News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

 

1. U.S. targets Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria strikes

2. U.S. Conducts Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq Against Iranian-Backed Militias

3. With Reagan's Arrival, 2 US Carriers Are Now Supporting Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal

4. Ghani: Afghanistan having '1861 moment' amid U.S. troop withdrawal

5. Crossing the Red Line: Behind China’s Takeover of Hong Kong

6. Digital Authoritarianism is a National Security Threat, Pentagon Cyber Leader Says

7. US remains the world’s dominant power in cyberspace but China is catching up, report says

8. Portable Nuclear Reactor Program Sparks Controversy

9. A Measure Short of War: The Return of Great-Power Subversion

10. At age one hundred, Chinese Communist Party is both the authoritarian world champion—and vulnerable

11. Solving the Mystery of Havana Syndrome

12. Toning down China’s wolf warriors outrages patriots

13. U.S. and Taiwan Set Date to Revive Trade and Investment Talks

14. 'Defend Forward': What the CIA has done since 1947

15. Special Operations News Update - Monday, June 28, 2021 | SOF News

16. We’re Not Ready for Another Pandemic

17. FDD | New FDD Report Warns of Devastating Costs of Cyberattacks on Private Sector

 

1. U.S. targets Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria strikes

The Washington Post · by Alex HortonJune 28, 2021 · June 28, 2021

Excerpts: “The Pentagon has monitored the escalation of small-drone warfare after the Islamic State flew terrifying sorties of hobbyist drone aircraft against Iraqi troops in the battle to retake territory from the group.

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, told reporters on a Syria trip last month that the Pentagon is looking for ways to cut command-and-control links between a drone and its operator, improve radar sensors to quickly identify the threat as it approaches and find effective ways to bring down the aircraft.

“We’re open to all kinds of things,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “Still, I don’t think we’re where we want to be.”

The Biden administration in February ordered airstrikes against Iranian proxies in Syria, killing an undisclosed number of militants.

 

2. U.S. Conducts Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq Against Iranian-Backed Militias

WSJ · by Michael R. Gordon

Excerpt: “‘The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation...’ ”

— Pentagon spokesman John Kirby

​I am reminded of this quote:

 

​"​It’s limited war for Americans, and total war for those fighting Americans. The United States has more power; its foes have more willpower.​"​ 

​-Dominic Tierney

 

3. With Reagan's Arrival, 2 US Carriers Are Now Supporting Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · June 25, 2021

 

4. Ghani: Afghanistan having '1861 moment' amid U.S. troop withdrawal

Politico · June 25, 2021

An ominous remark, I guess civil war is on the horizon. But rather than one faction seceding both factions seek to dominate.

 

5. Crossing the Red Line: Behind China’s Takeover of Hong Kong

The New York Times · by Chris Buckley, Vivian Wang and Austin Ramzy · June 28, 2021

Whose red line?

If it was years in the making and we did not see the indications and warnings I wonder if that was because Hong Kong was not a priority for intelligence collection. Everything cannot be a priority and we have to allocate our finite resources to the most important potential threats. Some will chalk this up to an intelligence failure but is that really the case?

Are there any lessons here that apply to Taiwan? Are the situations and conditions similar or different? 

And of course the big question: What else are we missing?

 

6. Digital Authoritarianism is a National Security Threat, Pentagon Cyber Leader Says

defenseone.com · by Mila Jasper

Excerpts: “Digital authoritarianism is a term that describes regimes that use technology to control and repress their populations. While China is certainly not the only purveyor of digital authoritarianism, it is certainly the largest.

At Defense One’s Tech Summit event Thursday, Mieke Eoyang, deputy assistant defense secretary for cyber policy, explained how digital authoritarianism poses a threat to national security, and what the Defense Department can do about it. Eoyang described digital authoritarianism as contrary to the values those at DOD are sworn to defend.

It "really poses a national security challenge to us in the United States. It closes space. It makes it more dangerous for Americans who may choose to speak out against what they see as human rights abuses in other countries,” Eoyang said.

“And so that, you know, that goes against our core values inside the U.S., and also it represents a…competitive challenge to U.S. technology companies when we see countries like China exporting this technology all around the world. With their technology it’s not just neutral, it does come with the ability to engage in this kind of digital repression,” she said. “So we see this as a challenge to the department, our operations and our values.”

