray, Megan Bridgeman, Kathleen Floyd, Jenna Lief and Alisa Vazquez.

Methodology

To examine the rise of U.S. sanctions, The Post obtained and analyzed 30 years of historical data scraped from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control by Enigma Technologies, a data and entity resolution company that specializes in sanctions screening and business intelligence. Reporters compared U.S. sanctions with those issued by other authorities using data provided by Castellum.ai, a compliance platform covering global sanctions, export controls and other financial crime risks.

The Post used the Global Sanctions Database, an academic project coordinated by the Hochschule Konstanz University of Applied Sciences, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research and the Drexel University School of Economics, to determine which countries were subject to U.S. sanctions from 1950 to 2022. The World Bank income classification framework helped reporters assess whether low-income countries had been targeted more than others; the bank’s regional classification helped illustrate which regions had been targeted.

The Washington Post · by Jeff Stein

2. Speculation Swirls About What Hit Trump. An Analysis Suggests It was a Bullet

My first thought was that it was a fragment. I guess I was wrong.

Speculation Swirls About What Hit Trump. An Analysis Suggests It was a Bullet

By Malachy BrowneDevon Lum and Alexander Cardia

July 26, 2024

Updated 5:24 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Alexander Cardia · July 26, 2024

Visual Investigations

An absence of medical records or official accounts has stirred confusion, but a Times video and trajectory analysis indicates a bullet, not debris, wounded the former president.

Donald J. Trump grasps his ear during an assassination attempt at an election rally in Butler, Pa.Credit...

By Malachy BrowneDevon Lum and

July 26, 2024Updated 5:24 a.m. ET

Nearly two weeks after the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump, there’s still no official report from the Trump campaign or from state or federal governments about what caused the wound on his right ear.

This lack of clarity has left the issue unsettled and fueled speculation online about whether he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel — or perhaps something else.

But a detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio by The New York Times strongly suggests Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman, Thomas Crooks. Subsequent bullets wounded two rally goers and killed a third.

What has helped stoke confusion is that Mr. Trump himself has said he was hit by a bullet, but his campaign has not released any official medical reports, nor has Mr. Trump’s current physician weighed in.

Instead, the campaign has posted a memo from Mr. Trump’s former White House physician, Ronny L. Jackson, now a Texas congressman and outspoken ally of the former president, that says he was struck by a bullet on his right ear.

The Secret Service, which was responsible for the security at the event, has declined to comment.

The F.B.I. said it was examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage to determine whether a bullet — or pieces of it — had grazed Mr. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear.

A key piece of evidence in The Times’s analysis is a live video feed that captures Mr. Trump’s reaction as the first three gunshots are fired. The crack of the bullets are heard as they pass the microphone that Mr. Trump speaks into. Almost a second elapses between the first and second shots.

During this brief interim, Mr. Trump starts reaching toward his ear, according to footage and audio of the event analyzed by The Times and Rob Maher, an audio forensics expert at Montana State University.

“He flinches, and his right hand already starts reaching for his right ear during that time between the first audible shot and the second audible shot,” Mr. Maher said.

Mr. Trump’s fingers are bloodied as soon as he touches his ear, as seen in a picture taken by Doug Mills, a veteran Times photographer.

Blood is visible on Donald Trump’s hand as he withdraws it from his right ear during an assassination attempt. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

After clipping Mr. Trump, that first bullet appears to pass him and strike bleachers off to his left, where scores of his supporters are standing, the analysis suggests.

A puff of debris captured in a video snippet appeared to show the impact point of that shot — right beside a rally attendee, David Dutch.

“The puff visible at the back of the bleachers appears at the time of the first shot,” Mr. Maher said.

Mr. Dutch appears to have been injured by the second shot, which was fired along a similar trajectory. He winces as it rings out, and then crouches down as the third shot passes.

Another video indicates that the third bullet hit a crane near Mr. Dutch.

A 3-D model of the rally grounds produced by The Times shows the positions of the shooter and Mr. Trump, and the point where the first bullet hit the bleachers.

The model and the trajectory analysis show that the bullet traveled in a straight line from the gunman to the bleachers, clipping Mr. Trump on its path. This suggests the bullet was not deflected by first striking an object that would have then sprayed Mr. Trump with debris.

One Bullet’s Path Toward Trump

Mr. Crooks appears to have fired eight gunshots in total — a burst of three followed by a burst of five — before he was killed by Secret Service snipers. Investigators found eight shell casings around Mr. Crooks’s body on the warehouse roof, Col. Christopher Paris of the Pennsylvania State Police said in a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

One bullet injured James Copenhaver, 74, in the abdomen. Mr. Copenhaver was standing just a few feet from Mr. Dutch.

A further video analysis shows that Corey Comperatore, 50, a father of two and volunteer firefighter, was shot in the head and killed most likely in the second volley of bullets fired by Mr. Crooks, a theory first posited on X by the journalists Moshe Schwartz and Oliver Alexander.

A video shows Mr. Comperatore standing upright and apparently filming or taking photographs with his cellphone as the first three bullets are fired. When the second volley is fired, a baseball hat resembling that worn by Mr. Comperatore is seen flying through the air.

What appears to have put Mr. Comperatore in the line of fire is that the gunman may have been adjusting his aim lower as Secret Service agents protectively took Mr. Trump to the ground.

The security lapses that permitted Mr. Crooks to fire eight rounds unimpeded, at least three of which came close to seriously wounding Mr. Trump, have become the subject of an active congressional investigation. On Tuesday, the director of the Secret Service tendered her resignation.

Kate Kelly, Riley Mellen, Helmuth Rosales and Adam Goldman contributed reporting.

Malachy Browne is enterprise director of the Visual Investigations team at The Times. He was a member of teams awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2020 and 2023. More about Malachy Browne

Alexander Cardia is a designer, animator and graphics editor with the Visual Investigations team at The Times. He was among the recipients of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for coverage of Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine. More about Alexander Cardia

See more on: Donald Trump, 2024 Elections, U.S. Politics

The New York Times · by Alexander Cardia · July 26, 2024

3. Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics

Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics

BY  THOMAS ADAMSON AND JEFFREY SCHAEFFER

Updated 6:29 AM EDT, July 26, 2024

AP · July 26, 2024

Ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony, French high-speed rail network lines were reported to have been sabotaged, officials say. Follow AP’s live coverage.

PARIS (AP) — France’s high-speed rail network was hit Friday with widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe only hours before the grand opening ceremony of the Olympics.

French officials condemned the attacks as “criminal actions,” and prosecutors in Paris opened a national investigation, saying the crimes could carry sentences of 15 to 20 years.

As Paris authorities geared up for a spectacular parade on and along the Seine River, three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est, causing disruptions that affected hundreds of thousands of travelers.

Among them were two German athletes in showjumping who were on a train to Paris to take part in the opening ceremony but had to turn back in Belgium because of the closures, and will now miss the ceremony, German news agency dpa reported.

“There was no longer a chance of making it on time,” rider Philipp Weishaupt, who was traveling with teammate Christian Kukuk, told dpa.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on the social media platform X that France’s intelligence services have been mobilized to find the perpetrators.

Attal characterized them as “acts of sabotage,” which were “prepared and coordinated.”

Paris Olympics

• French high-speed rail network lines were reported to have been sabotaged ahead of the opening, officials say.
• With big goals and gambles, Paris aims to reset the Olympics with audacious Games and a spectacular opening ceremony.
• Some Paris businesses expected an Olympic boon but they are experiencing a bust.
• Follow all of AP’s coverage of the Summer Games.

There were no known reports of injuries.

Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete described people fleeing from the scene of fires and the discovery of incendiary devices. “Everything indicates that these are criminal fires,” he said.

The incidents paralyzed several high-speed lines linking Paris to the rest of France and to neighboring countries, Vergriete said, speaking on BFM television.

The French national rail company SNCF said that areas affecting rail track intersections were targeted to double the impact.

“For one fire, two destinations were hit,” the company’s CEO, Jean-Pierre Farandou.

It was “a premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack” that indicates “a desire to seriously harm” the French people, Farandou said.

The attack occurred against a backdrop of global tensions and heightened security measures as the city prepared for the 2024 Olympic Games. Many travelers were planning to converge on the capital for the opening ceremony, and many vacationers were also in transit.

French authorities have foiled several plots to disrupt the Olympics, including arresting a Russian man on suspicion of planning to destabilize the games.

Also Friday, the French airport of Basel-Mulhouse on the border with Germany and Switzerland was evacuated in the morning and remained temporarily closed “for safety reasons,” the airport said. It wasn’t clear whether there was a connection to the rail attacks.

The disruptions particularly affected Paris’ major Montparnasse station, where the station’s hall was full of travelers.

The Paris police prefecture “concentrated its personnel in Parisian train stations” after the “massive attack” that paralyzed the TGV high-speed network, Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police chief, told France Info television.

Many passengers at the Gare du Nord, one of Europe’s busiest train stations, were looking for answers and solutions on Friday morning. All eyes were on the central message boards as most services to northern France, Belgium and the United Kingdom were delayed.

“It’s a hell of a way to start the Olympics,” said Sarah Moseley, 42, as she learned that her train to London was an hour late.

“They should have more information for tourists, especially if it’s a malicious attack,” said Corey Grainger, a 37-year-old Australian sales manager on his way to London, as he rested on his two suitcases in the middle of the station.

Government officials denounced the acts, though they said there was no immediate sign of a direct link to the Olympics. National police said authorities were investigating the incidents. French media reported a major fire on a busy western route.

Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera said authorities were working to “evaluate the impact on travelers, athletes, and ensure the transport of all delegations to the competition sites” for the Olympics. Speaking on BFM television, she added, “Playing against the Games is playing against France, against your own camp, against your country.” She did not identify who was behind the vandalism.

Passengers at St. Pancras station in London were warned to expect delays of around an hour to their Eurostar journeys. Announcements in the departure hall at the international terminus informed travelers heading to Paris that there was a problem with overhead power supplies.

SNCF said it did not know when traffic would resume and feared that disruptions would continue “at least all weekend.” SNCF teams “were already on site to carry out diagnostics and begin repairs,” but the “situation should last at least all weekend while the repairs are carried out,” the operator said. SNCF advised “all passengers to postpone their journey and not to go to the station,” specifying in its press release that all tickets were exchangeable and refundable.

Valerie Pecresse, president of the regional council of the greater Paris region, speaking from Montparnasse station, said “250,000 travelers will be affected today on all these lines.” Substitution plans were underway, but Pecresse advised travelers “not to go to stations.”

The troubles comes ahead of an opening ceremony has been planned for later Friday in which 7,000 Olympic athletes are due to sail down the Seine past iconic Parisian monuments such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum, and the Musee d’Orsay.

___

Associated Press writers Tom Nouvian in Paris, Angela Charlton in Paris, James Jordan and Danica Kirka in London and Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed.

AP · July 26, 2024

4. Chinese and Russian bombers patrolling off Alaska raise concerns about growing military cooperation

Excerpts;

Their growing military relationship has triggered concerns both among NATO allies and with nations in the Asia-Pacific. NATO allies have called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

The allies issues a sternly worded statement, approved by the 32 members at their summit in Washington earlier this month.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the patrol also flew over the Chukchi Sea, which is on the north side of the Bering Strait, and that the exercises lasted more than five hours.

The joint patrol tested and improved coordination between the two air forces, said Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry. He said it was the eighth joint strategic air patrol since 2019. He declined to comment when asked if it was the first such patrol over the Bering Sea.

While Russia’s military has long been active in the north Pacific, China has emerged as a new actor in recent years as its growing navy and air force expand their presence farther from the country’s shores.

Chinese and Russian bombers patrolling off Alaska raise concerns about growing military cooperation

BY LOLITA C. BALDOR AND DIDI TANG

Updated 12:32 AM EDT, July 26, 2024

AP · July 25, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off the coast of Alaska, in a new show of expanding military cooperation that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday raises concerns.

The flights Wednesday were not seen as a threat, and the bombers were tracked and intercepted by U.S. and Canadian fighter jets. But it was the first time that Chinese bomber aircraft have flown within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone. And it was the first time Chinese and Russian aircraft have taken off from the same base in northeast Russia.

“This is a relationship that we have been concerned about throughout — mostly because we’re concerned about China providing support to Russia’s illegal and unnecessary war in Ukraine,” Austin told reporters.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, detected, tracked and intercepted the two Russian Tupolev Tu-95 long-range bombers and the two Chinese H-6 bombers. The aircraft, said Austin, didn’t enter U.S. airspace and only got within about 200 miles (320 kilometers) of the coast.

They were, however, within the ADIZ, which begins where sovereign airspace ends, and aircraft must be easily identifiable and file flight plans for authorization in order to meet national security requirements.

China and Russia both acknowledged what they called a joint patrol over the Bering Sea, which divides Russia and Alaska.

Their growing military relationship has triggered concerns both among NATO allies and with nations in the Asia-Pacific. NATO allies have called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

The allies issues a sternly worded statement, approved by the 32 members at their summit in Washington earlier this month.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the patrol also flew over the Chukchi Sea, which is on the north side of the Bering Strait, and that the exercises lasted more than five hours.

The joint patrol tested and improved coordination between the two air forces, said Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry. He said it was the eighth joint strategic air patrol since 2019. He declined to comment when asked if it was the first such patrol over the Bering Sea.

While Russia’s military has long been active in the north Pacific, China has emerged as a new actor in recent years as its growing navy and air force expand their presence farther from the country’s shores.

On Chinese state media, the maneuver was called “a great leap forward in the Chinese Air Force’s actual combat training capabilities,” according to Wang Mingzhi, Chinese military expert interviewed on state broadcaster CCTV. Wang cited the fact that the mission was far away from ground support as well as in unfamiliar territory, saying that it showed support’s ability to operate effectively across long-range missions.

Shen Yi, a professor of international politics at Fudan University, wrote in his column that the Chinese flights were to showcase the country’s deterrence, and had symbolic significance in the U.S.-China rivalry.

“China’s boosting its capabilities to carry out effective strategic gaming with the United States and to maintain strategic stability,” Shen wrote. “As this system continuously improves, it can effectively deter the U.S.”

A photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed a Russian Su-30 fighter jet escorting a Chinese bomber. Another photo posted online by the military channel of China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed Russian and Chinese long-winged bombers flying in parallel formation against mostly blue skies.

The Japanese military has grown increasingly concerned about joint China-Russia drills and the potential threat they pose to the security of Japan and the region.

A fleet of Russian and Chinese warplanes including Tu-95s and H-6s was seen flying together last December over the waters between Japan and Korea, Japan’s Defense Ministry said. At the time, China’s Defense Ministry called it the seventh joint strategic air patrol with Russia.

Chinese naval ships have showed up in international waters near Alaska, most recently in mid-July when the Coast Guard spotted four ships in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the shore.

Zhang described the naval activity as routine combat readiness training and said that China would continue to conduct far-seas training to improve the capabilities of its troops.

——

AP writer Huizhong Wu contributed to this report from Bangkok.

AP · July 25, 2024

5. Analysis: A fourth term for Xi Jinping and slower growth expected based on clues from Communist Party's plenum

Excerpts:

Still, a timeline surfaced - for all these reform tasks to be completed by the time the People’s Republic of China marks its 80th anniversary in 2029.

Analysts have latched onto the 2029 goal as an indication that Mr Xi intends to stay on for a fourth term as CCP general secretary,

Mr Xi already secured a record third term as CCP head at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022. His influence would be further bolstered months later with a historic third presidential term, cementing his status as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

...

Separately, China watchers cited in a Jul 25 report by Japan-based news outlet Nikkei Asia hinted at possible tactics behind publishing the 2029 reform goal.

One is that Mr Xi could make the case for staying on to finish the job, especially with the deadline not too far off - and this could also stave off doubts about his continued rule as China confronts a host of external and domestic challenges.

Another reading is that as Sino-US relations fray, Mr Xi is trying to ensure the world’s second-largest economy can endure a worst-case scenario of complete decoupling.

The next US president’s term - be it Donald Trump, Kamala Harris or whoever - would run till January 2029, the same year that the CCP wants to achieve its reform goals. The Xi administration aims to make China impervious to external conditions by then, Nikkei Asia cited an analyst as saying.

Analysis: A fourth term for Xi Jinping and slower growth expected based on clues from Communist Party's plenum

While the resolution document of China’s third plenum was long on commitments but short on specifics, analysts have singled out the mention of a 2029 deadline as a hint that Mr Xi could be looking to stay in power beyond 2027.

Wong Woon Shin

Bong Xin Ying

26 Jul 2024 06:28PM

channelnewsasia.com · by Wong Woon Shin

SINGAPORE: The prospect of a fourth term for China’s supremo Xi Jinping is looking higher, with fresh signals emerging from the recent third plenum, a reform-focused meeting by the top brass of China’s Communist Party (CCP), analysts say.

The biggest hint that Mr Xi wants to stay on as CCP head beyond 2027 lies in the introduction of a 2029 deadline to achieve the myriad, sweeping commitments made during the event, observers point out.

Citing the deadline as a “tiny signal” that a fourth term for the Chinese supremo is on the table, Dr Wu Guoguang, a senior fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis (CCA), said: “Is Xi Jinping preparing for a fourth term? My answer is definitely yes.”

He questioned the need for the party to publicly specify a 2029 deadline, noting that the CCP could have just left it unsaid while still working towards completion behind the scenes.

Dr Wu was speaking at a four-member webinar hosted on Jul 25 by CCA, that sought to analyse the context, contents and consequences of the roughly quinquennial third plenum.

Discussions during the hour-long session mostly revolved around the economic dictates from the third plenum, with the experts highlighting how a high-tech push is placed front and centre, and framed as a pivotal factor in resolving domestic problems such as unemployment and weak consumption.

“Beijing basically sees tech as a magic potion for all those problems,” said Dr Lizzi C Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy at CCA.

A POSSIBLE FOURTH TERM?

The third plenum of the CCP Central Committee came and went last week, first yielding a 5,000-word communique summarising the sweeping commitments, before following up with a 22,000-word resolution document for the full flavour.

Long on commitments but short on specifics, the scope of the resolution on “further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernisation” was broad, setting out 300-odd reform pledges covering the economy, society and security, to name some.

Still, a timeline surfaced - for all these reform tasks to be completed by the time the People’s Republic of China marks its 80th anniversary in 2029.

Analysts have latched onto the 2029 goal as an indication that Mr Xi intends to stay on for a fourth term as CCP general secretary,

Mr Xi already secured a record third term as CCP head at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022. His influence would be further bolstered months later with a historic third presidential term, cementing his status as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

Members of the Politburo Standing Committee from left, , Li Xi, Cai Qi, Zhao Leji, Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Wang Huning and Ding Xuexiang attend the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held from July 15 to 18 in Beijing. (Photo: Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP)

A potential fourth term with Mr Xi at the helm would begin in 2027 and run through 2032, overlapping with the 2029 goal set out in the third plenum document.

Dr Chen Gang, assistant director and senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute (EAI), told CNA separately that the explicit mention of the 2029 goal indicates plans for Mr Xi’s continued leadership.

“The plenum proposed over 300 reforms to be completed by 2029, indicating plans for General Secretary Xi Jinping’s continued leadership into a potential fourth term,” he said, adding that the demands include breakthroughs in reform, development and technology.

Separately, China watchers cited in a Jul 25 report by Japan-based news outlet Nikkei Asia hinted at possible tactics behind publishing the 2029 reform goal.

One is that Mr Xi could make the case for staying on to finish the job, especially with the deadline not too far off - and this could also stave off doubts about his continued rule as China confronts a host of external and domestic challenges.

Another reading is that as Sino-US relations fray, Mr Xi is trying to ensure the world’s second-largest economy can endure a worst-case scenario of complete decoupling.

The next US president’s term - be it Donald Trump, Kamala Harris or whoever - would run till January 2029, the same year that the CCP wants to achieve its reform goals. The Xi administration aims to make China impervious to external conditions by then, Nikkei Asia cited an analyst as saying.

NAVIGATING TROUBLED WATERS

Politics aside, analysts participating in the CCA seminar agreed that the sweeping pledges made at the third plenum are centred on making sure China can sail through increasingly troubled foreign and domestic waters and achieve its lofty objectives.

Heavy local government debt burdens, a protracted property crisis and a shrinking workforce are but some of the issues the world’s second-largest economy faces at home. Abroad, it has to contend with growing geopolitical risks, with terms like de-risking and friendshoring sounding louder in recent years.

At the same time, China has just over a decade and a half left to achieve its self-declared goals of “basically achieving socialist modernisation” and becoming a “medium-developed country”.

“China’s big economic goal, the overarching aim … is to achieve Chinese-style modernisation,” said Dr Lee.

“There's actually a deadline for it - 2035 - which means doubling of per capita income to about US$25,000. So to hit that target, what that means is China needs to grow at about 4.5-5 per cent annually.

“Right now, the data is at 4.7 per cent, but projections usually suggest that it might dip below, well below 4 per cent next year on.”

China’s latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures were released on Jul 15, coinciding with the start of the third plenum.

The 4.7 per cent growth logged in Q2 2024 was down from the previous quarter’s 5.3 per cent, falling short of economists’ expectations and marking the lowest quarterly growth figure since the start of 2023.

In October 2022, China delayed the release of GDP data amid the twice-a-decade party congress that further consolidated power under Mr Xi.

“This lower-than-5 per cent growth could be the new normal in the coming years,” said Dr Chen from EAI in a separate interview, referring to the timing of the release of the latest GDP growth numbers.

TRUSTING IN TECHNOLOGY

To keep the economic engines humming, China is making clear that it views technology as the be-all and end-all for the short to medium term at least, said the analysts participating in the CCA seminar. They added that this also feeds into the country’s quest for self-sufficiency.

“There’s this massive emphasis on technology innovation in the so-called new quality productive forces (xin zhi sheng chan li),” said Dr Lee, referring to the catchphrase coined by Mr Xi in September last year during a trip to China’s northeastern rust belt.

She pointed out how tech-related terms feature extensively throughout the third plenum resolution document, in contrast to the comparatively muted mentions of property and housing.

“It's clear to me from the third plenum document that the Chinese leadership has decided that to sustain this level of growth. China needs systemic upgrading along the global value chain, not just short-term stimuli,” said Dr Lee.

This focus on tech is a “clear statement” that manufacturing is going to be the mainstay of Chinese development, said Mr Bert Hofman, a professor at EAI and an honorary senior fellow on the Chinese economy at CCA.

“(It’s) a policy of doubling down on science and technology, on industrial policy, linking the two, (and) having all kinds of tools that would link the two.

“Basically, it is not just (that) of today's technology, but future technology, the high-quality productive forces.”

At the same time, the analysts cautioned that the heightened pursuit of all things technology could have undesirable results.

