Taliban Abuses Worsen as World Turns a Blind Eye

AHMAD MANSOOR RAMIZY

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On August 15, 2021, Sonita Soroush, a proclaimed journalist, producer, manager, and reporter for Ariana News, found herself in the midst of a crowd of her colleagues and coworkers in front of the Ariana TV station discussing the following day’s schedule and program. Little did she know what was about to happen in the next few minutes and the following weeks. As they were chatting about what to put in front of their millions of viewers the next morning on Sob-e-Zindagi (the morning show), the show she was responsible for, one of their admin managers showed up and asked why they were still standing in front of the office. Shockingly, Sonita recalls, “Our manager told us that the Taliban might enter Kabul anytime now, and to go home, pack your bags, get your passport, and we will evacuate you all to safety.” She further said, “Shockingly, I stepped outside and noticed there was heavy traffic. I was halfway to getting to my home when I got another call from the News Department Manager asking me where I was.” Sonita told her manager that she was on her way to her house to get her passport and bags as per the office’s recommendation. “He abruptly told me, don’t come back, go and hide; the Taliban have entered the city gates.”

She recalls this moment in dismay and discomfort. Remembering the days when Afghanistan had one of the most open and free media outlets and agencies providing facts and stories to millions of people reignites her feelings of grief at what the country has lost since then. “Suddenly, everything seemed dark. Even with that image carved in my mind, I still thought maybe this would not be like the last time the Taliban were here,” she said. She would later understand that she could not have been more wrong. The Taliban are the same as they always have been, and even worse in many aspects.

Media and journalism have historically been vital yet underdeveloped aspects of Afghan society. The first official newspaper in Afghanistan, known as Shams -ul- Nahar or the Morning Sun, was established in 1873 during the reign of King Sher Ali Khan. On January 11, 1906, the second official newspaper, Siraj-ul-Akhbar, or Lamp of the News, was formed. However, due to widespread illiteracy in the country, the majority of Afghans relied on oral communications to receive news and information. Newspapers primarily catered to the educated elite, both men and women, who were literate. Research indicates that even during the early 20th century and the late 19th century, when newspapers existed, the monarchy, particularly the royal families, exercised control over the content intended for public consumption. Illiteracy empowers government officials and strips the citizenry of their agency to digest and interpret information for themselves.

For the US, Fentanyl Is All About China

Allison Fedirka

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While many governments around the world are focused on securing supply chains, there’s at least one the U.S. government desperately wants to break up: the fentanyl supply chain. Nearly a dozen U.S. government agencies are working together to choke off illicit flows of the drug. In addition to saving American lives, Washington wants to reduce insecurity in Latin America and highlight China’s role in the fentanyl trade to introduce an anti-China element into its security cooperation, particularly with Mexico and Colombia.

China’s rapid growth has over the past two decades helped it develop its economic influence in Latin America – aided in no small part by the absence of a U.S. counter-strategy. At first, Washington saw Beijing’s growing presence as simple economic diversification, and thus no threat to hemispheric security or U.S. security and military relationships with Latin America. Only recently has the U.S. started to see China’s commercial activities in the region as a potential threat, especially as it relates to U.S. access to rare earth elements and the security of allies’ ports and 5G technology.

At the same time, China’s economy is in secular decline. This slowdown, combined with the United States’ drive to decouple supply chains from China, is naturally steering Mexico back toward its northern neighbor. Mexico is an obvious destination for multinational firms that want to manufacture close to the U.S. market at a relatively low cost. For its part, Colombia – for years a beneficiary of Chinese trade and investment – has gotten closer to Beijing politically since the inauguration in 2022 of President Gustavo Petro. However, it too is questioning the future of Chinese foreign investment and trade, leading it to consider alternatives such as the United States.

The New Silk Road: A Project For China’s Global Hegemony – Analysis

Matija Šerić

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China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, or as it is called in China, “One Belt, One Road”, is much better known under the name “New Silk Road”. It’s one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects of all time.

The initiative was launched in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and includes a large set of development and investment projects aimed at connecting Asia and Europe through all forms of transport infrastructure. Over the course of a decade, the initiative spread to Africa, Oceania and Latin America, significantly strengthening the global economic and political influence of the People’s Republic of China.

The project currently covers 151 countries (with the potential to grow) and is considered a central pillar of Xi’s foreign policy that seeks to ensure China’s global dominance and make the 21st century China’s century. In other words, Xi wants his country to assume the status and role of the US in the world. China wants to become the most dominant country in the world, which will lead the world into new times.

The historic Silk Road

The historic Chinese Silk Road was created during the westward expansion of the Chinese Han dynasty (from 206 BC to 220 AD). The ancient Chinese created a trade network across Central Asia (modern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and modern India and Pakistan. Also, these trade routes stretched more than 6,000 km to Europe.

China was thus at the center of ancient globalization in those ancient times. It connected eastern and western markets, encouraged the development of economies and exchanged cultural and religious traditions. Valuable Chinese silk, spices, porcelain, and other goods moved west, while China received gold and other precious metals, ivory, and glassware.

Shakeup At China’s Rocket Force Suggests Strategy Shift Toward ‘Nuclear Triad’ – Analysis

Joyce Huang

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also the military’s commander-in-chief, this week replaced two leaders of the elite force overseeing the People’s Liberation Army’s conventional and nuclear missiles.

The reshuffle at the PLA Rocket Force suggests a marked shift in Xi’s nuclear strategy toward the so-called “nuclear triad” — a three-pronged force that enables nuclear missiles to be launched from the air, sea and land — under an integrated command system, analysts warn.

