Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Political warfare includes all measures short of war... for hostile intent through discrete, subversive, or overt means short of open combat... Whereas gray zone tells us where along a spectrum between war and peace activities take place, political warfare tells us why."

- Matt Armstrong

"Irregular warfare is a means by which the United States uses all elements of national power to project influence abroad to counter state adversaries, defeat hostile nonstate actors, deter wider conflict, and maintain peace in great-power competition.”

– Christopher Miller, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,Chapter 4, Department of Defense

"In short, the strategic problem of the United States has two aspects: to create a level of thermo-nuclear strength to deter the Soviet bloc from a major war, or from aggressions in areas which cannot be defended by an indigenous effort; but to integrate this with a policy which does not paralyze the will to resist in areas where local resources for defense do exist.

But is there any deterrent to Sino-Soviet aggression other than the threat of general war? Does not a policy of peripheral actions run counter to the geographic realities of the situation, specifically to the fact that the U.S.S.R. possesses interior lines of communication and can therefore assemble a superior force at any given point?

It must be admitted that we alone cannot possibly defend the Soviet periphery by local actions; nor can we intervene without the cooperation of the local governments. Our immediate task must be to shore up the indigenous will to resist, which in the "grey areas" means all the measures on which a substantial consensus seems to exist: a political program to gain the confidence of local populations and to remove the stigma of colonialism from us, together with a measure of economic assistance and similar steps. But though a political program may be essential it will prove useless without an increase in the capacities for local defense. Few political leaders will run the risk of foreign occupation even though liberation is to follow eventually."

– Henry Kissinger, Military Policy and Defense of the Grey Areas, Foreign Affairs, April 1955

1. Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership Special Operations Excerpt

2. Chief of Staff of the Army Recommended Articles

3. An External Agenda for the NATO Summit

4. Nepalis thought they were going to Russia to ‘help.’ They were made to fight – and die.

5. Iran’s Voters Elect Their First Reformist President in Two Decades

6. A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything From Smartphones to Missiles

7. Russia destroyed Ukraine’s energy sector, so it’s being rebuilt green

8. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 5, 2024

9. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, July 5, 2024

10. Family members serving aboard two Navy ships reunite in the Mediterranean Sea

11. Backlash rising to Marcos Jr's US-friendly policy pivot

12. Stuck Onshore: Why the United States Failed to Retrench from Europe during the Early Cold War

13. NATO Summit Primer: 12 Things to Know

1. Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership Special Operations Excerpt

So I have not done a deep dive into the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership. I missed the fact that Chapter 4, "Department of Defense, was authored by Christopher Miller, former Acting SECDEF.

Below is the excerpt on Special Operations Forces. I have not seen any other reporting on this. Chris makes an important case for how SOF can be employed effectively in strategic competition with a strong emphasis on and from an irregular warfare perspective.

I wonder if anyone at USSOCOM or DOD has read this. Probably not since it is in a very partisan document. I am sure Project 2025 is something no one associated with the current administration would be authorized to read, much less incorporate what may be some very good ideas. But there is so much sensational reporting about Project 2025 and some of the controversial proposals that any good ideas will be overlooked or simply dismissed. I wish some of the ideas below had been put into effect a year ago when the report was published.

But since I am non-partisan I will look anywhere for good ideas

The entire Chapter 4 can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bplTSfLz24ofgFSJkoQr8UUZD47msV7k/view?usp=sharing

The entire 920 page document can be downloaded here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042/project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise.pdf

SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

Even though America’s conventional war in Afghanistan was a failure, Special Operations Forces of the United States Special Operation Command (USSOCOM) executed an extremely effective counterterrorism campaign: There has not been another major attack on the homeland, global terrorist threats are reduced and managed, collaboration with international partners is effective, and units under USSOCOM are the most capable and experienced warfighters in two generations.

There is a movement to reduce the scope and scale of USSOCOM’s mission in favor of other service priorities in great-power competition. This would be a mistake because USSOCOM can be employed effectively in great-power competition.

It makes sense to capitalize on USSOCOM’s experience and repurpose its mission to include irregular warfare within the context of great-power competition, thereby providing a robust organization that is capable of achieving strategic effects that are critical both to our national defense and to the defense of our allies and partners around the globe. Irregular warfare should be used proactively to prevent state and nonstate actors from negatively affecting U.S. policies and objectives while simultaneously strengthening our regional partnerships. If we maintain irregular warfare’s traditional focus on nonstate actors, we limit ourselves to addressing only the symptoms (nonstate actors), not the problems themselves (China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran).

Needed Reforms

· Make irregular warfare a cornerstone of security strategy. The U.S. can project strength through unified action with our Interagency, 38 allies, and partners by utilizing irregular warfare capabilities synchronized with elements of national power. Broadly redefining irregular warfare to address current state and nonstate actors is critical to countering irregular threats that range from the Chinese use of economic warfare to Russian disinformation and Islamist terrorism. A broad definition of irregular warfare in the National Security Strategy would allow for a whole-of government approach, thereby providing resources and capabilities to counter threats and ultimately serve as credible deterrence at the strategic and tactical levels.

1. Define irregular warfare as “a means by which the United States uses all elements of national power to project influence abroad to counter state adversaries, defeat hostile nonstate actors, deter wider conflict, and maintain peace in great-power competition.”

2. Characterize the state and nonstate irregular threats facing the U.S. by region in the National Security Strategy.

3. Direct that irregular warfare resources, capabilities, and strategies be incorporated directly into the overall National Defense Strategy instead of being relegated to a supporting document.

4. Establish an Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence to help DOD train, equip, and organize to conduct irregular warfare as a core competency across the spectrum of competition, crisis, and conflict.

· Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe.

1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense industrial base.

2. Use regional and global information operations to highlight Chinese violations of Exclusive Economic Zones, violations of human rights, and coercion along Chinese fault lines in Xinjiang Province, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in addition to China’s weaponization of sovereign debt.

3. Directly counter Chinese economic power with all elements of national power in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean to maintain maritime freedom of movement and protect the digital infrastructure of nations in the region.

· Establish credible deterrence through irregular warfare to protect the homeland. A whole-of-government approach and willingness to employ cyber, information, economic, and counterterrorist irregular warfare capabilities should be utilized to protect the homeland.

1. Include the designation of USSOCOM as lead for the execution of irregular warfare against hostile state and nonstate actors in the National Defense Strategy.

2. Demonstrate a willingness to employ offensive cyber capabilities against adversaries who conduct cyberattacks against U.S. infrastructure, businesses, personnel, and governments.

3. Employ a “name and shame” approach by making information regarding the names of entities that target democratic processes and international norms available in a transparent manner.

4. Work with the Interagency to employ economic warfare, lawfare, and diplomatic pressure against hostile state and nonstate actors.

5. Maintain the authorities necessary for an aggressive counterterrorism posture against threats to the homeland.

2. Chief of Staff of the Army Recommended Articles

All the articles can be accessed at this link: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Resources/CSA-Recommended-Articles/

Chief of Staff of the Army Recommended Articles

armyupress.army.mil

July 2024 Articles

Techcraft on Display in Ukraine

By Brian A. Hester, Dennis Doyle, and Ronan A. Sefton

This article observes Ukraine’s ability to rapidly adopt and implement new technologies on the battlefield while providing practical guidance for subordinate leaders to replicate these adaptations at scale with successful anecdotes from the field and emphasizes the importance of sharing these lessons by writing articles. Focus area: Continuous Transformation.

Notable Quote

“Tactics are a science, but applying tactics in combat is an art. A military force wins by seeing how general principles apply to a specific situation and being creative with combat solutions.”

Enabling Maneuver in Large Scale Combat Operations

By Sgt. Maj. Shane Short

This article discusses a potential gap in Signal Operations and offers actionable ways signal leaders can train their units to fill this gap, focusing on the self-development domain. Focus areas: Strengthening the Profession-Warfighting.

Notable Quote

“Subordinate units can only fight the plan and seize the initiative for so long before they need further command and control guidance. It is simply the history of warfare. But, as wars in the 21st century progress, the army with the best communicators, that understand adversary sensors and doctrine, will be the army with an asymmetric advantage.”

Continuous Transformation of the Army Installation

By Col. Matthew R. Myer, U.S. Army

This article advocates that more emphasis on the Army’s installations will reinforce each of the ASL’s four focus areas and provides a brief overview of each. Focus area: Continuous Transformation.

Notable Quote

“To support the warfighting mission, an installation garrison must integrate personnel and services to support unit campaign plans and operational planning.”

How to Think About Integrating Generative AI in Professional Military Education

By Maj. Patrick Kelly, U.S. Army, and Maj. Hannah Smith, U.S. Army

This article provides an overview of the opposing views regarding AI integration into Army classrooms then gives recommendations on AI use to the institutions and educators. Focus area: Continuous Transformation-Strengthening the Profession.

Notable Quote

“Failure to leverage AI tools in any capacity will mean forfeiting competitive advantages for our students, institution, and national defense. Crude, complete bans of AI tools will undermine our mission in the name of preserving it.”

armyupress.army.mil

3. An External Agenda for the NATO Summit

An External Agenda for the NATO Summit - Foreign Policy Research Institute

John Sitilides

John Sitilides is a Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is Principal at Trilogy Advisors LLC in Washington, D.C., specializing in U.S. government relations, geopolitical risk, and international affairs.

fpri.org · by John Sitilides

July 5, 2024

With leaders of the North Atlantic Alliance—along with dialogue partners from across the Indo-Pacific region—in Washington set to begin their consultations on July 9, they will have the opportunity to frame strategic responses to the shifting geopolitics of great power competition. Here are a few “action items” that should be on the summit agenda.