 

7. US remains the world’s dominant power in cyberspace but China is catching up, report says

SCMP · by Dewey Sim · June 28, 2021

Excerpt: “The main reason [for US superiority] is the relative standing of the two nations’ digital economies, where the US remains far advanced despite China’s digital progress,” said Austin, a senior fellow with IISS.”

 

8. Portable Nuclear Reactor Program Sparks Controversy

nationaldefensemagazine.org · by Mandy Mayfield · June 28, 2021

Excerpts: “Nuclear power is “orders of magnitude more energy dense than any other known technology,” Waksman told National Defense. “That allows the possibility to provide resilient power for years and years, without needing to refuel. … Refueling can be a real burden in remote areas.”

The Strategic Capabilities Office sees three main applications for the initial capability, Waksman noted.

“When we talk about the low hanging fruit for early applications for this, [the first] is remote locations — think the Arctic where there is a need for large amounts of power — but it’s hard to get power there now,” he said.

Another is what is referred to as the “strategic support area,’” which provides power for equipment that is mission essential, such as radar systems, he said.

The third key application for a portable reactor is its ability to aid in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, Waksman said.

Over the past few years there have been a number of incidents throughout the United States including hurricanes and cold snaps that have caused massive power outages over large areas.

 

9. A Measure Short of War: The Return of Great-Power Subversion

Foreign Affairs · by Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth · June 24, 2021

Subversion is an essential element of political warfare. 

Excerpts: “Subversion can be classified into three levels of severity. The first level involves propaganda, a tactic as old as speech itself. In 1570, when Pope Pius V issued his papal bull declaring Queen Elizabeth I a heretic and calling on good English Catholics to remove her from the throne, he was engaging in subversive propaganda. The same was true during the Cold War when Radio Liberty beamed anticommunist broadcasts into the Soviet Union. Level 1 subversion can entail one state’s open endorsement of opposition candidates or parties in another country’s election, as when Stalin publicly backed the third-party candidacy of Henry Wallace in his run against U.S. President Harry Truman in 1948.

...

At all three levels, the goals of subversion can vary. Subversive activities may be used to weaken a target by sowing internal discord so that it is distracted from pursuing its interests on some other front. This is what Elizabeth I was doing when she funded mercenaries to aid Dutch Protestant rebels—she hoped Spain would become consumed with the uprising and shelve its plans to restore Catholicism in England by securing her overthrow—and what Russia is attempting today with its support for populist nationalist movements in Western democracies. Alternatively, a country may intend to change another country’s foreign policy by secretly supporting one side of a domestic debate. During the Cold War, Moscow provided, through its front organizations, logistical, organizational, and financial support to the peace movement in the West. More recently, it may have interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, encouraging the British public to vote to leave the EU.

Sometimes, subversion has a maximalist goal: changing the nature of the regime itself. In 1875, Bismarck engineered a war scare, insinuating that Germany was about to launch a preventive attack against France. His goal was to frighten French voters away from choosing conservative monarchists, whose victory seemed to promise a more formidable great-power competitor across the Rhine. The gambit worked. The French press soon took to calling Bismarck “the Great Elector of France.”handwringing and teeth gnashing. In recent years, deepfakes—fake video clips that look real—have raised the prospect of frighteningly convincing disinformation. But states will find a way to push back, perhaps harnessing the very artificial intelligence used to create deepfakes as a tool for their destruction.

...

The history of subversion should also offer reason to relax about new technologies. Someday, no doubt, a subverter will wield a new technology that yet again sets alarm bells ringing. From the printing press to radio, from the mimeograph machine to the Internet, technological change has invariably opened up new avenues for manipulation and subversion—and set off renewed handwringing and teeth gnashing. In recent years, deepfakes—fake video clips that look real—have raised the prospect of frighteningly convincing disinformation. But states will find a way to push back, perhaps harnessing the very artificial intelligence used to create deepfakes as a tool for their destruction.

States will always suffer from internal vulnerabilities that can be exploited by outside actors.

Those worried about subversion should also remember that politics and statecraft can still keep it under control. Subversion is the continuation of great-power rivalry by other means, and the nature of the emerging rivalries between the United States and both China and Russia shows a reassuring need for a great deal of cooperation. On climate change, arms control, and nuclear proliferation, the great powers will be forced to work together. Much of what China and Russia want to achieve on the world stage will require bargaining with the United States and its allies. And both Beijing and Moscow surely realize that if they rely on subversion to the point where their trustworthiness is destroyed, the possibility of dealmaking will disappear. The old rules of cost-benefit calculation will still apply, preventing subversion from running rampant.