That will help strengthen China’s nuclear deterrent capabilities and thus pose a greater threat to U.S. security, they say.

Nuclear triad

Xi, on Monday, appointed Wang Houbin, former deputy commander of the navy, and Xu Xisheng, former political commissar of the air force’s Southern Theater Command, to serve, respectively, as the rocket force’s commander and political commissar.

“What has happened is that, in order to have a modern and effective nuclear deterrent, is to have what is called the nuclear triad. So, three ways of delivering nuclear missile or nuclear deterrence … This is more about putting nuclear weapons on planes, on submarines and not necessarily on land-based missiles,” Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based adjunct fellow at the think tank Pacific Forum, told VOA Mandarin by phone on Tuesday.

Neill said that China, in order to be a modern nuclear power with aggressive and offensive capabilities, has to acquire the ability to launch nuclear weapons from various positions – something that will keep its enemy guessing.

Fresh leadership

Wang and Xu will replace their predecessors Li Yuchao and Xu Zhongbo.

Why China Has a Giant Pile of Debt

Keith Bradsher

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China, which has lent nearly $1 trillion to some 150 developing countries, has been reluctant to cancel large debts owed by countries struggling to make ends meet. That is at least in part because China is facing a debt bomb at home: trillions of dollars owed by local governments, their mostly off-the-books financial affiliates, and real estate developers.

One of the main issues for Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen during her visit to Beijing this week is whether she can persuade China to cooperate more to address an evolving debt crisis facing lower-income countries. But China’s state-controlled banking system is wary of accepting losses on foreign loans when it faces far greater losses on loans within China.

How much debt does China have?

It’s hard to know exactly because official data is scant. Researchers at JPMorgan Chase calculated last month that overall debt within China — including households, companies and the government — had reached 282 percent of the country’s annual economic output. That compares with an average of 256 percent in developed economies around the world and 257 percent in the United States.

What distinguishes China from most other countries is how fast that debt has accumulated relative to the size of its economy. By comparison, in the United States or even deeply indebted Japan, debt has risen less precipitously. The steep increase in China’s debt, more than doubling compared with the size of its economy since the global financial crisis 15 years ago, makes managing it harder.

China’s lending to developing countries is small relative to its domestic debt, representing less than 6 percent of China’s annual economic output. But these loans are particularly sensitive politically. Despite heavy censorship, periodic complaints emerge on Chinese social media that banks should have lent the money to poor households and regions at home, not abroad. Accepting heavy losses on these loans would be very unpopular within China.

Why China is not as powerful as the West might think

STUART LAU AND PHELIM KINE

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President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century.

“The rise of the East, and the decline of the West” is his motto. As Chinese growth rocketed and Western politicians fretted over how to respond, it became a national catchphrase, too.

But among the Chinese people — and increasingly in the chancelleries and boardrooms of Europe — a different story is beginning to be told: Beijing’s march toward global economic domination may not be invincible after all.

China managed only weak GDP growth after belatedly liberating itself from pandemic restrictions. The property market is in crisis and youth unemployment has risen to hazardous levels, with one estimate putting it at 50 percent. Private entrepreneurs increasingly live in fear of what the state will do to their businesses and consumers have stopped spending the way they did in the pre-COVID good times.

In Shanghai, London and New York, Chinese and foreign businesses alike are now grappling with a new scenario: What if the slowdown is here to stay?

“The risks of a major economic crisis in China, or perhaps more probable an imminent stagnation in sustainable economic growth, are […] rising,” Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute For International Economics, told POLITICO.

What happens to China’s economy matters hugely for the world.

According to the latest statistics, the Chinese economy grew at a weak pace in the second quarter of this year, with GDP just 0.8 percent up in April-June from the previous quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Year-on-year, GDP expanded 6.3 percent in the second quarter — below the 7.3 percent forecast.

China ups military ante on Taiwan’s eastern flank

GABRIEL HONRADA

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Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Marine Corps march during a military drill as the sun rises at a military base in Taonan, Jilin province. Photo: Reuters / China Daily

China has upped the ante on its military pressure on Taiwan, intensifying military drills east of the self-governing island to prepare for a blockade aimed at forcing eventual reunification.

This month, Nikkei reported that China has dramatically increased military drills simulating a blockade of Taiwan since former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island last August.

Nikkei notes that before Pelosi’s visit, Chinese ships and planes have become more active in the Western Pacific, in the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan.

The paper also notes the deployment last December of China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier east of Taiwan, followed in April this year by deployment of the carrier Shandong in the same region.

Nikkei notes that in April, a Chinese TB001 combat drone was confirmed east of and around Taiwan on a highly unusual flight path, according to the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense. It also says that in May, a BZK005 reconnaissance drone was spotted off the east coast of Taiwan.

Nikkei also says that sightings of Chinese aircraft in the airspace east of Taiwan have substantially increased since March, noting that from Pelosi’s visit until February 2023, they were observed no more than three days a month. The number gradually increased from 10 days in April to 12 in May, six in June, and 12 in July.

The End of China’s Economic Miracle

Adam S. Posen

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As 2022 came to an end, hopes were rising that China’s economy—and, consequently, the global economy—was poised for a surge. After three years of stringent restrictions on movement, mandatory mass testing, and interminable lockdowns, the Chinese government had suddenly decided to abandon its “zero COVID” policy, which had suppressed demand, hampered manufacturing, roiled supply lines, and produced the most significant slowdown that the country’s economy had seen since pro-market reforms began in the late 1970s. In the weeks following the policy change, global prices of oil, copper, and other commodities rose on expectations that Chinese demand would surge. In March, then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a target for real GDP growth of around five percent, and many external analysts predicted it would go far higher.