More NATO Flashpoints Outside Alliance Borders

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, incrementally destroying the country’s economy, infrastructure, and productive capacity, the NATO alliance must remain vigilant regarding additional escalating tensions outside its theater boundaries. These include Moldova, sandwiched between Ukraine and NATO member Romania; Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008 to carve out two breakaway pro-Moscow republics; the ongoing conflict between energy-rich Azerbaijan and increasingly impoverished Armenia; and the Balkans, where ethnic Serbs threaten to secede from Bosnia thirty years after regional conflicts resulted in the killings of 150,000 Europeans. None of these potential actions or hostilities violate any NATO sovereignty or territory, which leads to the question of whether and how the alliance would respond to a series of additional out-of-area mini-crises or wars as in Ukraine. Whether President Joe Biden is re-elected, or former President Donald Trump is elected to a second term, the White House in 2025 can be expected to call on delinquent alliance members to spend at least 2 percent and as much as 3 percent of GDP on defense procurement to free up scarce US forces and assets for re-deployment in the increasingly precarious Indo-Pacific region.

Strategic Deterrence to Protect Their National Security and Uphold the Global Trading System

In conjunction with the US intelligence community’s 2024 Annual Threat Assessment, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in April 2024 that the international security landscape is marked by an “increasingly fragile world order” that is testing and challenging US primacy on multiple fronts, “including great power competition with an ambitious, but anxious China in Asia and a confrontational Russia in Europe,” as well as regional conflicts afflicting the Middle East since the October 7 Hamas multi-pronged invasion of southern Israel. The multiplying, intensifying disruptions occurring in several of the most critical regions of the world are roiling the strategic planning of corporate executives and investment managers, especially in national and global energy markets. During the first half of 2024, US arch-rivals and lesser adversaries increasingly perceived American deterrence capabilities as weakened and therefore less credible.

Assessing and Coping with Iran’s Multiple Threats Across the Middle East

Hamas could not have perpetrated the sadistic atrocities against thousands of Israeli civilians without years of active training, organizing, and financing of its terror operations by Iran. Since the radical Shia theocracy took power in Tehran in the 1979 revolution, the Iranian regime has been actively encircling, threatening, and attacking Israel, its Gulf regional neighbors, and US personnel, bases, and regional assets through a series of proxy terror groups and organizations. Together, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq comprise the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” across the Middle East: from Iran to the eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, as far west as the Mediterranean coast of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, and south to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Sea.

The Axis is overseen by the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s military elite known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Tehran’s Shia theocracy has actively trained thousands of Hamas terrorists, with the State Department estimating financial support of up to $100 million annually since it seized power from the Palestinian Authority in Gaza in 2007. Much of the financing for these operations now comes from the spike in Iranian oil sales to China, especially since 2021, as Washington has relaxed US sanctions against Iranian oil buyers in an effort to coax Tehran to the negotiating table to restore the multi-national nuclear agreement. Tehran is believed to have earned $100 billion from renewed oil exports, about 90 percent of those to China.

The most important strategic asset of the Iranian-led axis is Hezbollah, deployed north of Israel in Lebanon. Iran has armed and trained about 40,000 Shia Hezbollah fighters, having invested between $700 million and $1 billion annually for years, dating back to the early 1980s.

The State Department describes Hezbollah as “the most technically capable terrorist group in the world.” Possessing more than 150,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel, increasingly armed with precision-guided technology, Hezbollah acts as the primary deterrent hedge against a major Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear energy and weapons facilities.

Global Shipping Under Assault in the Vital Red Sea Chokepoint

About fifteen years ago, Iran began arming Houthi rebels in Yemen, in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula astride the Bab al-Mandab strait: one of the world’s most important waterways and shipping chokepoints, through which about 12 percent of global shipping in volume passes annually. The Houthis declared solidarity with Hamas and continue attacking global shipping in the Red Sea, choking off regional sea lines of communication between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, disrupting European supply chains and rerouting commercial and energy shipping. Previously, about sixty ships daily crossed the Red Sea north towards Egypt’s Suez Canal or south into the Arabian Sea to turn east either to energy rich Gulf ports or the maritime superhighway across the Indian Ocean enroute to East Asia markets. Red Sea shipping has since collapsed by 80 percent and container ships are being re-routed around Africa, causing two-to-three-week delays, overburdening African ports with surging shipping traffic, and adding costs to international commerce between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Iran’s unprecedented barrage of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones against Israel in April is the first such direct military attack launched from Iranian soil, after decades of hiding behind its many regional terror, militia, and proxy forces. Israel’s complex Iron Dome defenses successfully destroyed the barrage with intelligence input from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Whether Iran’s failed attack was the outcome of strategic incompetence, hardware failures, or a deliberate decision to avoid escalation and re-establish deterrence remains speculative. Israel retaliated with a modest yet sharply-focused attack near Iran’s major nuclear facility, demonstrating its ability to evade Iranian missile defenses and destroy nearby air bases—as well as Iran’s valued nuclear related facilities. Israel remains the Middle East’s only nuclear power, with as many as eighty to 300 land-based nuclear-tipped missiles in hardened silos, on sophisticated fifth-generation aircraft and on submarines on near-constant patrol in the eastern Mediterranean Sea near its Haifa port, against which Tehran currently possesses zero capability to prevent from reaching targets in westernmost Iran.

Dealing with the Resurgence of Islamist Terrorist Activity

FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified before Congress that the Islamic State terror group is now an elevated threat within the United States and in western European countries following the devastating terror strikes in Iran in January 2024 and in Moscow in March 2024, the deadliest in Europe in twenty years. The FBI has about 4,000 open investigations into possible lone-wolf extremists, small groups inspired by Hamas, or larger coordinated attacks as in Moscow, with a significant increase since October 7. According to the White House, “there is no current evidence of a credible plot. We are extremely vigilant about the potential risk given the evolving threat landscape.”

Grappling with Hard Choices for Ukraine

Moscow’s broader attention remains concentrated on the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, now well into its third year with no diplomatic settlement in sight. The war of attrition may be reaching an inflection point whose further direction is under intensifying political debate in Washington and a nascent one in Europe. Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian industrial base into full-time war production mode and is rapidly expanding Russia’s munitions advantage over Ukraine, mobilizing and deploying significant additional manpower in captured Ukrainian territory, and pre-positioning armor for new offensives across central Ukraine towards Kyiv. The most recent US aid package is expected to sustain Ukrainian forces through the end of 2025. Ukraine’s economy and especially its civilian energy infrastructure is being targeted with Russian missiles, rockets, and drone bombardment with increasing lethality.

China’s Strategic Rivalry Versus the Free World

China continues to escalate its harassment of Taiwan since the January 2024 election of its current president. Dozens of Chinese aircraft regularly probe Taiwan’s defenses and US diplomatic and military responses to advance Beijing’s strategy of testing, exhausting Taiwan’s political leadership to eventually unify what China considers to be a mere renegade province with zero sovereignty over its future. This policy in turn reinforces Taiwan’s majority opposition to unification, especially after Beijing’s brutal crackdown on Hong Kong as a former “special administrative region,” largely extinguishing much remaining interest in Taipei in a “one country, two systems” outcome.

Beijing’s strategic calculus seems to entail gradually expanding its aggressive maritime patrols and frequent military airspace violations and transgressions around and over Taiwan, and where feasible, the South China Sea and the East China Sea, where it shares maritime boundaries with—and contests the sovereignty over the continental shelves and islands of—Japan and South Korea.

Those countries are also alarmed at Beijing’s hostile actions against the Philippines, largely obscured by the focus on Taiwan, as well as against many ASEAN countries that border the South China Sea. In response, the White House and Congress have deployed US Army Special Forces on Taiwanese islands, training troops in the event of an amphibious assault by China. This daring policy may undermine Washington’s long-standing adherence to maintaining the status quo: supporting a free-market democratic Taiwan that chooses its own domestic, political, and economic directions, but does not declare formal independence from Beijing. For the time being, this approach may be the most effective means of preventing a calamitous war in Asia that Bloomberg Economics projects could result in losses of $10 trillion, or 10 percent of global GDP.

China’s Global NetZero Supply Chain Dominance

In recent decades, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other leading European countries became willfully dependent on a hostile authoritarian Russian supplier of energy. The gradual deindustrialization of the continent’s major powers exposes the lack of strategic foresight regarding Moscow’s energy weaponization options. Now, a repeat of absent strategic foresight is playing out in the industrial West, as political leaders continue to forego “all of the above” energy supplies that provide a more robust domestic security, instead becoming dependent on a hostile authoritarian Chinese supplier of energy to power their economies in the decades ahead. Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program set to dominate the leading breakthrough-technologies of the 21st century includes battery electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. Chinese Communist leaders saw the opportunity in the early 2000s to exploit the growing impulse in Western capitals to abandon reliable, affordable, and readily available coal, oil, and natural gas and to instead pursue intermittent, weather-dependent alternative energy production as a replacement for hydrocarbons. China now dominates the global production of these alternative energy sectors of growing importance in the United States and European Union, due mostly to massive distortional government subsidies of their mandated installation and consumption.

Energy Realism for a Robust National Security

China also dominates the global electric vehicle supply chain and seems positioned to do so for the foreseeable future. The Communist Party is targeting Germany’s global automotive industrial lead just as it successfully collapsed Germany’s and Europe’s solar panel manufacturing advantages in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Those industries are now flattened in Europe, and China controls most of the refining and processing of rare earth elements required to build solar panels, wind turbines, and all-electric vehicles, as well as their batteries. These alternative energy sectors cannot be built without the production of steel and cement that require massive inputs of energy-dense coal, oil, and natural gas. As Beijing tightens its grip on the manufacturing of these alternative energy components, it is also the world leader in coal plant expansion and is planning as many as 300 new coal projects at an equivalent rate of two coal power plants being permitted every week, each one designed to last forty years and offsetting the carbon emissions reductions undertaken in the United States and Europe.