Dr Lee warned that income inequality could be widened, which would undermine Mr Xi’s “common prosperity” push, even as she noted that the term wasn’t featured prominently in the third plenum document.

“(Common prosperity) is still one of the key tenets of Xi Jinping's economic philosophy … if we (look at) other developed economies, high-paying tech jobs are not evenly distributed, and sometimes that can lead to further socio-economic disparities,” she said.

Meanwhile, China’s reluctance to resort to traditional stimuli to directly support consumers in households has “definitely made the recovery much bumpier and much more uncertain”, Dr Lee noted.

Trade tensions could also throw a spanner in the works amid accusations of Chinese overcapacity. For instance, Chinese electric vehicles have been taking the world by storm, but they’ve since been met with a raft of tariffs from the US and Europe.

The third plenum document suggests that the Chinese leadership is cognisant of these speedbumps, Dr Lee said.

“There's definitely an emphasis on China adapting by relocating supply chains to emerging markets and shifting the economy towards domestic consumption,” she noted.

Still, it remains uncertain how effective these policies will be as the geopolitical landscape heats up - and also, whether China’s focus on national security and self-sufficiency will attract or deter foreign investment, Dr Lee cautioned.

channelnewsasia.com · by Wong Woon Shin

6. Harris tells Netanyahu 'it is time' to end the war in Gaza and bring the hostages home

Harris tells Netanyahu 'it is time' to end the war in Gaza and bring the hostages home

BY  AAMER MADHANI

Updated 9:39 PM EDT, July 25, 2024

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · July 25, 2024

Follow the AP’s live updates of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal soon with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 can return home.

Harris said she had a “frank and constructive” conversation with Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the “dire” humanitarian situation there.

With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Harris largely reiterated President Joe Biden’s longstanding message that it’s time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died. Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to Congress in which he defended the war, vowed “total victory” against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of cease-fire negotiations.

“There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal,” Harris told reporters shortly after meeting with Netanyahu. “And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.”

Netanyahu met separately earlier in the day with Biden, who has also been calling on Israel and Hamas to come to an agreement on a U.S.-backed, three-phase deal to bring home remaining hostages and establish an extended cease-fire.

The White House said in a statement that Biden discussed with Netanyahu “the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza.” Biden and Netanyahu also discussed improving the flow of aid into Gaza as well as the ongoing threat posed by Iranian-backed militant groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Harris said after her meeting with Netanyahu that Israel’s war in Gaza is more complicated than simply being supportive of one side or the other.

“Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but,” Harris said.

Harris also condemned Hamas’ brutality. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the administration position that the militant group that killed some 1,200 on Oct. 7 and kidnapped 250 people from Israel ultimately holds responsibility for the suffering in Gaza and must come to terms with Israel.

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Kirby added that gaps between the two sides can be closed “but there are issues that need to be resolved that will require some leadership, some compromise.”

With Harris’ forceful comments, the administration also appeared to be stepping up pressure on the Israelis to not let the moment pass to get a deal done.

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time,” Harris said. “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”

Thousands protested Netanyahu’s visit in Washington, and Harris condemned those who were violent or used rhetoric that praised Hamas.

Netanyahu, last at the White House when former President Donald Trump was in office, is headed to Florida on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee.

Ahead of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting Thursday, Trump said at a rally in North Carolina the vice president was “totally against the Jewish people.”

Harris has long spoken of her strong support for Israel. The first overseas trip of her Senate career in early 2017 was to Israel, and one of her first acts in office was to introduce a resolution opposing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

She’s also spoken of her personal ties to Israel, including memories of raising money as a child to plant trees in Israel and installing a mezuzah near the front door of the vice president’s residence in Washington — her husband is Jewish. She also has connections to pro-Israel groups including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the liberal J Street.

For Harris, the meeting with Netanyahu was an opportunity to demonstrate that she has the mettle to serve as commander in chief. She’s being scrutinized by those on the political left who say Biden hasn’t done enough to force Netanyahu to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

Harris’ last one-on-one engagement with Netanyahu was in March 2021, but she’s taken part in more than 20 calls between Biden and Netanyahu.

The conservative Likud Party leader Netanyahu and centrist Democrat Biden have had ups-and-downs over the years. Netanyahu, in what will likely be his last White House meeting with Biden, reflected on the roughly 40 years they’ve known each other and thanked the president for his service.

“From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told Biden.

A U.S.-backed proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases is something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for Biden, who abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Harris. It could also be a boon for Harris in her bid to succeed him.

Following their talks, Biden and Netanyahu met with the families of American hostages.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the families received an “ironclad commitment” from Biden and Netanyahu to get the hostages home. He said he was more hopeful than at anytime since Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a temporary cease-fire in November.

“There is more reason today than in any time since the last round of hostage releases that something can happen,” he said.

Netanyahu is trying to navigate his own delicate political moment. He faces pressure from the families of hostages demanding a cease-fire agreement to bring their loved ones home and from far-right members of his governing coalition who demand he resist any deal that could keep Israeli forces from eliminating Hamas.

In his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu offered a robust defense of Israel’s conduct during the war and lashed out against accusations by the International Criminal Court of Israeli war crimes. He made the case that Israel, in its fight against Iran-backed Hamas, was effectively keeping “Americans boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.”

“Remember this: Our enemies are your enemies,” Netanyahu said. “Our fight, it’s your fight. And our victory will be your victory. ”

Netanyahu also derided protesters who massed near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, calling them Iran’s “useful idiots.”

Harris on Thursday said she was outraged that some protesters tagged areas near the U.S. Capitol with pro-Hamas graffiti, expressed support for the militants and burned a U.S. flag at Union Station.

“Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation,” Harris said in a statement. “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.”

Protesters massed near the White House on Thursday chanted, “Arrest Netanyahu,” and brought an effigy of the prime minister with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit. A small number of counterprotesters wore Israeli flags around their shoulders.

—-

AP writer Ashraf Khalil contributed reporting.

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · July 25, 2024

7. Ukraine's foreign minister in Hong Kong calls on officials to stop Russia from evading sanctions

Ukraine's foreign minister in Hong Kong calls on officials to stop Russia from evading sanctions

BY STEPHEN MCGRATH AND SAMYA KULLAB

Updated 4:12 PM EDT, July 25, 2024

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · July 25, 2024

Ukraine’s foreign minister in Hong Kong calls on officials to stop Russia from evading sanctions

1 of 2 |FILE - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba attends a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, July 9, 2024, at the State Department in Washington. Kuleba on Thursday, July 25, called on Hong Kong to prevent Russia and Russian businesses from using the region to circumvent sanctions. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday called on Hong Kong to prevent Russia and Russian businesses from using the region to circumvent sanctions.

Kuleba met with Hong Kong leader John Lee as part of a visit to China. He called on the administration to prevent Russia from using Hong Kong to circumvent restrictions resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

“These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s potential to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” the statement said. “The minister stressed that Russian machinations should not tarnish Hong Kong’s reputation as a highly developed liberal economy based on unwavering respect for the rule of law.”

In a separate development, debris from what was believed to be a Russian drone landed in a rural area of Romania, the country’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, in the latest apparent incident of drone wreckage from the war in neighboring Ukraine falling onto the NATO member’s soil.

In Ukraine, meanwhile, the country’s president announced that authorities have detained an 18-year-old suspect in connection with the shooting death of a former lawmaker who was an advocate for the use of the Ukrainian language instead of Russian.

Since the war started in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions.

The debris of what the Defense Ministry called a drone of Russian origin was found following Russian attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure near the border.

A statement said the fragments were discovered by a team of specialists in an uninhabited area near the village of Plauru in Tulcea county, which is across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail.

The discovery came after Russia carried out overnight attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” in Ukraine over the past two nights, the ministry said. Those assaults prompted Romania to deploy warplanes to monitor its airspace.

The ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.”

Romania’s emergency authorities issued text alerts both nights to residents living in Tulcea, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday on his Telegram channel that the suspect in the slaying of Iryna Farion, 60, was detained in Dnipro, hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the east.

Farion was gunned down in the street in broad daylight last Friday in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Police said the incident was being treated as an assassination.

“The detention operation was very difficult,” Zelenskyy said. “Over recent days, hundreds of specialists of the National Police of Ukraine, SBU (security service) and other services worked on solving the murder.”

Farion’s death shocked Ukraine, and several thousand mourners attended her funeral in Lviv.

Farion was a member of the Ukrainian parliament between 2012 and 2014. She was best known for her campaigns to promote the use of the Ukrainian language by Ukrainian officials who spoke Russian.

Russian speakers are common in eastern parts of Ukraine, by the border with Russia, and some long-serving officials speak Russian after years of Soviet rule.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

SAMYA KULLAB

Kullab is an Associarted Press reporter covering Ukraine since June 2023. Before that, she covered Iraq and the wider Middle East from her base in Baghdad since joining the AP in 2019.

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · July 25, 2024

8. No need for an Asian NATO to counter China

Excerpts:

Rather than elevate Asia on the NATO agenda, the United States, Canada and European allies should keep the North Atlantic military organization in the North Atlantic area of responsibility.

The top US, Canadian and European priorities in Asia, maintaining adequate balance of power with China and avoiding a war that would cause immense casualties and trillions of dollars in lost global revenue, can be accomplished without extra-territorial alliances heavily dependent on US military power.

The most effective way to achieve this with the least amount of risk is for the United States and European states to build on bilateral relationships with individual East Asian countries like Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia, all of which are modernizing their own militaries to defend their prerogatives against a militarily superior China.

None of these powers needs a foreign military bloc to explain why a stable balance of power in Asia is in the collective interest.

No need for an Asian NATO to counter China - Asia Times

asiatimes.com · by Daniel R. DePetris · July 26, 2024

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum, a Honolulu-based foreign policy research institute founded in 1975. It is republished with permission.

NATO heads of state gathered in Washington last week for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit. While summit deliverables were predictable, China had a surprisingly central role in summit deliberations.

The Asian superpower was a top agenda item for NATO, increasingly called out for any number of perceived sins, including the People’s Liberation Army’s bellicose behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, its strategic partnership with Russia and attempts to undermine the so-called rules-based international order.

“The People’s Republic of China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values,” NATO stressed in its joint communique.

NATO’s invitation to the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) grouping of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea for a third consecutive year demonstrated the organization’s intent to increase coordination and collaboration with Asian powers on China.

While the United States and NATO leadership did not explicitly frame the meetings as a counter-China effort, the subtext was certainly there.

Europe and East Asia — one domain?

In recent years, experts and officials in growing numbers have argued that Europe can’t be walled off from East Asia — and vice-versa. A security crisis in the South China Sea, the logic goes, could negatively impact Europe’s economic health; a conventional conflict in Europe could allow China to press its advantage while the West finds itself distracted.

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on July 1, “there’s strong recognition that the two theaters … are linked.”

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has been a main proponent of the linkage theory, contending that “Ukraine today may be the East Asia of tomorrow.” This isn’t altogether inaccurate. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea in June, his first in nearly a quarter-century, has security implications for both Europe and East Asia.

Putin’s and Kim Jong Un’s new comprehensive strategic partnership accord, which aims to improve bilateral relations, enhance trade ties and provide mutual assistance should either country suffer an act of aggression, could exacerbate ongoing security challenges in Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea’s supply of munitions to Russia and Russia’s rumored assistance to North Korea in satellite technology amount to a lose-lose proposition for countries from Germany, Poland and Ukraine to Japan and South Korea.

The United States and its allies in Europe and Asia have tried to mitigate these threats by pooling resources and strengthening communication on issues of shared concern. Cooperation tends to revolve around bilateral and mini-lateral formulations.

The United Kingdom and Japan finalized a Reciprocal Access Agreement in 2023 establishing procedures for the UK military and Japanese Self-Defense Forces to visit one another’s countries for joint exercises and training. Japan pursues a similar agreement with France.

Germany and France have sent their naval and air forces to the Indo-Pacific, both as a show of resolve to China and because European states have a vested interest in preserving freedom of navigation. In 2023, Berlin deployed its first warship to the South China Sea in nearly two decades.

The United States, meanwhile, is regularizing trilateral naval drills with Japan and South Korea, and with Japan and the Philippines, to boost interoperability among their respective forces.

NATO has never been far from the conversation. While Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea all have long-standing relationships with the transatlantic alliance, those were often seen as more symbolic than substantive. They certainly weren’t formed with a specific adversarial country in mind.

No longer. NATO is now explicitly referencing China in summit communiques. In 2019, the alliance stated that “China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an alliance.”

The language is noticeably tougher in NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, highlighting China’s confrontational rhetoric, “malicious hybrid and cyber operations” and exploitation of economic leverage over smaller states.

There is now a general sense that NATO, crafted in the early days of the Cold War to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union, should be re-purposed to counter China—or at least play a part in it. Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis has even suggested bringing Japan, South Korea and Australia into the alliance.

Costs and consequences

That NATO’s competitors and adversaries are increasingly making common cause with each other is not a good enough reason to move NATO out of area. Granted, NATO has engaged in missions outside the European theater, from the occupation of Afghanistan to training the Iraqi army in Iraq and leading a bombing campaign in Libya.

Yet transforming NATO into an Indo-Pacific security guarantor or institutionalizing its relationship with IP4 countries would create internal difficulties within the alliance and compound the security problems NATO and its Asian partners want to address.

First, the divisions within NATO: At present there is no consensus on expanding NATO’s remit to include Asia, particularly with the explicit goal to contain Chinese power. NATO members have varying reasons for avoiding it.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s opposition centers on concerns that incorporating Asian security matters into NATO’s official business would degrade the alliance’s traditional focus on deterrence in Europe.

France, particularly under Macron, also doesn’t want to burn bridges with China or do anything to increase the risk of a direct military confrontation with China, however implausible it may seem. These worries led Macron to veto the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo last year.

For Germany, the issue has less to do with promoting Indo-Pacific security per se and more about preserving Berlin’s €250 billion ($274 billion) trade relationship with China, Germany’s largest trading partner for the last eight years.

Hungary is strengthening relations with China, so any attempt to bring the alliance out-of-area likely will be stonewalled by Budapest out of self-interest.

Second, outside the United States and perhaps the United Kingdom, it’s unclear whether NATO members possess the hard power, platforms and capacity to markedly increase deterrence in Asia. Europe’s defense industrial complex is stretched thin, with the bulk of production going to a land war on the continent that won’t end in the short term.

France has obligations in the Pacific, but its overseas territories are thousands of miles from the First Island Chain and wouldn’t be all that useful in a war-time contingency.

The most Germany could offer is the occasional freedom-of-navigation exercise in the region’s key choke points, symbolic operations difficult to sustain given Berlin’s three consecutive decades of defense cuts.

Third, China, Russia and North Korea won’t sit by passively in the event of a more Asia-focused NATO. All three are likely to respond to maintain a favorable balance of power in the region.

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China has long been suspicious that NATO, at Washington’s urging, will extend into East Asia to buttress US power, hem China in strategically and undermine what Chinese leaders regard as the PRC’s rightful place in international politics. In this scenario, China might want to activate its “no limits” partnership with Russia to make it a critical counterweight.

Joint Russia-China military exercises would become larger and more frequent, and any campaign to create wedges between the two — small to begin with — would be lost. China could even reassess its current opposition to a formal trilateral grouping with Russia and North Korea, if only to demonstrate that policies have consequences.

None of this would be welcomed by Southeast Asian countries, which have repeatedly warned of the dangers of the region’s further militarization.

Conclusion

Rather than elevate Asia on the NATO agenda, the United States, Canada and European allies should keep the North Atlantic military organization in the North Atlantic area of responsibility.

The top US, Canadian and European priorities in Asia, maintaining adequate balance of power with China and avoiding a war that would cause immense casualties and trillions of dollars in lost global revenue, can be accomplished without extra-territorial alliances heavily dependent on US military power.

The most effective way to achieve this with the least amount of risk is for the United States and European states to build on bilateral relationships with individual East Asian countries like Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia, all of which are modernizing their own militaries to defend their prerogatives against a militarily superior China.

None of these powers needs a foreign military bloc to explain why a stable balance of power in Asia is in the collective interest.

Daniel R. DePetris (dan.deptris@defp.org) is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC.

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asiatimes.com · by Daniel R. DePetris · July 26, 2024

9. EU transfers 1.5 billion euros from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

EU transfers 1.5 billion euros from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-transfers-15-billion-euros-frozen-russian-assets-ukraine-2024-07-26/?utm

By Reuters

July 26, 20246:27 AM EDTUpdated 32 min ago

Ursula von der Leyen attends a press conference after her re-election for a second term as President of the European Commission, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, July 18, 2024. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

BRUSSELS, July 26 (Reuters) - The European Union will transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.

Western countries blocked around $300 billion worth of sovereign Russian assets after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Last month the Group of Seven major democracies and the EU agreed to use interest earned from the frozen Russian assets to support a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, aiding its defence against Moscow's invasion. Russia has vowed legal action.

"Today we transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine. There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlin’s money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live," von der Leyen said on social media platform X.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked the EU.

"Thank you von der Leyen and the EU for your steadfast support and this significant contribution to Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction. Together, we are turning adversity into strength and building a safer, more resilient Europe," he said.

EU member states have been discussing options to extend the renewal period of sanctions on Russian central bank assets in order to secure the G7 loan for Ukraine, according to an EU draft document and statements from diplomats, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

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

Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Alex Richardson and Gareth Jones

10. The Financial Case for Ukraine

Please go to the link to view the graphs and charts.

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/the-financial-case-for-ukraine

The Financial Case for Ukraine

By Jeremiah Monk

Several politicians have recently claimed that the billions of dollars the US has given to support Ukraine are wasteful. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the US has contributed approximately $175 billion dollars to the defense of Ukraine.[i] $175 billion is a lot of money to just give away, especially at the expense of all the domestic needs that will go unfunded.

In defense spending terms, however, $175 may actually be a strategic bargain. For comparison note that the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, cost $13 billion to build, and has a total program price tag of $120 billion.[ii] Including the air wing the carrier will support, the Ford makes for a suitable yardstick for a rough comparison.

One can argue production and maintenance of the Ford equates to American jobs and is therefore an investment back into America. This is true. But the same goes for the vast majority of US investment in Ukraine. HIMARS missiles are built in Camden, Arkansas. 105mm shells are produced in Scranton, Pennsylvania and F-16s are made in Greenville, South Carolina. Of the nearly $70 billion of hardware given to Ukraine, approximately 90% actually goes to American companies and American jobs.[iii] 

Surely, the security and capability promised by the U.S.S. Ford must therefore be worth such a high price, or there would be more high-stakes showdowns in Congress about its continued funding. Meanwhile, last February, the government narrowly avoided a shutdown over the question of continued funding to Ukraine. So what does the U.S., and the larger international community, get for $175 billion? With the help of Stratbot, our resident AI, Strategy Central did the math.

ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL FUNDING TO UKRAINE

Of the $175 billion the US has given to Ukraine, only $107 billion directly aids the government of Ukraine. The remainder funds various ancillary US activities and other countries in the region. Of this $107B, about $3B is for humanitarian relief. This leaves a total US contribution of $103.07 billion in war materials and funding.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, as of this writing, the sum of international material and financial contributions made to Ukraine amounts to $296.5 billion (including the $103 billion from the US).[iv] For purposes of this analysis, we will use the total international contribution figure to determine the relative impact of the support effort, as it is impossible to determine the relative impact of an individual nation’s financial contribution.

On the other side of the Donbas trenches, Russia is waging a war of attrition. Historically, this is a strategy that Russians are all too familiar with. Also historically, attrition strategies have worked significantly better for Russia in the defensive application. The Ukraine war, however, is an offensive operation turned stagnant. And for Russia, it is proving extremely costly.

Since the start of the Russian assault in February 2022, the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance estimates Russian material losses to be $654.14 billion in US dollars. The Ministry also estimates 568,980 Russians killed and wounded to date. Though the Ukrainian government is widely believed to have inflated these estimates, these numbers must suffice for our analysis as they are the best available accounting of material losses (and because Russian reporting is significantly less accurate). A breakdown of Russian losses reported by the Ministry can be found in Figure 1.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

To calculate an approximate return on investment of international aid, we can compare the dollar cost of contributions to the estimated cost of losses. Looking only at the $654.14B of destroyed Russian hardware to the $296.5B of aid to Ukraine, we get a ratio of $2.2 worth of damage for every $1 spent. This ratio alone presents a rate of return unrivaled in most (Western) defense spending programs.

Battlefield losses, however, are only one aspect of the overall financial cost of the invasion. International sanctions have crippled the Russian economy. Russia’s GDP fell 2.1% in 2022, equating to a loss of approximately $30 billion, and estimates for 2023 fall around 1.35%, for another $22 billion.[vi] Russian trade has been significantly reduced as well. Although with the help of China, Iran, and others, Russia is finding opportunities for legal and illicit export, the country is largely cut off from most of the international market, equating to around a $104 billion annual loss. Restrictions on the maximum price of Russian oil have resulted in an annual $36.5 billion loss of revenue. Furthermore, the budget deficit caused by reduced revenue and increased spending adds another 2% of Russian GDP, or around $33B per year.

Adding this all up, the annual impact of international sanctions on Russia is around $225.5 billion. As Russia approaches day 900 of what was supposed to be a 3-day war, it has accumulated 2.5 years of imposed costs. That comes out to $563.75 billion since February 2022.

Adding the material and financial impact together, we can make the case that the cost of Russia’s invasion thus far has been over half a million lives and around $1.22 trillion (and counting). Not to mention all the immeasurable impacts

But the material impact on the Russian armed forces is just one of many costs that Russia must bear. Russia has lost over half a million men, which will have a devastating generational impact on a country that already suffers from a shrinking population (0.34% in 2024), exacerbated by a low and declining birth rate (11 births per 1000 people in 2024).[vii] It is impossible to convert this impact to a financial equivalence, but it is fair to say that there will be an enormous generational impact on Russia’s demography.

The United States gets all this for the measly price of $296.5 billion, of which they have contributed 36%. That comes out to about a 4.1:1 return on investment for every dollar the international community has given to Ukraine. At $120B for the U.S.S. Ford, the equivalent bar is set at 230,000 casualties and $493.7B of measurable devastation to our future adversaries to surpass this deal. That’s a tall order for a single ship.

CONCLUSION

Large, expensive gadgets may make us feel safe. They certainly look cool. But strategically speaking, a dollar spent to make a quagmire for our adversaries is a much more efficient expenditure. The next time a politician questions what value the US is getting for our investment in Ukraine, we at Strategy Central hope they will first take a critical look at these numbers and keep a keen eye on the expected value taxpayers expect to receive from the $825 billion the US spends each year on large, expensive, admittedly cool, but inefficient defense programs.