Initially, some parts of China’s economy did indeed grow: pent-up demand for domestic tourism, hospitality, and retail services all made solid contributions to the recovery. Exports grew in the first few months of 2023, and it appeared that even the beleaguered residential real estate market had bottomed out. But by the end of the second quarter, the latest GDP data told a very different story: overall growth was weak and seemingly set on a downward trend. Wary foreign investors and cash-strapped local governments in China chose not to pick up on the initial momentum.

This reversal was more significant than a typical overly optimistic forecast missing the mark. The seriousness of the problem is indicated by the decline of both China’s durable goods consumption and private-sector investment rates to a fraction of their earlier levels, and by the country’s surging household savings rate. Those trends reflect people’s long-term economic decisions in the aggregate, and they strongly suggest that in China, people and companies are increasingly fearful of losing access to their assets and are prioritizing short-term liquidity over investment. That these indicators have not returned to pre-COVID, normal levels—let alone boomed after reopening as they did in the United States and elsewhere—is a sign of deep problems.

China Was the World's Biggest Economic Miracle and It Will Be Again | Opinion

DAVID P. GOLDMAN

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According to the World Bank, China's real per capita GDP rose from $404 in 1979—the year Deng Xiaoping opened the economy to private enterprise—to $11,560 in 2022 in constant 2015 U.S. dollars. It jumped five-fold since 2001. By contrast, India's real per capita GDP rose from $373 in 1979 to just $2,085 in 2022. By comparison, you can see what a success story China has been, one unique in economic activity.

This is not to say Deng's trajectory is still at play. Deng Xiaoping's economy, which turned subsistence farmers into semi-skilled industrial workers, surely has peaked. The great migration from country to city is slowing, and China's workforce is slowly shrinking.

But China is building a new digital economy powered by AI and high-speed broadband, with 2.3 million of the world's 3 million 5G base stations and download speeds double ours. It has automated ports that can empty a container ship in 45 minutes rather than the 48 hours required at our port of Long Beach. It's also automated mines where no worker goes underground, factories controlled by AI, and warehouses in which robots do the sorting and packaging.

Most of all, nearly two-thirds of Chinese citizens have an education beyond high school, compared to just 3 percent who had one in 1979. China graduates more engineers than the rest of the world combined, and Chinese universities teach at world standards.

China has also extended its economic reach to developing economies. It now exports more to the Global South than to developed markets, doubling its exports to ASEAN and tripling its exports to Central Asia after 2020. It builds broadband, railroads, and ports from Africa to South America, promoting a permanent market for its exports.

eople watch a disabled man writing Chinese characters with bionic hands at the Apsara Conference, a cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) conference, in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on November 3, 2022.STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

China's new digital economy is in early days, to be sure, and a lot can go wrong. But some things are going right. China overtook Japan as the world's largest auto exporter this year, thanks in part to Tesla's mega-plant in Shanghai. China now makes the 21st century equivalent of the Model T in the form of EVs with a $10,000 price tag.

Ukrainian Troops Trained by the West Stumble in Battle

Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper

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The first several weeks of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive have not been kind to the Ukrainian troops who were trained and armed by the United States and its allies.

Equipped with advanced American weapons and heralded as the vanguard of a major assault, the troops became bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships. Units got lost. One unit delayed a nighttime attack until dawn, losing its advantage. Another fared so badly that commanders yanked it off the battlefield altogether.

Now the Western-trained Ukrainian brigades are trying to turn things around, U.S. officials and independent analysts say. Ukrainian military commanders have changed tactics, focusing on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire. A troop surge is underway in the country’s south, with a second wave of Western-trained forces launching mostly small-scale attacks to punch through Russian lines.

But early results have been mixed. While Ukrainian troops have retaken a few villages, they have yet to make the kinds of sweeping gains that characterized their successes in the strategically important cities of Kherson and Kharkiv last fall. The complicated training in Western maneuvers has given the Ukrainians scant solace in the face of barrage after barrage of Russian artillery.

How the Ukraine Counteroffensive Can Still Succeed

Frederick W. Kagan , Karolina Hird and Kateryna Stepanenko

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The situation in Ukraine still favors Kyiv despite the limited progress made in the counteroffensive so far. Ukrainian forces attempted a limited mechanized penetration of prepared Russian defenses in the south in early to mid-June, but failed to break through the Russian lines. They then switched to slower and more careful operations while disrupting Russian rear areas with long-range precision strikes. Ukraine began the next, reportedly main, phase of its counteroffensive on July 26 with a determined drive to penetrate Russian lines in western Zaporizhia Oblast. It’s far too soon to evaluate the outcome of that effort, which is underway as of the time of this writing, but it is vital to manage expectations. Ukrainian forces are fighting now to break through the first line of long-prepared Russian defenses. Several lines lie behind it, stretching for many miles. Ukrainian progress will very likely alternate periods of notable tactical advances with periods, possibly long periods, of pause and some setbacks. Much as we might hope that the road to the Sea of Azov will simply open for Ukrainian forces the odds are high that fighting will remain hard, casualties high, and frustration will be a constant companion. All of which is normal in war.