Whether Biden is re-elected or Trump is elected to a second term, the United States will continue to be the world’s leading oil and natural gas producer and export superpower. Washington will need to urge energy importing countries, such as Germany and Taiwan, to regard their national security more seriously, reallocate federal budgets to prioritize military preparedness and bolster regional deterrence, and diversify their energy supplies more realistically amid the most significant international security upheavals of this still-young century.

Image: NATO

fpri.org · by John Sitilides

4. Nepalis thought they were going to Russia to ‘help.’ They were made to fight – and die.

An untold story (at least for me).

I guess we should not be surprised by this RUssian brutality but it is still hard for me to fathom the depths to which Russia will go.

Excerpts:

Russia has sent thousands of foreign “helpers” to the front lines of the Ukraine war – including many from Nepal, where families of missing recruits are searching for answers. Their struggle underscores the importance of closure and responsibility.

In Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, they have left painful mysteries in their wake.

Estimates of the number of Nepalis fighting in Ukraine range from 3,000 to 15,000. Campaigners for families of missing recruits say they have details of more than 600 Nepali nationals who have joined the Russian army, including Bhuwan Pun, a former teacher who was hired as a “helper” last year. His family hasn’t heard from him since September.

The Nepali government has banned Russian recruitment and urged Russia to repatriate the bodies of those killed in the war, but local politician Kritu Bhandari wants more.

Nepalis thought they were going to Russia to ‘help.’ They were made to fight – and die.

The Christian Science Monitor · by The Christian Science Monitor · July 5, 2024

Russia’s push for foreign fighters has given rise to scams and trafficking operations throughout the Global South, and landed thousands of people from low-income nations on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Often, recruits are promised well-paying support jobs as cooks or cleaners, and are required to pay expensive travel and immigration fees, before being sent to a war zone.

Why We Wrote This

Russia has sent thousands of foreign “helpers” to the front lines of the Ukraine war – including many from Nepal, where families of missing recruits are searching for answers. Their struggle underscores the importance of closure and responsibility.

In Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, they have left painful mysteries in their wake.

Estimates of the number of Nepalis fighting in Ukraine range from 3,000 to 15,000. Campaigners for families of missing recruits say they have details of more than 600 Nepali nationals who have joined the Russian army, including Bhuwan Pun, a former teacher who was hired as a “helper” last year. His family hasn’t heard from him since September.

The Nepali government has banned Russian recruitment and urged Russia to repatriate the bodies of those killed in the war, but local politician Kritu Bhandari wants more.

“It is the responsibility of the government to protect the lives of its citizens. Our government is not fulfilling its responsibilities,” says Ms. Bhandari, a leading advocate for families of Nepali fighters. “They have left hundreds of men to die out there in that brutal war.”

For months, Roji Pun has been regularly visiting the Russian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Each time she knocks at the gate of the high-walled compound, her 21-month-old son in tow, and asks the same desperate question: Where is my husband?

Bhuwan Pun’s family hasn’t heard from him since he joined the Russian army as a “helper” last September. He is one of thousands of Nepali men who have been lured north by a lucrative package that Moscow announced last year for foreign recruits.

Why We Wrote This

Russia’s aggressive push to attract foreign fighters has given rise to scams and trafficking operations throughout the Global South, including in India and Cuba. Often, recruits are promised support jobs as army helpers, cooks, or cleaners, and are required to pay expensive travel and immigration fees, before being sent to the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine war.

In Nepal, they have left broken families and painful mysteries in their wake. While the government has banned Russian recruitment in Nepal, which has slowed the outflow of mercenaries, local politician and activist Kritu Bhandari believes leaders are not doing enough “to rescue our brothers.”

In the meantime, she and other campaigners are urging Russian authorities to allow Nepali fighters to return home “on a humanitarian basis.”

Russia’s war needs

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been taxing. Various intelligence agencies estimate that the Kremlin suffered an average of more than 1,000 casualties a day in May, the highest casualty rate since the war began. Early reports suggest that June was equally catastrophic.

To maintain its offensives – and preserve the government’s popularity – Moscow has mobilized incarcerated people, utilized foreign mercenary groups, recruited troops from former Soviet republics, and launched a global recruitment drive that has sent thousands of troops from low-income nations to the front lines.

Courtesy of Bhuwan Pun’s family

The family of Bhuwan Pun, a Nepali man, hasn't heard from him since he joined the Russian army as a “helper” in September 2023.

Nepal is among the poorest countries in the world, with an unemployment rate of 11.1% and more than 15% of its people living below the poverty line, according to World Bank data.

Lack of economic opportunity forces 1,700 Nepalis to leave the landlocked Himalayan nation every day. According to the 2021 census, nearly 2.1 million Nepalis live outside Nepal, 7.4% of the total population, the majority of whom work in informal sectors. The Russia-Ukraine war has become a new attraction.

There are no precise figures for Nepalis fighting in Ukraine. A prisoner of war recently told Ukrainian authorities that he saw some 200 Nepalis during his brief spell in the Russian military, and guessed that 3,000 to 4,000 had joined up. Other reports suggest that as many as 15,000 Nepali men have been drafted into the Russian war effort.

Campaigners for families of missing recruits say they have details of more than 600 Nepali nationals who have joined the Russian army, including some who have managed to return home.

A survivor’s tale

Among the escapees is I. Sunar, who is trying to rebuild his life in Nepal and asked that his full name not be printed in order to preserve his privacy.

Mr. Sunar was working as a police officer when he met a recruitment agent in Kathmandu. The agent said he would be helping military personnel in urban areas, away from any active war zone, and the job paid nine times more than his $225-a-month salary in Nepal.

“I thought it would change my life for the better,” says Mr. Sunar, hands shaking as he walks through a busy Kathmandu market.

Mr. Sunar had to pay the agent roughly $2,600 to arrange his travel and bribe a Nepali immigration officer (who authorities say has since been suspended). His experience aligns closely with other survivors’ reports, and the senior superintendent of police in Kathmandu, who has been investigating the case, confirmed the details in this story.

Mr. Sunar landed in Moscow on Sept. 20 along with half a dozen other Nepali men. To their surprise, they were swept off to a military training facility where they spent two weeks in boot camp before being sent to the front lines.

“On the front lines, it was very cold, and there was no proper management of food and water,” Mr. Sunar recalls. “Every day someone among us would get killed, and no one was recovering their bodies or recording their deaths.”

It was in December, after barely escaping a drone strike that killed eight Nepalis serving alongside him, that Mr. Sunar decided to flee.

“I did not want to die without making any efforts to save my life,” he says.

Often, the same trafficking networks that are involved in bringing fighters to Russia also help getting deserters out. But Mr. Sunar credits his escape to good fortune and determination. After he deserted his post, he says it took five days of walking, hitchhiking, and swimming across rivers to reach Moscow.

“I cannot describe the happiness I felt on reaching the Nepal Embassy,” he says. “God saved me.”

Courtesy of Kritu Bhandari

Activist Kritu Bhandari (second from right), along with other activists during a hunger strike in Kathmandu, is demanding the return of Nepalis trapped in Russia, May 5, 2024.

Families seek closure

During one of the few calls Mr. Pun had with his wife, he mentioned that he was being sent on a similar weekslong military training course.

That would have been a shock to Mr. Pun, who had been making $112 a month as a teacher when a relative told him about the “helper” job in Russia. A monthly salary of $2,000 and the prospect of obtaining a Russian passport after a year felt like a dream for the Pun family. He was never told anything about serving in a combat unit.

“After that, there was no call from him,” says Ms. Pun. Despite repeated attempts to reach her husband, she heard nothing from Russia until her phone buzzed the evening of Feb. 12.

On the line was a man who identified himself as a friend of her husband's, also working in the Russian army, who told her that her husband had been killed.

Devastated and confused, Ms. Pun left her in-laws’ house in Pokhara, Nepal, moving to the capital, where she hoped the Russian Embassy would be able to offer more information. But whenever she visits, the guards turn her away.

She can’t bring herself to tell her in-laws about the February phone call without official confirmation or proof that her husband is dead.

“I am still in disbelief,” she says, tears streaking her face. “If he has been killed, the Russian government should send us his dead body.”

Nepal’s foreign ministry has urged Russia to repatriate the bodies of its citizens killed in the war, and the government has banned citizens from traveling to Russia or Ukraine for work.

But Ms. Bhandari, the campaigner, wants more.

Her group has organized protests, marches, and hunger strikes demanding the rescue of Nepali citizens serving in Russia. “But instead of taking any concrete action, the government is harassing us,” she says, referring to an April sit-in where she and several other activists were detained by police.

Demonstrators say they want Nepali officials to leverage their connections with more influential countries – such as China and India – to pressure Russia to expedite the return of Nepali citizens and bodies. Other demands include compensation for victims’ families, treatment of those wounded in the war, and information on fighters who have gone missing.

“No matter what happens, I will not abandon these families,” Ms. Bhandari says. “We will keep raising our voice until our men are brought back.”

You've read of free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Help fund Monitor journalism for $11/ month

Already a subscriber? Login

Mark Sappenfield

Editor

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

Our work isn't possible without your support.

Unlimited digital access $11/month.

Already a subscriber? Login

Digital subscription includes:

Unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
CSMonitor.com archive.
The Monitor Daily email.
No advertising.
Cancel anytime.

The Christian Science Monitor · by The Christian Science Monitor · July 5, 2024

5. Iran’s Voters Elect Their First Reformist President in Two Decades

I will listen to the Iran experts when they weigh in. Can there be a real reformer in a leadership role in Iran?

