Indian Strategic Studies: 08/09/23

9 August 2023

Space Force intel focus: 50% on China; 25% on Russia

THERESA HITCHENS

US Space Force Maj. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, meets with Guardian students for lunch, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, Mar. 14, 2023. (US Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Zachary)

WASHINGTON — The Space Force is concentrating fully half of its intelligence-gathering activities on China to keep tabs on Beijing’s rapid evolution as a space power to reckon with, according to the service’s senior intelligence officer.

“From an intelligence perspective … about half of what we do is focused on China. About 25 percent of what we do is focused on Russia, and a lot of that has to do because of the current conflict [i.e., in Ukraine],” Maj. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, Space Force deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, told the Space Force Association yesterday.

“And about 25 percent of what we do is focused on what we call the rest of world, or the commercial sector — not spying on the commercial sector, but just understanding the commercial sector from an intelligence perspective.”

Will Hong Kong Become a Crypto Hub?

Hugh Harsono

Hong Kong has long served as a cornerstone of the world’s finance industry. However, recent history has tested Hong Kong through a variety of political and economic challenges, with tumultuous events like the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, the National Security Law, and severe COVID-19 restrictions causing companies to rethink their Hong Kong-based hubs.

To this extent, Hong Kong experienced a “brain drain” over the past two years, with many financial institutions, among other enterprises, relocating their personnel away from Hong Kong to Singapore and other countries. JP Morgan leadership began relocating away from Hong Kong in early 2022. Senior Citigroup staff also relocated from Hong Kong to Singapore and other markets, with Bank of America exploring similar options during this time period.

As a result, Hong Kong’s mid-2022 population dropped 1.6 percent, with a corresponding rise in Singapore’s population to the tune of 3.4 percent.

The West’s De-Risking Strategy towards China Will Fail

Chris Miller

Amid high tensions with China and the steep cost of confrontation, Western leaders have adopted a buzzword to describe their strategy: “de-risking”. This involves continuing to roll out tech and investment restrictions on China, but coupling them with high-level summitry and calls to keep trade flowing. The aim is to limit the risk of escalation in both the political and economic spheres. It is unlikely to work.

The West shifted away from the tougher “decoupling” rhetoric and towards de-risking and “economic security” for two reasons. First, hawks in Japan and America needed softer language to keep on board wobbly European allies, who call China a “systemic rival” but prefer that other countries pay the price of restraining it. De-risking sounds safe and low-cost. Second, President Joe Biden’s administration hopes that the pressure imposed by America’s years-long effort to contain China has made Beijing more pliable. With China’s economy wobbling, Mr Biden hopes it will lose some of its appetite for economic conflict.

There are three reasons why a low-cost de-risking will fail. First, China’s government believes it can overcome the West’s tech restrictions. Second, foreign multinationals are already taking costly steps to shift production away from China, making acceptance of the status quo worse for China’s economy than Western rhetoric implies. And third, Beijing is pursuing its own agenda of reducing its reliance on Western manufacturing technology, while continuing its effort to make the West more dependent on Chinese products, from low-end chips to electric vehicles. This will drive a new round of tech and trade tension.

In a Taiwan war Seoul’s problem won’t be Pyongyang

DENNY ROY

Osan Air Base in South Korea would be involved in any US defense of Taiwan but American ground troops would remain to deter and defend against any opportunistic North Korean invasion. Hre F-16 Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolts fly by the base. Photo: US Air Force / Lt Col Judd Fancher

South Koreans are worried about the three-body problem. Not the astrophysical phenomenon featured in the popular science fiction novel by Liu Cixin; rather, it’s the geopolitical phenomenon that links China, Taiwan and North Korea. Because of the relationships among these three governments, a war in the Taiwan Strait could cause a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

If the USA intervened to defend Taiwan from an attempted Chinese takeover, Pyongyang, possibly at Beijing’s request, might carry out aggression against the Republic of Korea (ROK) at a time when South Koreans feel relatively vulnerable because of US preoccupation with the battle some 1,500 kilometers to the south.

From President Yoon Suk Yeol to analysts in both academic and government, South Koreans have expressed anxiety about an opportunistic North Korean attack.