NOTES

[i] Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, “How Much U.S. Aid Is Going to Ukraine?” Council on Foreign Relations, May 9, 2024 (accessed Jul 23, 2024) https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine#:~:text=From%20the%20total%20%24175%20billion,to%20the%20government%20of%20Ukraine.&text=Weapons%20and%20equipment%20are%20provided,and%20Foreign%20Military%20Financing%20Program.

[ii] Harrison Kass, “Is the Navy's Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier Worth Its $120 Billion Price Tag?” The National Interest, May 18, 2024 (accessed Jul 23, 2024). https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navys-ford-class-aircraft-carrier-worth-its-120-billion-price-tag%C2%A0-210032

[iii] Marc A. Thiessen, “Ukraine aid’s best-kept secret: Most of the money stays in the U.S.A.” The Washington Post, November 29, 2023 (accessed July 24, 2024). https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/29/ukraine-military-aid-american-economy-boost/

[iv] Antezza A., et.al., “Ukraine Support Tracker Data (Data Set).” Kiel Institute for the World Economy, April 2024. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/ukraine-support-tracker-data-20758/

[v] Ukraine Ministry of Finance, “Casualties of the Russian troops in Ukraine.” July 23, 2024. https://index.minfin.com.ua/en/russian-invading/casualties/

[vi]European Council, “Impact of Sanctions on the Russian Economy.” (accessed July 24, 2024) https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanctions-russian-economy/

[vii] Ukraine Ministry of Finance, “Cost of losses of the Russian troops in Ukraine.” 23 July 2024. https://index.minfin.com.ua/en/russian-invading/casualties/cost/

[viii] Macrotrends, “Russia Population” and “Birth Rate 1950-2024”(accessed Jul 24, 2024) https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/RUS/russia/population

11. Profile in Strategic Leadership - Admiral William McRaven

Regarding Admiral McRaven's book Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice:

Yes, it is a seminal work for one aspect of special operations, namely the direct action raid.

For the theories of special operations on the indirect side of unconventional warfare the seminal work is from COL (RET) Mark Boyatt, Special Forces: A Unique National Asset "through, with and by" (https://www.amazon.com/Special-Forces-Unique-National-through/dp/1478770821)

Profile in Strategic Leadership - Admiral William McRaven

By Practitioners, For Practitioners

 Strategy Central - July 25, 2024

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/profile-in-strategic-leadership-admiral-william-mcraven

Why do we need generals and admirals? The most traditional response is that they are needed to fight and win our nation’s wars. However true this may be, there is a deeper requirement to flag grade leadership. “4 Stars” must demonstrate a commitment to a strategic vision that prepares, maneuvers, and leads the military through peace, competition, and conflict so the nation can protect and advance national security interests. Despite the need for this essential skill, not all generals or admirals are adept at strategy. Some might argue that it is a common requirement but an uncommon virtue. Admiral William McRaven is one of the rare few who possesses the vision and capability to achieve difficult objectives with complex capabilities in highly intricate environments.

William McRaven's naval career began when he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and was commissioned as an officer in the Navy in 1977. Over the next 37 years, he climbed the ranks to become a four-star admiral, a testament to his exceptional leadership and strategic insight. McRaven spent much of his career within the Navy SEALs, the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force. His tenure included commanding SEAL Team 3, Naval Special Warfare Group 1, and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), where he oversaw high-profile missions such as the capture of Saddam Hussein and the operation that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. For his final tour before retirement in 2014, Admiral McRaven commanded U.S. Special Operations Command.

While he was responsible for attaining the two specified national security objectives by capturing and killing America’s most wanted enemies, he was able to apply his strategic acumen more broadly while commanding SOCOM. Even as early as 2013, Admiral McRaven recognized that despite the previous decade being dominated by Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States could not take its eyes off the threat of transnational terrorism nor the special activities of Russia, Iran, or China. To combat those threats, McRaven drove his staff and counterparts to engage nations worldwide in building capacity, strengthening capabilities, and solidifying partnerships. These efforts increased SOF’s stature in Washington and established a framework to collaborate with the interagency in the fight against globally dispersed networks that remain in place today.

Leading special operations forces posed physically and mentally demanding challenges that required McRaven to adopt innovative leadership approaches. He emphasized the importance of preparation, adaptability, and decisiveness. McRaven believed that success in special operations depended on rigorous training, clear communication, and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure. He also prioritized the well-being and morale of his troops, understanding that the physical and psychological demands placed on special forces required a leader who could inspire and support his team through the most demanding situations.

After retiring from the Navy in 2014, McRaven transitioned to an academic-focused career, becoming the Chancellor of the University of Texas System. His leadership principles transferred to the academic environment, where he emphasized the importance of discipline, strategic planning, and fostering a culture of excellence. At the University of Texas, McRaven championed initiatives to enhance research capabilities, improve healthcare services, and expand educational opportunities. His tenure was marked by efforts to modernize the system's infrastructure, promote innovation, and ensure that the University of Texas System remained competitive nationally and globally.

Since 2019, Admiral William McRaven has taught "Advanced Public Management: Policy Making and Leadership," designed to immerse students in contemporary policy challenges within the national security arena. The course aims to equip students with a comprehensive framework for making decisions across the public policy spectrum by engaging them with real-world geopolitical scenarios.

Throughout the course, students work collaboratively within a simulated national security team to devise actionable options for government leaders. These scenarios include high-stakes issues such as conducting drone strikes in denied areas, addressing Iran's nuclear weapon development, managing potential conflicts between Russia and NATO, and responding to global contagions. The course emphasizes theoretical and analytical approaches and the practical aspects of national security policy-making in complex and politically sensitive environments. Students are encouraged to understand the broad implications of U.S. actions on international and domestic policy. Additionally, the course highlights the critical role of leadership in the policy-making process, providing students with insights into how effective leadership can influence policy decisions in the national security domain.

Admiral McRaven’s deep strategic perspective is evidenced by the many insightful articles and books on national security he has written leveraging his extensive military experience and foreign affairs experience. He has contributed to various national security journals and platforms, discussing counter-terrorism, special operations, and the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy.

The Admiral showed a flair for writing and solving difficult problems early in his career. As a junior officer at the Naval Post Graduate School, Admiral William H. McRaven developed the theory of relative superiority. It was an insightful take on applying special operations and helpful in understanding them. McRaven explained that relative superiority is achieved when a smaller, technologically advanced, highly trained force gains a decisive advantage over a larger, less prepared enemy. This advantage is often temporary and must be exploited quickly before the enemy can regroup and reassert its numerical superiority. McRaven outlines that achieving relative superiority requires meticulous planning, precise execution, and the ability to capitalize on the element of surprise. While narrow in application, his outline for achieving more with less did inspire a deeper look at what special operations could achieve beyond counterterrorism.

In his seminal work, "Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice," McRaven identifies six principles crucial for the success of special operations: simplicity, security, repetition, surprise, speed, and purpose. Simplicity refers to clear, concise plans easily understood by all team members, minimizing the risk of confusion during execution. Security ensures that operational details are protected from enemy discovery, preserving the element of surprise. Repetition involves rigorous rehearsals and training to ensure flawless execution under pressure. Surprise is achieved by striking the enemy unexpectedly at a time and place where they are least prepared. Speed emphasizes the need for rapid execution to maintain the initiative and prevent the enemy from mounting an effective response. Finally, purpose unifies the entire team's efforts, ensuring that every action is directed toward a common objective.

Another significant work by McRaven is "Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World." While not solely focused on national security, this book draws on his military experience to offer life lessons on leadership, resilience, and personal development. It provides insights applicable to both military and civilian leadership contexts.

McRaven has also written opinion pieces for major newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. These articles often address contemporary security challenges, leadership, and the importance of maintaining strong, principled leadership in the face of global threats. For example, in a New York Times op-ed, he emphasized the critical role of integrity and accountability in leadership.

Beyond written publications, McRaven has shared his knowledge through public lectures and podcasts. As a professor and public speaker, he discusses the dynamics of national security, the evolving nature of threats, and the strategic responses required to address them. McRaven's contributions to national security literature are marked by his practical experience and strategic thinking, making his works valuable for understanding contemporary security issues and effective leadership.

His insight and organizational talents truly reflect a man who offers a simple way to understand what it means to live as a person of character. McRaven’s leadership lessons seemed simple because he conveyed them that way and lives his life as a man of character. He emphasized the role of character. He has plainly explained that human beings make mistakes. However, we will be best positioned to do the right thing by striving to be moral, legal, and ethical as leaders. He highlighted the role of critical thinking in being a member of the military and in any other leadership role. McRaven explains that engaging in critical thinking is not enough. Once analysis is conducted, a leader must follow through with great communication. Critical in good times, he believes it is even more important to have consistent communication during times of crisis.

McRaven emphasizes the importance of teamwork, noting that no one “paddles the boat” by themselves. He stresses the criticality of physical and mental strength to be prepared for hard work, toughness, and intelligence. Leaders listen. He notes how leaders must be able to hear what their people are saying, reflect, and be thoughtful. He recommends getting to know your people and stresses knowing exactly where to get the pulse of your people and the expertise that surrounds you.

McRaven's leadership at the University of Texas has been characterized by his strategic vision and ability to inspire and mobilize diverse groups toward common goals. He fostered a collaborative environment, encouraged open communication, and led by example, principles that had been the cornerstone of his military career. His influence extended beyond administrative duties as he became a mentor to students and faculty, sharing insights from his military career and encouraging the next generation of leaders to pursue excellence with integrity and determination.

Whether leading special operations forces or steering one of the largest university systems in the United States, McRaven's leadership has been defined by a focus on strategic planning, rigorous execution, and the ability to inspire those around him to achieve their best. The continuity of excellence, character, and good judgment have followed him since his humble beginnings in 1977. His career is a testament to the impact that disciplined and visionary leadership can have across different spheres of influence. As our nation exercises the democratic process this fall, let us hope that our elected officials call again on this great strategic leader to serve our nation again in the next administration.

References:

- McRaven, William H. "Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World." Grand Central Publishing, 2017.

- McRaven, William H. "Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations." Grand Central Publishing, 2019.

- "Admiral William H. McRaven." The University of Texas System, www.utsystem.edu/offices/chancellor/former-chancellors/admiral-william-h-mcraven.

- "William H. McRaven." Naval Special Warfare Command, www.nsw.navy.mil/Leaders/Bio-Display/Article/2580700/william-h-mcraven.

- "Osama bin Laden mission was a 'flawless' raid, says Admiral William McRaven." The Guardian, 11 Sep. 2011, www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/11/osama-bin-laden-william-mcraven.

- "Retired Admiral William McRaven's new mission: Transforming UT System." The Texas Tribune, 15 Jan. 2015, www.texastribune.org/2015/01/15/ut-systems-new-chancellor-

12. Tech Watch: 5 Days of Tech News in 5 Minutes

Please go to the link to view the proper formatting and links to the useful references.

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/tech-watch-5-days-of-tech-news-in-5-minutes

Tech Watch: 5 Days of Tech News in 5 Minutes

By Practitioners, For Practitioners

Strategy Central - July 24, 2024

PRIORITY

A widespread IT outage occurred on July 19, 2024, impacting millions of Windows systems globally. A botched software update from CrowdStrike, a leading endpoint security vendor, caused this unprecedented event. The issue was traced back to a flawed update in the Falcon platform, specifically a logic error in the sensor configuration update known as channel file 291. This error caused the Falcon sensor, deeply integrated into the Windows kernel, to crash, leading to the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and rendering systems inoperable.

The scale of the disruption was immense, affecting critical operations across various sectors. Airlines and airports were among the hardest hit, with thousands of flights grounded, causing significant delays and cancellations worldwide. Public transit systems, healthcare facilities, and financial institutions also faced severe interruptions, highlighting the vulnerabilities in relying heavily on interconnected IT infrastructure. CrowdStrike managed to identify and deploy a fix within 79 minutes, but the recovery process for many businesses was labor-intensive and time-consuming, requiring manual intervention to restore affected systems.

U.S. Cyber Command warned that organizations are advised to implement comprehensive disaster recovery strategies, develop manual workarounds, and thoroughly test updates before deployment. The incident also attracted malicious actors who exploited the situation through phishing and fraudulent activities. This event serves as a crucial reminder of the vulnerabilities in modern IT systems and the importance of preparedness and resilience in the face of technological failures. For more details on the CrowdStrike outage. (https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Explaining-the-largest-IT-outage-in-history-and-whats-next).

ROUTINE

Description

URL

Here’s the Most Buglike Robot Bug Yet: It can take off, hover, land, crawl, and even flip itself over.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/flying-robot-bug

Your Next Great AI Engineer Already Works for You: How to build your team’s skills in AI and ML.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/your-next-great-ai-engineer

Apple, Microsoft Shrink AI Models to Improve Them: “Small language models” emerge as an alternative to gargantuan AI options.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/small-language-models-apple-microsoft

Powering Planes With Microwaves Is Not The Craziest Idea: If you don't mind massive ground antennas and fried birds, that is.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/electromagnetic-waves

Faster Than the Speed of Light: Information Transfer Through “Spooky Action at a Distance” at the Large Hadron Collider. This finding extends the behavior of entangled particles to distances beyond the reach of light-speed communication and opens new avenues for exploring quantum mechanics at high energies.

https://scitechdaily.com/faster-than-the-speed-of-light-information-transfer-through-spooky-action-at-a-distance-at-the-large-hadron-collider/

Silicon Magic: Powering the Quantum Internet of the Future. Using traditional semiconductor devices, researchers have unlocked new potentials in quantum communication, pushing us closer to realizing the vast potential of the quantum internet.

https://scitechdaily.com/silicon-magic-powering-the-quantum-internet-of-the-future/

How AI and 3D Printing Are Changing the Way We Grow Food: Scientists use laser scanning to generate 3D models of the above-ground parts of the sugar beet plant from a crop field, providing a step forward in developing AI-assisted crop pipeline improvement.

https://scitechdaily.com/how-ai-and-3d-printing-are-changing-the-way-we-grow-food/

Revolutionizing the Map: How Smartphones and Crowdsourcing Are Redefining Geospatial Data. Collaborative research outlines significant impacts on various industries and the ongoing need to integrate user-generated and traditional data sources for comprehensive analysis.

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionizing-the-map-how-smartphones-and-crowdsourcing-are-redefining-geospatial-data/

Atom-thin graphene membranes make carbon capture more efficient: Scientists have developed advanced atom-thin graphene membranes with pyridinic-nitrogen at pore edges, showing unprecedented performance in CO2 capture.

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-06-atom-thin-graphene-membranes-carbon.html

A new method to achieve smooth gait transitions in hexapod robots: Their proposed gait control technique is based on so-called central pattern generators (CPGs), computational approaches that mimic biological CPGs.

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-06-method-smooth-gait-transitions-hexapod.html

LEAP 71’s AI-Designed Rocket Engine Passes First Hot-Fire Test: This engine, made from copper, was designed autonomously without human help and then tested in the U.K., reducing design and production time.

https://3dprint.com/310671/leap-71s-ai-designed-rocket-engine-passes-first-hot-fire-test/

Ralph Hermanns Uses Print Farms to 3D Print Orthotic Insoles at Scale: Ralph’s switch to 3D printing has helped his practice grow to the third largest podiatry practice in the Netherlands.

https://3dprint.com/310641/ralph-hermanns-uses-print-farms-to-3d-print-orthotic-insoles-at-scale/

Congress passes bill to jumpstart new nuclear power tech: ADVANCE Act heads for Biden's signature, but it may be too little, too late.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/congress-passes-bill-to-jumpstart-new-nuclear-power-tech/

This AI-Powered Tool Changes Angry Customers' Voices from Nasty to Neutral: SoftVoice is designed to alleviate some of the psychological burden faced by call center staff.

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/this-ai-powered-tool-changes-angry-customers-voices-from-nasty-to-neutral

Eye-tracking VR system helps children stay still during MRI scans: UK researchers have tapped human-computer interaction (HCI) to improve MRI results for children.

https://thenextweb.com/news/eye-tracking-vr-system-children-stay-still-mri

Growing Size of AI Chips forces TSMC to Work on Tripling the Size of Wafers: The idea behind the new approach is to use rectangular panel-like substrates, rather than the conventional round wafers used today, allowing more sets of chips to be placed on each wafer.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/06/growing-size-of-ai-chips-forces-tsmc-to-work-on-tripling-the-size-of-wafers.html

Oakridge National Labs Demos Record 270 kilowatt Wireless Charging of Electric Cars: Researchers have successfully demonstrated the first 270-kW wireless power transfer to a light-duty electric vehicle.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/06/oakridge-national-labs-demos-record-270-kilowatt-wireless-charging-of-electric-cars.html

Automotive Radars: Beyond What Meets the Eye. The evolution of automotive radars into super sensors for autonomous driving.

https://www.designnews.com/automotive-engineering/automotive-radars-beyond-what-meets-the-eye

Are There Cheaper Alternatives to Apple’s Vision Pro? This teardown examines whether less expensive AR/VR headsets can meet spatial computing needs.

https://www.designnews.com/electronics/are-there-cheaper-alternatives-to-apple-s-vision-pro-

Stimulating the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) changes a person's perceived attractiveness, study suggests: Their findings suggest that modulating activity in the MPFC using brain stimulation techniques changes how attractive one is perceived to be by others.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-medial-prefrontal-cortex-person.html

A new path toward microbiome-informed precision nutrition: Scientists can build a "digital twin" of gut microbiome metabolism that can simulate personalized responses to diet, using gut microbiome sequencing data and information on dietary intake.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-path-microbiome-precision-nutrition.html

Across the Indo-Pacific, militaries scramble to put more submarines in the water: Several US allies in the region have launched new subs this year, and others are making plans to buy them.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/across-the-indo-pacific-militaries-scramble-to-put-more-submarines-in-the-water/

Here’s how DIU will spend almost $1B this year:

Overall, DIU plans to release around two dozen solicitations for new projects in the next few months.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/heres-how-diu-will-spend-almost-1b-this-year/

Army to buy more than 1,000 Switchblade drones through Replicator: The Switchblade 600 loitering munition is one of a handful of systems the Defense Department plans to buy in the first tranche of the Replicator program

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2024/06/21/army-to-buy-more-than-1000-switchblade-drones-through-replicator/

European gun makers trial small arms as drone stoppers: Western gun makers are exploring the potential of small arms to counter small drones, turning cheap and widely available weapons into last-resort defenses against an emerging threat.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/2024/06/24/european-gun-makers-trial-small-arms-as-drone-stoppers/

Small, Agile Houthi Drone Boat Shown Obliterating Ship During Test: Video comes just days after the Houthis scored their first hit of the current crisis on a commercial ship with an explosive-packed uncrewed surface vessel.

https://www.twz.com/news-features/small-and-agile-houthi-drone-boat-shown-obliterating-ship-during-test

U.S. Army Conducts First Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile SINKEX Using PrSM: The U.S. Army successfully used two Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) against a moving target at sea during the Valiant Shield 24 SINKEX.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/06/u-s-army-conducts-first-anti-ship-ballistic-missile-sinkex-using-prsm/

Air Force likely weighing several factors as it contemplates future of NGAD: Analysts told DefenseScoop that a number of variables are likely shaping the Air Force's decision on the fate of its sixth-generation fighter jet, including new technologies, budget constraints and more.

https://defensescoop.com/2024/06/21/air-force-ngad-delay-cancellation-analysis/

The evolution of DoD policy and the role of AI in modern warfare: Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into military applications presents complex and multifaceted challenges, encompassing technological advancements, policy frameworks, strategic considerations, and ethical concerns.

https://militaryembedded.com/ai/machine-learning/the-evolution-of-dod-policy-and-the-role-of-ai-in-modern-warfare

US "Hellscape" Strategy - Sells Taiwan Cutting Edge "Attack Drone" Technology: The deal includes up to 720 Switchblade 300 loitering munitions and up to 291 ALTIUS 600M-V unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

https://warriormaven.com/china/us-hellscape-strategy-sells-taiwan-cutting-edge-attack-drone-technology

Best business VPN of 2024: Safely connect to your business when out of the office.

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/best-vpn-for-business

Drinking Coffee May Lower Risk of Death From Too Much Sitting: A study of more than 10,000 people in the United States has found those who drink coffee daily may be protected from the negatives of sitting for six or more hours a day.

https://www.sciencealert.com/drinking-coffee-may-lower-risk-of-death-from-too-much-sitting

7 Gadgets Every Digital Nomad Should Know About: Being a digital nomad has its challenges. Fortunately, there are tech gadgets tailored to meet these needs that you should definitely know about.

https://www.howtogeek.com/gadgets-every-digital-nomad-should-know-about/

Meet The AI Chatbot That Quietly Infiltrates & Attacks Pig Butchering Gangs: Netcraft’s AI chatbot infiltrates and disrupts large-scale “pig butchering” scam operations, creating personas that engage with scammers and expose their financial and technical infrastructure.

https://www.techopedia.com/meet-the-ai-chatbot-that-quietly-infiltrates-attacks-pig-butchering-gangs

Scientists debunk 4 concerning myths about intermittent fasting: Researchers targeted four common warnings people who try intermittent fasting often encounter.

https://studyfinds.org/intermittent-fasting-debunked/

Can This New Simulator Be a Proving Ground for JADC2? A new theater-level simulator provides a chance to test out the systems behind Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) that will connect sensors and shooters across the globe.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/raytheon-rcade-simulator-jadc2/

13. A Mysterious Plot Prompts a Rare Call From Russia to the Pentagon

A​ fascinating story.

Excerpts:

Now on July 12, Mr. Belousov was calling to relay a warning, according to two U.S. officials and another official briefed on the call: The Russians had detected a Ukrainian covert operation in the works against Russia that they believed had the Americans’ blessing. Was the Pentagon aware of the plot, Mr. Belousov asked Mr. Austin, and its potential to ratchet up tensions between Moscow and Washington?

Pentagon officials were surprised by the allegation and unaware of any such plot, the two U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential phone call. But whatever Mr. Belousov revealed, all three officials said, it was taken seriously enough that the Americans contacted the Ukrainians and said, essentially, if you’re thinking about doing something like this, don’t.

A Mysterious Plot Prompts a Rare Call From Russia to the Pentagon

By Eric Schmitt

Reporting from Washington

July 26, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt · July 26, 2024

Russia’s defense minister said he needed to talk to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about an alleged Ukrainian operation. What happened next remains murky.

Listen to this article · 7:50 min Learn more

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has rarely spoken to his Russian counterpart. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

By

Reporting from Washington

July 26, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III received an unusual request from an unlikely caller: His Russian counterpart wanted to talk.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Austin had spoken by phone with Russia’s defense minister only five other times, almost always at the Pentagon’s initiative and often in an effort to avoid miscalculations that could escalate the conflict.