Iran’s Voters Elect Their First Reformist President in Two Decades

Fear of a hard-line alternative drove higher turnout for a candidate who pledged to rein in morality police and resume nuclear talks

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/irans-voters-elect-their-first-reformist-president-in-two-decades-f5ca653f?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Benoit Faucon

Follow and Aresu Eqbali

Updated July 6, 2024 4:15 am ET

A voter casting a ballot in Tehran. PHOTO: ARNE IMMANUEL BANSCH/ZUMA PRESS

Iranians turned out in higher numbers than in previous votes to elect a reformist president who ran on a platform of re-engaging with the West and loosening the country’s strict moral codes for women.

Liberal voters, confronted with a stark choice between a cautious reformer and a tough hard-liner, shook off some of the disillusionment that had led to very low turnout in the initial presidential vote a week ago and turned out to the polls for a runoff that put a reform candidate in office for the first time in two decades.

Little-known politician Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old surgeon, won with more than 53% of the vote, beating his hard-line rival Saeed Jalili, 58, according to official results announced by the Interior Ministry on state television. Turnout was 49.8%, up from 40% in the initial election and at the high end of speculation ahead of the vote.

Now Pezeshkian will have to operate in the treacherous theater of Iranian politics to manage a battered economy and an increasingly disaffected population that has erupted in protests repeatedly over the past decade. He has vowed to work to restore a 2015 pact that lifted international sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program, rein in the country’s hated morality police who force women to cover their hair, and stand against curbs on the internet.

Iran’s government approves all candidates, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has the final say on policy. Amid the tight control, however, the government tolerates a degree of competitive presidential campaigning and voting in hopes of appearing responsive and keeping disgruntled citizens from dropping out of the system.

As the second-highest-ranking official in Iran after the Supreme Leader, the president oversees economic policies and appoints a cabinet that includes key decisionmakers in areas from foreign affairs to the strategic oil industry. But decisions can be blocked by the parliament and by the Supreme Leader. In practice, the president has little influence on security and military matters, which are in the hands of Khamenei and the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A young woman leaving the polling station in a poor religious area on the outskirts of Tehran said she hadn’t voted last week but did so this time to keep the hard-line conservative Jalili from winning.

Another woman, a 45-year-old nurse in Tehran, said she hoped economic and social conditions would improve but really just wanted to keep the other side out.

“I am so happy now by the thought of how Jalili and his people are sad right now,” said the nurse, who skipped the first round of voting, seeing it as pointless. “I do not expect much by voting. The other group, they always sabotage things. It is just important that the other group did not get hold of the country’s steering wheel.”

Iranian reformist Masoud Pezeshkian was elected president with more than 53% of the vote. PHOTO: ATTA KENARE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

It has been years since Iran allowed a reformist to run for president. The result is a sign of the pressure Iran’s theocratic rulers are under as the country tires of economic decay and strict moral codes.

The announced turnout figures, while an improvement from the first round, showed the level of disaffection remains high.

Pezeshkian’s election also gives Iran’s leaders a way to soften their image even as they strengthen ties with Russia and China and build up their network of allied militias, posing the greatest threat to U.S. allies and interests in the Middle East since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979.

His opponent had pledged to sharpen the conflict with those who imposed sanctions on Iran.

Born in the western city of Mahabad, Pezeshkian pitches himself as a unifying, empathetic figure who lost his wife and a child in a car accident. He has vowed to address grievances of a protest movement that rocked the country in 2022 following the death in custody of a young woman accused of violating the regime’s strict Islamic dress code.

Voting also took place abroad. Ehsan, a 26-year-old data scientist from Tehran who has been in London for six months, said he had voted for Pezeshkian because he found his frankness refreshing.

“He criticized the internet blockade live on TV,” he said. “It’s a leap.”

As he spoke, he was repeatedly interrupted by monarchist protesters who said his vote only legitimized the regime.

But Pezeshkian faces an uphill battle to make a difference in a system dominated by conservative institutions including the judiciary, the military and top officials all the way up to the supreme leader.

Saeed Jalili, the rival candidate, waving to supporters during the presidential runoff election Friday. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

As a health minister under reformist President Mohammad Khatami between 2001 and 2005, he saw firsthand how attempts to liberalize elections could be blocked by hard-liners. Pezeshkian’s ambition to ease rules on the veil and to revive the economy through a nuclear pact could face a veto from a conservative parliament.

Pezeshkian himself has carefully avoided crossing the regime’s red lines. He hasn’t called for an end to the compulsory veil and has turned up at rallies with his hijab-wearing daughter. During the campaign, he zealously pledged his loyalty to the political system, once donning the green uniform of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military force tasked with defending the regime, and praising commander Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. strike in 2020.

“His flexibility is a reason why Pezeshkian survived and stayed in the game when others were sidelined,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran-focused director at Brussels-based Crisis Group.

Speaking after the results were declared, Pezeshkian expressed gratitude to those who voted “with love and to help” the country.

“We will extend the hand of friendship to everyone,” he said on state television, an acknowledgement that he will have to accommodate the country’s hard-liners . “We are all people of this country. We should use everyone for the progress of the country.”

Pezeshkian’s opponent, Jalili, presented a starkly different approach to Iran’s difficulties. A hard-liner who lost a leg fighting with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the 1980s war with Iraq, he advocated stricter penalties against women who don’t properly cover their hair, saying the rules play a central role to “preserve and strengthen the sanctity of the institution of family.”

Jalili had rejected calls to revive the 2015 pact that lifted international sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program before the U.S. pulled out of the deal in 2018. He vowed to bypass the restrictions and expand trade with Russia instead.

The new president succeeds conservative President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

6. A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything From Smartphones to Missiles

I did not realize CHina and Russia are the dominant producers of titanium.

Excerpts:

Initial tests have shown that these composite bolts perform just as well as metal ones when they’re new. At the same time, they’re lighter, easier to make, potentially cheaper, and not subject to geopolitical supply chain issues linked to the world’s dominant suppliers of titanium, Russia and China.

Koh won’t know how well these composite bolts will perform over time until his company runs the kinds of repeated torture tests that are required to certify such parts.

Other applications of these new composites won’t take as long to come to market—especially for consumer products. Arris is in talks with at least one company about the use of their composites in virtual reality headsets, where weight has been a major barrier to adoption.

Further out, it’s possible that someday we might be able to buy smartphones made of composites instead of metal. The same goes for automobiles. But this also depends on the kind of inertia that even the best tech can’t overcome—consumers associate metal with quality, says Reese, even if it’s not actually the strongest, lightest or best material for a given application.

A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything From Smartphones to Missiles

Labor-intensive manufacturing has limited the use of lighter, stronger composites but that may change with emerging techniques

https://www.wsj.com/tech/composites-manufacturing-boeing-drones-arris-9t-orbital-a422de1b?mod=hp_lead_pos4

By Christopher Mims

July 5, 2024 9:00 pm ET

There have been only a handful of ages of new materials in the history of humankind—ceramics, steel and plastics come to mind—and we are now on the cusp of the next one: composites.

When we talk of composites, we’re speaking about such things as the carbon-fiber ones in wind turbines, race cars and the Boeing 787. Such materials have the advantage of being far lighter than the metal parts they typically replace, while being just as strong, and requiring fewer resources to make.

Materials scientists have had limited success making composites affordable and accessible for decades, or possibly millennia—technically, they were invented by the Mesopotamians. The labor-intensive nature of their manufacturing has made them expensive, which has limited their application to a handful of areas where their advantages outweigh their costs, such as the aerospace industry.

Now, thanks to new manufacturing techniques that can churn out composite parts quickly and cheaply, all of that is changing, and the results could be both profound and exciting.

Modern composites, starting with Bakelite, were pioneered in the early part of the 20th century. Other composites were invented at a steady pace, and the industry began to hit its stride in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when automated processes for turning things like carbon fiber into giant structures like airplane bodies and windmill blades reached maturity.

In a pioneering use of carbon-fiber composites, nearly every visible surface of the Boeing 787 is made of such materials. PHOTO: JULIETTE MICHEL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

In just the past couple of years, a number of startups have developed processes for creating all sorts of small objects from composites, in a way that is fast and inexpensive. These include Berkeley, Calif.-based Arris Composites, 9T Labs in Zurich, Orbital Composites in Silicon Valley, and others.

Shifting substantial portions of what we make and use from steel and plastic to composites—which are amalgamations of a variety of fibers, embedded in a variety of plastics—could bring new kinds of transportation, more terrifying weapons of war, and lighter and more durable smartphones, wearables and other consumer electronics.

All of that is possible because composites, while they have their challenges, are often able to perform just as well as high-strength metal parts, but with a fraction of the weight. Composites are the reason modern jetliners are so fuel-efficient, and the entire wind-power industry would be impossible without enormous turbine blades made from composites.

It’s one thing to make airplanes out of composites—Boeing pioneered this technology with its 787, on which nearly every visible surface is in fact made of a carbon-fiber composite. It’s quite another to mass-produce smaller composite parts of the kind that we typically make out of titanium or other metals, such as the bolts and brackets that hold a 787 together.

As with other pioneering manufacturing technologies, such as 3-D printing, bringing composites into the mainstream is more of an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one.

Today, you can buy consumer products made with ultralight, ultrastrong parts from Arris and 9T Labs, including Brooks running shoes, spokes for bicycle wheels, and luxury watches. But what’s coming is even more interesting: Arris’s technology is being tested by Airbus to replace metal brackets inside its planes and by Singapore-based ST Engineering, which performs a substantial fraction of the repairs on airplanes in the U.S.