And I would add with absolutely no apologies to Leon Trotsky: America may not be interested in irregular, unconventional, and political warfare but​they are being practiced around the world by those who are interested in them – namely the revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers and violent extremist organizations.

​And although the 2017 National Security Strategy is no long​er in effect we should still heed these wise words: "A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

 

10. At age one hundred, Chinese Communist Party is both the authoritarian world champion—and vulnerable

atlanticcouncil.org · June 27, 2021

Only 100? So young and immature. (note attempt at sarcasm)

Hmmm.... so can this be exploited?

It must be said this bluntly: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which turns one hundred this week, represents history’s most successful authoritarians.

So, why does Chinese President Xi Jinping seem so uneasy?

...

Xi likely has a window of only about a decade before his country’s demographic decline, its structural economic downturn, and inevitable domestic upheavals threaten to reduce the historic possibility currently presented to him by his country’s technological advance, its geopolitical gains, and his own current hold on power.

This man in a hurry sees an inflection point to be seized, but only if he acts with a quick, decisive purposefulness and, where necessary, ruthlessness.

And under Xi, China isn’t only sprinting to seize a window of opportunity. Xi, Blanchette writes, at the same time has put China “in a race to determine if its many strengths can outstrip the pathologies that Xi himself has introduced into the system.”

In short, the test is whether authoritarianism’s most compelling success story can overcome its fundamental failings.

 

11. Solving the Mystery of Havana Syndrome

Psychology Today · by Eric Haseltine  · June 23, 2021

Perhaps we could figure this out and defend our people.

Excerpts: “ If my conclusions about the source of the Havana syndrome are correct, then we could start to detect the dangerous RF signals by building a special receiver that, like the Russian espionage gear described in my book, filters out innocent ghost signals to reveal the malicious signals underneath. Then, once detected, conventional direction-finding gear might pinpoint the source of the transmissions and lead us to their operators.

Notice I just said “start to detect” and “might pinpoint.” The reason for those equivocations is that Russian intelligence tradecraft (for example) doesn’t rely on just one “hide” (such as masking with ghost signals), but layers many “hides” on top of each other to make it extraordinarily difficult for victims of their espionage to detect attacks.

 

12. Toning down China’s wolf warriors outrages patriots

asiatimes.com · by Jing Xuan Teng · June 28, 2021

Excerpts: “Beijing has often encouraged nationalism when convenient, including online campaigns that flared this year for boycotts of foreign clothing brands that made statements about avoiding cotton from China’s Xinjiang, due to allegations of forced labor.

But even some of China’s most strident apologists have admitted that toned-down rhetoric would be more fitting for the major-power status the country claims.

Hu Xijin, editor of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, wrote last month that government social media accounts should “hold high the banner of humanitarianism” after a Communist Party-run Weibo account posted a mocking comparison between a Chinese rocket launch and the cremation of Covid-19 victims in India.

“Sometimes this ‘wolf warrior’ sentiment can get out of hand,” Jonathan Hassid, a professor of political science at Iowa State University told AFP.

 

13. U.S. and Taiwan Set Date to Revive Trade and Investment Talks

WSJ · by Chao Deng

Excerpts: “Last week, Beijing sent 28 military aircraft into airspace near Taiwan—the largest number of such sorties reported in a single day—after the Group of Seven leaders issued a communiqué expressing a unified stance on the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

The U.S. is Taiwan’s second-largest trading partner. Taiwan is the world’s biggest supplier of advanced semiconductors, exporting billions of dollars worth in chips and computer and telecommunications equipment to the U.S. last year.

The U.S. hasn’t had an embassy in Taiwan since it agreed to downgrade ties with Taipei more than 40 years ago, a condition set by Beijing for formal diplomatic relations. It set up a private company staffed with diplomats to handle relations with the island instead.

 

14. 'Defend Forward': What the CIA has done since 1947

Washington Examiner · by Marc Polymeropoulos · June 28, 2021

Of course it is prohibited from acting on US soil so it must defend forward (Apologies for the snarky  comment).