In fact, Mr. Austin had reached out to Russia’s new defense minister, Andrei Belousov, just a couple of weeks earlier, on June 25, in an effort to keep the “lines of communication open,” the Pentagon said. It was the first phone call between the two men since Mr. Belousov, an economist, replaced Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s long-running defense minister, in a Kremlin shake-up in May.

Now on July 12, Mr. Belousov was calling to relay a warning, according to two U.S. officials and another official briefed on the call: The Russians had detected a Ukrainian covert operation in the works against Russia that they believed had the Americans’ blessing. Was the Pentagon aware of the plot, Mr. Belousov asked Mr. Austin, and its potential to ratchet up tensions between Moscow and Washington?

Pentagon officials were surprised by the allegation and unaware of any such plot, the two U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential phone call. But whatever Mr. Belousov revealed, all three officials said, it was taken seriously enough that the Americans contacted the Ukrainians and said, essentially, if you’re thinking about doing something like this, don’t.

Despite Ukraine’s deep dependence on the United States for military, intelligence and diplomatic support, Ukrainian officials are not always transparent with their American counterparts about their military operations, especially those against Russian targets behind enemy lines. These operations have frustrated U.S. officials, who believe that they have not measurably improved Ukraine’s position on the battlefield but have risked alienating European allies and widening the war.

Over the past two years, the operations that have unnerved the United States included a strike on a Russian air base on the western coast of Crimea, a truck bombing that destroyed part of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Russia to Crimea, and drone strikes deep inside Russia.

A truck bomb heavily damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge from Crimea to Russia in October 2022. Over the past two years, such Ukrainian operations have unnerved the United States, which is seeking to avoid further escalations with Russia.Credit...Associated Press

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia often refers to such strikes as “terrorist attacks,” and the Kremlin uses them as evidence to back up Mr. Putin’s spurious claim that his invasion of Ukraine is really a defensive war. Despite American denials, Russian officials insist publicly that such strikes could not happen without U.S. approval and support.

Whether the alleged Ukrainian plot this month was real and imminent is still unclear, as is what form it might have taken. Pentagon and White House officials say nothing has happened — yet. They have declined to describe the call in detail but stressed the need for dialogue among adversaries.

“During the call, the secretary emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine,” Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters hours after the conversation on July 12.

Pentagon officials declined to say if Mr. Austin brought up the matter in a phone call on Tuesday with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov.

A Russian Defense Ministry statement after the July 12 call confirmed that Mr. Belousov initiated it, adding that “the issue of preventing security threats and reducing the risk of possible escalation was discussed.” But the statement made no mention of a suspected Ukrainian covert mission.

Ukrainian officials declined to comment on the matter. The Kremlin also declined to comment for this article, and the Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The rare glimpse behind the scenes of a sensitive call between defense ministers illustrates how much more there often is to private conversations between American and Russian officials than what is revealed to the public. And how the United States and Russia try to manage escalation risks behind the scenes.

For instance, in the phone call last month between Mr. Austin and Mr. Belousov, Mr. Austin “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.

Mr. Austin initiated that call and “believes that keeping lines of communication open are important,” General Ryder said.

Mr. Austin and Mr. Belousov “exchanged views on the situation around Ukraine,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement about the same call. It added that Mr. Belousov “pointed to the danger of further escalation of the situation in connection with the continued supply of American weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

But two officials familiar with the call said Mr. Austin also warned his Russian counterpart not to threaten U.S. troops in Europe amid rising tensions in Ukraine.

About four days later, American defense officials raised the security alert level at military bases in Europe in response to vague threats from the Kremlin over Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons on Russian territory.

American officials said that no specific intelligence about possible Russian attacks on American bases had been collected. Any such attack by Russia, whether overt or covert, would be a significant escalation of its war in Ukraine.

Russia has stepped up acts of sabotage in Europe, hoping to disrupt the flow of matériel to Ukraine. So far, no American bases have been targeted in those attacks, but U.S. officials said raising the alert level would help ensure that service members were keeping watch.

Then there were the calls on Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, 2022, between Mr. Austin and Mr. Shoigu — the first requested by the Americans, the second by the Russians.

The Pentagon’s summary of the second call stated, “Secretary Austin rejected any pretext for Russian escalation and reaffirmed the value of continued communication amid Russia’s unlawful and unjustified war against Ukraine.”

A week later, The New York Times reported that senior Russian military leaders had recently discussed when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, according to multiple senior American officials.

The new intelligence surfaced when Moscow was promoting the baseless notion that Ukraine was planning to use a so-called dirty bomb — a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was not a part of the conversations with his generals, which were held as Russia was intensifying nuclear rhetoric and suffering battlefield setbacks.

But the fact that senior Russian military leaders were even having the discussions alarmed the Biden administration because it showed how frustrated they were about their failures in Ukraine and suggested that Mr. Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons might not just be words.

While the risk of further escalation remained high, Biden administration officials and U.S. allies also said at the time that the phone calls between Western and Russian counterparts in late October helped ease some of the nuclear tensions.

“These calls are about avoiding worst-case outcomes in a relationship that could potentially go over the edge,” said Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst at the RAND Corporation.

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Berlin, and Marc Santora from Kyiv.

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

See more on: Russia-Ukraine War, Vladimir Putin, President Joe Biden

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt · July 26, 2024

​14. Hezbollah Doesn’t Want a War With Israel

Excerpts:

If Israel were to mount a ground operation against Hezbollah to establish a buffer zone and prevent further attacks by the group, the conflict would almost certainly be protracted. Hezbollah, however, knows that a full-scale war with Israel would imperil its future and its regional status, as evidenced in its restrained response to Israel’s recent provocations. A conflict of those dimensions could also further damage Hezbollah’s domestic standing because Lebanon would be hard-pressed to rebuild afterward. After the war in 2006, regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar aided Lebanon’s reconstruction efforts. These countries’ relations with Lebanon have cooled, however, since a 2021 diplomatic crisis in which Saudi Arabia downgraded diplomatic ties over Hezbollah’s support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It is unlikely that Arab countries would provide billions of dollars of aid to reconstruct Lebanon.

In the negotiations to end its standoff with Hezbollah, Israel has asked the organization to withdraw behind a ten-kilometer buffer zone in southern Lebanon. This is a difficult request to meet: Hezbollah members live in these buffer-zone towns, and monitoring such a pullout would be very challenging. Hezbollah seeks concessions such as an end to Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace—also a major ask, given that Israel wants to maintain its ability to spy on and strike Syria. But if the U.S.-backed cease-fire in Gaza is accomplished with the help of Arab states, a middle ground could be found.

As negotiations continue, Hezbollah’s best bet is to refrain from acts that provoke a full-fledged war with Israel. So the group will likely continue to choose restraint and de-escalation, especially as Israeli operations in Gaza become less intensive. Hochstein and other actors must focus on restraining Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese urban centers such as Nabatiyah and Tyre, as strikes on these targets would most likely require Hezbollah to escalate its response in ways it does not really want.

So far, Hezbollah’s restraint has prevented a war. The organization’s calculus is pragmatic, as evident in its October 2022 support for a maritime demarcation deal between Israel and Lebanon. If an all-out military conflict can be avoided in the short term, the same kind of mediation efforts that brought about the maritime pact could open a process to resolve the two countries’ thornier land-border disputes—and potentially bring a more lasting end to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah Doesn’t Want a War With Israel

And the United States Can Reinforce Restraint

By Mohanad Hage Ali

July 26, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Mohanad Hage Ali · July 26, 2024

Over the past few weeks, an all-out conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has begun to appear more likely. In May, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested that the country might use expanded “military means” to quash Hezbollah, and according to media reports, the Israeli military has drawn up plans for a limited ground assault to enforce a buffer zone at its northern border with Lebanon. Both Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, have openly called for an invasion of Lebanon. Outside leaders and analysts tend to focus on Israel as the actor whose policies provoke or avoid war. But given Washington’s limited success in influencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, those seeking a route to de-escalation must look more closely at Hezbollah’s calculations.

The organization faces a dilemma that limits its choices. On the one hand, it must restore its ability to deter Israel. It lost some of that capacity in the months following Hamas’s October 7 attack. Soon after the offensive, Hezbollah lobbed missiles at Israel in a restrained show of support for Hamas, and Israel responded with an assassination campaign across Lebanon, including in the organization’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Owing to Lebanon’s fragility, however, Hezbollah still wants to avoid a full-blown conflict with Israel.

A permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would likely forestall a war in Lebanon: Hezbollah remains committed to halting hostilities if Israel strikes a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza. And amid the long war there and increasing tensions in the West Bank, Israel would likely prefer a diplomatic resolution to the tensions on its northern border. A special U.S. envoy, Amos Hochstein, has made a half dozen trips to Lebanon since October to try to negotiate an end to the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. His game plan has been to ask Hezbollah to pressure Hamas to accept a cease-fire to break the region’s deadlock. Although Hezbollah has publicly denied it is acceding to Hochstein’s request, Hamas’s recent flexibility in negotiations with Israel suggests that his proposal has had some impact.

But a cease-fire deal in Gaza is unlikely to come before tensions at the Israeli-Lebanese border rise further. Hezbollah could take a cease-fire deal before Hamas does and avoid an Israeli invasion while restoring normalcy within Lebanon. But that would not be an easy choice. A deal with Israel that disregarded the fate of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank might put a temporary stop to the violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border and Israel’s strikes within Lebanon but would not prevent it from re-emerging in a year or two. Additionally, Hezbollah’s status both within Lebanon and the broader region rests on the leading role it plays in the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance.” It would lose credibility with its Palestinian and other Middle Eastern allies, especially as the Houthi movement—one of Hezbollah’s partners—has endures Israeli air strikes in Yemen. Israel wants to break that alliance.

Credibility would not be Hezbollah’s only loss in such a deal. A cease-fire could highlight the organization’s vulnerabilities. During its conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has deployed new capabilities including drones and precision and antitank missiles to warn Israel against a costly ground invasion. With the right pressure exerted on it by outside actors such as the United States’ special envoy, the group has enough influence to trigger a broader regional conflict—or help avert one.

FLUID BALANCE

Over the course of decades of conflict, Hezbollah and Israel have built a complex set of rules of engagement that have for the most part prevented full-scale war. From 1996 through 2000, the so-called April understanding between Israel and the militant group provided some protection for the Lebanese by establishing that any Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians would prompt Hezbollah to shell towns in northern Israel. These rules of engagement temporarily broke down in 2006 after Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers to force the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel. The resulting war left at least 1,100 Lebanese and 165 Israeli dead.

By mid-2023, Hezbollah had spent years rebuilding its defense and deterrence capabilities. It had accumulated an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets. A decade of experience fighting in the Syrian civil war (during which the group backed the Bashar al-Assad regime) had strengthened its special forces units. The organization boasted new aerial and naval capabilities and had established a regional alliance with Iraqi, Palestinian, Syrian, and Yemeni groups to ensure a coordinated response if any of them were attacked, substantially bolstering its deterrence against Israel.

With this alliance—and the relative peace on the Israeli-Lebanese border—Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s eloquent and charismatic leader, became the face of Iran’s network across the Arabic-speaking Middle East. The organization grew into a regional actor, intervening militarily not just in Syria but also in Iraq, where it provided weapons and special operations forces to Shiite militias; according to reports by news media outlets in the United Arab Emirates, it is also supervising some of the budget and the training of Houthi forces in Yemen. These interventions strained Lebanon’s historically cordial relations with other Arab governments, but it appeared that the upside for Hezbollah was worth that price. Since 2019, Nasrallah has forced Israel to stop killing Hezbollah operatives in its Syrian operations by threatening an assault from Lebanese territory, essentially reigniting tensions on what had been a quiet border. Although Hezbollah ranks below Iran in the so-called axis of resistance, Israel avoided attacking Hezbollah members in Syria even as it killed Iranian soldiers there, underscoring the group’s growing regional clout. Lebanon became a headquarters for axis-of-resistance meetings as well.

In the months ahead of Hamas’s October 7 attack, Hezbollah was at the peak of its capacities and seeking to test Israel’s boundaries. In an August 2023 speech, Nasrallah issued a direct warning to Israel: “Any assassination on Lebanese territories that targets a Lebanese, a Palestinian, or a Syrian, or an Iranian would warrant a strong reaction. We will not allow Lebanon to be turned into an arena for assassinations, and we will not accept any change in the current rules of engagement.” Nasrallah was responding to threats by Netanyahu to kill Hamas leaders who were hiding or traveling in Lebanon, including Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau.

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, however, upended Hezbollah’s confidence and left the group in a trap. Membership in the axis of resistance obliged Hezbollah to join the war between Hamas and Israel on its second day. The group began launching limited attacks on Israeli forces, hoping not to trigger a full war. Before October 7, Nasrallah had excelled at managing Netanyahu. But Nasrallah’s maneuvering had involved calculated risks designed for facing a rational, cautious adversary, not a traumatized country led by a prime minister suddenly fighting for his political survival. After October 7, Netanyahu’s behavior changed as he faced pressure to win a war against Hamas and as the far-right partners on which his coalition depends gained power. In the aftermath of Hamas’s attack, Israel broke its typical rules of engagement with Hezbollah by assassinating Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Hezbollah cadres and fighters in major urban centers in southern Lebanon and the northeastern Bekaa Valley, and launching strikes from fighter jets and unmanned drones that reached as far as Lebanon’s northeast.

Hezbollah could not immediately retaliate in kind because of its own uncertain standing at home, where ordinary Lebanese faced increasingly grim conditions. According to estimates by the World Bank, Lebanon’s poverty rate more than tripled from 2012 to 2022. Forty-four percent of the country’s population now lives in poverty. Beginning in 2019, Lebanon’s economy began an even more dramatic downward spiral, with the inflation rate reaching four digits and GDP contracting by more than half. On top of these crises, in an enormous explosion crippled Beirut’s port in 2020, leaving 218 dead and thousands injured and bringing an estimated $8 billion in economic losses— nearly a third of the country’s GDP at the time.

Hamas’s October 7 attack left Hezbollah in a trap.

The subsequent economic meltdown, as well as the impotence and corruption of the Lebanese ruling class, triggered a protest movement against the political elite, including Hezbollah. The group played a leading role in suppressing the protests and in undermining an investigation of the port blast, which led to speculation that the group had the explosion by stashing an ammonium nitrate shipment at the port, drawing an Israeli strike. Public dissatisfaction with Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon has increased, especially among the country’s Christians. Christian leaders have strongly criticized Hezbollah’s recent conflict with Israel; Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch, Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, declared in January that the Lebanese people “refuse to be hostages, human shields, and scapegoats” for “a culture of death that has only brought illusory victories."

But Hezbollah also cannot risk being seen as too weak. Hamas leaders have openly faulted Hezbollah for the limited nature of its participation in the conflict that erupted after October 7, forcing Nasrallah to dedicate portions of his recent speeches to the significance of Hezbollah’s strikes on Israel. To restore deterrence and raise its supporters’ morale, Hezbollah has launched swarms of suicide drones at Israel, used surface-to-air missiles to down Israeli drones in southern Lebanon, and completed two aerial reconnaissance missions over Israel, gathering footage of potential targets in case a formal war begins. These operations restored some confidence among the organization’s popular base. But as Israel continues to challenge Hezbollah’s rules of engagement—for instance, with its recent airstrikes in southern Lebanon—the organization may feel pressure to expand its attacks further into Israeli territory.

Hezbollah also remains concerned with the fate of Hamas in Gaza. From its point of view, the most favorable ending to the Israeli-Hamas war would be the survival of Hamas and the negotiation of a durable cease-fire agreement. Such a resolution would preserve the axis of resistance and might well cause Netanyahu’s government to collapse, drawing the focus of Israeli politics inward. But Netanyahu and his coalition are unlikely to be ousted in the near term.

DIGNIFIED RETREAT

If Israel were to mount a ground operation against Hezbollah to establish a buffer zone and prevent further attacks by the group, the conflict would almost certainly be protracted. Hezbollah, however, knows that a full-scale war with Israel would imperil its future and its regional status, as evidenced in its restrained response to Israel’s recent provocations. A conflict of those dimensions could also further damage Hezbollah’s domestic standing because Lebanon would be hard-pressed to rebuild afterward. After the war in 2006, regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar aided Lebanon’s reconstruction efforts. These countries’ relations with Lebanon have cooled, however, since a 2021 diplomatic crisis in which Saudi Arabia downgraded diplomatic ties over Hezbollah’s support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It is unlikely that Arab countries would provide billions of dollars of aid to reconstruct Lebanon.

In the negotiations to end its standoff with Hezbollah, Israel has asked the organization to withdraw behind a ten-kilometer buffer zone in southern Lebanon. This is a difficult request to meet: Hezbollah members live in these buffer-zone towns, and monitoring such a pullout would be very challenging. Hezbollah seeks concessions such as an end to Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace—also a major ask, given that Israel wants to maintain its ability to spy on and strike Syria. But if the U.S.-backed cease-fire in Gaza is accomplished with the help of Arab states, a middle ground could be found.

As negotiations continue, Hezbollah’s best bet is to refrain from acts that provoke a full-fledged war with Israel. So the group will likely continue to choose restraint and de-escalation, especially as Israeli operations in Gaza become less intensive. Hochstein and other actors must focus on restraining Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese urban centers such as Nabatiyah and Tyre, as strikes on these targets would most likely require Hezbollah to escalate its response in ways it does not really want.

So far, Hezbollah’s restraint has prevented a war. The organization’s calculus is pragmatic, as evident in its October 2022 support for a maritime demarcation deal between Israel and Lebanon. If an all-out military conflict can be avoided in the short term, the same kind of mediation efforts that brought about the maritime pact could open a process to resolve the two countries’ thornier land-border disputes—and potentially bring a more lasting end to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

• MOHANAD HAGE ALI is Deputy Director for Research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.

Foreign Affairs · by Mohanad Hage Ali · July 26, 2024

15. Pass the Major Richard Star Act, support our combat-injured veterans

Pass the Major Richard Star Act, support our combat-injured veterans

Senators should do as they say, correct an injustice

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

By Tom Jurkowsky - Wednesday, July 24, 2024

OPINION:

Next month, we will mark the third anniversary of a dreadful event: the attack on Abbey Gate in Afghanistan, where 13 U.S. service members were killed and 45 wounded in our disastrous withdrawal from that country. The event will also serve as a reminder of an injustice that affects our injured combat veterans — an injustice that Congress (and specifically the Senate) must correct now.

Under current policy, military members forced to retire after a combat-related injury must forfeit a dollar of military retirement pay for every dollar of disability benefits they receive from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was an oversight/error in the fiscal 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that partially addressed the concurrent receipt problem. Still, it left out combat injuries at a time when the war in Iraq had just begun. Reducing the military retirement pay of a combat-disabled veteran to save money in the Defense Department’s personnel account is a problem Congress can solve this year.

Legislation to correct this wrong is bipartisan, widely supported and well known across Congress as the Major Richard Star Act. The legislation would repeal this unfair offset for 52,000 combat-injured veterans and has the support of 74 senators and 327 House members. Despite overwhelming support for the legislation, it has been stuck in bureaucratic procedural maneuvers with the fiscal 2025 NDAA. This highlights a problem with trust and faith in Congress.

Including the bill’s text in the 2025 NDAA would clear some of these hurdles. The House effort, however, stalled when some of the bill’s sponsors voted against it in a key Rules Committee hearing. Meanwhile, the version of the NDAA crafted by the Senate Armed Services Committee does not include the legislation, despite a reduced cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

How does a piece of legislation that will correct a clear injustice and that has garnered so much support in both the Senate and House fall apart? There is an apparent “say-do gap” for many lawmakers. How does a piece of legislation fail that has gained so many in Congress who “say” they support the bill when it is proposed but who fail to raise their hand, vote yes and “do”?

Sen. Richard Crapo, Idaho Republican, a strong supporter of the Richard Star Act, has come forward by introducing an amendment that will be introduced on the Senate floor as the last clear path for the bill’s text to be part of the NDAA. Credit Mr. Crapo for stepping forward and for recognizing that a very public floor vote is required to ensure our combat-injured veterans receive retirement pay for their years of service.

Simply stated, this offset makes no sense. Military retirement pay and VA disability compensation are two benefits established by Congress and for entirely different reasons. Reducing pay because of a combat disability is not the way to save money. Doing so on the backs of our service members is not how a nation should treat those who volunteer to represent their country and risk life and limb.

At a recent news conference, several combat-wounded service members shared their stories and put faces to those who would benefit from the passage of the Richard Star Act.

One of them is a Marine who was shot seven times and hit with a grenade on his third combat deployment to Iraq. He lost a leg and was forced to retire. He said his retirement pay would have helped his transition out of service, which included living in his car for two years and fighting an overwhelming sense of isolation. Unfortunately, that retirement pay has never come.

He said he didn’t join the Marine Corps for the benefits or to get rich. But he said that when he joined, he knew his country promised to take care of its veterans. He has subsequently learned that the promise hasn’t been kept.

In addition to those who suffered combat injuries when they served, many veterans have been left with an increased sense of moral injury, questioning their purpose and the value of their service. The current policy that mandates the offset punctuates that sense of moral injury. These veterans are less likely to recommend service to others, weakening an already problematic recruiting pool.

Political leaders such as Mr. Crapo, Sen. Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, Florida Republican, are telling their colleagues to “do” what they “say” about supporting a piece of legislation. Hopefully, partisanship is not a consideration on this issue. Partisanship has absolutely no place in deciding how to properly compensate veterans who were injured in a war, doing what their country asked them to do.

Our veterans should not be pushed aside because they were injured in combat. Our combat-injured service members deserve better.

• Tom Jurkowsky is a retired Navy rear admiral who served on active duty for 31 years, beginning his career as an enlisted man. He serves on the board of the Military Officers Association of America, an advocacy organization that supports our service members and their families. He is the author of “The Secret Sauce for Organizational Success: Communications and Leadership on the Same Page.”

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16. A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine

A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine

Among the essentials are a lend-lease program, real sanctions on Russia, and a revitalized NATO.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-trump-peace-plan-for-ukraine-russia-foreign-policy-926348cf?utm

By David J. Urban and Mike Pompeo

July 25, 2024 5:14 pm ET

Volodymyr Zelensky during an interview in Kyiv, July 3. PHOTO: JULIA KOCHETOVA/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Pundits claim that if Donald Trump is re-elected, he will cut off aid to Ukraine, give away its territory, and deal directly with Vladimir Putin to impose an ignominious “peace” on the country.

There’s no evidence that such capitulation will be part of President Trump’s policy and much evidence to the contrary. It was Mr. Trump who in 2017 lifted the Obama administration’s arms embargo on Ukraine, providing it with the Javelin missiles that helped save Kyiv in the earliest days of Russia’s invasion. More recently, Mr. Trump gave political cover to House Speaker Mike Johnson when he maneuvered to pass additional military aid. Helping Ukraine while revitalizing the American defense industrial base in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Virginia is good policy—and good politics.