Some Brooks running shoes include carbon-fiber parts.

BROOKS

9T Labs is also working on aerospace applications, and by the end of the year it hopes at least one of its customers will be ready to announce bicycles made with its parts. Orbital Composites, meanwhile, has a handful of contracts with the U.S. military to develop its composites-manufacturing process for satellites, rockets, drones and hypersonic aircraft.

Making the shell of a Formula One car, or the frame of a high-end competition bicycle, remains a labor-intensive process, says 9T Labs Chief Executive Martin Eichenhofer. The goal of his company, and of others in his industry, is to take all of the intensive and skilled manual labor out of the process, and to make it as automated as making metal and plastic parts has been for decades.

To achieve that level of automation, the manufacturing process used by companies like Arris and 9T Labs is quite different from the one airplane and wind-turbine makers use, says Jeff Sloan, publisher of Composites World, which covers the industry.

Arris shapes carbon fibers using a process that resembles wire bending—imagine how something like a coat hanger is made—says CEO Riley Reese. Then, those shaped fibers are put into a resin, and the resulting form is put into a custom mold that applies heat and pressure to further compress, shape and strengthen the part. 9T Labs uses a similar process, but starts by using “additive manufacturing” (similar to 3-D printing) to lay down narrow strips of carbon fiber into a particular shape, and then molding it in a way similar to Arris’s process, says Eichenhofer.

Orbital Composites is using substantially different processes, says CEO Amolak Badesha. Using off-the-shelf industrial robots with custom print heads that spit out carbon fiber, the company 3-D prints shapes in a process that resembles Harold’s purple crayon, for those familiar with the children’s book. The difference is that while Harold could draw in three dimensions any shape he liked, Orbital uses removable molds to support its carbon-fiber shapes as they’re being printed.

Wood is the original composite material, composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances. PHOTO: BRIAN A. POUNDS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The sheer variety of the automated approaches used by these three companies is typical of the fragmented composites-manufacturing industry. It also shows that there are many possible paths to success for these companies, which are exploring a fundamental new way to make stuff—just as, in another era, many companies developed methods of injection-molding plastics, or forging and machining metal.

While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of the success of our species, and it exhibits many of the advantages and disadvantages of composites.

Wood is light, strong, able to withstand both compression and tension, and is easily worked into other forms. But it can also split along axes that line up with its grain. Similarly, composites can suffer a number of failures, including splitting between their layers.

By far the biggest challenge with new composites technologies, says Jeremy Koh, head of advanced-materials solutions at ST Engineering, is that over time, they can break down because of fatigue. His company is currently experimenting with composite replacements for titanium bolts in airplanes, made with Arris’s manufacturing process.

Initial tests have shown that these composite bolts perform just as well as metal ones when they’re new. At the same time, they’re lighter, easier to make, potentially cheaper, and not subject to geopolitical supply chain issues linked to the world’s dominant suppliers of titanium, Russia and China.

Koh won’t know how well these composite bolts will perform over time until his company runs the kinds of repeated torture tests that are required to certify such parts.

Other applications of these new composites won’t take as long to come to market—especially for consumer products. Arris is in talks with at least one company about the use of their composites in virtual reality headsets, where weight has been a major barrier to adoption.

Further out, it’s possible that someday we might be able to buy smartphones made of composites instead of metal. The same goes for automobiles. But this also depends on the kind of inertia that even the best tech can’t overcome—consumers associate metal with quality, says Reese, even if it’s not actually the strongest, lightest or best material for a given application.

For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines,sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com

7. Russia destroyed Ukraine’s energy sector, so it’s being rebuilt green

Russia destroyed Ukraine’s energy sector, so it’s being rebuilt green

Even as Ukrainians face one of the darkest winters in their history, authorities see an upside: Ukraine can build a cleaner, eco-friendly energy sector.

By David L. Stern

July 5, 2024 at 3:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by David L. Stern · July 5, 2024

KYIV — By relentlessly attacking Ukraine’s power sector for the past two years with missiles and drones, Russian President Vladimir Putin has inadvertently accelerated the country’s shift to greener energy options.

Even as Ukrainians look toward one of the coldest and darkest winters in their history, authorities see a potential upside: Ukraine can now begin anew and create a cleaner, eco-friendly energy sector.

“The war, of course, is a tragedy, but it depends on you, how you react to it,” said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, CEO of Ukraine’s state electricity distributor, Ukrenergo. “You can say ‘Okay, it’s a horrible situation, and we are just victims’ — or we can try to build back better, to come back in better shape.”

The plan is to switch from large smoke-belching thermal power facilities — Ukraine has nine of those, which provide electricity to much of the country — to a mix of renewable energy like wind and solar, battery storage and biofuel installations.

At the same time, officials say, there will be a vast network of smaller gas-fired turbines spread around the country, producing just enough electricity to power a small town or city district, that are also less vulnerable to attack.

“We cannot say that it’s a good thing that the war led to this. But we can say … it’s our strategic task to use the situation,” Kudrytskyi said. He added that, because of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine will introduce a low-carbon energy system before many European countries.

Energy sector crippled ahead of winter

The task is daunting, however. Ukraine is undertaking an overhaul of its energy sector as it remains locked in battle with Russia. What’s more, authorities must attract outside investors and financing, arrange some form of wartime insurance and create a regulatory framework for a new, decentralized energy system.

Ukraine is already partially a clean-energy country. Around half of its electricity comes from its nuclear power plants, which produce no emissions. Hydroelectric plants provide some electrical capacity, but the Russians have targeted them extensively. Green energy like solar and wind has dropped sharply since the start of the war but made up around 10 percent of production as of last year, the country’s Energy Ministry said.

However, thermal plants are crucial and necessary to cover short-term increases in consumption.

Because of Russian airstrikes, Ukraine has lost around nine gigawatts of the 18 gigawatts needed for peak consumption this winter — far too much to recover in a short period of time. Officials say electricity could be limited to five to seven hours a day — or less — during the frigid winter months.

Ukrainian officials are trying to cobble together enough equipment from outside the country to keep the blackouts at a manageable level. Some of that equipment will go to repair the thermal power plants that are salvageable, officials said.

But the Ukrainian government has also begun to purchase the small gas turbines, which officials hope will generate somewhere between a half gigawatt and one gigawatt this winter and help cities provide basic services in the case of sudden blackouts.

As more sources of renewable energy come online in the ensuing years, officials say, the dependence on the turbines will lessen, and they will be used primarily to balance the energy load in the electrical grid.

Ultimately, there could be thousands of these units around the country. Together with the wind and solar farms, they would make it much harder for Russian missiles to target the energy system.

“Just imagine a situation two, three years from now where we have these hundreds of new gas-generation installations and we have wind farms, some more solar farms, biomass where it’s possible — it will be really a quite robust system against missile attacks,” said Yuri Kubrushko, founder of Imepower, a Ukrainian energy consultancy.

“Because it’s quite easy for Russians to target 10 large power plants, it’s really a no-brainer,” he said. But when there is a system of smaller units, “it’s really not worth shooting an Iskander [ballistic missile] at every two- or three-megawatt gas engine in every small town.”

Finding the funding

There are a host of obstacles, however — not least the challenge of attracting investors to a country engaged in the largest European conflict since World War II.

Since March, Russian forces have regularly pummeled Ukraine with missiles and drones, often damaging energy facilities that had only recently been repaired after previous attacks. DTEK power plants, for instance, have been attacked more than 180 times, according to the company.

Rolling power outages have been introduced to deal with the energy shortfall this summer.

Major international players “would be rather reluctant to commit to investments in Ukraine during times of war,” said Grzegorz Zielinski, head of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development’s Energy Europe team.

“So the approach is different, is very sort of bottom up, identifying those few investors who are willing to commit equity,” he said. “That predominantly means the Ukrainian investors because, for them, the perception of risk is very different.”

Some outside firms are interested nonetheless. The EBRD signed a joint-venture agreement with Germany’s Goldbeck Solar Investment at the Ukraine Recovery Conference last month in Berlin to develop some 500 megawatts of solar energy over the next three to five years.

Securing international financing is also a problem — along with convincing insurance companies to provide risk coverage. “We don’t have access to commercial funding,” said Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company.

DTEK provides the bulk of thermal-generated electricity in Ukraine — the company has lost close to 90 percent of its generating capacity, Timchenko said — but it is also a major player in renewable energy. A Russian missile attack recently targeted one of the company’s solar farms, but the damage was quickly repaired, as solar panels are much easier to fix and replace than power plants.

Timchenko said he fully supports turning Ukraine into clean-energy paradise, and experts say DTEK will more than likely play a role in the project. However, international institutions are hesitant to provide financing to the company because it is owned by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest oligarch, which Western diplomats say raises corporate governance issues.

Long-term projects, slow return

It will also be difficult to come up with an efficient system to regulate a decentralized grid for the whole of Ukraine — a country roughly the size of Texas — while assuring investors that they will see a steady revenue stream.

“If someone wants to invest in renewables — where the useful life of the asset is 20, 25, 30 years — they want to have a decent degree of comfort that the regulatory framework is going to stay there for a long time,” said the EBRD’s Zielinski.

Ukraine’s previous forays to support renewable energy have been mixed, and reform of the energy industry — a traditionally opaque and highly lucrative area for the country’s oligarchs — has long been blocked, observers say. Last year, the Ukrainian government was reported to owe renewable-energy producers some $500 million.

If the clean-energy plan is carried out, it will cost billions of dollars and ultimately take years to implement. But Ukrenergo’s Kudrytskyi said Ukraine must start immediately to be prepared “for the winters to come.”

“Because if we do not start this now, the winter of 2025-2026 will be much more challenging that the winter of 2024-2025.”