But the Ukrainian counteroffensive can succeed in any of several ways. First, the current Ukrainian mechanized breakthrough could succeed, and the Ukrainians could exploit it deeply enough to unhinge part or all of the Russian lines. Second, Russian forces, already suffering serious morale and other systemic problems, could break under the pressure and begin to withdraw in a controlled or uncontrolled fashion. Third, a steady pressure and interdiction campaign supported by major efforts such as the one now underway can generate gaps in the Russian lines that Ukrainian forces can exploit at first locally, but then for deeper penetrations. The first and second possibilities are relatively unlikely but possible.

The West Attacked Russia’s Economy. The Result Is Another Stalemate.

Alan Cullison and Georgi Kantchev

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Economists expect sanctions to cause Russia to stagnate in the years ahead. PHOTO: SOFYA SANDURSKAYA/TASS/ZUMA PRESS

Weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, a White House official warned Moscow that a raft of U.S.-led sanctions could cut Russia’s economy in half.

Last week the International Monetary Fund gave some upbeat news for the Kremlin, saying it now expects Russia’s economy to grow 1.5% this year, supported by extensive state spending. That follows a shrinkage of 2.1% the year before, when Russia became the most sanctioned major economy in the world.

Economists expect the sanctions to cause Russia to stagnate in the years ahead and the fault lines are already emerging. But the West’s failure to quickly bring the Russian economy to its knees for its invasion of Ukraine mirrors a larger stalemate on the battlefield there, despite a raft of Western lethal aid to Kyiv and economic support for the Ukrainian cause.

Russia’s real GDP, change from a year earlier, with projections for 2023 and 2024

When they were unveiled, the sanctions were described by Biden administration officials as the most consequential in history, and the initial shock and awe roiled Moscow’s financial markets. But today the economy has muddled through enough for the Kremlin to support an attritional war that the U.S. had hoped to avoid.

Sanctions initially starved Russia of microchips and high-tech components last year, crimping its ability to produce precision-guided missiles. But since then Moscow has found loopholes through neighboring countries, and is bombing Ukraine daily with precision weaponry.

Russia’s crude oil continues to flow, even if the lower prices it fetches have hit state coffers. Analysts say that the main effect of sanctions—technological backwardness and an inability to modernize—will hamper its economic growth in the longer term.

“Sanctions have not destroyed the Russian economy just yet,” said Sergei Guriev, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris and a former Russian government adviser. “They have started to constrain but not stop Putin’s ability to finance this war.”

Macron knows that Europe needs to stand on its own two feet

Artin DerSimonian

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The recent evolution in French strategic thinking owes a great deal to the war in Ukraine, but these shifts will have deeper and wider implications for European security and the transatlantic relationship moving forward.

As the U.S.-China rivalry intensifies, it will become increasingly valuable for Washington to see a unified, capable, and determined European pillar within the transatlantic alliance that is willing to effectively manage security affairs on the continent and carry its own weight internationally — an undertaking long promoted by French leaders.

In a 2019 interview, French President Emmanuel Macron infamously asserted that NATO was experiencing “brain death” and urged Europe to “start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power,” lest it risk losing control over its own “destiny.” These comments highlighted concerns across Europe that Washington was losing interest in the continent and could no longer serve as a reliable ally. Four years later, Macron now declares that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “jolted [NATO] back with the worst of electroshock.”

France has a long tradition of seeking an independent geopolitical role for itself, primarily based on its nuclear deterrent, permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, capable armed forces, and experienced diplomatic and intelligence networks. During his tenure, Macron has staked much of his international reputation on forging a Europe with “strategic autonomy,” understood as a strategy rooted in its conception of European interests while preserving the ability to act alone when necessary and with allies whenever possible. Having been elected only a few months after former U.S. President Donald Trump entered the White House, Macron’s impression that Europe’s reliance on Washington was an unpredictable gamble was hard to argue with.

For those NATO members that were once part of the Soviet bloc, the deterrent capabilities of the alliance and the U.S. have long been their only guarantee from feared Russian revanchism. Therefore, these states tended to view Macron’s push for European strategic autonomy as a threat to their own security as they doubted western Europe’s ability and willingness to militarily defend the central and eastern nations of the continent absent U.S. leadership. When Biden and his team of committed transatlanticists entered the White House, those fears diminished. Macron, however, persisted in his calls for strategic autonomy.

The Crisis of American Leadership

CHRIS PATTEN

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For most of the post-World War II era, the United States has abided by international law and made the world a safer place. But President George W. Bush’s disastrous military adventurism so powerfully undermined trust in the US-led international order that it has become nearly impossible to tackle pressing global challenges such as climate change.

TOULOUSE – In December 2003, roughly nine months into the Iraq War that would forever define his legacy, then-US President George W. Bush was asked whether his administration’s policies complied with international law. “I don’t know what you’re talking about by international law. I better consult my lawyer,” he joked. Bush’s disastrous military adventurism starkly illustrated the importance of international norms and institutions, as well as the consequences of disregarding them. Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten this lesson once again.

Since the end of World War II, the United Nations has been the cornerstone of the international rules-based order. While numerous other international agreements address issues such as chemical weapons, biological warfare, and regional stability, the UN has been entrusted with the overarching role of maintaining global peace and stability. What made it effective, at least for a while, was the support of the world’s liberal democracies and, crucially, the unwavering commitment of both Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States.