The Biden administration’s weakness has left Ukraine where it is today: two years into a full-scale war, with cities destroyed, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions of refugees, and without the means to win. The White House has no strategy for victory, and Americans are rightly concerned.

While Mr. Biden stumbled into war through weakness, Mr. Trump could re-establish peace through strength. Here’s how a successful plan for Ukraine might look:

• Unleash America’s energy potential. This will fire up the U.S. economy, drive down prices and shrink Mr. Putin’s war-crimes budget.

• Rebuild ties with Saudi Arabia and Israel and work together against Iran. This will stabilize the Middle East, ease the Gaza crisis, and create an opening for the Saudis to join the U.S. in squeezing Russia out of global energy markets.

• Impose real sanctions on Russia. The Biden administration’s sanctions sound good on paper but are hollow. The Treasury, for example, exempts Russian banks from U.S. sanctions if their transactions are related to energy production—the most important revenue source for the Kremlin’s war machine.

• Bulk up America’s defense industry. We must show our adversaries, especially Russia and China, that they can’t compete with U.S. defense capabilities. Russia’s economy is smaller than Texas’. We can’t allow China to match and surpass the U.S.

• Revitalize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This includes making Europeans pay their fair share. It is time to raise the bar on spending to 3% of member countries’ gross domestic product.

• Create a $500 billion “lend-lease” program for Ukraine. Instead of saddling U.S. taxpayers with more bills, let Ukraine borrow as much as it needs to buy American weapons to defeat Russia. This is how we helped Britain in World War II before Pearl Harbor. It’s how we can send a clear signal to Mr. Putin that he will never win.

• Lift all restrictions on the type of weapons Ukraine can obtain and use. This will re-establish a position of strength, which Mr. Putin will understand means the war must end. He will face rising costs and no chance of further gain.

These steps would position Mr. Trump to set the terms of a deal: The war stops immediately. Ukraine builds up substantial defense forces so Russia never attacks again. No one recognizes Russia’s occupation and claimed annexation of any Ukrainian territories—just as we never recognized the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic states and withheld recognition from East Germany until 1974. Crimea is demilitarized. Ukraine rebuilds with reparations from Russia’s frozen central-bank reserves, not U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Ukraine joins NATO as soon as possible so all European allies assume the burden of protecting it. NATO should establish a $100 billion fund for arming Ukraine, with the U.S. share capped at 20%, as is the case with other alliance common budgets. The European Union should swiftly admit Ukraine and help it modernize and develop its economy.

If Russia complies with these terms, the West will gradually lift sanctions. They will be fully removed once Ukraine is in both NATO and the EU.

These steps, and not the half-measures of the Biden administration, will end the war, establish a lasting peace, ensure Europe bears the burden of maintaining it, and re-establish freedom and security on the Continent.

To those who doubt: The last thing Mr. Trump wants in a second term is a foreign-policy failure that distracts from his domestic agenda and makes Mr. Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan look like a success in comparison.

Mr. Urban is managing director at the BGR Group and of counsel at Torridon Law. Mr. Pompeo served as secretary of state, 2018-21.

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Replicator’s goals of drone deployment and business development process change are both worthy objectives. But given the Pentagon's antiquated culture, is two years enough time to procure more hard power faster? Photo: Dept. of Defense

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Appeared in the July 26, 2024, print edition as 'A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine'.

17. The Forgotten War in Congo

Excerpts:

But none of these investments justifies looking away as Rwanda destabilizes its neighbor. Natural-gas projects are not more valuable than the lives of millions of displaced people. Neither are comparatively small peacekeeping missions. Although the West may make some money investing in Rwanda, it loses cash cleaning up Kigali’s messes. The same donors funding large parts of Rwanda’s budget are also funding $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Congo. And while the Rwandan army fights in UN peacekeeping missions, it simultaneously fights against UN forces in Congo.

U.S. and European diplomats, then, need to increase pressure on Kagame and his government. This could take many forms, including sanctioning individuals (as the United States has already done with one Rwandan general) and suspending certain types of assistance. Western governments could also issue travel advisories and cut off military aid. These states, along with opinion leaders, might push the private sector to reject “Brand Rwanda”—pointing out that there are reputational hazards to being associated with a country engaged in a brutal war of aggression against its neighbor. In response to such measures, the Rwandan government would certainly complain. But it has no clear alternative source of funding, and so eventually it would have little choice but to again abandon the M23.

Doing so, of course, would not put a stop to all the fighting in eastern Congo. The war there rides on more than the M23 alone; many Congolese armed groups, generals, and politicians are also invested in the conflict. But solving the M23 crisis will free up significant bandwidth. Once it is no longer consumed with battling Rwandan proxies, Congo’s government and people can grapple with the long-term, structural dimensions of the war. They can begin devising a demobilization program for various militants, creating an economic-development plan that offers rural residents opportunities that don’t involve becoming soldiers, and working out transitional justice initiatives that provide dignity and reconciliation. The government also needs to punish predatory elites who have done little to instill accountability and discipline in the security services. As even Tshisekedi acknowledged, "there are many rackets that undermine our security forces. There is the mafia—this law of omerta, this law of silence. That's what we have to tackle.”

Congo has what it takes to sort out these challenges. Despite its dysfunctional government, the country is pluralistic, and has a strong, if raucous, civil society. Its democratic spirit runs deep. But it needs outside help with some of the obstacles standing in its path—which means it needs the West to rein in Rwanda.

The Forgotten War in Congo

To Stop the Growing Crisis in the Country’s East, the West Must Pressure Rwanda

By Jason K. Stearns

July 26, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo · July 26, 2024

Last year, the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo turned 30. It is a grim milestone, and one that received almost no global attention. The silence isn’t a surprise. Since its inception, the war in Congo has excelled at evading international recognition. Few people noticed when the M23 Movement, the region’s biggest militia, rounded up and executed 171 civilians, in November 2022. The world was quiet when Doctors Without Borders declared that they had treated 25,000 survivors of sexual violence in Congo last year. Almost no one outside Africa remembers that, in June, an armed Islamist group massacred 41 people in Congo’s northeast. Today, more than seven million Congolese are displaced, more than at any other time in history, and yet the war still barely features in global media. The New York Times has written 54 articles about Congo in the past twelve months, including ones on the environment and the country’s recent election. It has, by contrast, run 2,969 articles on Ukraine.

This neglect has always been disheartening. The war in eastern Congo is one of the world’s most devastating, and it deserves widespread attention. But the disregard is particularly inexcusable right now, when the conflict is escalating. In the past year, the M23 has increased its territory by 70 percent. It has surrounded Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city, and taken control of key roads. The result has been a worrying deterioration in communal relations, as people mobilize along ethnic lines. Opportunistic politicians have piled on, further inflaming the region.

The war in Congo is overlooked, in part, because it is highly complex. There are more than 100 different armed actors fighting in the east, most of which are pursuing separate ends. The M23 itself, however, is easier to grapple with. The group is largely funded and trained by Rwanda, which sees the organization as a way to project power and gain access to Congo’s resources. Consequently, Congolese officials have responded to the M23’s success with escalating rhetorical attacks on Rwanda’s government and by backing an array of local militias, the wazalendo (or “patriots”). Congolese officials have also invited Burundi, Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania to send troops into its eastern region for assistance. The conflict, in other words, is transforming from a low-grade internal clash to an expanding interstate and communal war.

Thankfully, the M23 crisis has a fairly straightforward solution. A third of Rwanda’s budget is supplied through aid and loans, much of it from the West, making Kigali highly vulnerable to U.S. and European pressure. That means if the United States and Europe threaten to reduce their support, the Rwandan government will likely have to rein in its partner. In 2013, for example, Rwanda cut off the M23 after western countries withheld hundreds of millions of dollars. The militia subsequently fell apart.

Today, however, Western governments appear reluctant to repeat this tactic. It is easy to see why: Kigali has become an important geopolitical partner. Rwanda provides the United States and Europe with competent military forces in central Africa that can counterbalance Russian mercenaries. It also helps guard their investments in the region. But the humanitarian costs of Rwanda’s behavior are not worth these benefits, and the country is too dependent on aid to switch allegiances in response to Western pressure. The United States and Europe, therefore, should use their leverage. If the M23 loses Rwandan funding, it will again collapse, opening the door to a broader peace process.

A SORDID PAST

The conflict in Congo has a long and messy history. As the longstanding dictator Mobutu Sese Seko faced an upswell of democratic ferment in the early 1990s, he and local politicians began fomenting ethnic divisions to cling onto power. In 1993, bloody feuds over identity and land broke out in eastern Congo, which were further aggravated by an influx of refugees and soldiers following the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Two years later, Rwanda and other countries invaded Congo to dismantle certain armed groups and to end Mobutu’s 32-year rule. But the government they installed quickly fell out with its backers—Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda—prompting all three states to invade in 1998.

Major combat came to an end in 2003, thanks to overwhelming international pressure. The result was a new Congolese constitution and a fledgling democracy. The conflict, however, raged on in Congo’s east, and Rwanda was still at its center. The Rwandan government backed various armed groups, including the National Congress for the Defense of the People, between 2006 and 2009, and a previous iteration of the M23, from 2012 to 2013. Rwanda’s interference elicited countermobilizations within the region, as different actors sought to protect their communities and extract resources.

In an attempt to solve the conflict, Congolese leader Félix Tshisekedi struck a series of deals with Rwanda’s government after becoming president in 2019. He allowed the Rwandan army to pursue rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group that includes some of the people who perpetrated the state’s 1994 genocide. He signed business deals with companies close to Rwanda’s ruling party. And he made a point of forging personal ties with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

For a time, the strategy worked. Congo stabilized relations with its eastern neighbor, and the fighting died down. But in mid-2021, this détente fell apart. With Kinshasa’s permission, Uganda began road-building projects in Congo close to the Rwandan border, infuriating Kagame, who saw the development as encroaching on his turf. Several months later, Uganda sent thousands of troops to Congo after a terrorist attack in downtown Kampala; both the Ugandan and Congolese governments blamed it on a militia based in northeastern Congo. In response, Kagame again threw Rwanda’s weight behind the M23, which then made a ferocious comeback. The militia began overrunning disorganized Congolese forces across much of the country’s east, from Lake Edward to South Kivu. By the summer of 2024, it had taken thousands of square miles of densely populated, verdant highlands.

Kagame has denied that Rwanda is behind the M23. But virtually every regional observer sees the country’s hand. According to a group of UN experts, the Rwandan government has deployed between 3,000 and 4,000 troops to Congo to support the M23 and has reinforced the group with drones, surface-to-air missiles, and antitank weapons. In response, Congolese officials have hired two Congolese paramilitary groups and recruited troops from nearby countries to fight back. Tshisekedi has even threatened to expand the war into Rwandan territory. During his reelection campaign, last year, Tshisekedi compared Kagame to Adolf Hitler and said he would meet the same end. In another speech, Tshisekedi threatened to march on Kigali. In June 2024, Kagame dared him to follow through. “We are ready to fight,” he said, in an interview with France 24.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES

The Congolese military is in no position to depose Kagame. Tshisekedi’s rhetoric, however destabilizing, is not primarily aimed at Rwanda’s leader. Instead, it is targeted at his voters. The Congolese people have endured repeated invasions by foreign forces over the past thirty years, especially from Rwanda. Railing against Kigali is a sure-fire way to earn domestic backing. Such declarations also distract Congolese from the failings of their own security services. Congo’s defense and policing budgets doubled to $795 million last year, and yet the country remains unable to stem the M23’s advance.

For Tshisekedi, fighting against Rwanda also serves a personal purpose: it protects him from being overthrown. Congolese leaders have long seen their own security forces as their greatest threat, and understandably so. Mobutu took power in a military coup d’état and then spent three decades fending off coup plots against him. The man who eventually ousted Mobutu, the rebel leader Laurent Kabila, was assassinated by his own bodyguard. Kabila’s successor, his son Joseph, managed to avoid the same fate, but still faced multiple coup attempts. Given this history, Tshisekedi is happy to stash Congo’s troops around Goma—a thousand miles from the capital. For the same reason, he has also tolerated high levels of corruption within the armed forces.

It is more difficult to parse Rwanda’s motives. In explaining why Rwanda might interfere in Congo—while denying that it does—Kagame claimed that he needs to stop the FDLR and protect Congo’s ethnic Tutsis. But neither of those justifications holds up. The FDLR are a spent force, in large part thanks to previous Rwandan operations. It is true that Congolese Tutsis are subjected to hate speech and discrimination, but Kagame’s interventions have not helped their cause. Quite the contrary: violence against these groups rose after the M23 reemerged, as it has every time Rwandan-backed forces meddle in Congo. Rwanda’s many abuses are imprinted in the Congolese population’s memory and have created fertile ground for ethnic demagogues.

Congo is, almost literally, a gold mine for Rwandan businesses.

The real reason for Rwanda’s intervention is more complex. Given the centrality of the genocide in Rwandan memory and politics, the FDLR remains a symbolic threat that helps fuel a bunker mindset among security officials. As one Rwandan official put it to me, “What would the United States do if al Qaeda had a cell operating in Tijuana?” For Rwanda, eastern Congo is also an important arena for military competition with Burundi and Uganda.

But Rwanda is also driven by more debased motives. Congo is, almost literally, a gold mine for Rwandan businesses. Since 2016, Rwanda’s largest export has been gold, much of which is smuggled in from Congo. Rwanda also earns sizable sums exporting tin, tantalum, and niobium—much of it also mined in Congo, according to a UN expert group and Global Witness. Such profiteering is made possible by the M23, which keeps Congo’s state too weak to stop the theft.

Together, these dynamics make the Congolese-Rwandan conflict extremely hard to solve. One actor benefits politically from fighting. The other benefits materially. Such parties are unlikely to make peace on their own. If anything, their incentive is to ratchet the conflict up.

PULLING LEVERS

Thankfully, if the past is precedent, there is a way to break the cycle of escalation in eastern Congo. Between 2012 and 2013, the M23 came to control a similar amount of Congolese territory as it does today, including the city of Goma. In response, Western donors suspended $240 million in aid to Rwanda’s government. The economic effect was harsh: in 2013, Rwanda’s GDP was 2 percent lower than its central bank had projected. Kigali then cut off support to the militia, which quickly fell apart.

Today, however, Western donors seem to be taking the opposite approach. In 2022, as the M23 was seizing more land, the EU committed $22 million to support a Rwandan military deployment to Mozambique. The following year, European donors announced they were providing the country with $320 million in climate financing and $960 million in other investments. The United States has been much more critical of Kagame’s government; in October, it curtailed its modest training program for Rwandan military forces. Even still, Washington remains the state’s largest donor.

In a sense, it is remarkable that a small country—Rwanda is home to fewer than 14 million people—can maintain such high levels of Western support. But Rwanda has invested heavily in promoting its reputation in wealthy countries. Kigali has spent millions on advertising, including with the leading European soccer teams Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, and Bayern Munich, whose jerseys are emblazoned with the words “Visit Rwanda.” The country is at the heart of the National Basketball Association’s expansion into Africa. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and the businessmen Bill Gates and Howard Buffett have all invested in Rwanda through their foundations. They formed personal ties to Kagame. Last year, at an annual ceremony in Volcanoes National Park, celebrities Idris Elba and Kevin Hart presented baby gorillas with their names while standing next to the Rwandan president. Several months later, Kagame personally welcomed the U.S. rap superstar Kendrick Lamar to Kigali, where the musician played a sold-out show.

Rwanda has also avoided opprobrium by using its small but well-trained military to aid the West. The Rwandan military has deployed to bilateral and multilateral missions in the Central African Republic, where they provide a counterweight to Russian security contractors. They are also at work in Mozambique, where they help protect a $20 billion gas investment by TotalEnergies, a large French company. And Rwanda sends 5,900 troops to the UN’s peacekeeping forces, making it the largest African contributor. (This final fact helps explain why the UN secretary-general has been reluctant to call out Rwanda for its meddling.)

Rwanda has invested heavily in promoting its reputation.

But none of these investments justifies looking away as Rwanda destabilizes its neighbor. Natural-gas projects are not more valuable than the lives of millions of displaced people. Neither are comparatively small peacekeeping missions. Although the West may make some money investing in Rwanda, it loses cash cleaning up Kigali’s messes. The same donors funding large parts of Rwanda’s budget are also funding $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Congo. And while the Rwandan army fights in UN peacekeeping missions, it simultaneously fights against UN forces in Congo.

U.S. and European diplomats, then, need to increase pressure on Kagame and his government. This could take many forms, including sanctioning individuals (as the United States has already done with one Rwandan general) and suspending certain types of assistance. Western governments could also issue travel advisories and cut off military aid. These states, along with opinion leaders, might push the private sector to reject “Brand Rwanda”—pointing out that there are reputational hazards to being associated with a country engaged in a brutal war of aggression against its neighbor. In response to such measures, the Rwandan government would certainly complain. But it has no clear alternative source of funding, and so eventually it would have little choice but to again abandon the M23.

Doing so, of course, would not put a stop to all the fighting in eastern Congo. The war there rides on more than the M23 alone; many Congolese armed groups, generals, and politicians are also invested in the conflict. But solving the M23 crisis will free up significant bandwidth. Once it is no longer consumed with battling Rwandan proxies, Congo’s government and people can grapple with the long-term, structural dimensions of the war. They can begin devising a demobilization program for various militants, creating an economic-development plan that offers rural residents opportunities that don’t involve becoming soldiers, and working out transitional justice initiatives that provide dignity and reconciliation. The government also needs to punish predatory elites who have done little to instill accountability and discipline in the security services. As even Tshisekedi acknowledged, "there are many rackets that undermine our security forces. There is the mafia—this law of omerta, this law of silence. That's what we have to tackle.”

Congo has what it takes to sort out these challenges. Despite its dysfunctional government, the country is pluralistic, and has a strong, if raucous, civil society. Its democratic spirit runs deep. But it needs outside help with some of the obstacles standing in its path—which means it needs the West to rein in Rwanda.

• JASON K. STEARNS is Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University and Director of the Congo Research Group at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. He is the author of The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo.

Foreign Affairs · by The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo · July 26, 2024

18. Beijing Can Take the South China Sea Without Firing a Shot

Excerpts:

Neither U.S. option — standing up to China or backing down — is attractive. But unless the United States asserts itself, China will continue chipping away with its tactics of bluster and intimidation until its military presence in the South China Sea becomes so dominant that it no longer fears war.

The United States can re-establish a favorable balance of power, but it must act now.

OPINION

GUEST ESSAY

Beijing Can Take the South China Sea Without Firing a Shot

The New York Times · by Oriana Skylar Mastro · July 25, 2024

Guest Essay

Call Beijing’s Bluff in the South China Sea

July 25, 2024, 1:00 a.m. ET

Chinese militia vessels and the country’s Coast Guard chasing Philippine Coast Guard vessels escorting a resupply mission to its outpost in the South China Sea in 2023.Credit...Jes Aznar for The New York Times

By

Ms. Mastro is an expert on Chinese politics and military policy.

Over the past 15 years, China has expanded its once-minimal military presence in the South China Sea into a significant one.

Beijing has laid claim to nearly all of the strategic waterway, a vital shipping lifeline for the global economy that is rich in energy and fishery resources. China has used nonmilitary assets such as its Coast Guard, fishing vessels and maritime militia to bully its neighbors, blockade their ships and build Chinese military bases on disputed islands.

America is partly to blame. It has condemned China’s behavior, but, eager to avoid escalation, has consistently refrained from standing up militarily, which has only further emboldened Beijing. A new approach is needed. The United States must take real action to strengthen alliances and confront China before it eventually takes control of this hugely important body of water without firing a shot.

Like any unchallenged bully, China has become increasingly aggressive. Last month, Chinese Coast Guard personnel attacked a Philippine supply vessel with axes and other crude weapons — Manila says a Filipino sailor and several others were injured — in one of the worst acts of violence between China and its rivals in the South China Sea in years. The incident took place near the Sierra Madre, a rusting World War II-era ship that the Philippines had beached 25 years ago at Second Thomas Shoal to assert its territorial claim. The shoal lies about 120 miles off the Philippine island of Palawan and is well within the nation’s exclusive economic zone.

China also had past territorial confrontations in the South China Sea or other waters on its periphery with Vietnam, the United States, Australia, Japan and Taiwan. In 2012, China took control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines, and run-ins between China and the Philippines have grown in number and intensity in recent years. In late May, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines warned that any Filipino deaths caused by a “willful act” by a foreign force in the South China Sea would be “very close to what we define as an act of war.”

Concern has grown in Manila, Beijing and Washington that tensions in the South China Sea — perhaps even more than Taiwan — could trigger a conflict with China.

These fears are overblown. I study Chinese military strength and strategy, and I’m convinced that if the United States were to take a more assertive stance in the South China Sea, Beijing would be likely to back down to avoid a war it knows it would lose.

China may enjoy military advantages in a potential conflict with Taiwan, which is just off the mainland. But its position is less secure in the South China Sea. Over the past 15 years China has built more than two dozen military outposts on disputed islands. Among the largest — at Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef — there are air strips, fighter jets, radar systems, and laser and jamming equipment. But so far China lacks sufficient antiaircraft and anti-ship missile systems in the region to deny U.S. forces the ability to operate, which leaves the Chinese bases vulnerable to air and naval bombardment.

And the South China Sea is vast — about half the size of the continental United States. The Sierra Madre is around 800 miles from the Chinese mainland. A conflict there would require the People’s Liberation Army to mount joint air and naval resupply operations and to refuel its fighters across great distances — something it has never done and is not equipped for.

If the Philippines is in the fight, treaty obligations would trigger the participation of the United States, which would have access to nine Philippine air and naval bases, greatly enhancing its already considerable ability to project military power in the region. China does have “carrier-killer” ballistic missiles based on its mainland. But U.S. carriers could still send fighters into parts of the South China Sea from outside the range of those missiles. In conjunction with land-based fighters operating from the Philippines, the United States could gain crucial air superiority over a Chinese surface fleet.

China has spent huge sums on its aircraft carrier program and has two in operation, with two more in development. But those still cannot rival the number or capabilities of nuclear-powered U.S. carriers, which are larger, support more aircraft and need to refuel only about every 20 years. China’s carriers need to be refueled about every six days. And learning how to effectively conduct carrier operations takes time; the Chinese have only just begun.

It’s telling that China has been careful to use Coast Guard and civilian vessels in its encounters with neighbors rather than hard military assets — the latter would signal an escalation that Beijing is not yet willing to embark on.

But there is another very good reason China is unlikely to risk war with the United States: It doesn’t need to. Its brinkmanship and use of nonmilitary assets to intimidate its Asian neighbors has been more than enough to take China from almost no military presence in the South China Sea in the late 2000s to a significant force today.