There is no question that a Taiwan Strait war would be a calamity for the region, including South Korea. The economic effects alone would severe, with military operations in the East China Sea disrupting the trade that the ROK heavily relies on. Moreover, Seoul would be politically squeezed between its ally the United States and its main trading partner and well-armed neighbor China.

China to attend talks on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia that exclude Russia

Andrew Gray and Tom Balmforth

BRUSSELS/LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - China on Friday said it would send a senior official to Saudi Arabia for weekend talks on finding a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine, a forum that excludes Russia, in a diplomatic coup for Kyiv, the West and the Saudi hosts.

Ukrainian and Western diplomats hope the meeting in Jeddah of national security advisers and other senior officials from some 40 countries will agree on key principles for a future peace settlement to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Chinese Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will visit Jeddah for the talks, China's foreign ministry said on Friday.

"China is willing to work with the international community to continue to play a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson at the Chinese ministry, said in a statement.

China was invited to a previous round of talks in Copenhagen in late June but did not attend.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February last year, China has kept close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia and rejected international calls to condemn Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he hoped the initiative will lead to a "peace summit" of leaders from around the world this autumn to endorse the principles, based on his own 10-point formula for a settlement.

Zelenskiy's formula includes respect for Ukraine's territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops, anathema to Moscow which claims to have annexed occupied Ukrainian territory forever.

Analysis: China’s Military Influence in Africa Grows as Russia’s Diminishes

Kate Bartlett

China’s People’s Liberation Army marked the 96th anniversary of its founding this week with President Xi Jinping overseeing celebrations in China, but the anniversary was also commemorated in many African countries where Beijing has influence and is keen on expanding military cooperation.

Among them was Zimbabwe, where ties with the PLA date back to the 1960s and China’s support for the guerilla movement — now the ruling party — that fought for the country’s independence from white minority rule.

"The precious memories of the solidarity and synergy between our two armies are our shared legacy which continues to shape and inject momentum to our relations nowadays," China Ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding said at a reception attended by Zimbabwe’s acting minister of defense and army officials from both nations.

Zhou noted that just the previous week, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa had commended a group of young Zimbabwean pilots who trained for four years in China, reflecting “the fraternal relations between our two countries and our two militaries,” Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspaper, the Herald, reported. Mnangagwa himself trained at the PLA Army Command College in Nanjing.

Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told VOA the PLA anniversary celebrations are not only happening in Zimbabwe.

“You’re going to see the same thing in South Africa, Kenya and all these embassies where you have a military attaché. ... With the case of Zimbabwe, I think what China wants to put across is the special relationship that it has with Zanu-PF first and foremost,” he said, referring to the ruling party.

For his part, Zimbabwe’s acting defense minister, Daniel Garwe, vowed to continue to cement ties with China “today and in the future as we are both faced with geopolitical threats,” the Herald reported. Zimbabwe, where the same party has been in power for over 40 years, is under Western sanctions for corruption and human rights abuses.

In neighboring South Africa, also governed by a former liberation movement that benefitted from Chinese support, a local newspaper ran a lengthy op-ed by Major General Shang Hong, Chinese defense attaché to the country.

“As an important part of our overall bilateral relationship, the PLA-SANDF (South African National Defense Forces) friendship, guided by our two presidents, has been embracing pragmatic cooperation in various fields with tangible results, including high-level exchanges, mechanism building, joint training and exercise, military academies, medicine and health, international peacekeeping, etc.,” he wrote.

From pariah to peacemaker: Saudi Arabia’s bid to become Ukraine war middleman

SUZANNE LYNCH

Saudi Arabia was dismissed globally as a human rights pariah following the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

But this weekend, the country will burnish its credentials as a peacemaker when it hosts talks on the Ukraine war.

Dozens of national security advisers and senior-ranking officials are descending on the Red Sea city of Jeddah for a meeting that kicks off Friday evening.

The aim is to bring together countries from the “global south,” such as India, Brazil and South Africa — as well as European Union countries, along with the United States and Canada — to rally around Ukraine’s efforts to broker a peace plan.

Countries like Brazil and India have not always had a clear stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine; the European Union — and Ukraine — has sought to bring them on board when it comes to holding Russia accountable.

Ukraine will be represented at the summit; Russia was not invited.