Kostiantyn Khudov contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by David L. Stern · July 5, 2024

8. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 5, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 5, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-5-2024

Key Takeaways:

Russian President Vladimir Putin used a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on July 5 to oppose a negotiated ceasefire altogether and expressed his commitment to pursuing a "final" end to the war that would achieve his goal of destroying Ukrainian statehood.

Putin is demanding both the surrender of a significant portion of Ukraine's territory and people to Russian occupation and Ukrainian military capitulation in advance of any negotiations on an end-state to the war.

Ukrainian counteroffensive operations that liberate operationally significant territory remain the soundest course of action for degrading Putin's confidence in and commitment to his desired end state for his war of aggression against Ukraine.

Putin's rejection of any ceasefire agreement contradicts the Kremlin's previous effort to place the onus for negotiations on the West and Ukraine.

Putin attempted to portray Orban as an EU representative who can speak on the EU's behalf – a claim that EU officials explicitly denied.

Recent Russian domestic polls suggest that Kremlin information operations are influencing domestic Russian support of the war in Ukraine.

These Russian polls indicate that Russians who criticize the conduct of the war in Ukraine still support the war due to patriotism and disenfranchisement.

Many of Russia's "non-opponents" to the war have criticisms that parallel those of Russian ultranationalist milbloggers, yet they lack the ultranationalists' close attention to the war and desire for political change in support of Russian war aims.

Ukrainian forces conducted successful drone and missile strikes against targets in Tambov and Rostov oblasts and Krasnodar Krai on July 4 and 5.

Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Toretsk, and Donetsk City.

Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officials continue to portray themselves as providing adequate medical care and other support for Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine amid ongoing criticisms that the Russian military command sends injured soldiers to fight on the frontline.

9. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, July 5, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, July 5, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-july-5-2024

Key Takeaways:

Iran: Iran held the second round of its presidential election between ultraconservative hardliner candidate Saeed Jalili and moderate candidate Masoud Pezeshkian on July 5.

Ceasefire Negotiations: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a delegation led by Mossad Director David Barnea to Doha, Qatar on July 5 to continue ceasefire talks.

Gaza Strip: Hamas tactics and Shujaiya’s dense, urban terrain are presenting challenges for the IDF, in some cases requiring that Israeli infantry clear buildings multiple times.

Lebanon: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah discussed Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks and security developments in the Gaza Strip with a senior Hamas delegation in Beirut on July 5.

10. Family members serving aboard two Navy ships reunite in the Mediterranean Sea

I enjoy following the skipper of the Ike on twitter to watch his morale building work.

Chowdah Hill

@ChowdahHill

Family members serving aboard two Navy ships reunite in the Mediterranean Sea

Stars and Stripes · by Alison Bath · July 5, 2024

Sailors from the USS Wasp greet their family members aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Mediterranean Sea, June 30, 2024. (Caroline Pontier/Navy)

NAPLES, Italy — Sailors from the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp visited family members aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, ahead of the aircraft carrier’s imminent return to the U.S. after nearly nine months at sea.

Six service members aboard Wasp were flown on an MH-60 Seahawk helicopter to Eisenhower as both ships transited the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday, the Navy said.

The roughly two-hour visits came as the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group and the British navy ship HMS Duncan conducted operations together.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower sails beside the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp in the Mediterranean Sea, June 30, 2024. Six service members from Wasp were flown on an MH-60 Seahawk helicopter to Eisenhower for reunions with family members on June 30, 2024. ( Merissa Daley/U.S. Navy)

The Eisenhower group, which includes the destroyer USS Gravely and the cruiser USS Philippine Sea, entered the Mediterranean Sea on June 22 after more than seven months combating Iranian-backed Houthi militant efforts to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea.

Eisenhower, Gravely and Philippine Sea left the region Thursday and are in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet said Friday.

The Wasp group, which includes the dock landing ship USS Oak Hill, the amphibious transport dock ship USS New York and embarked elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, arrived in the area late last month.

For Petty Officer 3rd Class Daniel Arbodleda, the chance to see family after a lengthy deployment was unexpected but joyful.

“I was ecstatic when I found out that there was a chance that I might actually get to see my husband after being away for nine months,” Arbodleda, a logistics specialist aboard Eisenhower, said Friday in a statement. “Before we left, we accepted the fact that we were not going to see each other for at least a year.”

Even so, the reunion was bittersweet, “saying our goodbyes for the second time was a bit harder than the last,” said Arbodleda’s husband, Petty Officer 3rd Class MarkKevin Escalante, a machinist’s mate serving on Wasp.

The morale booster also was enjoyed by family members and friends who saw the reunion photo posted to Wasp’s Facebook page.

“My handsome husband, my beautiful daughter and her boyfriend all in one photo,” said Alexas Gore in a comment on the post.

Petty Officer 1st Class Sherry Moreno said she was grateful to visit her nephew, Petty Officer 3rd Class Marc Diver, an aviation ordnanceman aboard Eisenhower.

“Seeing his face when I walked in and being able to hug him was the best,” said Moreno, an aviation support equipment technician. “Our family’s excitement seeing us together while both of us are on deployment is something very few can say they have experienced.”

On Tuesday, the destroyer USS Mason, also part of the strike group, returned to its homeport in Mayport, Fla., after nearly nine months in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and eastern Mediterranean, the Navy said.

During that time, Mason faced unprecedented attacks by Houthi fighters based in Yemen, the service said.

Mason, along with Eisenhower, Gravely, Philippine Sea, and the destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Carney and USS Laboon, received a combat action ribbon in April for performance under enemy fire, Military.com reported May 24.

Stars and Stripes · by Alison Bath · July 5, 2024

11. Backlash rising to Marcos Jr's US-friendly policy pivot

Excerpts:

“What we’ll do is we will apply the same level of force that would allow us to defend ourselves,” declared AFP Chief of Staff General Brawner, referring to the prospect of more collisions with Chinese vessels in the disputed waters.

“If a knife is used, for example, our personnel will also use a knife, nothing more, under the concept of proportionality,” he added, clarifying the rules of engagement for Philippine servicemen resupplying and sustaining the country’s de facto military base on the contested shoal.

“When I said that we’ll fight back, I meant we won’t allow ourselves to be bullied just like that, just like what happened the last time because, of course, our adversaries had weapons,” Brawner added, underscoring the military’s commitment to stay its current course despite growing risks of armed confrontation as well as criticism from high-profile politicians at home.

Backlash rising to Marcos Jr's US-friendly policy pivot - Asia Times

Critical voices getting louder as speculation swirls US has positioned a potent missile system aimed at China on Philippine soil

asiatimes.com · by Richard Javad Heydarian · July 5, 2024

MANILA – Following last month’s near-fatal showdown over the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, the Philippines and China have resumed diplomatic contacts in a bid to defuse dangerously rising tensions in the South China Sea.

On July 2, at the latest round of the so-called Bilateral Consultation Mechanism (BCM), Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ma Theresa Lazaro and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong had “frank and constructive” discussions, according to a statement issued after the meeting by the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs.

During their first BCM in six months, a perilous period that has seen multiple near-collisions in the disputed waters and ramped up bellicose rhetoric, both sides “affirmed their commitment to deescalate tensions without prejudice to their respective positions” and “recognized that there is a need to restore trust.” Nevertheless, the statement said, “[despite] substantial progress on developing measures to manage the situation at sea…significant differences remain.”

Amid the deadlock and escalation, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr faces growing pressure on multiple fronts in response to his hard pivot back to the United States and other traditional allies in response to China’s rising maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea. Manila is increasingly seen as joining America’s bloc of like-minded democracies against a rival bloc led by China and Russia.

During his most recent televised address, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned smaller states against turning into America’s “satellite states” or face the risk of countermeasures by Moscow.

“Today, it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently, it was announced that they are [also] in the Philippines,” Putin said, referring to the Pentagon’s unprecedented deployment of the US Typhon Weapon System in the Philippines ahead of their joint Balikatan wargames earlier this year.

The state-of-the-art weapons system, capable of firing Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and SM-6 anti-aircraft missiles, boasts an operational range of up to 2,500 kilometers. Philippine authorities have remained mum on the status and current location of the potent missile system.

Some suspect it may be permanently positioned in the country under the two sides recently expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which gives the US rotational access to a growing number of Philippine military bases and facilities.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (R) and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr (L) stride to a meeting at the Pentagon on May 3, 2023. Photo: US Defense Department / Jack Sanders

In response, a rising chorus of Filipino voices has stepped up criticism of the US Pentagon’s expanding military footprint in the country. Certain progressive forces have accused the Marcos Jr administration of undermining the country’s sovereignty by overtly siding with the West and Japan against China.

Former legislator Carlos Isagani Zarate, who hails from the left-leaning party-list Bayan Muna, recently lambasted the government for its “US satellite-like foreign policy [which] has contributed to bringing the world to the brink of a renewed nuclear arms race.”

“We demand that the Marcos … administration abide by the constitutional edicts of pursuing an independent foreign policy and making the Philippines free of nuclear arms and foreign troops,” Zarate said in a statement. Pro-Beijing elements have also stepped up their critique of the current administration’s foreign policy.

Main among them is former president Rodrigo Duterte, who has gone so far as to accuse his successor of allowing the Philippines to be “used” by Washington in a supposed “proxy war” against China. With his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, recently resigning from Marcos Jr’s cabinet, the former president has effectively positioned himself as the leader of the opposition.

In a nationwide National Day of Protest Rally, which was held in Tacloban City in the central islands of Visayas, Duterte hailed Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping as a “very close friend” and effectively pushed the blame for recent escalating sea tensions to his compatriots in the government rather than China.