America should call China’s bluff and press its military advantage. This could include escorting Philippine resupply vessels headed to Second Thomas Shoal or even conducting some supply missions itself or with allies like Australia and Japan. This would send China the powerful message that its intimidation will no longer go unchallenged, while allowing Manila to remain visibly in the lead but part of a more enduring coalition. To save face for China, Washington could present operations like these as exercises or training to minimize pressure on Beijing to respond.

Manila is a strategically vital player in America’s regional competition with China. The United States and the Philippines should strengthen their alliance to allow for more U.S. bases in the Philippines and a stronger U.S. commitment to help defend against Chinese incursions into Philippine waters. Closer relations could also make it easier for the United States to resupply Taiwan from Philippine bases during a conflict with China and open the door for enhanced military cooperation with other South China Sea nations, whose fear of an unrestrained Beijing may be deterring them from taking that step. If China determines that its provocations are likely to draw in the United States, it might begin to moderate its behavior.

Of course, anything is possible — Beijing may respond with a full-on military escalation, a daunting prospect that should not be taken lightly. But that risk is low for a Chinese military whose own doctrine is to avoid any war in which victory is not ensured.

Neither U.S. option — standing up to China or backing down — is attractive. But unless the United States asserts itself, China will continue chipping away with its tactics of bluster and intimidation until its military presence in the South China Sea becomes so dominant that it no longer fears war.

The United States can re-establish a favorable balance of power, but it must act now.

Oriana Skylar Mastro (@osmastro) is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace and author of Upstart: How China Became a Great Power.

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The New York Times · by Oriana Skylar Mastro · July 25, 2024

19. J. D. Vance Served in the Marines. Will It Matter in November?

J. D. Vance Served in the Marines. Will It Matter in November?

His veteran status could be an advantage for the GOP—unless he trumpets his years of service too much.

By Ben Kesling

The Atlantic · by Ben Kesling · July 25, 2024

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J. D. Vance’s veteran status could be an advantage for the GOP—unless he trumpets his years of service too much and annoys his fellow vets in the process.

Breaking the Code

J. D. Vance is a U.S. Marine, and he wants you to know it. In the days since he was selected as the GOP vice-presidential nominee, Vance and the Republican Party have touted his service credentials with little discretion. At a rally on Monday, he said, “Well, I don’t know, Kamala, I served in the United States Marine Corps, and I built a business. What the hell have you done other than collect a government check?”

Vance hasn’t always grandstanded when it comes to his time in uniform: During his Senate campaign against Tim Ryan two years ago, he spoke of the need for modesty, telling Greg Kelly of Newsmax, “I hate these guys who talk about their military service not because it’s an important part of their identity, but to use it to deflect against any criticism of their record.” And at the Republican National Convention this year, Vance told the crowd, with tact, that after 9/11, he “did what thousands of other young men my age did in that time of soaring patriotism and love of country: I enlisted in the United States Marines.”

But if his tone at the rally earlier this week is any indication, Vance may be embracing a newfound lack of modesty when it comes to his service. It’s a paradox: Vance seems to have been picked, in part, because of his veteran status. Donald Trump has shown a pattern of mixing ostentatious patriotism with disdain for American service members—he has described those who died in combat as “suckers” and “losers,” as first reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg—and he may hope that having a vet on the ticket will deflect from criticism of that history. But if Vance trumpets his years of service too much, he risks squandering the advantage that Republicans have tried to build with veterans and the military.

Vance wasn’t a Marine who saw combat. His specialty while he was deployed to Iraq was public affairs, which means he wrote stories and took photos. That in itself is no reason to question him. He served honorably in uniform, which the majority of Americans don’t even consider doing. Among veterans, there’s a mutual understanding that everyone is part of the military family—no matter what their job was. I’m a veteran myself, and I understand that there’s a code: Anyone who volunteered to wear the uniform deserves respect.

But few things anger veterans like someone who goes beyond talking about their service and starts bragging about it. When veterans bring undue attention to their service, they invite deep scrutiny of their record that they might not actually want. And when they use their military service as a political cudgel, that veteran code of respect is voided.

The GOP is clearly trying to court the veteran vote with Vance, and to paint him as a military hero whom civilian patriots should want to vote for. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska—a Marine himself—went on Fox Business to talk about how Vance will be good for the country and for veterans because of his Marine background. Right-wing pundits and others on social media have been treating Vance like a Prussian field marshal: The venture capitalist David Sacks posted, “When the Twin Towers came down, JD Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps, gung-ho to exact justice on America’s enemies.” In a Washington Post op-ed, the conservative political commentator Hugh Hewitt called Vance a “warrior” and a “grunt” who can speak directly to veterans and blue-collar voters.

In 2016, the GOP focused heavily on America’s veteran voting bloc; today, more than 18 million living Americans have served, or some 6 percent of the adult population. (There are many more, of course, who are related to veterans or who care about defense issues for other reasons.) The GOP’s focus paid off: The New York Times exit polling showed that veterans turned out heavily for Trump, an advantage that slipped in 2020.

Vance’s Marine credentials could, if leveraged properly, help the GOP gain back some of that support. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan I have spoken with are glad to have one of their own on a top ticket. But they understand that just because someone has worn the uniform doesn’t mean that they are a strong candidate or a good person.

“People are excited … It’s past time for us to have some veterans on these tickets,” Joe Chenelly, the national executive director of the veteran-service organization American Veterans (AMVETS), told me. But Chenelly noted that any veteran can overplay their hand when it comes to their record, Vance included. “I personally don’t like when veterans run and their No. 1 qualification for office is being a veteran. And he’s come close to that,” Chenelly said. “There’s a lot of room for backlash from the veterans community when that happens. He has a responsibility to be very mindful of the way he frames his service.”

Vance hasn’t totally broken with the veteran code yet. But his behavior so far shows that he might continue to reject the kind of mindfulness Chenelly is talking about. Over the past few years, Vance has changed his wardrobe to more closely resemble that of Donald Trump, and in the days since his VP nomination, he’s changed his rhetorical approach to sound more like his running mate too. At the RNC, he lauded unity, but in his subsequent solo rallies, he’s claimed, falsely, that Kamala Harris wants to “totally decriminalize” illegal immigration, and that Democrats believe it is “racist to do anything”—including drink Diet Mountain Dew.

Even taking Vance out of the equation, up until last week, Trump had a clear advantage with veteran voters and those who care about foreign policy and defense: the fact that Biden fumbled the end of the “forever war.” Trump had been able to thread the rhetorical needle, taking credit for signing the deal to leave Afghanistan but blaming Biden for the way it was done. Voters of both parties disapproved of the way America pulled out of Afghanistan, and Trump could use that fact to go on the offensive (as he did in last month’s debate), because he knew that Biden would always be tied to the images of Afghans falling from a cargo plane as they tried to escape Kabul, and of U.S. Marines killed while standing guard during the chaos.

But now the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, can distance herself from Biden’s Afghanistan policy, which Republicans have largely managed to tie to the president himself rather than to his administration more broadly. (When I speak with veterans and those involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal, they invariably complain about Biden, not Harris.) Pollsters pay little attention to the veteran vote, which makes it difficult to track, and we don’t yet know how Trump and Vance will square against a Harris-led ticket. But the fact that Harris can break free of the Afghanistan legacy could give her an advantage with the veteran vote. Chenelly, of AMVETS, said that many of the veterans in his organization don’t know all that much about Harris. But they have been angry with Biden for Afghanistan and even blame some of the current military-recruiting crisis on him.

What we do know is that if the Trump campaign wants to properly court veterans and their families, Vance ought to stay humble about his military service—an unlikely feat in a campaign where humility is not the guiding principle.

Related:

• J. D. Vance’s insult to America
• Helen Lewis: “I hope Trump kept the receipt.”

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Today’s News

1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C.
2. California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order calling for state officials to begin dismantling homeless encampments after the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on public sleeping.
3. Officials arrested and charged a man who allegedly pushed a burning car into a gully in Butte County, California, starting a wildfire that is the largest one in the state this season.

Dispatches

• Work in Progress: “The yawning gap between the mobility of white children and Black children growing up in low-income families has narrowed sharply,” Annie Lowrey writes.
• Time-Travel Thursdays: Lyndon B. Johnson and Joe Biden both “faced a badly divided nation, and both seemed to understand that they could not be the instrument to heal those divisions,” Cullen Murphy writes.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by Danielle Del Plato. Source: Getty.

Inside U.S. Cricket’s Shocking Victory

By Chris Heath

When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.

Read the full article.

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• Mark Leibovich: What Biden didn’t say
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• The prosecutor vs. the felon
• Gal Beckerman: Kamala Harris is not an enemy of the Jews.
• Evan Gershkovich’s Soviet-era show trial
• OopsGPT

Culture Break

Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: Kar3k4 / Getty; Nerthuz / Getty.

Read. Halle Butler’s new novel, Banal Nightmare, in which young people won’t stop pathologizing others—or themselves.

Listen. In the latest episode of Radio Atlantic, Atlantic contributing writer Jemele Hill joins guest host Adam Harris to discuss the cost of sports betting for athletes and fans.

Play our daily crossword.

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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The Atlantic · by Ben Kesling · July 25, 2024

20. The Puzzle of Chinese Escalation vs Restraint in the South China Sea

Conclusion:

Lastly, the tension between weiwen and weiquan likely has implications beyond the South China Sea and for China’s other territorial disputes. The dilemma illuminates how Beijing thinks about pursuing its revisionist territorial ambitions, including what facilitates and what restrains its pursuit of them. Analysts of Chinese territorial dispute strategy — and its foreign policy more generally — are best positioned to understand their subject when they approach it using the same concepts as Chinese leaders themselves.

The Puzzle of Chinese Escalation vs Restraint in the South China Sea - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Andrew Taffer · July 26, 2024

Tensions between China and the Philippines have escalated dramatically in recent months around Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the eastern Spratly Islands. The Chinese Coast Guard has repeatedly attempted to block delivery of food, water, and building supplies to the Philippine marine detachment aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II–era warship grounded on the shoal since 1999. In at least two incidents since March, China’s use of coercion has injured Philippines sailors. The risks of escalation are serious. The United States has said its defense obligations under the Mutual Defense Treaty extend “to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft — including those of its Coast Guard — anywhere in the South China Sea.”

But while China has been escalating with the Philippines at unprecedented levels around Second Thomas Shoal, it has exercised striking restraint toward Vietnam’s far larger and more militarized expansion of its South China Sea outposts. There is no record of China using paramilitary or military forces to disrupt Vietnam’s land reclamation in the Spratly Islands. As Zack Cooper and Greg Poling have recently noted, China’s assertiveness toward the Philippines and restraint toward Vietnam is especially puzzling given that the former is a U.S. treaty ally while the latter is not. Alliances with great powers are supposed to deter aggression, not to invite it. This is a puzzle that warrants scrutiny not just to help illuminate the nature of Chinese strategy in one of the world’s leading flashpoints. Deciphering the logic behind China’s conduct also has direct implications for how the United States and its allies can best defend their interests in the South China Sea and beyond.

There are a number of potential explanations for China’s behavior. Below I describe five possibilities, each of which is derived from a more general explanation of China’s conduct in the South China Sea. Although several capture important elements of Chinese strategy, none are able to satisfyingly explain the variation in Beijing’s conduct highlighted above. So, I offer an alternative explanation, one rooted in how Chinese leaders conceptualize the South China Sea disputes and the dilemmas they present. Beijing’s conduct toward the Philippines and Vietnam differs because Manila and Hanoi have different capacities to impose strategic costs on Beijing. Relative to the Philippines, Vietnam has a greater ability to impose such costs on China. Paradoxically, Manila’s alliance with Washington circumscribes its capacity to impose such costs, while Vietnam’s nonaligned status increases its ability to do so.

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Five Possibilities

The first explanation focuses on China’s interest in preventing its rivals from taking collective action against it. This so-called “divide and rule” strategy holds that Beijing uses combinations of carrots and sticks to drive wedges between its rival claimants to doom any prospect for collective action among them. From such a perspective, Chinese restraint toward Vietnam could be a function of its ongoing standoff with Manila at Second Thomas Shoal and meant to avoid creating another crisis with another rival at the same time.

While Beijing certainly has an interest in preventing or forestalling the emergence of collective resistance among its rivals, this is an unsatisfying explanation. Chinese coercion around the BRP Sierra Madre began over 10 years ago, and since then it has regularly escalated concurrently with Vietnam (and its other South China Sea rivals). More to the point, even if concern about pushing Manila and Hanoi into a united front contributed to Beijing’s restraint toward the latter, this explanation is unable to tell us why Beijing elected to continue to contest Philippine consolidation instead of challenging Vietnamese land reclamation while exercising restraint toward Manila — a policy combination with presumably the same effect.

The second explanation focuses on China’s interest in remaining in the “gray zone” and avoiding war in the South China Sea. Beijing, of course, has gone to lengths to advance its South China Sea claims while avoiding armed conflict. From this perspective, variation in Beijing’s responses to Philippine and Vietnamese consolidation could be explained with reference to their respective propensity for escalation. While Vietnam has a demonstrated history of resisting Chinese predations, Manila does not. Chinese analysts attribute Manila’s restraint in large part to Washington’s unwillingness to allow its ally to run risks of the kind likely to trigger its mutual defense commitments. The United States, Chinese analysts argue, seeks to “intervene but not become entrapped” in the South China Sea disputes.

While this explanation, too, captures an important element of Chinese strategy, it obfuscates deeper drivers of it. Most obviously, it begs the follow-on questions: Why is Beijing so keen to stay in the gray zone, and why would it be so concerned with the possibility of Vietnamese escalation? China has used military force in the South China Sea before, including in the post-Mao era, and it did so by targeting Hanoi. In a conflict today, China would quickly dispatch with Vietnamese resistance, as it did in 1974 in the Paracels and in 1988 in the western Spratly Islands. As argued below, it is not the risk of escalation itself — or even the possibility of war with Hanoi — that has produced restraint in Beijing. Rather, it is the potential second-order consequences of such a conflict.

A third explanation focuses on the close political relationship between China and Vietnam. Although distrustful of each other, both states are run by communist parties that have much in common. They are united in their collective resolve to preserve their party’s monopoly on political power and both are acutely threatened by Washington’s promotion of democracy and human rights. They are also determined not to allow their bilateral relationship to deteriorate as it did in the late 1970s, and they have built an unparalleled network of government and party ties to help buttress it. From this perspective, Chinese restraint toward Vietnam’s land reclamation may reflect its interests in maintaining healthy ties with Hanoi. Beijing may be particularly inclined to soft peddle the disputes now, as the country’s conservative new president seems likely to be especially deferential to Beijing.

While China’s relationship with Hanoi is unique among its South China Sea rivals, close political bonds between the two can — and often have — cut the other way. Confident that its political ties with Hanoi will enable it to manage escalation and avoid incurring major costs, China has regularly escalated with Vietnam in the South China Sea and done so increasingly over the last 20 years. This explanation sheds little light on why Beijing has exercised such restraint when confronted with the large-scale expansion and fortification of Vietnam’s South China Sea outposts.

A fourth explanation centers around China’s perception of threat associated with the U.S.–Philippine alliance. Since the late-1990s, Chinese leaders have believed that the United States is using its alliances as anchors of an anti-China coalition aiming to thwart Beijing’s rise. This view, of course, has grown in recent years. Chinese analysts and state-controlled media regularly suggest that Washington uses the Philippines’ and Japan’s offshore disputes with China to advance its hostile strategic intentions toward Beijing. From this perspective, Manila’s alliance with Washington may make its conduct in the South China Sea more threatening for Beijing than that of nonaligned Vietnam.

To be sure, Chinese leaders perceive this alliance to be threatening. This cannot, however, explain China’s variable approach to Philippine and Vietnamese efforts to consolidate their South China Sea occupations. Most basically, it stretches credulity to suggest that the Philippine presence on a decaying ship is especially threatening. However, even accepting the premise that China’s conduct is driven by fear of the U.S.–Philippine alliance, Beijing would not focus its coercive efforts on the most vulnerable of Manila’s outposts. It would focus instead of one of Manila’s eight larger occupations, some of which have been expanded in recent years and all of which would have greater military utility. Furthermore, to whatever degree Washington benefits from the South China Sea disputes, it seems clear that the Philippine presence on Second Thomas Shoal is on balance a liability — not an asset — for it. As Chinese analysts correctly note, the United States does not want to be dragged into an armed conflict in the South China Sea, and especially not one over a submerged reef that does not even have the legal status of a rock.

A fifth, and related, potential explanation also centers around the U.S.–Philippine alliance but for different reasons. Because Beijing views the alliance in threatening terms, some analysts suggest that Beijing coerces Manila in the South China Sea to drive a wedge into the U.S.–Philippine relationship. Chinese pressure around Second Thomas Shoal, the thinking goes, will expose and exacerbate cleavages between Washington and Manila, undermining the alliance. China scholar Robert Ross has recently put forward just such an argument, suggesting that Beijing targets Manila not simply because it is a more menacing rival but because it is a more enticing target. Vietnam’s lack of an alliance with the United States, on the other hand, means that coercing it carries less strategic upside.

This argument is intuitively appealing but there does not seem to be any evidence supporting it. Of course Beijing would be pleased to weaken the U.S.–Philippine alliance, but its conduct in the South China Sea is not designed to do so. Over the last 30 years, Beijing has watched as its assertiveness toward the Philippines has time and again strengthened — not weakened — the alliance. Even when it had opportunities to weaken the alliance, as it did under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, its coercive conduct in the South China Sea ensured that it would be unable to do so. If it were interested in using the disputes to undermine the alliance, it would have changed course.

As noted below, the existence of the U.S.–Philippine alliance — and the lack of an American alliance with Vietnam — are key factors shaping China’s approach to each. This has nothing to do, however, with Beijing viewing Philippine behavior as especially threatening or with it pursing a wedging campaign. Rather, the existence of the U.S.–Philippine alliance has counter-intuitively circumscribed Manila’s capacity to impose strategic costs on Beijing. This is a limitation that Vietnam does not have.

Weiquan and Weiwen

Since at least 2011, Chinese leaders have framed Beijing’s policy in the South China Sea as one aiming to “harmonize” a tension (or, in their view, a dialectic) between weiquan (维权) and weiwen (维稳). Weiquan refers to Beijing’s interest in defending and advancing its offshore claims. Weiwen refers its interests in maintaining stability and, more broadly, maintaining a favorable regional security environment conducive to its rise. A congenial regional security environment has required preserving friendly ties with its Southeast Asian rivals and avoiding pushing them into what Beijing views as a hostile U.S.-led coalition bent on thwarting its rise.

China’s maritime and territorial interests (weiquan) are at tension with its broader strategic interest in maintaining a favorable external environment (weiwen). To the extent it advances its South China Sea claims, it risks destabilizing the region, alienating its Southeast Asian rivals, and pushing them closer to Washington. However, just as China’s rival claimants have different capacities to impose territorial costs on it by damaging weiquan, so too do they have different capacities to impose strategic costs on it by damaging weiwen. Because of this, the same escalatory conduct directed at different rivals can involve different degrees of strategic risk. China is more likely to escalate with a rival when it has less capacity to impose strategic costs on Beijing; it is more likely to exercise restraint with rivals that have a greater capacity to impose strategic costs.

The capacity of a rival to impose strategic costs on Beijing is largely a function of the extent to which it is already imposing costs on it. The more costs that a rival imposes, the less capacity it has to impose additional costs in the future. There are a number of ways in which rivals can impose strategic costs. They can, for example, impose reputational costs, publicly casting Beijing as a threatening state and propagating an alarming narrative about it across the region. They can impose political or economic penalties on Beijing, damaging the bilateral relationship, and they can forcibly resist China’s advances, escalating the conflict and destabilizing the region. Lastly, and of particular importance for the Philippines and Vietnam, a rival can tighten strategic ties with a hostile great power — such as the United States in the post-Cold War era — imposing “balancing costs” on Beijing.

A rival that regularly imposes reputational costs on China will have less capacity to impose such costs in the future, a rival already aligned with a hostile great power has less capacity to impose “balancing costs.” A nonaligned state retains the possibility of forming a new formal or informal alliance with the great power, which would constitute a major change in the status quo and a major cost on Beijing. A rival in an existing alliance can upgrade the relationship, but this will often be a marginal change, imposing a marginal cost. Beijing thus has less to lose escalating with a rival claimant already aligned with a hostile great power.

In the 1980s, for example, Sino–Vietnamese hostility and Vietnam’s alliance with the Soviet Union, a Chinese adversary, made Hanoi less able to impose strategic costs on Beijing. China’s late-Cold War efforts to advance in the South China Sea thus disproportionately targeted Hanoi, most obviously in its decision to occupy six features along the western edge of the Spratly Islands, many of which were just adjacent to existing Vietnamese outposts. Beijing was, furthermore, willing to risk armed conflict with Hanoi in 1988 because it was confident that, just as Moscow refrained from intervening during the 1979 Sino–Vietnamese border war, it would not intervene on Hanoi’s behalf in a South China Sea conflict.

Contemporary Conditions

Today, the situation is different, but the same logic applies. As long as frictions remain in the gray zone — and the United States does not intervene militarily — the Philippines has less capacity than Vietnam to impose strategic costs on China. Beijing has less to lose in escalating with Manila so it can afford to be more assertive; it has more to lose in escalating with Hanoi, so it must be more restrained.

The Philippines imposes more reputational costs on China than any other rival. Manila recently escorted journalists to Second Thomas Shoal to observe and publicize China’s coercive conduct, a practice it has occasionally used since the mid-1990s. Even during the tenure of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was often personally obsequious to Beijing, his administration regularly publicized and impugned Chinese actions in the South China Sea, contributing to a schizophrenic foreign policy that failed to meaningfully deter China. In contrast, Vietnam is more circumspect and has thus retained a greater capacity to impose such costs on Beijing in the future.

More importantly, because Manila is already a close U.S. ally, it lacks the ability to impose meaningful balancing costs. It can further tighten the alliance, but this marginal cost is one that Beijing has been consistently willing to incur. Vietnam’s nonaligned status, however, gives it the possibility of forming a formal or informal alliance with the United States — that is, the possibility of imposing a major strategic cost on Beijing that would negatively transform its security environment. Further, Vietnam is a continental neighbor sharing a 1,350-kilometer land border with China, and it has one of — if not the most — formidable militaries in Southeast Asia. Its addition to a U.S.-led coalition would seriously damage China’s interests in weiwen. The Philippines, by contrast, is across the sea, possesses an anemic military, and is already (from China’s perspective) a member of the U.S.-led anti-China coalition.