But the big question is whether China shows up. “It matters what China does. Most of the participants last time around regretted that China did not participate,” said one senior European official involved in preparations for the meeting, granted anonymity to speak freely.

Saudi calculation

This weekend’s gathering — a follow-up to a similar meeting in Copenhagen in June — is the latest attempt by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to revamp its image in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, which took place at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.

New Report Calls for Rethinking Undersea Warfare with Emphasis on Uncrewed Systems

John Grady

Pre-commissioning unit (PCU) Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-795) seen prior to a christening ceremony at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Conn., on July 31, 2021. US Navy Photo

To keep an edge against the rapidly expanding Chinese navy and still-potent Russian submarine force, the U.S. needs a widely distributed force of crewed and uncrewed surface and undersea vessels, as well as satellites and uncrewed aerial systems, according to a new study in undersea warfare.

“To sustain its offensive undersea advantage, the U.S. Navy will need to take some lessons from air warfare and begin supporting submarines with systems designed to suppress or destroy enemy undersea defenses,” The authors of the report, called “Fighting into the Bastions,” argue. “This imperative will fundamentally shift the paradigm for U.S. submarine operations from ‘alone and unafraid’ to ‘it’s all about team.’”

That would mean a narrower set of missions for attack submarines, but expanding roles for manned surface vessels like Landing Ship Docks, towed buoys, improved seabed sensors and developing laser communications, the report said.

“The submarine industrial base is at maximum capacity and a few more hulls will not make a substantial difference against the PLA’s growing ASW capacity, which needs only to harass U.S. SSNs to succeed,” authors Bryan Clark and Timothy Walton concluded.

At last week’s event, Chuck Fralick, chief technology officer of Leidos Maritime, said that “using a $3 billion capability is not the best way” to conduct seabed warfare or anti-submarine warfare. “What we need to do [is field] multi-mode platforms” that can “go deep, with persistence, with command and control,” he added.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Correcting the Record

Adam Lowther

As the world remembers the August 6, 1945, and August 9, 1945, anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is important to avoid the seductive lure of applying self-serving hindsight to a war time decision made almost eight decades ago. It is all too easy to cherry pick the facts and distort them to build a narrative that calls into question President Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb. For some advocates of nuclear disarmament, the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide such an opportunity. Let us correct the record.

At the time of Germany’s defeat on May 7, 1945, the United States was five weeks into the battle for Okinawa, which would cost more than 50,000 American casualties before the small island was taken in late June. More than 110,000 Japanese soldiers and 150,000 Okinawan civilians died—about half of Okinawa’s pre-war population. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the men responsible for the defeat of Japan, Okinawa was a constant reminder of Japanese resolve and willingness to fight and die.

As J. Samuel Walker points out in his excellent analysis of the American decision to use the atomic bomb, Prompt and Utter Destruction, War Department planners contemplated two options, an invasion of the Japanese home islands (Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu, and Hokkaidō) and a naval blockade. A prolonged naval blockade would starve the Japanese into surrender, but it was unknown how long such an approach would take or how many casualties the Americans or Japanese would suffer.

Why There Will Be No Negotiating with Putin

Konstantin Sonin

“No one wants to negotiate with Russia,” President Vladimir Putin has complained several times on camera in recent days. He would like to reach a peace agreement or a ceasefire, he claims, but there are no negotiations.

Why are there no negotiations with Putin? This question is not as simple as it may appear. Nevertheless, there are two main reasons.

The first reason, the "image of the war," is obvious, but Putin does not understand it, and no one can explain it to him.

The second reason, which is much more significant, is structural: Putin lacks the ability to take on binding commitments. In reality, it's precisely this structural reason that impedes negotiations.

The image of the war

Since Feb. 24, 2022, the first day of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the main images of the war in the international media have been of residential buildings in Ukrainian cities destroyed by Russian rockets; civilians killed and wounded; and women, children and elderly refugees. For any ordinary person, this war is associated with photographs of peaceful Ukrainian civilians executed by Russian soldiers in Bucha, mass graves uncovered in liberated Lyman and Irpin, and flooded houses after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. And the responsibility for all of this falls on Putin and his ministers and generals. No matter how cynical a Western politician might be, they cannot negotiate with Putin, because the average person in their country sees what is happening on the frontlines and in the rear. How can you negotiate with those who are responsible for this war?