“We were not fighting with China before. We were free to fish in and out of the area, nobody was bugging us and there was no issue of territory. We were not molested, we were there to fish, to make a living. It only happens when a leader changes his strategy,” Duterte claimed, referring to his comparatively Beijing-friendly diplomacy (though the two sides had their own share of tensions in the South China Sea during his six-year tenure.)

In 2019, while Duterte was in power, a suspected Chinese militia vessel rammed and sunk a Filipino fishing vessel off the hotly disputed Reed Bank, triggering a nationwide anti-Beijing backlash in the Philippines. Two years later, Duterte himself publicly criticized China for its swarming of the Philippine-claimed Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea.

“I don’t know if I would tell the story behind it but I’m sure you know it well. The Philippines was used by the US and the Philippines allowed itself to be used. But it is what it is, every leader has a different strategy,” Duterte added in his recent speech, underscoring the risk of overreliance on America as a counter to China’s expanding footprint in the South China Sea.

Interestingly, even Marcos Jr’s own sister, Imee, who heads the foreign affairs committee at the Philippine Senate, has joined the critical chorus. In a recent interview, the presidential sister, who is known for her longtime proximity to both the Dutertes and China, warned of dangerous military escalation if the Philippines continues on its current policy path.

“Let’s admit that the problem is that China thinks we have already sided with their enemy [America]. We gave 17 [Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement] sites, which China thinks are [America] military bases. So they were incensed [by our decisions],” Imee Marcos said, referring to a series of Philippine military facilities that were opened to the Pentagon under EDCA.

Similar to Duterte, Imee Marcos’ statement didn’t reflect reality since the Philippines has only opened up nine EDCA sites to the Pentagon. Under the Philippine constitution, foreign powers are barred from setting up permanent bases in the country, in response to the US use of the country during the previous Cold War era.

“Based on what we read, there are [American] missiles in Batanes and in Subic so those two would be the first targets together with Ilocos because of Balikatan live-fire drills. It’s scary, what is that, we are talking of 25 here, that is not a joke,” Imee Marcos added, warning of China’s possible military strike plans against American assets on Philippine soil in any armed conflict scenario.

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

“I’m really scared because while tensions are brewing in the [South China Sea], I saw [reports] about China’s plans to use hypersonic missiles… The US said they could not thwart hypersonic missiles. I became more nervous because I thought that when it comes to missiles, other countries have this thing called the Iron Dome, which prevents missiles from entering. But when it comes to hypersonic missiles, it could enter easily. Everything [in the Philippines] will be crushed,” she added.

In response, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) simply asked the senator to share any helpful information she may have in order for the government to “take appropriate actions to ensure our nation’s security.” Top defense experts and officials have broadly dismissed Imee Marcos’ statement as hyperbolic, if not misleading.

With a strong majority of Filipinos broadly backing Marcos Jr’s foreign policy, including his alignment with the US, there is little sign of a major policy shift on the horizon. If anything, the Philippine military has signaled that it will stand its ground should China continue to employ aggressive tactics, including a potential plan to forcibly overtake the Second Thomas Shoal.

The beached Philippine ship at Second Thomas Reef has become the hottest flash point in the South China Sea. Image: Twitter

“What we’ll do is we will apply the same level of force that would allow us to defend ourselves,” declared AFP Chief of Staff General Brawner, referring to the prospect of more collisions with Chinese vessels in the disputed waters.

“If a knife is used, for example, our personnel will also use a knife, nothing more, under the concept of proportionality,” he added, clarifying the rules of engagement for Philippine servicemen resupplying and sustaining the country’s de facto military base on the contested shoal.

“When I said that we’ll fight back, I meant we won’t allow ourselves to be bullied just like that, just like what happened the last time because, of course, our adversaries had weapons,” Brawner added, underscoring the military’s commitment to stay its current course despite growing risks of armed confrontation as well as criticism from high-profile politicians at home.

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @Richeydarian

Thank you for registering!

An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.

asiatimes.com · by Richard Javad Heydarian · July 5, 2024

12. Stuck Onshore: Why the United States Failed to Retrench from Europe during the Early Cold War

Stuck Onshore: Why the United States Failed to Retrench from Europe during the Early Cold War - Texas National Security Review

tnsr.org · by Joshua Byun · July 2, 2024

Stuck Onshore: Why the United States Failed to Retrench from Europe during the Early Cold War

July 02, 2024

Joshua Byun

A growing number of scholars and policymakers are showing interest in a grand strategy that calls on the United States to retrench from key global regions while devolving the burden of checking the expansion of hegemonic aspirants to local allies. I highlight the military vulnerability of allies as an underappreciated variable that can compromise the leading power’s efforts to phase out of an “onshore” military role. The regional great-power adversary is unlikely to sit idly by while a weaker neighbor converts its material resources into new military capabilities with the faraway leading power’s sponsorship. Instead, it will be tempted to forcefully nip the neighbor’s militarization in the bud. Insofar as allies are sensitive to the risks of incurring costly preventive aggression, they have incentives to undermine the leading power’s efforts to build up their combined military strength as a substitute for the forces it currently has stationed in the region. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, I trace the process by which American plans to retrench from Europe were frustrated in the first decade of the Cold War, finding powerful support for my argument. This analysis suggests lessons for the debate on whether the United States could pursue an orderly military withdrawal from Europe and East Asia.

Facebook Share Mail Share

This article reappraises Washington’s failure to retrench from Western Europe during the early Cold War from a new theoretical angle. It highlights the military vulnerability of local allies as an underappreciated variable that can compromise a leading great power’s efforts to withdraw from a key global region in an orderly fashion, as prescribed by the grand strategy of retrenchment. The strategy assumes the presence of friendly local powers that could, in due time, collectively generate the military capabilities needed to check the expansion of a hostile great-power adversary without the leading power’s direct involvement. But the adversary is unlikely to sit idly by while a weaker neighboring state converts its material resources into new military capabilities with the leading power’s sponsorship. Instead, it will be tempted to take forceful measures to nip the ally’s militarization in the bud. Insofar as regional allies understand how vulnerable they are to the risks of costly preventive aggression, they will go to great lengths to frustrate the leading power’s efforts to build up their combined military strength as a substitute for its “onshore” capabilities.

The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. I begin by clarifying the assumptions and prescriptions of the retrenchment grand strategy in its standard formulation. Next, I explain how the risk of preventive aggression against vulnerable local allies can derail the leading power’s efforts to devolve military capabilities and tasks to the region — a prerequisite for orderly retrenchment. I then use the theory to narrate the outcome of U.S. efforts at grand strategic retrenchment from Western Europe in the first decade of the Cold War, comparing its explanatory power against important alternative arguments. I conclude with takeaways for the contemporary U.S. grand strategy debate: While Europe remains a good candidate for U.S. military retrenchment, East Asia portends more uncertainties.

Grand Strategic Retrenchment: Counterhegemonic Objectives, Devolutionary Policies

If America’s faraway allies have the material potential to check hegemonic threats in their neighborhoods, why do they often seem reluctant to do so? According to leading retrenchment scholars, the answer is that the United States undercuts allied incentives to militarize by coddling them with its security guarantees.

How Allied Military Vulnerability Can Derail Retrenchment

Preventive Risks, Geography, and the Opportunity to Militarize

When push comes to shove, the allies cannot afford to privilege the leading power’s strategic preferences over the realities of their local security environment.

Allied Military Vulnerability and Retrenchment Outcomes

Figure 1: Allied Military Vulnerability and the Outcomes of Leading Power Retrenchment Plans

When allies understand that trying to build up the capabilities of a vulnerable state may trigger the adversary’s preventive temptations, they will work together to maintain a regional security architecture in which the leading power plays a heavy-lifting “onshore” military role in lieu of a fully militarized frontline ally. With this alternative, they ensure the capabilities necessary to deter the adversary’s expansion while taming its incentives to aggress in the near term. Importantly, insofar as core allies are unwilling to accept the risks of collectively pursuing a full-scale military buildup, and insofar as such collective militarization is necessary for the leading power to pursue retrenchment while checking the adversary’s expansion, the leading power itself is likely to grudgingly settle on this alternative for the time being.

Research Design

By reexamining the case with this in mind, we can derive new insights about the conditions under which the United States might be able to successfully retrench from key regions in the modern era.

U.S. Plans for Retrenchment and the German Problem

American policymakers originally envisioned the U.S.-led NATO alliance as a stopgap measure to bide time for the Western Europeans to build up their own defenses against the Soviet threat. Their drive for military devolution and retrenchment ran up against European concerns about West Germany’s vulnerability to Soviet countermeasures.

U.S. Retrenchment Plans and the Case for West German Rearmament

Europe’s Military Vulnerability: The Risks of Soviet Preventive Action against West Germany

But in fact, assessments produced by other Western powers tended to concur that West Germany was highly vulnerable to Soviet preventive aggression.

The European Defense Community Debacle and the Origins of the “Atlantic, Not the European” Security Framework

In the first half-decade following NATO’s founding in 1949, concerns about West Germany’s military vulnerability motivated a concerted effort by both France and West Germany to frustrate and delay American plans to rapidly reconstitute its frontline ally’s armed forces. This effort undermined American plans for retrenchment, leading to the birth of a U.S.-centered security architecture in Western Europe.

France Obstructs U.S. Efforts at West German Rearmament

There was thus a serious concern that the Americans might try to bypass the French and unilaterally rearm the West Germans.

The West Germans Step Up and the Americans Give In

In short, Soviet policymakers were vehemently opposed to any Western European security order that depended on the full-fledged revitalization of West Germany’s military strength, but the U.S.-led NATO was an arrangement they could tolerate.