Interesting conclusion: “The Biden administration is staffed by seasoned national security professionals, like the president himself. I am hoping they embrace the "Defend Forward” concept. As of now, there are mixed signals. The total Afghan withdrawal is a colossal mistake. It is the antithesis of this strategy. Yet, our counter-Russia policy seems to have "Defend Forward" as a guiding principle. It includes offensive cyberactivity. It involves exposing Russian malfeasance globally and helping our allies on the front lines in Europe and Eurasia. Kudos to the administration, and I hope they do more to ensure that Russia is contained. But on Afghanistan, with the stakes so high, why take a knee and go home?

 

15. Special Operations News Update - Monday, June 28, 2021 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · June 28, 2021

 

16. We’re Not Ready for Another Pandemic

defenseone.com · by The Atlantic

And I would ask: Can we ever be ready? Even sufficiently ready?

 

17. FDD | New FDD Report Warns of Devastating Costs of Cyberattacks on Private Sector

fdd.org · June 28, 2021

The PDF of the report can be downloaded here: 

Excerpts: “The United States witnessed a sample of the real-world effects of cyberattacks with the ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline and meat producer JBS, but if a ransomware or other type of attack disrupts electricity generation or transmission, the economic devastation could surpass that of Hurricane Katrina, the authors warn. This estimate is derived from Intangic’s actuarial model, which has accurately predicted the financial and economic impact of business disruptions from cyberattacks.

Nolan and Fixler explain that the market to-date has failed to incentivize cybersecurity investments because neither regulators nor investors can measure “objectively and transparently whether companies are properly managing digital technology and related risks.” Except in limited cases, companies are not required to disclose cyber breaches or vulnerabilities that directly affect their financial health and business operations.

 

------------

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." 

- Benjamin Franklin

 

"No one starts a war-or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so-without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it."

-Clausewitz

 

“Remind me to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily walling in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. The title is ‘Gossip Unlimited’ - no, make that ‘Gossip Gone wild.’”

-Robert Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange land

 

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

 

1. N.Korean Propaganda Harnesses Kim Jong-un's Weight Loss

2. North Korean regime seeks sympathy for ‘thin’ Kim

3. Korean Interests in Peace and Stability Around the Taiwan Strait

4. North Koreans Reject Korean War Propaganda Claiming South Struck First

5. North Korea slams the door on dialogue — for now

6. Kim’s ‘normal state’ vision still far off

7. Korea's second amphibious assault ship commissioned

8. Korean, US progressive Christian groups call for peace treaty, end to Korean War

9. Soon-to-be-discharged North Korean soldiers reassigned as workers in Komdok mines

10. Unification ministry keeping eye on whether N.K. sends congratulatory delegation to China

11. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Economic difficulties have shaken public sentiment, prompting orders to strengthen security at military armouries and security agencies.

12. N. Korean paper warns officials against corruption, bureaucracy

13. South Korea sends troops, destroyer to US-Australia military exercise for first time

14. North Koreans 'heartbroken' by Kim's purported weight loss, Pyongyang resident tells state media

15. Is North Korea’s Byungjin Policy in Crisis?

16. S. Korea ups 2021 growth outlook to 4.2 pct

17. S. Korea names new Air Force commander after death of sexually abused soldier

18. Factbox-North Korea's history of secrecy over leaders' health

19. S.Korea to develop 'Iron Dome'-style defence system to counter North's artillery

20. Researching North Korea: Sources, Methods, and Pitfalls 

 

1. N.Korean Propaganda Harnesses Kim Jong-un's Weight Loss

english.chosun.com · June 28, 2021

Perhaps they can book him for some weight watcher's commercials to generate more revenue for the royal court economy.

But I guess he still has a ways to go.

Excerpt: “In reality Kim is still vastly obese. But at a Workers Party meeting in mid-June, his first public appearance in about a month, he was visibly less so than before. His cheeks were less puffed and he seemed to have tightened his watch strap by a notch since March.

 

2. North Korean regime seeks sympathy for ‘thin’ Kim

asiatimes.com · by Bradley K. Martin · June 28, 2021

"Thin Kim." We may have to adopt that.

Important comments here. We need to be wary and watchful (and dust off contingency plans): “Currently, “security at military armories, security facilities and idols [statues] of the Kim Jong Un family has recently been greatly strengthened,” reports Osaka-based AsiaPress, which gets news from undercover reporters inside the country who use smuggled Chinese cellphones.

The increased security is said to have been undertaken “due to the increasing discontent caused by the worsening of people’s lives due to the economic turmoil.” The same publication has reported on actual starvation in parts of the country recently.