To be sure, the US has long been ambivalent about some aspects of the international order, as demonstrated by its long-standing refusal to join the International Criminal Court. For the most part, however, the US has adhered to the global rulebook, despite the enormous political and economic power it acquired in the aftermath of World War II, which would have enabled it to do whatever it wanted unilaterally.

Ukrainian troops on front line admit Russians tougher than expected in ongoing counteroffensive

Patrick Reilly

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Ukrainian troops admitted that the Russians have put up a tougher fight than expected as they continue pushing into enemy-controlled territory.

Troops at the vanguard of Ukraine’s long-planned counteroffensive in the southeast region of the country said that a fierce battle last week revealed that the Russian troops are better prepared than originally anticipated.

“The Russians were waiting for us,” a 29-year-old soldier using the call-sign Bulat told Reuters in the Southern Donetsk Province.

“They fired anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers at us. My vehicle drove over an anti-tank mine, but everything was ok, the vehicle took the hit, and everyone was alive.”

Ukraine’s boldest counteroffensive yet is now in its third month. Last week’s battle of Staromaiorske gave an indication as to why the advance has been so slow — and bloody.Ukraine launched its counteroffensive three months ago, but progress has been slow.

Ukraine has tested its allies’ patience with its military strategy and demands

Holly Ellyatt

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As the war with Russia has played out, it’s been inevitable perhaps that there have been tensions and differences of opinion between Kyiv and its allies.

Ukraine has to tread a fine line with its international friends.

It’s reliant on its partners for billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware and assistance but insists it’s fighting the West’s war too.

Most recently, tensions have emerged over Ukraine’s military strategy and demands on NATO.

A meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council during the NATO summit on July 12, 2023, in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Ukraine’s relationship with its international partners has become increasingly complex, and it was perhaps inevitable that tensions and differences of opinion between Kyiv and its allies arose as the war with Russia dragged on.

Ukraine has to tread a fine line with its international friends. It is reliant on its partners for billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware, as well as other forms of humanitarian and financial assistance, and it needs a continuous and increasing supply of arms to fight Russia. It insists, however, that it is fighting not only for its own survival but for the West, too, facing a hostile and unpredictable Russia.

Kyiv’s biggest individual benefactors like the U.S. and U.K., who have given more than $40 billion and $4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, respectively, have pledged to support Ukraine till the end. The phrase “whatever it takes” has become a mantra often repeated at public gatherings of allies assessing the war and the military needs of Ukraine.

A guidebook to Russian wartime oligarchs How Russia’s richest businessmen profit from the war in Ukraine

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Assembly line at the Kalashnikov plant

Independent Russian investigative outlet Proekt has put out a “guidebook to Russian wartime oligarchs,” which details the “contributions” the wealthiest Russian nationals have made so far to the war in Ukraine. Proekt journalists studied state contracts and other open sources of information, discovering in the process that at least 81 of Russia’s richest businessmen are involved in supplying Russia’s military-industrial complex, its army, and its National Guard, though some deny their involvement with the defense economy and even openly criticize the war. Meduza shares an English-language synopsis of Proekt’s investigation.

The Proekt team’s investigation started by looking at the 2021 Forbes Russia list. Journalists then analyzed publicly available state contracts between companies wholly or partially owned by the people on that list and organizations like military manufacturing plants, Russia’s Defense Ministry, and the National Guard. They focused on the period between 2014 and 2023. Proekt notes, however, that the Defense Ministry and military factories began to classify most contracts as secret in 2017.

Of the 81 businessmen included in the investigation who have been involved in weapons manufacturing, 80 have been sanctioned but only 14 faced restrictions from all of Ukraine’s allies. Another 34 were sanctioned only by Ukraine.

Contracts between the oligarchs’ companies and Russia’s military-industrial complex during the entire period of military conflict in Ukraine (2014–the present) were worth at least 220 billion rubles ($2.4 billion), writes Proekt.

Who profits from the war, and how? A few examples.

In March 2022, the Russian military killed civilian residents in the city of Bucha, outside of Kyiv. Video footage of the events — shot by drones, surveillance cameras, and a Bucha resident, Viktor Shatilo, who filmed the murders on his cell phone from his home’s attic — shows that some people were killed by BMD-2 and BMD-4M airborne infantry fighting vehicles. The latter are produced by the company KBP Instrument Design Bureau, which belongs to the High Precision Systems holding company, part of the state corporation Rostec.

Starlink’s SOS – Ukrainian Military Struggles as Russia’s ‘Tobol’ EW Strikes

Girish Linganna

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Girish Linganna is a Defence & Aerospace analyst and is the Director of ADD Engineering Components (India) Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany with manufacturing units in Russia. He is Consulting Editor Industry and Defense at Frontier India.

Reports indicate that the Starlink communication system used by the Ukrainian armed forces has exhibited unexpected behaviour as of late. There have been rumblings that Starlink’s services have been suspended in certain parts of the combat zone in Ukraine. According to reports from Western media outlets, Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX, has repeatedly prevented the Ukrainian military from gaining access to the Starlink Internet service, eventually undermining Kyiv’s military plans. The billionaire has not yet responded to the claims.

In an interview with media on July 31, retired lieutenant colonel of the Lugansk People’s Republic Armed Forces Andrey Marochko said that analysis of intercepted chatter by Ukrainian forces on the line of contact showed that the Ukrainians had trouble using the Internet via Starlink satellites in the Lugansk tactical direction. Russian use of electronic warfare equipment to disrupt SpaceX’s communications is widely blamed.

