News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.
1. FOLLOW-UP COMMENTS: Biden’s foreign policy of ‘competitive coexistence’
2. Opinion | Biden's infrastructure plan wouldn't protect the Colonial Pipeline from another attack
3. Rahm Emanuel to be appointed US ambassador to Japan
4. University President Apologizes for Plagiarizing Remarks by Famous Navy SEAL McRaven
5. Taiwan as Donbas?: Subversion and insurrection vs. full scale invasion
6. China accuses US of biowarfare to deflect COVID blame
7. New Officials Sworn-in at the Department of Defense
8. Over 120 Retired Flag Officers Warn U.S. Under Assault from Socialism
9. A Black Colonel Takes Command of a Key Marine Corps Brigade
10. Pentagon Chief Feared ‘Coup’ Accusations if He Deployed Troops to Capitol Riot
11. Revised JADC2 Strategy Hits DepSecDef’s Desk
12. Harmonizing Counterterrorism and Great-Power Competition
13. Reed prioritizing China deterrence fund, comms and unmanned ships
14. New Pentagon directive to manage gobs of data: Make it all sharable
15. Why National Cyber Defense Is a ‘Wicked’ Problem
16. French military chief invites ‘civil war’ letter soldiers to quit
17. Afghanistan: Taliban captures strategic district close to Kabul
18. Afghan forces "have to be ready" as U.S. withdraws, top commander says
19. Marine Corps rolls out ‘mishap library’ in wake of deadly accidents
20. Doubts emerge over Chinese President Xi Jinping's chances of securing 3rd term
21. The Philippine Resistance – How WW2’s Forgotten Guerrilla Movement Helped Bring Down Japan
22. 'Disturbing and reckless': Retired brass spread election lie in attack on Biden, Democrats
23. A Surprising Lesson from the Stoics
24. An old veteran friend died of COVID, and I blame the Republican leadership by Robert Bruce Adolph
1. FOLLOW-UP COMMENTS: Biden’s foreign policy of ‘competitive coexistence’
ekathimerini.com · by Ian Bremmer · May 8, 2021
So after I sent this article out with my comment below, I received some important and useful responses from some experts that prove I am neither an international relations expert nor an expert on national security history. But I do try to be a lifelong learner and recognize there is always more to learn (especially from history!). Thanks to those who responded. I always appreciate new information and insights.
The first response was this (and even he recognized it might have come before): “FYI, the term “competitive coexistence” has been out there for a while. The first use I saw was in this piece, but it might have come even earlier, too.
The second response was this: “Sorry for the interjection, but pulled strongly on the term competitive coexistence given its adjacency to Competitive Statecraft. The term dates back to the 1950s during the Cold War. I’m attaching the first academic article that I’ve seen that uses it, but this approach is often attributed to the Dulles cabal under Eisenhower.”
He actually attached the PDF of the article 1956 for anyone who is interested in access it.
"Competitive Coexistence": Can We Win? Author(s): Emile Benoit Source: The Antioch Review, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer, 1956), pp. 146-160 Published by: Antioch Review Inc.
These four introductory paragraphs have an eerie parallel to today. Maybe history does rhyme. Replace the nuclear arms race from the 1950s with the race for development of cyber capabilities, AI, nanotechnology, space based systems, etc.
THE NEW DISPLAY OF CONFIDENCE by the Kremlin is neither a bluff nor a mystery. President Eisenhower at Geneva dramatically expressed our awareness of our nuclear vulnerability, and our absolute determination to avoid war short of extreme provocation. The Russians now know, if they ever doubted it, that they are not going to be attacked. They are certain that they will have all the time they need to mount a full-scale economic, diplomatic and psychological offensive-or what they euphemistically call "competitive coexistence."
Until yesterday, it seemed to almost all Americans that in any such nonmilitary struggle we held all the main advantages. Our clear supremacy in the field of mass-production, especially of cars and other consumer durables, had conditioned us to assume that we were and always would be tops in science and technology. Only recently has it begun to dawn on even well-informed people that this is a race we could lose. The thought is so horrifying that it's fiercely resisted.