But the emphasis in the current case on Kim Jong Un’s health may be significant. If authorities persist in calling attention to the issue, what shall we assume? In what circumstances would that be something the propagandists would see an advantage in talking about?

One fairly likely possibility, of course, is that Kim Jong Un really has been ill and the authorities feel the need to persuade people to excuse him from maintaining a full workload – or even to prepare the population for his death. Party regulations have in fact been changed recently to permit naming someone else as number two.

 

3. Korean Interests in Peace and Stability Around the Taiwan Strait

keia.org · by Terrence Matsuo · June 25, 2021

My comments, among others, are in the article.

 

4. North Koreans Reject Korean War Propaganda Claiming South Struck First

rfa.org · by Hyemin Son

I am skeptical but this is an interesting report.

But perhaps we could get others in the South and the US to stop blaming the alliance for the war too!

This is also very interesting in that those close to each will talk about this: “Despite this obvious propaganda, most people know the actual history. Any factory worker who has heard a foreign broadcast about the Korean War knows full well that it wasn’t South Korea that attacked first. We actually prepared for the war and started it. They have been repeating the narrative that the war was started by provocations from the United States and South Korea,” said the source.

According to the source, people who are close to each other often talk about the actual history of the Korean War whenever the anniversary draws near.

“They’ll say, ‘If South Korea had started it, the South Korean army could have occupied Pyongyang within three days. How is it possible that the Korean People’s Army were able to take Seoul in three days instead?’” said the source.

“They all know that the propaganda trotted out by the authorities on war history is inconsistent historical distortion,” the source said.

 

5. North Korea slams the door on dialogue — for now

The Hill · by Bruce Klingner · June 25, 2021

The operative words: "for now." Kim will be back under two conditions. He is either desperate and is under so much internal pressure he must negotiate. Or he has set the conditions to his advantage and believes he can exploit the ROK and US.

 

6. Kim’s ‘normal state’ vision still far off

koreaherald.com · by Ahn Sung-mi · June 28, 2021

Tighten his grip but create an image of a "normal state." In whose eyes? Certainly the international community does and never will view north Korea as a normal state as long as the Kim family regime remains in power and there is no change to its nature, objectives, and strategy. To be a normal state would require Kim to act as a responsible member of the international community. However, this would require drastic changes to everything from eliminating his nuclear program to ceasing the horrendous human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. A normal state? I think not. No amount of propaganda will alter the view of objective observers.

 

7. Korea's second amphibious assault ship commissioned

koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · by Michael Lee and Park Yong-Han · June 28, 2021

One more and they will have a nascent capability (three to make one)

 

8. Korean, US progressive Christian groups call for peace treaty, end to Korean War

The Korea Times · June 28, 2021

Sigh... the 21 May Summit a "disappointment?" And they hold some naive views about a peace treaty as well as lifting sanctions. Why do these organizations never call out Kim Jong-un for his decision that causes the suffering of the Korean people. It is not sanctions that are causing such suffering.

 

9. Soon-to-be-discharged North Korean soldiers reassigned as workers in Komdok mines

dailynk.com · by Jeong Tae Joo · June 28, 2021

From conscription to slave laborers.

 

10. Unification ministry keeping eye on whether N.K. sends congratulatory delegation to China

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 28, 2021

A note perhaps, A delegation to Beijing? Probably not. It would seem the regime remains too concerned with the spread of COVID.

 

11. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Economic difficulties have shaken public sentiment, prompting orders to strengthen security at military armouries and security agencies.

asiapress.org

An indicator? Does the regime fear instability? Does the regime fear collective action? Are we prepared?

Excerpt: “The person who provided this information to our reporting partner was a police official, who explained the reason for the increased security: “There is a possibility that anti-party groups will intensify their activities as the economic situation and people's lives become more complex.”

 

12. N. Korean paper warns officials against corruption, bureaucracy

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 28, 2021

And another potential indicator.

 

13. South Korea sends troops, destroyer to US-Australia military exercise for first time

SCMP · by June 28, 2021 · Park Chan-kyong

South Korea stepping up as a great middle power.

South Korea sends troops, destroyer to US-Australia military exercise for first time

• The Talisman Sabre war games are widely seen as sending a strong message to an increasingly assertive China
• South Korea’s participation is likely to raise eyebrows in Beijing but an analyst said China’s response would probably be muted

 

14. North Koreans 'heartbroken' by Kim's purported weight loss, Pyongyang resident tells state media

CNN · by Yoonjung Seo and Joshua Berlinger

Cry those crocodile tears for Kim Jong-un.