U.S. companies are buying less from China as relations remain tense

David J. Lynch

U.S. companies are accelerating efforts to reduce their dependence upon Chinese suppliers, even as officials in Washington and Beijing labor to put a floor under their sour relationship.

Through the first five months of this year, U.S. imports from China were down 24 percent from the same period one year ago, according to the Census Bureau. Companies such as HP, Stanley Black & Decker and Lego are among those that have been repositioning their supply lines for American consumers, either to avoid the risk of being pinched between rival superpowers or as part of a longer-term strategy to produce goods closer to customers.

Either way, China’s role at the center of global manufacturing may be facing its stiffest challenge since the country joined the global trading system more than two decades ago. Mexico, Vietnam and Thailand are nibbling at China’s dominance, though they lack its size and world-class infrastructure.

An Enduring Coalition to Protect Ukraine

Rajan Menon

In the weeks since July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Western debate about Ukraine’s long-term security arrangements has fallen into three categories. The country’s most bullish backers want it to become a NATO member and enjoy the alliance’s protection, even though Kyiv did not receive a formal invitation to join at the summit. Their critics respond that admitting Ukraine into NATO will only up the ante and risk all-out war with Russia and that the West should persuade Kyiv to settle the conflict. Seeking a middle ground, a third group proposes that the West should continue providing Ukraine with arms and training its soldiers for the long haul but refrain from making a formal commit to defend it against future Russian attacks.

But these are not the only options available to Ukraine’s friends and supporters once the current war ends. There is at least one other choice: the West could give Ukraine a formal security guarantee without admitting it to NATO. Crucially, that guarantee would not come from the alliance or involve the United States in any way. Instead, a coalition of European countries, particularly some of Ukraine’s neighbors, would pledge to defend it from future Russian aggression. Their commitment would help deter Russia, and it would also increase the chances of a diplomatic settlement to the conflict by addressing Moscow’s opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership.

Ukraine’s brave and determined fight against Russian aggression has inspired many of its Western backers to demand the country’s formal inclusion in NATO. They portray Ukrainians’ resistance to Russia as an instance of the larger struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, a clash in which cardinal values are at stake. As they see it, the ramifications of denying Ukraine membership in the alliance would reach far beyond its borders. Democrats everywhere would be demoralized and authoritarians, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, emboldened. Many in this camp contend that Putin’s ambitions extend beyond Ukraine to, at a minimum, Poland and the three Baltic states. And they point to Ukraine’s wartime success as proof that Kyiv will strengthen the alliance rather than become a burden. Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian leaders present an identical brief.

Rapid Dragon: the US military game-changer that could affect conventional and nuclear strategy and arms control negotiations

George M. Moore

The United States Air Force recently announced the successful test of its Rapid Dragon system in a major Pacific exercise.[1] This followed an earlier successful test during an exercise in Norway in late 2022.[2]

The Air Force’s Research Laboratory says that “Rapid Dragon is a palletized munitions experimentation campaign exploring feasibility and operational advantages of airdropping long-range palletized munitions from existing airlift platforms, such as the C-130 and C-17, without aircraft modifications.”[3] In standard English, Rapid Dragon converts cargo aircraft into weapons carriers that can deploy cruise missiles (and potentially other standoff or self-defense weapons) by releasing them on pallets via the planes’ rear cargo ramps. Such a system makes a cargo aircraft into the equivalent of a bomber. Potentially the cargo aircrafts’ weapons load is limited only by how many pallets will fit in the cargo bay.

In US military circles, there has been discussion of the potential impacts Rapid Dragon can have on increasing the level of conventional threat that potential adversaries, particularly China, will have to deal with. But there has been little discussion about the implications of Rapid Dragon for future nuclear arms limitation talks, or what will happen to conventional balances of power on both the global and regional level once, as is certain to happen, other technically sophisticated nations develop their own such systems, perhaps even improving on the initial US concept.[4] The genie is now out of the bottle and will never return.