Rearming West Germany within the NATO framework was more acceptable to the Europeans than the European Defense Community plan largely because it was more acceptable to the Soviet Union. The fact that West Germany would be rearmed within a military alliance explicitly centered on American (rather than European) capabilities mattered a great deal for Moscow’s security calculus. Historian Caroline Kennedy-Pipe’s explanation is worth quoting at length:

Summary and Epilogue

American leaders in the early Cold War were fiercely committed to a grand strategy of retrenchment in Western Europe. While recognizing that Soviet expansion had to be contained one way or another, they sought to achieve this by sponsoring the development of independent military capabilities among key European allies and to withdraw U.S. forces from the continent as soon as this buildup was complete. Consistent with my theory, however, concerns about Soviet preventive aggression against West Germany motivated a concerted effort by policymakers in Paris and Bonn to derail this plan. In a counterfactual where West Germany’s postwar vulnerability was less extreme, the Western powers could well have formed an alternative alliance structure in which the military center of gravity rested in Europe rather than the United States.

Figure 2: West German Military Vulnerability and the Outcomes of U.S. Retrenchment Plans

Alternative Explanations

It should be clear by now that any theory that claims to explain the U.S. failure to retrench from Western Europe during the first decade of the Cold War must explain the crux of the matter: why Washington was unable to get its core regional allies to develop the collective military capabilities to substitute for its troop presence on the continent. While some of the previous explanations remain powerful, none offer a complete account of this failure unless combined with a theory that foregrounds West Germany’s vulnerability to Soviet preventive aggression. This section examines some important alternative arguments, again focusing on the process leading up to the demise of the European Defense Community plan and the establishment of a U.S.-dominated security architecture in Western Europe embodied by NATO.

U.S. Security Patronage and Threats of Abandonment

The American public in the early Cold War was highly suspicious of foreign policy schemes that smacked of permanent U.S. leadership in distant regions and its attendant implications of higher taxes and deficit-driven inflation.

Domestic Politics

As with his predecessors, Mendès-France’s intent was not to undermine the birth of a Western military coalition involving West Germany but instead to ensure that the coalition would revolve around American rather than West German power.

French Fears of a Resurgent West Germany

Implications for U.S. Grand Strategy

The stakes of the debate on the feasibility of U.S. global retrenchment are enormous, and scholars must look for insights wherever they can. In this article, I have reexamined Washington’s failure to devolve its military burdens to core European allies and retrench from the continent during the first decade of the Cold War through a novel theoretical lens. Contrary to standard accounts that focus on Europe’s material dearth or local incentives for cheap-riding, I have argued that Washington’s plan for grand strategic retrenchment was derailed by allied efforts to avoid triggering costly preventive aggression against the highly vulnerable West Germany.

But the essential question, in my view, is whether the East Asian allies can cope with the risk of preventively motivated countermeasures while military devolution proceeds, not whether they have the economic and technological capacity to potentially achieve self-help if the militarization is allowed to run its course.

Joshua Byun is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. His research focuses on questions related to grand strategy, alliance politics, and political violence, and has appeared in outlets such as the American Political Science Review, European Journal of International Security, International Studies Quarterly, and Washington Quarterly.

Acknowledgments: For providing constructive suggestions and critiques at various stages of this research, I thank Dong Sun Lee, John Mearsheimer, Robert Ross, Lauren Sukin, the editors and reviewers at the Texas National Security Review, and especially John Schuessler and Marc Trachtenberg. I am also grateful to participants who offered comments at the May 2023 “Military Alliances and the Future of NATO” workshop hosted by the Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, as well as the April 2024 International Studies Association Annual Convention.

Endnotes

See Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), esp. chap. 8 (quotes from 170, 181).

In the U.S. grand strategy debate, this strategic orientation approximates the ideal-type strategies of “restraint” and “offshore balancing.” Strictly speaking, restraint and offshore balancing are distinct grand strategies, departing primarily in how sanguine they are about the likelihood that a hostile Eurasian hegemon will emerge to jeopardize vital U.S. interests. That said, the two strategies are united in the idea that the United States could normally rely on regional balancing dynamics to thwart the rise of such powers, and many scholars treat them as variations of the same strategy when comparing broad grand strategic alternatives. For example, see Emma Ashford, “Strategies of Restraint: Remaking America’s Broken Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 100, no. 5 (September/October 2021): 128–41; and Paul C. Avey, Jonathan N. Markowitz, and Robert J. Reardon, “Disentangling Grand Strategy: International Relations Theory and U.S. Grand Strategy,” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 1 (November 2018): 28–51, https://tnsr.org/2018/11/disentangling-grand-strategy-international-relations-theory-and-u-s-grand-strategy/. Following van Hooft, I use “retrenchment” to refer to the strategic vision espoused by these ideal-type strategies, with the caveat that it might be useful to distinguish the two for some analytical purposes. See Paul van Hooft, “All-In or All-Out: Why Insularity Pushes and Pulls American Grand Strategy to Extremes,” Security Studies 29, no. 4 (2020): 701–29, https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2020.1811461. On offshore balancing, see John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, “The Case for Offshore Balancing,” Foreign Affairs 95, no. 4 (July/August 2016): 70–83, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-06-13/case-offshore-balancing. On restraint, see Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, “Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation,” International Security 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 5–48; and Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).

Joshua Byun

267 citations/footnotes at the link: https://tnsr.org/2024/07/stuck-onshore-why-the-united-states-failed-to-retrench-from-europe-during-the-early-cold-war/?utm

13. NATO Summit Primer: 12 Things to Know

From the Hudson Institute.

NATO Summit Primer: 12 Things to Know

Next week the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will convene in Washington to mark 75 years of the alliance and discuss the fate of Ukraine, Europe’s stance toward Russia and China, and other vital issues in transatlantic relations. As a co-organizer of the NATO Public Forum, Hudson will lead discussions with high-level policymakers and officials. In the lead-up to the summit, the institute hosted decision-makers and released several memos explaining what to expect. Key excerpts are below.

Also, tune in on Monday, July 8, at 2:15 p.m. as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) discusses the future of United States foreign policy with Hudson’s Rebeccah Heinrichs.

Watch live here.

Key Insights

1. Luke Coffey and Daniel Kochis on why it’s time for NATO to make history at the Washington summit.

It’s time for NATO to make history and invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the Washington summit, argues Luke Coffey. In a new policy memo, he and Daniel Kochis elaborate on this argument and lay out 10 guiding principles for NATO.

Read here.

2. Peter Rough and Luke Coffey on why the alliance’s newest members matter.

Senior Fellows Peter Rough and Luke Coffey offer an overview of how the US and NATO should adapt to the new reality following Finland’s and Sweden’s accessions to the alliance.

Read here.

3. Can Kasapoğlu on how NATO needs to change to reestablish deterrence.

Can Kasapoğlu weighs the military balance between Russia and NATO and identifies what the alliance needs to do to restore deterrence against Moscow.

Read here.

4. Four former SACEURs on why NATO militaries need to integrate across domains.

To examine how the United States and its allies can harness emerging technologies to succeed in future warfare, Hudson hosted four former supreme allied commanders Europe (SACEURs): Generals Wesley Clark, Phil Breedlove, Curtis Scaparrotti, and Tod Wolters.

Watch, read, or listen to the full event.

5. NATO Chair of the Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer on why deterrence is expensive, but still cheaper than all-out war.

Rob Bauer discussed the future of collective defense with Nadia Schadlow.

Watch, read, or listen to the full event.

6. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis on why all NATO members need to recognize what’s at stake and meet the 2 percent military spending benchmark.

Hudson hosted Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) for a virtual event to discuss Ukraine’s path to NATO membership, security challenges in the Black Sea region, and the importance of burden sharing among alliance members.

Watch, read, or listen to the full event.

7. Former Congressman Ted Deutch on the Iran threat to US-NATO security.

On Tuesday, July 9, at 9:00 a.m., Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, will join Hudson to discuss what NATO militaries can learn from Israel’s fight against Iran-backed militias and why aiding Jerusalem is an important step to dismantle the China–Russia–Iran–North Korea axis.

Watch online or register here.

8. Representative Ro Khanna on solving America’s foreign policy challenges to protect the interests of Americans.

Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) will discuss with Walter Russell Mead how America can adjust its foreign policy to effectively address the pressing threats to American security and prosperity on Tuesday, July 9, at 9:00 a.m.

Watch online or register here.

9. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on what to expect at the Washington summit.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has outspokenly defended Ukrainian sovereignty and denounced Russia’s occupation. He will join Hudson’s Peter Rough on Tuesday, July 9, at 2:00 p.m. to discuss the prospects for Ukraine and the outlook for Lithuanian security.

Watch online or register here.

10. Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Mihai Popșoi on Moldova’s importance to the future of NATO security.

Join Hudson on Tuesday, July 9, at 4:00 p.m. as Peter Rough and Luke Coffey will discuss Moldova’s foreign policy and the Washington summit with Mihai Popșoi, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of the Republic of Moldova.

Watch online or register here.

11. German State Secretary Thomas Bagger on why it is vital for European security that NATO nations revitalize their defense industries and aid Ukraine against Russia.

Ambassador Thomas Bagger joined Peter Rough to discuss what has changed in Germany’s foreign policy outlook since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Watch, read, or listen to the event here.

12. Romanian Foreign Minister Luminiţa-Teodora Odobescu on the importance of the Black Sea region.

Luminiţa-Teodora Odobescu joined Hudson to discuss how Romania is one of America’s strongest and closest allies in the vital Black Sea region and beyond.

Watch, read, or listen to the event here.

Act Now

Be a part of promoting American leadership and engagement for a secure, free, and prosperous future for us all.

Hudson Institute

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Fourth Floor

Washington, DC 20004

Preferences | Unsubscribe

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

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website