The disparity in the strategic risks Vietnam and the Philippines pose is particularly stark in terms of Beijing contesting their efforts to consolidate and expand their outposts. Beijing has good reason to believe that escalation around Second Thomas can be controlled — and the United States kept out — because it has been successfully doing so since 2013. It has also harassed Philippine vessels around its other South China Sea occupations with little in terms of costs incurred. If, on the other hand, Beijing endeavored to thwart Vietnam’s land reclamation, Hanoi would likely perceive such an effort as imperiling its hold on the feature themselves, the anchors of its South China Sea claims, and the likelihood of Vietnamese resistance and escalation would be high. It would be under these condition that Hanoi would be most likely to impose on China the most serious kinds of strategic costs available to it.

Implications

This analysis has several important implications for deterring Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and beyond that are relevant both to the United States and Beijing’s territorial rivals. First, to bolster deterrence for the Philippines at Second Thomas Shoal and elsewhere in the South China Sea, Manila and Washington need to undermine China’s confidence that it can comfortably stay in the gray zone. Without the prospect of spiraling escalation and U.S. intervention, China will believe it continue to coerce the Philippines and apply pressure on its territorial occupations at minimal strategic cost. A greater U.S. military presence around Second Thomas Shoal, including assistance resupplying the BSP Sierra Madre, would likely help undermine China’s confidence in this regard.

Second, for China’s Southeast Asian rivals, this analysis suggests that costs credibly threatened are often more effective deterrents than costs actually imposed. For years, American analysts have argued that ASEAN states must impose costs on Beijing to counter and deter its assertive conduct in the South China Sea. This analysis, however, suggests that as more costs are imposed, Beijing has less to lose in escalating further. Manila, and its fellow Southeast Asian claimants, should be more deliberate about imposing costs on Beijing. Imposing reputational costs, for example, may be effective to help bolster the credibility of more serious threats, but by themselves such costs do little good and may be counterproductive. Southeast Asian states need to better husband their capacity for imposing costs and place more emphasis on maximizing their latent capacity to do so.

Third, the distinction between costs threatened and costs imposed should help to inform U.S. partnership-building efforts in Southeast Asia, a priority of the U.S. National Security Strategy. While deepening regional security partnerships is often regarded as an unalloyed good in which more is better, this analysis paints a more nuanced picture. Tightening such partnerships too deeply and too quickly could weaken deterrence by diluting the costs that Southeast Asian states could later threaten to impose on China. Southeast Asian states — and regional stability — may benefit most by deepening security partnership slowly and incrementally.

Fourth, although small and middle-sized states seek alliances with great powers to enhance their security and deter foreign aggression, at low levels of escalation they may have the opposite effect. The Philippines’ alliance with the U.S. has undermined its ability to deter Chinese coercion and territorial aggrandizement, while Vietnam’s nonaligned status enables it to impose the full range of strategic costs on Beijing. In a world increasingly characterized by gray zone competition, policymakers and planners need to formulate creative ways of bolstering deterrence at low levels of escalation without reflexively resorting to cost imposition. Scholars meanwhile need to address this empirical anomaly, which challenges conventional wisdom on the relationship between alliance formation and deterrence.

Lastly, the tension between weiwen and weiquan likely has implications beyond the South China Sea and for China’s other territorial disputes. The dilemma illuminates how Beijing thinks about pursuing its revisionist territorial ambitions, including what facilitates and what restrains its pursuit of them. Analysts of Chinese territorial dispute strategy — and its foreign policy more generally — are best positioned to understand their subject when they approach it using the same concepts as Chinese leaders themselves.

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Andrew Taffer is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University. He is completing a book manuscript on the evolution of China’s strategy in the South China Sea since 1979. This essay represents only his views and not those of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Image: Philippine Navy via X

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Andrew Taffer · July 26, 2024

21. Time to Strike Back Against Russia's Shadow War

Excerpts:

Ultimately, the transatlantic alliance should also more robustly support pro-democracy movements inside Russia, as there is nothing that Putin and his cronies fear more than a Russian populace no longer willing to endure a system in which the Kremlin harasses, exiles, imprisons, and murders Putin’s political rivals.

The West must recognize that a more aggressive campaign to directly counter Russian malign activities is necessary to reestablish deterrence and proportionally punish the Kremlin for its brazen acts of terrorism.

By adopting a comprehensive and coordinated approach, the West can better safeguard its interests and uphold the principles of democracy and rule of law.

Previous multinational approaches, such as Operation Gallant Phoenix’s success against ISIS, demonstrate that with the right strategies and robust cooperation, it is possible to successfully counter even the most complex and multifaceted hybrid threats.

Time to Strike Back Against Russia's Shadow War 

cepa.org · by Doug Livermore · July 24, 2024

There have been years of Russian assassinations, explosions, attempts to pervert the transatlantic alliance’s democratic system, and other forms of escalating malfeasance. In recent months though, this has worsened to include Kremlin-directed sabotage against critical energy infrastructure, defense industries, and other entities supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense across NATO countries.

Assassination plots against leading defense industry executives, for example, have led the US to warn against Russia’s “intensifying campaign of subversion.”

To date the Western response has been muted and largely passive, as Benjamin Schmitt of the Center for European Policy Analysis has described. When he asked the Danish prime minister this question in July, she acknowledged that “we are simply being too polite,” but gave no clear response on how the alliance should more appropriately respond.

What can the West do? Clearly, it can continue to pursue a low-key response, using counter-intelligence to warn those targeted by the Russians and to stop plots developing, though this clearly does not always prevent the Kremlin from successfully executing attacks across Europe.

There are also more robust alternatives. A more aggressive strategy would seek to punish, defeat, and reestablish effective deterrence with the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin is a mobster and Western thinking should acknowledge this.

In the American masterpiece The Untouchables when the grizzled Chicago beat cop Jim Malone warns Elliot Ness that he can only defeat the gangster Al Capone by achieving escalation dominance. Malone advises Ness that if: “He [Capone] pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.” Only by making clear that Western patience has been exhausted will the West finally safeguard its interests.

Striking back is much easier than it once was. Putin’s decision to launch an all-out invasion 29 months ago has seen the creation of secret armies inside Russian territory. This provides a useful lever, which can be ratcheted up in direct response to Russia’s escalating terrorism abroad.

The alliance collectively, or through various national intelligence agencies, can provide increased support to third parties already conducting sabotage and other activities inside Russia.

Russian freedom fighters and Ukrainian intelligence services are already causing ample damage to Russian petrochemical infrastructure, defense industries, and the Russian elite all on their own. The provision of detailed intelligence, training, and material support to such groups by the West, combined with backchannel messaging to the Kremlin that such activities are a direct response to Russia’s own sabotage and assassination campaigns, should prove influential in changing Putin’s calculus.

In other words, this does not have to be an all-out campaign against Russia. A low-level start would allow the Kremlin to review its campaign of aggression against the West and reconsider.

In the meantime, there are numerous additional steps for the West to take to strengthen its response.

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Firstly, revising and renewing existing intelligence-sharing is crucial. There already exists an Intelligence Liaison Unit within NATO headquarters to share intelligence on terrorists; its adaptation would improve understanding of Russian hybrid threats.

Intelligence-sharing agreements must be updated to reflect the evolving nature of the threat, ensuring that all agencies and nations have access to timely and actionable intelligence to dismantle Russian malign networks. This will enable better coordination and more effective responses to hybrid threats.

Strengthening multinational collaboration and collective action against Russian terrorism is also vital. Drawing inspiration from the successes of Operation Gallant Phoenix, through which the international community came together to destroy the caliphate of the Islamic State in Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS), while severely degrading its regional affiliates, NATO should establish a dedicated multinational task force focused on countering Russian hybrid threats and destroying the Kremlin’s networks around the world.

This task force should include representatives from intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and the military, facilitating a comprehensive and coordinated approach to hybrid warfare. By treating Russian malign actors like the terrorist that they are, a dedicated task force employing the full range of available intelligence, law enforcement, and security authorities will leave no safe havens from which the Kremlin’s minions can operate with any degree of safety.

Next, it is imperative to enhance cybersecurity measures, given the centrality of such attacks in Russia’s strategy (see June’s attack on the UK’s National Health Service). Investing in robust cybersecurity not only protects critical infrastructure but also develops offensive capabilities to deter and respond to cyber threats.

This also opens the path for Western cyber-attacks against vulnerable Russian networks. This does not have to be done with the same nihilistic approach as our enemies, but it is now necessary. This too might benefit from cooperation with our Ukrainian allies, who have experience in this area. At the same time, Western messaging toward Russian populations must directly paint any attacks against Moscow’s systems as retribution for the Kremlin’s cyber misdeeds abroad.

Ultimately, the transatlantic alliance should also more robustly support pro-democracy movements inside Russia, as there is nothing that Putin and his cronies fear more than a Russian populace no longer willing to endure a system in which the Kremlin harasses, exiles, imprisons, and murders Putin’s political rivals.

The West must recognize that a more aggressive campaign to directly counter Russian malign activities is necessary to reestablish deterrence and proportionally punish the Kremlin for its brazen acts of terrorism.

By adopting a comprehensive and coordinated approach, the West can better safeguard its interests and uphold the principles of democracy and rule of law.

Previous multinational approaches, such as Operation Gallant Phoenix’s success against ISIS, demonstrate that with the right strategies and robust cooperation, it is possible to successfully counter even the most complex and multifaceted hybrid threats.

Doug Livermore is the President of Livermore Strategic Solutions Ltd. and the Deputy Commander for Special Operations Detachment – Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. In addition to his role as the Director of Engagements for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, he is the National Director of External Communications for the Special Forces Association, National Vice President for the Special Operations Association of America, Director of Development of the Corioli Institute, and serves as Chair of the Advisory Committee for No One Left Behind.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Europe's Edge

CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America.

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cepa.org · by Doug Livermore · July 24, 2024

22. The evolution and the crucial role of the USA Army Special Forces

I have not found this book on Amazon. I have never heard of the author or this publisher. But the description of the book below is very much worth debating within the Special Forces Regiment.

The evolution and the crucial role of the USA Army Special Forces

https://www.elivapress.com/en/book/book-7542876612/

$ 42.5Author:

Klodian Lipa

Pages:

46

Published:

2024-07-22

ISBN:

978-1-63648-664-2

Category:

New Release

Description

In 1997, members of the Special Forces community began the process of identifying SF’s core ideology. Although the process has led to much thought, discussion and debate, after four years, the task remains unfinished. According to James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, an organization’s core ideology is its enduring character - what the organization is and what it stands for. Core ideology transcends leaders. It is determined by the people who are inside the organization. We do not create a core ideology; we identify it. Often, the success or the failure of an organization can be traced to how well the organization identified its core ideology and how well it cultivated the energies and talents of its people. Core ideology has two components: core values and core purpose. By identifying those components, the organization defines who its members are. Core values are essential and enduring tenets. Core values are clear and powerful, and they provide substantial guidance with piercing simplicity. After three years of debate, the U.S. Army Special Forces Command reached a consensus on SF’s core values, and the values were published in the Spring 2000 edition of Special Warfare. The SF core values are warrior ethos; professionalism; innovation; versatility; cohesion; character; and cultural awareness. What remains to be resolved is SF’s core purpose. Of the two components of core ideology, core purpose is the more important. It is the organization’s fundamental reason for being. Unlike goals or strategies, a core purpose does not change — it inspires change. An organization can evolve into new areas, but it will continue to be guided by its core purpose. SF’s core purpose is to achieve our nation’s objectives and to conduct our SF missions through, with or by surrogates, indigenous organizations or indigenous populations. That defining purpose sets SF apart from all other organizations. SF can conduct unilateral missions, and we can conduct them superbly, but we should conduct unilateral missions only as a last resort. They are inconsistent with our core purpose. SF was organized as a force multiplier that would conduct unconventional warfare.

23. How to Understand Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

Excerpts:

Western armed forces and intelligence agencies must also develop tools and doctrines specifically designed to counter covert attacks. Proactive measures, rather than reactive responses, are essential to address crises, hostile provocations, and malign activities effectively.

Russia’s BTWO strategy represents a significant and evolving threat that Western nations cannot afford to ignore. By understanding BTWO and developing effective countermeasures, the West can navigate this complex and evolving landscape and enact retribution. Proactive measures such as the ones listed above are essential to mitigate the risks of inaction, as failing to respond will only create a false perception of attack tolerance, inviting even bolder assaults on Western interests.

It is time to recognize and address Russia’s escalating shadow war with decisive action.

How to Understand Russia’s Shadow War Against the West - The Moscow Times

The Moscow Times · by Ionuț-Vlad Şutea · July 24, 2024

Recent reports highlighting an escalation in Russia’s “shadow war” against the West, including the foiled hit on Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, have reignited discussions on Below Threshold of War Operations (BTWO). Russian-linked sabotage and espionage activities in Europe have surged, reflecting a broader strategy targeting critical infrastructure and key individuals.

Russian-linked attacks in the West have included arsons at warehouses and defense industry sites in Britain and Germany, cyberattacks against private and public companies, and sabotage against a plethora of other objectives. Additionally, there has been a notable increase in recruitment and reconnaissance efforts by Russian intelligence services.

Russia has also targeted defectors, journalists, and European officials for years. Recent examples include the attack on the Estonian Interior Ministry and the assassination of a Russian helicopter pilot who defected to the West in Spain, both of which occurred in February 2024. Now, the U.S. is strengthening security at its military bases in Germany due to heightened risk levels.

Russia’s aim is clear: disrupt Western military aid to Ukraine, prevent Europe from permanently transitioning away from Russian energy, and intimidate Western governments from taking bold action against Moscow.

While Russian intelligence services are “doing their job,” their campaign has been on an escalatory trajectory that the West cannot afford to ignore. In the era of Great Power Competition with near-peer adversaries like China and Russia, competing while remaining under the threshold of war – a critical boundary that, when crossed, leads to the start of formal warfare – is in the Kremlin's interests.

BTWO exists in the gray zone, a conflict spectrum between open warfare and peaceful competition. It encompasses actions such as cyberattacks, political warfare, economic pressure, fake news campaigns, sabotage, and assassinations, all intended to weaken, intimidate, or coerce an opponent while avoiding a full-scale war.

While hybrid warfare involves mixing conventional military tactics with unconventional ones, BTWO focuses on staying below the war threshold.

While Hybrid warfare describes an aggressor’s methods, BTWO describes an adversary’s attempts to avoid open conflict. While related, these concepts are not necessarily symbiotic.

Probably the most important aspect of BTWO is that it maintains plausible deniability for the aggressor. In this case, Russia strives to obscure its involvement and evade accountability. While Russian intelligence agencies have a long track record of sloppiness, they can still be devastatingly effective. Additionally, much like the military, these organizations have learned some lessons the hard way and are improving in areas such as dynamic targeting, coordination, and asset recruitment among its European diaspora. As one NATO European official told The Financial Times, “Russian mischief is coordinated and at scale.”

Whether they leave traces behind to indicate Russian involvement or not, the Kremlin only has one card to play when accused: the deniable one.

Unsurprisingly, Russian officials deny any connection to the string of arsons, explosions, and other acts of sabotage reported in the West, rejecting all Western accusations as baseless and empty. Leading this effort is Russian Presidential Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

However, such denials are expected. Covert operations necessitate political disavowal to ensure the operations do not cross the threshold of war. An open admission could force NATO countries to retaliate, potentially locking the two parties into a cycle of escalation that can spiral out of control.

Nonetheless, Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have not refrained from issuing not-so-veiled threats. In late May 2024, Putin ominously said, “NATO countries, particularly European ones, must remember that these are states with a small territory and a very dense population.” This came weeks after the Financial Times reported Western intelligence warnings about Russia's capability and willingness to ramp up sabotage operations within NATO countries.

Putin's remarks are pushing the limits of gray zone warfare by almost openly threatening multiple states with what can easily be interpreted as kinetic warfare targeting urban centers to cause mass casualties. This rhetoric is noteworthy as it typically emanates from lesser officials or propagandists like Dmitry Medvedev, and TV personalities such as Vladimir Solovyov, whose threats against Western states have a “flavor of the week” fashion.

The covert and increasingly assertive nature of Russian BTWO in the gray zone makes it essential that the West adopts a robust defensive posture and adapts to any challenge Russia throws at it.

Improved intelligence and counter-intelligence measures are vital to identifying and stopping BTWO attacks. Enhanced intelligence capabilities will provide the necessary insight into who is behind these attacks and how they operate. Given that Russian intelligence is profiting from the free movement offered by Schengen, increased coordination and intelligence sharing among European allies will become key to foiling attacks. Within NATO or the European Union, a task force dedicated to protecting national critical infrastructure should be considered.

National governments and private enterprises must secure critical national infrastructure (CNI) and other sensitive sites, such as energy facilities, seabed cables, and defense industry plants. This involves not only increasing physical security but also investing in monitoring and intelligence measures to detect and analyze potential threats.

Furthermore, NATO and the EU should make sure the public are aware of Russia’s efforts. Publicly revealing BTWO activities and those responsible can undermine their effectiveness and garner international support. This requires a strategic communications campaign capable of countering contingency narratives deployed by adversaries to obfuscate the truth.

However, exposing the truth is challenging and often impossible, as it can endanger or compromise classified intelligence assets or capabilities used to collect evidence of Russian involvement. Here is where Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) plays a crucial role. Whenever possible, openly available information and unclassified methods should be utilized to provide evidence and raise public awareness. OSINT is also an effective tool for fact-checking and verifying information, ensuring that accurate and timely data is disseminated to the public, thus strengthening the credibility of counter-narratives.

Western armed forces and intelligence agencies must also develop tools and doctrines specifically designed to counter covert attacks. Proactive measures, rather than reactive responses, are essential to address crises, hostile provocations, and malign activities effectively.

Russia’s BTWO strategy represents a significant and evolving threat that Western nations cannot afford to ignore. By understanding BTWO and developing effective countermeasures, the West can navigate this complex and evolving landscape and enact retribution. Proactive measures such as the ones listed above are essential to mitigate the risks of inaction, as failing to respond will only create a false perception of attack tolerance, inviting even bolder assaults on Western interests.

It is time to recognize and address Russia’s escalating shadow war with decisive action.

The Moscow Times · by Ionuț-Vlad Şutea · July 24, 2024

24. Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

Thu, 07/25/2024 - 2:51pm

Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/something-wicked-way-comes-future-singularity-asymmetric-warfare-innovations?mc_cid=e04d1c8ddb&mc_eid=70bf478f36

Robert J. Bunker

Author’s note: This short essay provides a projection of the future operational environment (2035-2050)—through the fictional Project WICKED—and its impact on US Army warfighting through the lens of Fourth Epoch War theory. This OSINT fusion-based theory has been utilized since the early 1990s to support US LE, MIL, and GOV activities including Minerva (DoD), Futures Working Group (FBI/PFI), and Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group (LA Sheriff’s) programs.

The Nuevo-Krasnovian armored formation was decimated before early warning systems even detected an attack had begun. Armed ground and air droids stealthily and quickly swarmed the unit in the dead of night from all sides, hitting it with a flurry of standoff munitions, kamikaze attacks, and directed energy and hyperkinetic fires then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The specter of burning tanks and broken crewmembers bore graphic testament to another success of the US Army’s new distributed AI battle management system (Project WICKED). Since 2043, prototypes incorporating this system were integrated with innovations in electrical power generation and management and five-dimensional (inter-dimensional domain reality) fusion. The system was finalized in 2049 with the human neural interface allowing mandated human on-the loop C2 monitoring of AI targeting and engagement without excessive OODA loop degradation—thus passing JAG review for ‘conduct of war’ compliance. ‘Something wicked’ had indeed appeared—and it had UNITED STATES PROPERTY stamped upon it. 

The modern world and dominance of conventional (symmetric) warfighting systems operated by human combatants—main battle tanks, capital warships, fighters and strategic bombers—is rapidly approaching its twilight. This ‘gold standard’ of military innovation and technology is completing its functional weapons systems life cycle as it transitions from institutionalized to ritualized usage on the more advanced mid-21st century battlefield. This battlefield has disparate elements now readily recognizable and the mosaic forming portends a form of conflict inherently alien to our modern comprehension of state-on-state warfighting.   

Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

While asymmetric warfare is typically viewed as unorthodox and even insurgent in approach—leveraging weakness against a superior force using innovative applications of technology and tactics—it also possesses an advanced warfighting component. This is the circumstance behind the contemporary suite of asymmetric warfare innovations, derived from a synthesis of technology and CONOPS (concepts of operations), now forming. However, the disruptive innovation taking place is a level of magnitude above that of 1920s-1930s revolution in military affairs (RMA) perceptions. That level of operational change, resulting in blitzkrieg tactics, carrier operations, et al., existed within the modern paradigm of warfare. The level of disruptive change we are now witnessing is out-of-paradigm change equivalent to the shift from the Classical to Medieval or Medieval to Modern epochs of Western civilization. These shifts have been characterized respectively as ‘The Dark Ages’ and ‘The Renaissance’ in their societal, state institutional, and military impacts. We are within a post-Modern shift that will witness modern (legacy) nation-state mass industrial force structures becoming ineffective on the battlefield as asymmetric warfare innovations mature and are increasingly fielded by states and non-state entities.

While human combatant utilized and controlled infantry weapons still form the baseline of the conduct of warfare, the following innovations will become increasingly impactful. Reminiscent of the gradual force structure shift between the proportion of medieval ‘pike’ to modern ‘shot’ in Early Modern armies, eventually advanced technology replaces the legacy artifacts that had been the mainstay of warfare:

Drones and Droids: Uncrewed systems, semiautonomous and autonomous, have been fielded which can operate on/in land, sea, and air. Static platforms and smart facilities can be militarized, with gun turrets controlled virtually by personnel thousands of miles away, as is already done with Reaper drones. Non-state actors have already weaponized cheap consumer drones. UAS are actively proliferating with tens-of-thousands of ISR and hunter-killer drones being fielded collectively in the Russo-Ukrainian War.   

Artificial Intelligence: With advances in computer science such as heuristic programing, weak AI systems have become increasingly capable. AI’s ability to take over C2 functions for autonomous systems can now better navigate OODA (observe-orient-decide-act) loop iterations vis-à-vis human C2teleoperated systems, challenging human ‘in’ (or at least ‘on’) the loop oversight requirements. Further, the potential of AI residing throughout a swarm of droids as a decentralized hivemind suggest its control would be highly resilient in real world combat versus a single AI computer controlling a network of integrated weapons systems.        

Swarm Networks: Drones/droids deployed for combat have been primarily utilized in ones and twos and slightly larger groups under human control. Netwar perceptions have for decades projected mass fielding of these systems and their ability to swarm (like bees) against a target and then immediately dissipate their concentration of force. Thousands of drones creating integrated images in the sky have taken place in China and the American military has experimented with a hundred drone swarm. Future military drone swarms comprised of up to hundreds of thousands are envisioned.