The potential to develop Rapid Dragon so it can deliver nuclear weapons does not seem to have received any attention. The AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) is nuclear capable and currently deliverable by the B-52. It appears that nothing would prevent the Rapid Dragon deployment of the ALCM, turning any cargo aircraft capable of using Rapid Dragon into a nuclear delivery aircraft.

The potential to use Rapid Dragon for nuclear weapons delivery (and eventually this will occur) will create new issues when serious nuclear weapons limitation resume. Unlike some past arms control agreements that required elimination of launch vehicles, there is no way to negotiate a limitation on cargo aircraft with rear ramps.[5] Therefore, it appears clear that future arms limitation negotiations will need to focus on limitations on the number of warheads a party possesses and how to conduct verifiable inspections of the party’s stockpile.

Election Interference Demands a Collective Defense

Richard Fontaine

As campaign season heats up ahead of the 2024 U.S. election, so does the potential for foreign political interference. Russia and China both pair a willingness to do harm with sophisticated cyber capabilities. Iran has its own track record of meddling in American politics, and it, too, may be tempted to interfere. And the United States is not the only target. In recent years, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany have all been subject to attempts at foreign interference. For the foes of democracy, distorting electoral politics now seems to be a low-cost, high-reward way to support their favored candidates, harm their perceived enemies, or simply deepen polarization and sow internal distrust—often with the added benefit of plausible deniability.

This threat cuts to the core of the liberal democratic way of life. So far, however, democracies have mostly responded unilaterally. The United States’ democratic friends looked at Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election as mainly an American problem, to be dealt with by Washington. Similarly, Moscow’s interference in the 2017 French presidential election was considered a problem for Paris. Chinese intrusions into Australian politics that year were deemed a matter for Canberra. None of these episodes, nor other incidents since, have elicited a collective response, even from allied democracies.

It’s Just One Thing after Another

William Alan Reinsch

It’s tempting, particularly in Congress, to act on a problem, declare it “fixed” and then move on to something else. In a similar vein, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has been criticized in the past for negotiating trade agreements and then immediately moving on to the next one and ignoring implementation and enforcement of the old one. (That does not seem to be a problem in this administration.) These days, unfortunately, our problems seem more intractable and less susceptible to immediate solutions than they used to be, which should force us to pay more careful attention. So it is, we are learning, with semiconductors.

Last October, the administration took on the security issues surrounding the design and manufacturing of high-end chips, imposing new controls on particular chips and tools that it believed could contribute to China’s military capabilities. That was not a “one and done” event, and to its credit the administration has spent the past ten months reviewing and refining its approach and should shortly issue a final regulation that will update and probably expand the October decision. The debate over the wisdom of the October policy change and its implications over the long term for China and for the domestic semiconductor industry has soaked up most of the oxygen in the export control commentariat during that period, and there will be even more debate when the final rule is published.

At the same time, an older, and knottier, semiconductor issue is sneaking back on stage and will soon displace the high-end debate. That issue is the anticipated surge in Chinese production of “legacy” chips. These are the “larger”—although still measured in nanometers—and slower chips that form the foundation of the modern digital economy. They are in autos, phones, appliances, building operation systems, etc., and keep all those systems working. These chips also have a variety of military applications and can be found in military transportation systems and weapons and their delivery systems. The Chinese goal of cornering the market on these chips is not new. The Chinese government announced years ago it was committing more than $300 billion on new fab plants and is expected to build 26 of them over the next several years, more than the EU and U.S. efforts combined.

How U.S. microchips are fueling Russia’s military — despite sanctions

Karen Gilchrist

Western microchips used to power smartphones and laptops are continuing to enter Russia and fuel its military arsenal, new analysis shows.

Trade data and manifests analyzed by CNBC show that Moscow has been sourcing an increased number of semiconductors and other advanced Western technologies through intermediary countries such as China.

In 2022, Russia imported $2.5 billion worth of semiconductor technologies, up from $1.8 billion in 2021.

Semiconductors and microchips play a crucial role in modern-day warfare, powering a range of equipment including drones, radios, missiles and armored vehicles.

The sanctions evasion and avoidance is surprisingly brazen at the moment.

Indeed, the KSE Institute — an analytical center at the Kyiv School of Economics — recently analyzed 58 pieces of critical Russian military equipment recovered from Ukraine’s battlefield and found more than 1,000 foreign components, primarily Western semiconductor technologies.