As per Ukrainian commander Madyar, The Russian army “has already obtained the technology that allows them to jam Starlink.” The Russian Ministry of Defence has yet to comment on the issue.

According to Western media, the Russian Army began using the 14Ts227 Tobol EW system as early as 2022. Supposedly, this system disrupts satellite communication channels used by Ukrainian forces.

On April 18, the Washington Post reported a new Russian innovation and how it could be used in the ongoing Special Operation. Leaked classified documents from the American intelligence community provided the details about “Tobol.” The referenced sources are from March of 2023. Even though the data’s integrity is under question, people are nevertheless curious about the hack and the details it may provide.

What's the Best Tank in the World? Emerging AbramsX?

KRIS OSBORN, WARRIOR MAVEN 

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The US Army’s M1A2 Abrams v4, Israel’s Merkava, Germany’s Leopard 2 or the famous Russian T-14 Armata are all main battle tanks which could compete for distinction of … the best tank in the world.

However, what about an emerging tank which has yet to fully exist? It seems General Dynamics Land Systems AbramsX could very well be the best tank to ever exist, should it perform as anticipated.

GDLS revealed its AbramsX last Fall at the 2022 Association of the United States Army Annual Symposium as an offering or vehicle for the Army to consider.How might the AbramsX build upon armored vehicle and tank innovations? GDLS developers have explained a number of key elements to this, including an unmanned turret, ability to launch drones, fire course-correcting ammunition, operate 360-degree thermal sites, evolving AI-enabled command and control capability and new generations of sensor data processing and integration.

While the Army typically does not comment on specific industry offerings, the tank was offered to the Army as a demonstrator for exploration. Mr. William Nelson, Deputy, Army Futures Command, did not comment at all on the AbramsX specifically, but did tell Warrior the service is working intensely on the extent to which emerging armored vehicle and tank technologies are driving new requirements and maneuver formations.

"We need lighter formations that are more lethal and survivable, and heavy formations which are lighter with a reduced logistical footprint. I think that defines the future and is not something you turn on a dime," Nelson told Warrior.

The AbramsX is a 60-ton offering designed to be a little faster, more mobile and more expeditionary than the existing Abrams, something which could massively improve its ability to cross bridges, enter strategically vital passageways and perhaps keep pace with maneuvering infantry and lighter-vehicles on the move. The lighter weight offering also appears to address ongoing Army concerns about Abram tank weight, referring to the extent to which its 70-ton weight could limit the platform's mobility and deployability to a certain extent.

What If?

Chris Williams

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Storm clouds are gathering. The United States faces an increasingly threatening political-military environment driven by a range of hostile adversaries armed with increasingly sophisticated means and methods of debilitating attack. Will current domestic distractions prevent our leaders from fashioning effective policies and plans to anticipate and repel such attacks? Do we have the requisite military capabilities to deter or defeat such threats?

The 9/11 Commission cited “a failure of imagination” as one of the principal causes of America’s inability to anticipate and prevent the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC on that fateful morning almost twenty-two years ago. Consistent with that finding, one must ask: What If?

What if Vladimir Putin, having finally recognized that he will not achieve his goal of subjugating Ukraine, authorized strikes against various Ukrainian targets using low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to shock NATO, destroy critical infrastructure, and leave key cities uninhabitable? What if immediately thereafter Putin agreed to a “ceasefire-in-place” and called for “face-to-face negotiations to resolve the matter of Ukraine” – an approach that would leave Russia in control of occupied Ukrainian territory? And what if Putin encouraged Wagner Group mercenaries to launch attacks against Poland, a NATO ally, all while denying responsibility for such actions? How would the U.S., NATO, and others respond?

What if North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un fomented an escalating political crisis on the peninsula, launched debilitating cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the South, and demanded replacement of the ruling government in Seoul with a pro-North regime that supports removal of all US forces from the peninsula? What if the North also released a list of a dozen South Korean cities that would be attacked by artillery and rockets armed with chemical weapons if his demands were not met? What if such a warning caused panic and led to hurried evacuations of several of those cities thereby creating a humanitarian and political crisis in the South? What if, amid the crisis, North Korean special forces conducted sabotage operations against ROK command control & communications targets and assassinated South Korean political and industry leaders? And what if Kim asserted that if the US did not begin a full withdrawal of its military forces from the South within one week, the North would launch missile attacks against U.S. military bases in the South and throughout the region and destroy Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities? How would the U.S. and its friends and allies respond?

Five Ways The Ukraine War Could Become A Nuclear Conflict

Loren Thompson

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Use of even one nuclear device in the Ukraine war would change everything.WIKIPEDIA

Eighteen months into war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict has become nearly invisible to many Americans. News from the front is frequently reduced to a few sentences, and each new day’s reporting sounds like yesterday’s.

As Western nations have gradually crossed every “red line” laid down by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow’s repeated warnings about the possibility of nuclear weapons being used have ceased to elicit fear.

Thus, when Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warned on June 30 that success of the current Ukrainian counter-offensive might provoke a “nuclear conflagration,” his comment was barely noticed. Some Western observers seem to have concluded such statements are a bluff, despite the frequency with which they are issued by senior Russian officials.

The Biden administration takes the warnings seriously, and has sought to find a middle ground between doing too little and doing too much in arming Kyiv. Nonetheless, there is inherent danger in supporting war on the doorstep of another nuclear power. Nobody in Washington can claim to understand with any precision what Putin’s inner circle is thinking, or how it might react to a variety of plausible developments.