American complacency has, nevertheless, had to take some nasty jolts recently. The Russians developed both A-bombs and H-bombs much faster than predicted by such leading scientific administrators as General L. R. Groves, and Drs. James Conant and Vannevar Bush. And it's by no means certain that the Russians had to rely heavily on espionage to do it. They got well ahead of us for a while in jet fighter design, and they are currently outproducing us on heavy intercon- tinental bombers. American automation experts recently visiting Russian plant proclaimed that they'd "never automation" in their lives. The Russians are in electronics, and some outstanding work in applied genetics and horticulture. Their published papers in mathematics and physics are apparently now on a level with our own, and this is true also of work being done in the Satellite countries. Top American scientists who have recently visited their laboratories believe they are years ahead of us in pure nuclear research. They are gaining an impressive momen- tum in the development of nuclear reactors, and there are grave fears that they may have outstripped us in the vital field of military rockets, thereby exposing us to the potential risk of what Senator Henry Jack- son has called "ballistic blackmail."
A key factor in the new Soviet assurance was revealed by Mr. Khrushchev in an address to a Youth Conference in Moscow last January. "The capitalists always regard our people as being back- ward," he boasted, "but today we have more engineers and more supporting engineering technical personnel than any capitalist coun- try, and during the next Five Year Plan their number will increase further." Technological supremacy, he promised, would bring victory without war.
This cannot be dismissed as just Communist propaganda. In the sober judgment of Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission: "In five years our lead in the training of scientists and engineers may be wiped out, and in ten years we could be hope- lessly outstripped. Unless immediate steps are taken to correct it, a situation, already dangerous, within less than a decade could become disastrous."
So I continue to learn something new everyday and most often from history.
Original Comment: “Ian Bremmer wins the prize for a new foreign policy doctrine name: "competitive coexistence."
2.. Opinion | Biden's infrastructure plan wouldn't protect the Colonial Pipeline from another attack
NBC News · May 12, 2021
A very important critique.
Excerpts: “As members of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, we were pleased to see Congress codify into law two recent provisions that will help victims prepare for, respond to and mitigate the consequences of cyberattacks. First, a Joint Cyber Planning Office will soon be established to help coordinate campaigns to fight cyberattacks between the public and private sectors. Secondly, the executive branch must develop a playbook for maintaining the functioning of the national economy in the event of a significant cyber incident. Although both these initiatives have been authorized by law, the administration must now take action on implementation.
As the Biden administration and Congress prioritize a massive infrastructure plan, now is the time for the federal government — and the country as a whole — to come to terms with the major investments needed to ensure the security and resiliency for our national systems. Otherwise, many more Americans will be impacted by the next bad day in critical infrastructure.
3. Rahm Emanuel to be appointed US ambassador to Japan
Financial Times · by Demetri Sevastopulo · May 11, 2021
I did not see this one coming. But traditionally our Ambassador to Japan is someone who is high profile and ideally closely connected to the President.
4. University President Apologizes for Plagiarizing Remarks by Famous Navy SEAL McRaven
military.com · by Stephen Losey · May 11, 2021
Wow.
5. Taiwan as Donbas?: Subversion and insurrection vs. full scale invasion
centerforsecuritypolicy.org · by Grant Newsham · May 10, 2021
The full 8 page report can be downloaded at this link.
6. China accuses US of biowarfare to deflect COVID blame
americanmilitarynews.com · by Ryan Morgan · May 11, 2021
Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter accusations.
7. New Officials Sworn-in at the Department of Defense
8. Over 120 Retired Flag Officers Warn U.S. Under Assault from Socialism
Breitbart · by Kristina Wong · May 11, 2021
Wow. The letter and the list of GOFOs can be accessed here.
9. A Black Colonel Takes Command of a Key Marine Corps Brigade
The New York Times · by Helene Cooper · May 11, 2021
Excerpt: “As a Black man with combat command experience in a service that has never in its 245-year history had a four-star officer who was not a white man, Colonel Henderson is a rarity in the Corps: an African-American with a chance of making it to the top of the service.