The new ‘tanker war’ and US military escalation in the Persian Gulf

Paul R. Pillar

The last time the United States placed armament and military personnel, ready to fight, on ocean-going commercial vessels was during the world wars of the 20th Century.

In World War II, the U.S. Navy organized an Armed Guard that served on merchant ships — an unpopular duty, given how the freighters to which the sailors were assigned represented targets for the enemy at least as much as any offensive capability to inflict significant damage in return. Hundreds of these merchant ships were sunk despite their Navy contingent aboard, and some 2,000 members of the Armed Guard died.

The closest the United States has come to any similar arrangement since then was in escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers during the “tanker war” phase of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. This time the United States did not go so far as to place its own military personnel on the commercial vessels, although the tankers were reflagged as a legal nicety to go with the escorting by U.S. Navy warships.

The operation was only a partial success. Although it may have deterred some attacks by surface vessels, Iran still managed to inflict damage through the use of mines. In a humiliating revamping of the convoys, U.S. warships were not out in front providing protection. Instead, they meekly followed the tankers because they were more vulnerable than the much bigger oil carrier to being sunk by mines.

Get Ready, Europe: Trump(ism)’s Coming

Edward Lucas

For three decades after 1991, Europeans ignored the threat from Russia and China, skimped on defense, and took the United States for granted. Now they spend more on defense, fear Russia, and worry about China.

But they have not yet fully grasped their dependence on the United States, and the dangers it poses. They were unprepared for Donald Trump’s first term. They are adopting the same hopey-dopey approach to what the betting markets say is his one-in-three chance of re-election in 2024, and, perhaps more importantly, to the tide of opinion he is riding. Many in Washington, DC—not only Trump supporters—think the US is overstretched and should leave Ukraine to the Europeans while concentrating on China.

True, the first Trump presidency was not the geopolitical disaster that his critics foretold. The US military presence in Europe increased, after years of drawdown. Alliances survived. The national security apparatus functioned. Given the woeful past (Obama’s reset, anyone?) the record withstands scrutiny. But it was not fully tested. NATO’s credibility rests on the US president’s willingness to go to war to defend allies. If Vladimir Putin, perhaps emboldened by a stalemate outcome in Ukraine, chose to test this resolve, perhaps with a “minor” incursion in the Baltic region, how would President Trump 2.0 respond: With military force, or with a phone call to the Kremlin?

We do not know. But we do know that Europe will have little say in this. Ukraine has revealed its strategic nakedness. Britain and France have last-ditch nuclear capabilities, and Finland and Poland have stealthy, conventional, precision-strike weapons that act as a kind of sub-strategic deterrent. But for at least the next decade, European allies lack the clout to repel a Russian attack. Everything, as always, depends on the Americans.

The Unpredictable Dictators

Keren Yarhi-Milo and Laura Resnick Samotin

Until the week before it happened, most people refused to believe that Russia would attack Ukraine. Despite repeated warnings from the Biden administration and widespread evidence that Moscow’s troops were massing on Ukraine’s borders, it was difficult to accept that Russian President Vladimir Putin would try conquering Europe’s largest state. “He won’t be initiating an escalation,” said French President Emmanuel Macron on February 8, just 16 days before the invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also caught off-guard, saying at the end of January that Biden’s claims of a coming invasion were simply “panic.” The German government

Americans grow tired of sending money to Ukraine

Byron York

AMERICANS GROW TIRED OF SENDING MONEY TO UKRAINE. President Joe Biden has often said the United States will continue military aid to Ukraine "for as long as it takes" to win the war with Russia. On Jan. 25 of this year, for example, Biden said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, "We're with you for as long as it takes." Last month, Biden said, "Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes." There are many other examples of the president saying the same thing.

But now, a year and a half into the war, it appears most Americans do not support Biden's indefinite commitment. A new CNN poll shows that a majority, 55%, say Congress "should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine in the war with Russia." Another smaller majority, 51%, say the U.S. "has already done enough to stop Russian military actions in Ukraine."