Against that backdrop, here are five scenarios in which Moscow might decide to “go nuclear.” Since US planning scenarios typically anticipate that the nuclear threshold initially would be breached in a limited and local way, I will confine myself mainly to situations in which Russia employs tactical weapons—of which it has roughly 1,900.

Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Changes Counteroffensive Tactics

HOWARD ALTMAN

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Despite tens of billions of dollars of weapons poured into Ukraine and training of many of the country's troops by the U.S. and its allies, progress in the counteroffensive has been limited. So Kyiv is changing its tactics.

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that Ukrainian military commanders are now "focusing on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire." This comes as a troop surge is underway in the country’s south, "with a second wave of Western-trained forces launching mostly small-scale attacks to punch through Russian lines.”

The results, to date, have “been mixed,” the publication reported. While Ukrainian troops have retaken a few villages, “they have yet to make the kinds of sweeping gains that characterized their successes in the strategically important cities of Kherson and Kharkiv last fall. The complicated training in Western maneuvers has given the Ukrainians scant solace in the face of barrage after barrage of Russian artillery.”

The tactical change up “is a clear signal that NATO’s hopes for large advances made by Ukrainian formations armed with new weapons, new training and an injection of artillery ammunition have failed to materialize, at least for now,” the paper reported.

The situation on the battlefield “raises questions about the quality of the training the Ukrainians received from the West and about whether tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, including nearly $44 billion worth from the Biden administration, have been successful in transforming the Ukrainian military into a NATO-standard fighting force.”

The Times piece includes analysis from Rob Lee, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Michael Kofman, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment and Principal Research Scientist, CNA. Kofman noted that there were challenges with how Ukrainian troops were trained to fight the NATO way. Lee said the training timetable was too compressed.

Private infrastructure complicates US warfare plans

GABRIEL HONRADA

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Depending on who’s telling the tale, US near-peer adversaries China and Russia may have accomplished a significant paradigm shift in their cyber operations by targeting civilian infrastructure – or they may simply be doing the same sorts of things Washington is doing with its own cyber warfare plans.

In National Defense magazine this month Josh Luckenbaugh says that, while the US and Western countries consider civilian infrastructure off-limits, its adversaries do not abide by those principles. He says that US near-peer adversaries plan to use such effects-based operations to change the US political calculus by impeding decision-making and causing social panic.

Luckenbaugh also says that since US near-peer adversaries are looking for new ways to attack critical infrastructure, looking for new ways to partner with the private sector becomes imperative, as most US critical infrastructure is privately owned.

He also notes that the US military does not own and operate critical infrastructure, necessitating new forms of public-private partnership that secure the latter but do not affect the political calculus between free enterprise, privacy, and state security.

The Taiwan case

In the latest tit-for-tat in the ongoing cyberwar between the US and China, the US has exposed extensive Chinese cyberattacks aimed at critical infrastructure to disrupt the former’s military rescue operations in the event of an attack on Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

Fault Lines Persist In India–Nepal Relations – Analysis

Rishi Gupta

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The Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known as Prachanda), made a four-day visit to India from 31 May to 3 June 2023. This was his fourth visit to India as Prime Minister and his first overseas visit since taking office for the third time in December 2022.

The visit came at a time when India’s ties with Nepal have reached the lowest point in recent history. This is due to the ongoing border dispute and Nepal’s reservation about continuing the recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas in the Indian Army for a fixed four-year term under the controversial Agnipath Scheme.

The most recent contentions between India and Nepal began with the Indian government’s release of a new political map in November 2019. The need for a new map arose after the abrogation of Article 370 in the Indian Constitution, which ended the special status given to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and created a new Union Territory of Ladakh.

Nepal objected to the new map, alleging that its western boundary with India in the Kalapani region was incorrectly drawn. This caused a public uproar, with mass anti-India protests carried out across Nepal. Though India initially refuted Nepal’s allegations and continues to do so, New Delhi agreed to address Nepal’s concerns through diplomatic dialogue to calm the anti-India backlash.

But the then-ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) drew on this controversy to strengthen its political base. CPN-UML released a new map showing large Indian territories as Nepali. This new Nepali map received parliamentary approval, making the issue complicated for the diplomatic community to resolve.

The second issue clouding India–Nepal relations concerns the recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas in the Indian Army. This unique practice continued for seven decades until India’s Agnipath Scheme halted the momentum in June 2022. Under the scheme, soldiers below the rank of commissioned officer will be recruited for a fixed four-year term on a contract basis in all branches of the defence force. The scheme applies to Nepali citizens belonging to the Gorkha community.

Reinventing Soft Power: The Strong Impact of China’s Soft Power “Shortcomings” on the Global South

Tanina Zappone

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After being introduced into the Chinese academic debate in the 1990s, the notion of soft power has undergone such a process of “Sinicisation” that some scholars now wonder if the original concept has been gradually “reinvented” in China. Given worsening opinions about the PRC in the US and Europe over the last years, many analysts have stressed the weakness of China’s soft power, pointing to its state-centred approach and lack of an attractive set of values to be emulated as the main shortcomings. However, China’s growing influence in the Global South shows that these analyses have misevaluated the real goals and motivations of China’s soft power. The Russia-Ukraine war provides telling examples of the successful dynamics of China’s “defensive” or “negative” version of soft power and suggests it has significant impact in the least industrialised countries.

Paper produced in the framework of the project “Countering Chinese Disinformation in Italy”.