Electrical Power: Internal combustion engines and turbines cannot hope to power the weapons systems, shielding, cloaking, sensing and related technologies for the military vehicles and platforms being developed. All-electric power systems will allow energy to be immediately directed to a specific capability such as shielding and then dynamically shifted to other onboard capabilities. High-tech fuel cell arrays which store and release electrical energy will become mainstays. Warships will be among the first weapons platforms to utilize these dynamic power systems in their basic design.   

Directed Energy: Mechanical based weaponry (combustive; explosive based) derived from firearms, bombs, and similar munitions is giving way to directed energy systems which can be utilized both offensively and defensively. Laser, high-powered microwave (HPM), radio frequency (RF), and millimeter wave (MW) weaponry is gradually being fielded. Defensively, active stealth technology (visibility masking) is being developed as is energy shielding which generates specific frequencies to pre-detonate incoming munitions and/or negate specific beam weaponry frequencies.

Five Dimensional Fusion: The present multi-domain structure of land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace will witness inter-dimensional domain realities being fused by means of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies. Humans increasingly virtually interact in cyberspace and AI based machines are extending into human space via augmented reality. An overlap is spanning the operational environment across inter-dimensional domains along with stealth space (defensive bastion) and narrative space (influence operations) components.

Human Neural Interface: Wetware and appliance interfaces blur the line between humans and machines as cyborg-type dualities emerge. Humans are increasing fitted with artificial hip and knee joints, pacemakers, insulin pumps, and hearing aids. RFID (radio frequency detection) tags, microchips, and artificial (bionic) limbs are also being implanted. Brain-to-machine interfaces will allow the accessing and control of informational systems and increased cognitive capabilities, achieving faster processing speeds.

Projected Evolutionary Trajectories

The ongoing integration and fielding of asymmetric warfare innovations into state military (and non-state paramilitary) force structures will result in a quantum leap in operational environment lethality from both a destructive and disruptive capabilities metric. Just as the medieval knight became obsolete on the ‘advanced’ early modern battlefield, the modern human-crewed tank will become obsolete on the ‘advanced’ post-modern battlefield. Neither legacy system (configured around the energy foundation of the earlier civilizational form—animal and mechanical respectively) survive the warfighting requirements of a more sophisticated level of warfare.   

The trajectories of this battlefield shift will be inherently unpredictable. Attributed to William Gibson, “The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed” pretty much sums up where we are. The pieces are in play and a new warfighting mosaic is forming with tiles randomly flipped and moved into position as the final image appears. A ‘guestimate’ of the projected impact on modern large-scale operations is as follows:

A decade or so out (2035): Technological innovations will be initially utilized singularly to benefit legacy military systems (e.g. electrical power generation for human-crewed battle tanks) or as stand-alone cost-effective advanced weaponry. For example, commercial UAS fitted with IEDs with FPV human controlled guidance are currently wreaking havoc on tanks, AFVs, and infantry personnel in the Ukraine war. Combinations of these innovations will be incorporated into extending the functionality of legacy systems (as ‘bolt ons’) but innovation synthesis will see drone and swarm network capabilities being increasingly deployed together.

Mid-21st century (2050): The synergistic effect of these technological innovations on the operational environment are pronounced. As innovations are integrated, higher-level synergistic effects occur. Greater battlefield effectiveness in directed energy weaponry, active stealthing, and energy shielding when placed on autonomous platforms due to advanced fuel cell and power management systems being more efficiently controlled by subordinate AI routines is expected. The opening vignette signifies integration of these asymmetric advanced warfare innovations into the US Army’s notional Project WICKED. Synergistic synthesis of innovations will result in new systems such as distributed AI battle management. The fielding of similar systems by allied as well as opposing states and entities will eventually be an ‘extinction event’ for all legacy conventional forces.

While the vignette optimistically positions the US Army as the alpha predator of the 2050 battlefield, this dominance is by no means assured. Epochal level change has historically devastated status quo state forms along with the military systems they field, with heavily armed non-state and mercenary forces dominating during the initial deinstitutionalized period. The US Army must master the advanced form of warfighting now emergent and escape this brutal historical trap to retain the mantel of premier land power force—any other outcome is simply unacceptable.  

Categories: future operating environment

About the Author(s)

Robert Bunker

Dr. Robert J. Bunker is Director of Research and Analysis, C/O Futures, LLC, and an Instructor at the Safe Communities Institute (SCI) at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy. He holds university degrees in political science, government, social science, anthropology-geography, behavioral science, and history and has undertaken hundreds of hours of counterterrorism training. Past professional associations include Minerva Chair at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College and Futurist in Residence, Training and Development Division, Behavioral Science Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy, Quantico. Dr. Bunker has well over 500 publications—including about 40 books as co-author, editor, and co-editor—and can be reached at docbunker@smallwarsjournal.com.  

25. An Airman killed at a secret CIA radar base in Laos is finally recovered

An Airman killed at a secret CIA radar base in Laos is finally recovered

U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price was killed at Lima Site 85, a secret CIA radar base in Laos which was overrun in a pitched, mountain-top battle. His remains were just identified.

JOSHUA SKOVLUND

POSTED ON JUL 24, 2024 7:09 PM EDT

4 MINUTE READ

taskandpurpose.com · by Joshua Skovlund

U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price was one of 18 Americans at Lima Site 85, a top secret CIA radar site in Laos that served as a vital navigational beacon for U.S. bombers from atop a craggy mountain peak.

In March 1968, North Vietnamese commandoes overran the post, killing 12 Americans. Price’s body was never recovered.

This week, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Price remains had been identified and will be returned to his family after 56 years.

Brenda Fuller, one of Price’s daughters, was only 7 years old when her father was killed in action on March 11, 1968. Her mother was told only that he was missing but knew nothing else about her husband’s fate.

“My biggest memory there is the day that my mom found out he was missing. She found out over the phone, and I was in the room when she heard, and that was really hard to watch her reactions to that,” Fuller said.

A Desperate Mountain Top Fight

The tactical air navigation radar site known as Lima Site 85 sat on top of the 5,600-foot mountain known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province. The facility — little more than a few shacks around a radar array — was a vital part of the U.S. military’s Vietnam War effort to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Price came to Lima Site 85 from 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron. The site in Laos was kept top secret and lacked much of the security and defenses that a U.S. military site might have had. The few Air Force technicians — who were listed as Lockheed employees during the mission — wore civilian clothes, had little to no combat training and were supposed to be unarmed, though they had brought a cache of rifles and grenades. Security was provided by roughly 1,000 Thai and Hmong soldiers organized and led by a pair of CIA operatives.

After a series of attacks against the site, a team of North Vietnamese commandos finally overran the base during an early morning attack.

The evacuation of the Americans was chaotic, with CIA helicopters hovering overhead as the Hmong and Laotian troops held off 3,000 Vietnamese. Price’s fate and that of 10 others was never precisely determined by survivors who escaped. The site’s senior enlisted leader, Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger, was killed while loading the final helicopter with survivors and awarded the Air Force Cross, which was upgraded to the Medal of Honor in 2010.

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Twelve of the 19 Americans at Lima died in the fighting, along with about 50 of their Thai and Hmong defenders. It was the deadliest ground attack suffered by the Air Force in the war.

Recovering Remains

In cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and L.P.D.R., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency teams investigated leads gleaned from dozens of witness interviews, including those involved with the attack. Starting in 2003, the team was able to recover some remains belonging to the missing Americans, but it wasn’t until 2023 that they were able to find remains believed to be Price’s.

For over five decades, Fuller told herself stories as a means to reckon with her father’s MIA status. The clandestine nature of the operation to call in air strikes on the Viet-congs’ supply line from within enemy held territory remained classified until until 1998, leaving blank spots about what happened.

“To make things make sense for me, I made possibilities up in my head. Like, maybe he got away and he’s hiding out somewhere, and he sees that we’re happy, so he’s not coming back to what was in our life, those kind of silly stories,” Fuller said. “I made things up to answer questions and fill in the holes of the information that wasn’t there.”

Fuller holds onto the happy memories from the short time she had with her father. She talked about her memories playing on the beach and how he disapproved of her putting olives on all of her finger tips before eating them.

“My dad was an amazing man. He was loving. He was kind and funny. Everybody who knew him thought he was great. My mom was divorced, and then he came into my life when I was two and a half, that he was my — he was my daddy Dave. He loved us, me and my siblings, just unconditionally, and he was an amazing man. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Price will be buried in Centralia, Washington, on August 30, 2024. Fuller said he will have full military honors before being laid to rest in his hometown. During his time in the military, Price was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal with two Bronze service stars, Air Force Longevity Service Award, and the Republic Of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Ribbon medal.

“I would like the American public to know that my dad served his country in a manner that he felt was going to further the cause, and hopefully make an end of the war,” Fuller said. “That’s, I think, all they need to know, that he loved his country. He believed in what he did, he believed in the men that he served with, and he thought he was doing what was best.”

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Joshua Skovlund

Staff Writer

Joshua Skovlund is a contributor for Task & Purpose. He has reported around the world, from Minneapolis to Ukraine, documenting some of the most important world events to happen over the past five years. He served as a forward observer in the US Army, and after leaving the service, he worked for five years in paramedicine before transitioning to a career in multimedia journalism.

taskandpurpose.com · by Joshua Skovlund

26. Of Torches and Pitchforks

Excerpts:

Politicians should have nightmares about torches and pitchforks advancing on Washington. As Thomas Jefferson said, “When the government fears the people, there is liberty." The spontaneous rising of the Tea Party movement signaled the reawakening of the American people, serving notice that our Constitution, bought and paid for by untold sacrifice in blood and treasure over two and a half centuries, would still prevail. That was then, this is now.

Seven Days in May is rearing up again. Never has the U.S. Constitution been in greater peril than it is today. Pray it will win again, but it will only if courageous men and women do the right thing.

Of Torches and Pitchforks

By Karen McKay

July 26, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/07/26/of_torches_and_pitchforks_1047390.html?mc_cid=e04d1c8ddb&mc_eid=70bf478f36

Photo: From the film "Seven Days in May."

More than 60 years ago – 1962, I think it was – I read a book with a profound message that burned itself into the recesses of my mind. Not that I understood it at the time. The only reason I read it was because it was there in an idle moment during vacation. I was a Fresno State Aggie, majoring in cattle, horses and rodeo, totally incognizant of the Cold War and Communism’s malignant march across the world.

Events that gave birth to the American Tea Party movement rekindled the dormant memory of that book, Seven Days in May. So I ordered the movie, which was made in 1964. They made really good movies in those days. The story’s plot involved a U.S. president pushing a policy of appeasement in the years immediately after WWII and the Korean War, back when the Red Menace was devouring nations, school children hid under desks in atom bomb drills, and families built fallout shelters in their back yards. Built entire houses underground even. Fear hung in the air like smog. In Seven Days in May, a group of patriotic military officers, decorated war heroes all, led by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, plots a coup to save the country. The Chairman's aide-de-camp, ardently loyal to his general and equally bound by his oath to the Constitution, figures out what's afoot and is torn between his duties. Spoiler alert: In the end, the Constitution wins.

We fought a bloody revolution against the British that America might become a free nation under just laws. The Founders, inspired by God and drawing heavily on the Bible, carefully constructed a Constitution that would ensure there would never again be need for armed revolution in America. That is, so long as the Constitution was never violated; to guard against usurpation of that sacred document, the Second Amendment guarantees the rights enshrined therein. Tyranny was never to be tolerated in the United States of America, resisted by an armed people if necessary.

The Founders built into the Constitution not only failsafes, but tripwires. When one of the three branches of government overreaches, the Constitution prescribes corrective measures. But the ultimate guardian of the Constitution is the vigilant citizen, We The People. Those safeguards built into our trifurcated system of government are useless if a supine citizenry acquiesces.

Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, stated that “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” That was 38 days before Ft. Sumter. He must have reconsideration his words.

Politicians should have nightmares about torches and pitchforks advancing on Washington. As Thomas Jefferson said, “When the government fears the people, there is liberty." The spontaneous rising of the Tea Party movement signaled the reawakening of the American people, serving notice that our Constitution, bought and paid for by untold sacrifice in blood and treasure over two and a half centuries, would still prevail. That was then, this is now.

Seven Days in May is rearing up again. Never has the U.S. Constitution been in greater peril than it is today. Pray it will win again, but it will only if courageous men and women do the right thing.

Karen McKay is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. She is a Foreign Area Operations Officer (Middle East/SW Asia), and Airborne, Civil Affairs, and Psyops qualified. Her PhD dissertation at Hebrew University in Jerusalem was on the failure of Allied air forces to bomb Auschwitz and the rail lines transporting Jews to death camps. She was the Executive Director of the Committee for Free Afghanistan, and president of Americans for Freedom, an NGO supporting the Contras, especially on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua.

27. A new Cold War? Not really — here’s how the West could capitalize on the rise of the Global South

A new Cold War? Not really — here’s how the West could capitalize on the rise of the Global South

theconversation.com · by Daniel Lincoln

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently held a historic meeting in Pyongyang that resulted in a mutual defence agreement that has alarmed many western analysts.

This alliance has sparked concerns about deteriorating security in northeast Asia and the invigoration of Russia’s campaign against Ukraine, as well as renewed fears of a unified anti-western bloc that could potentially precipitate a new Cold War.

A closer examination of global geopolitics and economics, however, suggests that instead of a second Cold War, the world is witnessing transient intersections of interests among some non-western powers.

The Russia-North Korea defence treaty highlights the complexities surrounding the rise of non-western nations, including those in the Global South. But instead of viewing the growing power of non-western states broadly as a threat, the West should recognize the opportunities this shift presents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks as North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un listens to him during a reception after their talks in Pyongyang, North Korea, in June 2024. (Vladimir Smirnov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Partnerships of convenience

Western observers are justified in viewing the Russia-North Korea pact as worrisome. Russia could replenish its war machine in Ukraine with North Korean aid, and North Korea could develop more sophisticated weapons systems. And with Russia acting as a security guarantor, North Korea might act more provocatively on the Korean Peninsula.

However, this agreement lacks substantial long-term sustainability because it’s based solely on shared opposition to the western-led world order.

This is not unique to the rejuvenated Russia-North Korea relationship. Among many non-western powers seeking a heightened international profile, alliances of convenience are increasingly common.

The Iran-Russia partnership, for example, largely mirrors the Russian relationship with North Korea. Despite extensive economic and military co-operation, both states share little beyond their current animosity towards the West, and are, in fact, historic enemies.

Similarly, the “no-limits” partnership between China and Russia remains precarious due to China’s desire to remain integrated in the global economy while also wishing to avoid a significant inflammation of tensions with the West.

This geo-strategic dynamic is a far cry from the Cold War, where the Soviet-led bloc was ostensibly united by an ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism. It also contrasts with enduring western security partnerships like the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance that’s based on cultural, historic and linguistic closeness.

The dynamics of transient and pragmatic interests driving the Russia-North Korea defence treaty illustrate how the West can more astutely navigate the world’s changing economic and geopolitical landscapes.

Opportunities to co-operate with the West

In recent decades, the Global South has expanded its economic and strategic power, exemplified by BRICS — an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. These countries are now experiencing faster economic growth than the G7 countries of the West.

As these countries grow richer and more powerful through their integration into the international economy, these emerging economies increasingly exercise more strategic autonomy than was possible in the 20th century. These countries now leverage more geo-strategic hedging between competing great powers to fulfil their unique interests.

China’s rise to the status of the world’s second-largest economy is a notable example of this. China seeks to reform international institutions and norms, efforts that have attracted support from the Global South. Generally, China and the Global South aspire towards a world that acknowledges their enhanced geo-economic stature.

Foreign ministers from the BRICS nations of India, Egypt, South Africa, China, Russia, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran pose for a photo on the sidelines of a meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia in June 2024. (AP Photo/Roman Yarovitsin)

This differs from Russia and North Korea, which largely aim to undo the post-Cold War international order.

China gained power and wealth through its concerted participation within the established world order and largely wishes to continue this historically fruitful engagement. Western perceptions of China as a threat have contributed to its brokering of partnerships of convenience with disruptive powers like Russia.

These relationships aren’t due to a deep-felt enmity towards the West in China. Rather, it is a reaction to geopolitical tensions with western countries and China’s resulting need to establish working relations with powers that it currently shares common ground with.

If the West works with these emergent powers to accomplish shared goals, it could maintain its global pre-eminence. Viewing the rise of developing economies as a threat, on the other hand, risks missing significant and potentially invaluable opportunities.

Double-edged sword

The Russian-North Korean pact and relations between North Korea, Iran and Russia are counterproductive to international stability and western global interests, but this troublesome dynamic does not extend to the Global South.

The strategic manoeuvring of the Global South — as exhibited by rising powers such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Arab countries asserting their interests through skilful and astute relations with multiple great powers — underscores this.

By understanding these nuances and working strategically with the Global South, the West can navigate the complexities presented by the current geo-strategic landscape and mitigate potential security threats more effectively.

Working with a likely receptive China, for example, to manage the possible consequences of the Russia-North Korea military alliance could be beneficial to both parties.

These developments ultimately illustrate the double-edged sword of contemporary geopolitics, which simultaneously offer the West considerable advantages and daunting challenges.

Whether western countries are subjected to the favourable or hostile side of this proverbial sword depends on how successfully they can navigate the complex and changing dynamics of today’s global landscape.

theconversation.com · by Daniel Lincoln

28. A Bright CIA Light, Snuffed Out Too Soon

A Bright CIA Light, Snuffed Out Too Soon

https://www.spytalk.co/p/a-bright-cia-light-snuffed-out-too?r=7i07&utm

Zoë Moulton, a beloved CIA case officer afflicted by ‘Havana Syndrome,’ died at age 50

JEFF STEIN

JUL 24, 2024

Zoë Moulton (Facebook, 2017)

She “lit up a room,” a close friend says. “She had the biggest smile. And she had this cute little giggle. And when she would come into any room, all the children would flock to her.”

Zoë Moulton did not, in other words, fit the cinematic stereotype of a glamorous, cynical CIA action figure, but her real job was to recruit foreigners to spy for the United States, among them terrorist financiers and other tough customers. True, she was movie-worthy blond and pretty, with startling blue eyes, friends said, and excelled at her job, but she was also unusually warm hearted and generous, going out of her way to help others through their emergencies even when she was suffering herself from a rare cancer that cut short her life on April 25, age 50.

On Saturday, July 20, over a hundred friends, family and colleagues gathered at the Northern Virginia home of Moulton’s close friend and former agency colleague, Betsy Woudenberg, to celebrate her life and honor her memory. A steady rain fell outside as four friends delivered eulogies.

“Zoë was a talented chef and foodie, and we enjoyed elegant hors d'oeuvres as well as a signature cocktail—a St. Germain spritz that we dubbed ‘The Zoë,’” Woudenberg recalled in a telephone interview. Moulton was also a talented photographer, another friend said.

Moulton in 2018 (Facebook)

Tears were shed. Alternating waves of grief, pride and joy wafted through the gathering. 

One of Moulton’s former CIA instructors in advanced espionage tradecraft praised her as one of the best students he’d ever had. 

“Zoë was a lioness: fierce, beautiful, intelligent—her life snuffed out at least three or four decades early,” said the retired senior officer, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the gathering, which included a number of undercover CIA personnel.

“She was medevaced out of Vienna Station about two to two and a half years ago, along with about nine or ten others due to Havana Syndrome,” he added.  

Many afflicted CIA and State Department personnel and outside experts attribute the vexing, disabling constellation of physical and mental ailments to an attack by a sonic or directed energy weapon, possibly carried out by the Russians—a suspicion the intelligence community called “very unlikely” in a March 2023 report.

The CIA, which calls them Anomalous Health Incidents, or AHI, said in a January 2022 interim report that the illnesses were likely caused by stress or previously undiagnosed medical conditions—which outraged suffering CIA and U.S. diplomatic personnel—but said it took the incidents seriously and would continue to investigate. A 2020 US-government funded study by the National Academy of Sciences said that “directed” microwave radiation was the most likely cause of symptoms observed in the affected US government personnel. No definitive evidence has surfaced to pin the incidents on a weapon, much less the Russians, but investigations are ongoing.

"Some of our toughest cases remain unresolved," a CIA official who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NPR at the time. "We have so far not found evidence of state actor involvement in any incident."

Vienna Shakeup

In September 2023, The Washington Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported that the CIA had “removed its top officer in Vienna following criticism of his management, including what some considered an insufficient response to a growing number of mysterious health incidents at the U.S. Embassy there.” 

One of them was Moulton, then in her 21st year with the CIA. Not long after, she contracted bile duct cancer, a friend said. She entered hospice care a few weeks before her death on April 25. 

“I cannot draw a direct line between [Havana Syndrome] and her demise, but it's damned coincidental,” said her former instructor.

US Embassy, Vienna (Wikimedia Commons photo)

Another close friend from the intelligence world, Shawnee Delaney, suspected Moulton’s cancer might have been linked to an incident in Vienna that had the hallmarks of several previous “attacks” that had mushroomed in Havana in 2016.

Moulton told Delaney she had just gone to bed in her Vienna apartment in 2023 when she felt a sudden, dramatic change in air pressure, “like when you're on a train and you go through a tunnel or under water.…” Delaney said. “She said it was like that instantaneously, with this intense pain in her brain.” Moulton pressed her hands to her head, like in Edvard Munch’s The Scream, to demonstrate. 

The CIA had equipped overseas personnel with devices to measure what was happening, “because everyone was kind of expecting it at some point,” a friend recalled. “She said it was on her nightstand on the left side, (and) as soon as it happened, she reached over and grabbed it to push the button or whatever,” but was overcome. “So she grabbed her phone and she said she kind of screamed and ran out of the room. And she said as soon as she left that room, it stopped.”

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The incident “had lasting impacts (on her) from it,” Delaney continued. “In fact, she came home and went down to Virginia Beach and was doing some specialized brain scans that they hadn't done on anyone yet…And then she came back up here and they were doing a bunch more scans. But (by then) she had, like, blindness in one eye and then, after that, just all kinds of weird things.”

In the end, Moulton was embittered by her agency’s handling of her health issues, plus other incidents of what her friends described as bad treatment by callous, male managers. Her last assignment was at a domestic CIA office in Albuquerque awaiting a promotion that never came. She felt “betrayed,” one friend said. 

The CIA declined comment. In public records, she was listed as a State Department employee.

Many of the attendees at her memorial gathering “were her female CIA case officer colleagues,” said the retired agency instructor. She never married or had children, a common downside for women who choose a life in the clandestine service, friends said.

“These courageous women are fierce defenders of our national security, and yet many have been mistreated either through (Havana Syndrome treatment) or toxic management,” her former instructor said. “I grieve at this waste of our talent base.”

On the telephone, Betsy Woudenberg’s throat caught for a moment as she remembered her dear friend and fellow secret warrior. 

“She was,” Woudenberg said, “a magical person.” `

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