Only 25 African-Americans have reached general in any form in the Marine Corps, and only one other — Brig. Gen. Calvert L. Worth — is currently an active-duty infantry general, a group from which the Corps draws much of its senior leadership.
10. Pentagon Chief Feared ‘Coup’ Accusations if He Deployed Troops to Capitol Riot
The New York Times · by Katie Benner · May 11, 2021
11. Revised JADC2 Strategy Hits DepSecDef’s Desk
breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
At this link is a useful Congressional Research Service report on JADC2.
12. Harmonizing Counterterrorism and Great-Power Competition
The National Interest · by Matthew Levitt · May 9, 2021
Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? CT, irregular warfare, and great power competition are not mutually exclusive and cannot be treated separately.
Conclusion: “As the Biden administration reviews current counterterrorism policies, it should make every effort to view both counterterrorism and great power competition not in binary terms of victory or defeat, but rather as ongoing efforts—short of both war and peace—in which both lethal and non-lethal tools are employed to compete with adversaries and disrupt acts of terrorism. Under any reorganization, the U.S. military will still play critical counterterrorism roles, both taking the lead in cases where terrorism threatens the homeland or U.S. interests abroad and supporting partner-led efforts elsewhere around the world. Such decisions, however, should be made strategically and based on a list circumstances under which U.S. military assets could be deployed abroad, in small but open-ended rotations or quick reaction forces acting in lead or support roles. Examples could include threats to the homeland, low-cost big-dividend counterterrorism opportunities, or the risk that declining to participate in a counterterrorism effort could incur great power competition costs.
Small counterterrorism missions in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, or Africa may be necessary to prevent terrorist groups from controlling territory or plotting foreign attacks from terrorist safe havens. Such deployments need not entail U.S.-led missions; they could be in support of partner-led initiatives such as the French-led Operation Barkhane in the Sahel region. In Iraq, where 2,500 U.S. troops are deployed, NATO announced plans to increase its military deployment from 500 to 4,000 troops and to expand its training mission beyond Baghdad. Even in Afghanistan, the Kabul government is likely to seek U.S funding to keep on Western contractors to help with a variety of critical needs, including security. Such hotspots typically also play important roles in great power competition. As the Biden team builds off its newly released Interim National Security Strategic Guidance report, it would do well to recognize that the Venn diagram overlap between counterterrorism and great power competition presents more opportunities than challenges.
13. Reed prioritizing China deterrence fund, comms and unmanned ships
Defense News · by Joe Gould · May 11, 2021
Excerpts: “Speaking at the Reagan Institute, Reed said Tuesday “additional funding” would be sought for PDI, though he was not specific. The comments come weeks after U.S. Indo-Pacific Command called for roughly $27 billion for the fund over five years and days ahead of President Joe Biden’s budget request for fiscal 2022.
“PDI will remain a priority for the committee as we seek to provide additional funding for required military capabilities, for strategic forward-based military posture and enhanced training infrastructure, and opportunities,” said Reed, D-R.I.
Echoing the Pentagon’s identification of the Indo-Pacific as a primary area of interest and of China as the leading threat there, Reed warned that China’s military is growing fast and investing in emerging technologies. He credited the U.S. military for tailoring its systems for that potential fight and for its own efforts to develop emerging technologies.
14. New Pentagon directive to manage gobs of data: Make it all sharable
c4isrnet.com · by Andrew Eversden · May 11, 2021
Excerpts: “Her memo, signed earlier this month, listed five decrees to ensure that data is ready for Joint All-Domain Command and Control:
1. “Maximize data sharing and rights for data use: all DoD data is an enterprise resource.
2. “Publish data assets in the DoD federated data catalog along with common interface specifications.
3. “Use automated data interfaces that are externally accessible and machine-readable; ensure interfaces use industry-standard, non-proprietary, preferably open-source, technologies, protocols, and payloads.
4. “Store data in a manner that is platform and environment-agnostic, uncoupled from hardware or software dependencies.
5. “Implement industry best practices for secure authentication, access management, encryption, monitoring, and protection of data at rest, in transit, and in use.”