U.S.-China Competition and Military AI

Jacob Stokes, Alexander Sullivan and Noah Greene

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Two tectonic trends in the international security environment appear to be on a collision course. The first trend is the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China). The second trend is the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including for military applications. This report explores how the United States can manage strategic risks—defined as increased risks of armed conflict or the threat of nuclear war—that could be created or exacerbated by military AI in its relationship with China.

It begins by providing an overview of China’s views on and policies toward AI. Beijing sees AI playing roles in both its civilian economy and the modernization of its military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). At home, Chinese leaders want to leverage AI to boost growth and innovation, address economic and social challenges, and secure the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) domestic rule.

AI also plays a key role in China’s military ambitions, especially its goal to become a “world-class military” by midcentury, in part through the “intelligentization” of its forces. Intelligentization relies on integrating AI and other emerging technologies into the joint force with the goal of gaining an edge on the United States. China argues that its governance model, including its military-civil fusion policy, gives Beijing a competitive advantage over Washington. Realization of that vision, however, remains uncertain and will require China to overcome external and internal obstacles.

This report explores how the United States can manage strategic risks—defined as increased risks of armed conflict or the threat of nuclear war—that could be created or exacerbated by military AI in its relationship with China.

Next, the report articulates five categories of what the authors call pathways, or causal links, through which applications of military AI could undermine stability and increase strategic risk between Washington and Beijing. The first is individual improvements in capabilities that combine to give China a military edge. The second is AI’s effects on the decision-making and information domain. The third is uncrewed autonomous systems. The fourth is intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. And the fifth is command, control, and communications. The report’s discussion of each pathway provides more details about the intricacies of how they might function.

Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security

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A report of the Working Group on Semiconductors and the Security of the United States and Taiwan, a joint project of the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations.

A new report by Asia Society and the Hoover Institution offers recommendations for how the United States and its allies can ensure a reliable supply of semiconductors, when most of the world’s semiconductor supply comes from Taiwan, and Taiwan is increasingly under pressure from China to come under its direct control. The report, Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security, draws on the shared thinking of a working group of technologists, economists, military strategists, industry players, and regional policy experts that met together over 18 months to consider how the United States could strengthen its own position in semiconductors while also protecting Taiwan’s continued autonomy. As the report says: “It is not enough to simply constrain China. It is not even enough to innovate in design. The United States must run faster, harder, and with longer-term vision.” A Foreign Affairs article by the working group’s co-chairs, Asia Society Vice President and Arthur Ross Director Orville Schell, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Larry Diamond, and retired Admiral James O. Ellis, lays out key recommendations.

China replaces elite nuclear leadership in surprise military shake-up

Brad Lendon, Simone McCarthy and Wayne Chang

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Military vehicles carrying DF-5B intercontinental ballistic missiles travel past Tiananmen Square during a military parade marking the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China held in Beijing in 2019.Jason Lee/Reuters

China has revealed two new leaders of its People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force this week in a surprise shake-up that has raised questions about the inner workings at the top of the military branch overseeing the nation’s powerful arsenal of nuclear and ballistic missiles.

On Monday, state media named Wang Houbin as commander of the Rocket Force and Xu Xisheng as the political commissar of the force in a report highlighting their promotion to the rank of general by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

State media has yet to release any information about previous chief Li Yuchao, a veteran of the force who had only served as commander since the start of last year, a comparatively short tenure, or about previous commissar Xu Zhongbo.

The replacement of two top figures in the Rocket Force in one sweep with military figures from outside the branch — as Wang comes from the navy and and Xu Xisheng the air force — is an unusual move, experts say. And it comes a week after China’s former foreign minister, Qin Gang, was suddenly and dramatically ousted from his office without explanation.

The Rocket Force reshuffle follows several weeks of rumors that a leadership change was afoot as Li had not been in public view, now further fueled by a lack of confirmation about his current position within China’s opaque political system.

The last time Li and Xu Zhongbo were mentioned as Rocket Force leaders was in an April 6 statement from the local government in Suzhou city, where they attended a wreath-laying commemoration ceremony, according to a CNN search.

China’s Recent Political Bureau Meeting And The Trend It Sets – Analysis

He Jun

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On July 24, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China convened a meeting to analyze and study the current economic situation and set forth economic plans for the second half of the year.

The meeting was presided by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Given the highly complex economic situation and the release of China’s half-year economic data, researchers at ANBOUND provide the following preliminary interpretations regarding the assessment of the economic situation and the country’s measures for the second half of the year.

Firstly, the meeting pointed out that the economy is facing new difficulties and challenges. These mainly include insufficient China’s domestic demand, operational difficulties for some enterprises, multiple risks in key areas, and a complex external environment. After changes in the country’s COVID-19 policy, the economic recovery is characterized by wave-like development and twists and turns. However, China’s economy has enormous development resilience and potential, and its fundamental long-term positive trend remains unchanged.

ANBOUND researchers point out that a key focus of the recent meeting of the Political Bureau was the special emphasis on the fundamental judgment of “insufficient domestic demand”, while also acknowledging that the economic recovery is characterized by “wave-like development and twists and turns”. This implies that a series of economic policies and adjustments in the future will revolve around addressing this demand shortfall in their design and implementation.

Secondly, regarding the economic work for the second half of the year, the meeting emphasized the need to adhere to the general principle of making progress while ensuring stability. The goal is to continuously promote the sustained improvement of economic performance, enhance endogenous growth drivers, improve social expectations, and address hidden risks, ultimately achieving qualitative and efficient improvement, as well as reasonable growth in the economy.