The poll shows that most demographic groups oppose an indefinite commitment. No matter the race, sex, age, income, or whatever — majorities say Congress should not authorize additional funding for the war. The factor that does make a difference, of course, is political affiliation. Sixty-two percent of Democrats say Congress should authorize additional funding, while 55% of independents and 71% of Republicans say Congress should not authorize more money.

People who call themselves liberals (69%) support more funding, while people who call themselves centrists (56%) and conservatives (69%) oppose more funding. It is a war effort supported by liberals and opposed by everyone else.

The divisions are similar on the question of whether the U.S. has already done enough to stop Russian military actions in Ukraine. Sixty-one percent of Democrats say the U.S. should do more, while 56% of independents and 59% of Republicans say the U.S. has done enough. Most liberals want the U.S. to do more, while centrists and conservatives say the U.S. has already done enough.

Oppenheimer: The Bomb, Morality and Strategy

LAWRENCE FREEDMAN

‘We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.’

Robert Oppenheimer, ‘Atomic Weapons and American Policy,’ Foreign Affairs, July 1953,

I enjoyed Oppenheimer. Normally when I watch films with historical themes about which I know something I grumble away because of obvious errors or a wholly distorted narrative. In this case Christopher Nolan has done better than most in putting together a complex story in a way that most historians would consider reasonably authentic. He has used as his bible American Prometheus, the well-regarded biography of Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin. (Bird gave the film a ringing endorsement).

Even when he has not been able to spend time on important aspects of the story Nolan has at least alluded to them. As familiar characters made fleeting appearances – Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi, Vannevar Bush – my knowledge of their back stories helped me enjoy the film more. I suspect for others it would have been harder to keep track of the long cast of nerdy scientists. The chap playing the bongo drums in the intense glow of the Trinity test, by the way, was the great Richard Feynman.

Errors and Omissions

‘A Compassionate Spy’: Footnote to ‘Oppenheimer’

Michael O'Sullivan

Physicist Ted Hall, who was recruited to join the Manhattan Project after graduating from Harvard at the age of 18, worked alongside J. Robert Oppenheimer at the project’s Los Alamos compound. Although his character is not depicted in “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s sweeping biopic about the director of the Los Alamos lab, Hall’s smaller story — told in the documentary “A Compassionate Spy” — makes for a timely footnote to Nolan’s magnum opus.

As Hall has admitted, shortly before his death in 1999, he gave the Soviets critical information about the implosion technology being used for the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, information that may have helped them in the pursuit of their own nuclear weapon. The decision, he says in an old interview — footage of which, included here, contains his confession and other recollections of the past — was born out of “compassion”: Two superpowers with the same weapon of mass destruction would be less likely to use it against each other.

Suspicions about the loyalty of Oppenheimer — who like Hall and some others at Los Alamos had some sympathies toward leftist causes — figure prominently in “Oppenheimer.” But although Hall was interviewed by the FBI, he was never charged with a crime. By the time the U.S. government’s suspicions about Hall were confirmed (when a misspelled version of his name was recognized in an intercepted communication from Russia), the decision was made not to pursue espionage charges, which would have publicly revealed that the United States had broken Soviet code.

This small detail is actually the most fascinating part of “A Compassionate Spy,” but it is glossed over in the film by Steve James, director of the Oscar-nominated 1994 film “Hoop Dreams.” Instead, the film focuses mainly on an interview with Hall’s widow, Joan Hall, who adds some interesting perspective and insight into her husband’s thinking. Reenactments with actors playing the Halls (J. Michael Wright and Lucy Zukaitis) and Ted’s friend and co-conspirator Saville Sax (Nicolas Eastlund) are occasionally goofy and unnecessary. The threesome, it is suggested, formed a love triangle, so “A Compassionate Spy” is also a kind of romance.

Is Remote Warfare Moral

Christine Sixta Rinehart

In the book Is Remote Warfare Moral?, Joseph Chapa provides a firsthand account of remote warfare based on his own experiences in the United States Air Force. The book’s central question on the morality of remote warfare is explored through his use of real-world experiences as a drone pilot and Air Force officer that are informed by the research expertise of an academic. While the book demystifies some mysteries of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) warfare, it also analyzes remote warfare within Just War Theory and the academic disciplines of philosophy and psychology. The result is a profound ethical analysis of RPA warfare at both strategic and tactical levels from the eyes of a pilot and airman.