New Pentagon directive to manage gobs of data: Make it all sharable
15. Why National Cyber Defense Is a ‘Wicked’ Problem
defenseone.com · by Terry Thompson
Excerpts: “The Biden administration appears to be taking the challenge seriously. The president has appointed a national cybersecurity director to coordinate related government efforts. It remains to be seen whether and how the administration will address the problem of fragmented authorities and clarify how the government will protect companies that supply critical digital infrastructure. It’s unreasonable to expect any U.S. company to be able to fend for itself against a foreign nation’s cyberattack.
In the meantime, software developers can apply the secure software development approach advocated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Government and industry can prioritize the development of artificial intelligence that can identify malware in existing systems. All this takes time, however, and hackers move quickly.
Finally, companies need to aggressively assess their vulnerabilities, particularly by engaging in more “red teaming” activities: that is, having employees, contractors or both play the role of hackers and attack the company.
Recognizing that hackers in the service of foreign adversaries are dedicated, thorough and not constrained by any rules is important for anticipating their next moves and reinforcing and improving U.S. national cyber defenses. Otherwise, Colonial Pipeline is unlikely to be the last victim of a major attack on U.S. infrastructure and SolarWinds is unlikely to be the last victim of a major attack on the U.S. software supply chain.
16. French military chief invites ‘civil war’ letter soldiers to quit
euronews.com · May 12, 2021
France has its own significant civil-military relations problem. At least in the US it is retired military officers and not active duty ones. In France it appears to be both.
Excerpts: “It was the second letter, apparently authored by a military tribune, to be published in a right wing magazine, denouncing the “disintegration” of France and the dangers of Islamism.
Three weeks ago the weekly magazine Valeurs Actuelles published a similar letter, authored by 20 former generals, which claimed France was "in peril", stating that "Islamism and hordes from the suburbs" were transforming the country, which was “disintegrating”.
It was also endorsed by a hundred high-ranking officers and more than a thousand other soldiers, the magazine said.
The latest letter, written by those who call themselves “recent career soldiers”, some of whom have "experienced enemy fire" in Mali, Afghanistan or the Central African Republic, denounces what they perceive as a “brewing” civil war.
17. Afghanistan: Taliban captures strategic district close to Kabul
18. Afghan forces "have to be ready" as U.S. withdraws, top commander says
CBS News · by Charlie D'Agata and Caitlin Yilek · May 11, 2021
I really feel bad for General Miller. I would not want to be in his shoes.
19. Marine Corps rolls out ‘mishap library’ in wake of deadly accidents
marinecorpstimes.com · by Philip Athey · May 11, 2021
An interesting innovation. We can ask why don't all the services do this and why was this done sooner? "Intelligent people learn from their mistakes and wise people learn from the mistakes of others."
20. Doubts emerge over Chinese President Xi Jinping's chances of securing 3rd term
Livemint · May 12, 2021
I thought he had secured his "presidency" for life?
21. The Philippine Resistance – How WW2’s Forgotten Guerrilla Movement Helped Bring Down Japan
militaryhistorynow.com · by James Kelly Morningstar · May 11, 2021
Some history to reflect upon. . We must never forget the importance of resistance in all its forms.
22. 'Disturbing and reckless': Retired brass spread election lie in attack on Biden, Democrats
I wonder how much controversy this will generator will this fade away?
23. A Surprising Lesson from the Stoics
defenseone.com · by Nancy Sherman
I am very fond of reading the Stoics. Professor Sherman is one of the very best Stoic scholars. We can learn a lot from her and from the Stoics.
24. An old veteran friend died of COVID, and I blame the Republican leadership by Robert Bruce Adolph
Tampa Bay Times · by Robert Bruce Adolph
Excerpt: “I have no desire to politicize my friend’s demise — quite the opposite. It is also not my intent to add to the polarization between the political right and left in our country. My crucially important objective is to point out that the real issue here is about right and wrong. The former administration was wrong. We are still paying the cost in blood and tears. Although attenuated because of vaccinations, the death toll continues to rise.”
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“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”
-Vince Lombardi
"If you live only for yourself you are always an immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowmen."
- W. Beran Wolfe
"A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues."
- Cicero