In Chapter One, Chapa provides a history of the Predator, and its successor the Reaper, as well as of RPA warfare more generally. Chapter Two explores the concept of “riskless warfare;” asking if a pilot or sensor operator can really be a warrior if they are not exposed to death or injury. Chapa argues the RPA pilots have a warrior ethos that allows them to take life without giving up their humanity; for Chapa they are warriors in the historical sense of the term. They are not only able to take lives but also give their lives in war in return. In Chapter Three, Chapa discusses the morality and psychology of RPA warfare. Critics of RPA warfare have pointed out the distance of RPA pilots from the fight. Although RPA pilots can be as much as eight thousand miles away from the physical location of the target, their vision is only eighteen inches away. This brings up the concept of moral injury as experienced by RPA pilots, who can participate in actions that violate their deeply held views of how human beings should be treated. Furthermore, Chapa concludes that the old adage of a PlayStation mentality and the PTSD narratives for RPA pilots are neither appropriate nor relevant:

Microsoft Exposes Russian Hackers' Sneaky Phishing Tactics via Microsoft Teams Chats

Microsoft on Wednesday disclosed that it identified a set of highly targeted social engineering attacks mounted by a Russian nation-state threat actor using credential theft phishing lures sent as Microsoft Teams chats.

The tech giant attributed the attacks to a group it tracks as Midnight Blizzard (previously Nobelium). It's also called APT29, BlueBravo, Cozy Bear, Iron Hemlock, and The Dukes.

"In this latest activity, the threat actor uses previously compromised Microsoft 365 tenants owned by small businesses to create new domains that appear as technical support entities," the company said.

"Using these domains from compromised tenants, Midnight Blizzard leverages Teams messages to send lures that attempt to steal credentials from a targeted organization by engaging a user and eliciting approval of multi-factor authentication (MFA) prompts."

Microsoft said the campaign, observed since at least late May 2023, affected less than 40 organizations globally spanning government, non-government organizations (NGOs), IT services, technology, discrete manufacturing, and media sectors.

The threat actor has been observed to utilize token theft techniques for initial access into targeted environments, alongside other methods such as authentication spear-phishing, password spray, and brute-force attacks.

Another known hallmark is its exploitation of on-premises environments to laterally move to the cloud as well as the abuse of service providers' trust chain to gain access to downstream customers, as observed in the SolarWinds hack of 2020.

An Enduring Coalition to Protect Ukraine

Rajan Menon

In the weeks since July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Western debate about Ukraine’s long-term security arrangements has fallen into three categories. The country’s most bullish backers want it to become a NATO member and enjoy the alliance’s protection, even though Kyiv did not receive a formal invitation to join at the summit. Their critics respond that admitting Ukraine into NATO will only up the ante and risk all-out war with Russia and that the West should persuade Kyiv to settle the conflict. Seeking a middle ground, a third group proposes that the West should continue providing Ukraine with arms and training its soldiers for the long haul but refrain from making a formal commit to defend it against future Russian attacks.

But these are not the only options available to Ukraine’s friends and supporters once the current war ends. There is at least one other choice: the West could give Ukraine a formal security guarantee without admitting it to NATO. Crucially, that guarantee would not come from the alliance or involve the United States in any way. Instead, a coalition of European countries, particularly some of Ukraine’s neighbors, would pledge to defend it from future Russian aggression. Their commitment would help deter Russia, and it would also increase the chances of a diplomatic settlement to the conflict by addressing Moscow’s opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership.

IN, OUT, OR IN BETWEEN

Ukraine’s brave and determined fight against Russian aggression has inspired many of its Western backers to demand the country’s formal inclusion in NATO. They portray Ukrainians’ resistance to Russia as an instance of the larger struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, a clash in which cardinal values are at stake. As they see it, the ramifications of denying Ukraine membership in the alliance would reach far beyond its borders. Democrats everywhere would be demoralized and authoritarians, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, emboldened. Many in this camp contend that Putin’s ambitions extend beyond Ukraine to, at a minimum, Poland and the three Baltic states. And they point to Ukraine’s wartime success as proof that Kyiv will strengthen the alliance rather than become a burden. Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian leaders present an identical brief.

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