Two of my favorite photos here (Note the 2012 photo below - It looks like Kim might be getting back to his "fighting weight."):

 

15.  Is North Korea’s Byungjin Policy in Crisis?

The National Interest · by Grażyna Strnad · June 27, 2021

An interesting assessment from Poland.

 

Excerpt: “North Korea will likely remain stabilized due to the emerging regional dynamics that are unfolding. China is calculating the trajectory of the United States-China rivalry, caused by the renewed American critique of unfair Chinese trade practices, human rights violations, political repression of the Uyghurs and the citizens of Hong Kong, and continued military posturing in the South China Sea and against Taiwan. North Korea, even if the worst of political and economic outcomes come to fruition, will serve to distract the United States, giving China potential leverage. China will support North Korea out of its vested regional interests. Beyond that, North Korea's history of survival accompanied by other "arduous marches," points to the dictatorship of Kim Jong-un to remain in power, regardless of the success or failure of the Byungjin Policy.

 

16. S. Korea ups 2021 growth outlook to 4.2 pct

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · June 28, 2021

 

17. S. Korea names new Air Force commander after death of sexually abused soldier

en.yna.co.kr · by 오석민 · June 28, 2021

 

18. Factbox-North Korea's history of secrecy over leaders' health

Reuters · by Josh Smith · June 28, 2021

We must always be skeptical of the reporting on Kim's health. On the other hand it is always possible something could happen. The question is if we learn today that Kim Jong-un has left us, what do we do now? What actions are we ready to take immediately when learning of his demise?

 

19. S.Korea to develop 'Iron Dome'-style defence system to counter North's artillery

Reuters · by Josh Smith

There is a lot more artillery in the Kaesong Heights than Hamas and Hezbollah have. But it is worth a try to improve South Korean defenses.

 

20.  Researching North Korea: Sources, Methods, and Pitfalls 

NKEF Policy and Research Paper Series 2021

A very useful document for Korea watchers and researchers.  

The 28 page paper can be downloaded in PDF here. Thanks to Yonho Kim and the authors for assembling this useful document.

 

---------------

 

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." 

- Benjamin Franklin

 

"No one starts a war-or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so-without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it."

-Clausewitz

 

“Remind me to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily walling in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. The title is ‘Gossip Unlimited’ - no, make that ‘Gossip Gone wild.’”

-Robert Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange land

 

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News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. Explainer: The great spirit Chinese Communists draw strength from - Xinhua

2. Chinese surveillance firm builds influence in Washington, with help from former members of Congress

3. Emerging Biden doctrine and future of China dream

4. The Debt the U.S. Owes to My Afghan Interpreter—and Others

5. Attacks from lone terrorists in the US are more severe than those who are affiliated with groups.

6. The Myth of American Militarism

7. Even the Taliban are surprised at how fast they're advancing in Afghanistan

8. Biden Says Afghans Must ‘Decide Their Future’ as U.S. Troops Withdraw

9. Should I Hang Out With Someone Whose Political Views I Hate?

10. Dragon Man skull offers clues to human evolution

11. What a collapsed trial says about US claims of Chinese high-tech spying

12. The Misguided Continuity on Foreign Policy

13. Rebuke for the junta in Myanmar

14. Congress’s National Guard Quick Reaction Force: An Ill-Advised Military Requirement

15. Harriet Tubman honored as a Civil War spy

16. William Pitsenbarger: The commando who died so that others could live

17. Conceal or Reveal? Managing Clandestine Military Capabilities in Peacetime Competition

18. ‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war

 

1. Explainer: The great spirit Chinese Communists draw strength from - Xinhua

xinhuanet.com · June 27, 2021

Excerpt: “Not long after the founding of the PRC, Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) entered the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to fight the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953) at the request of the DPRK.

Despite a wide disparity of weaponry and equipment, the forces of China and the DPRK defeated their armed-to-the-teeth rivals in the face of overwhelming odds. They thereby shattered the myth of invincibility of the U.S. military.

 

2. Chinese surveillance firm builds influence in Washington, with help from former members of Congress

The Washington Post · by Drew Harwell · June 25, 2021

You would think these politicians would be black and blue from where people were touching them with 10 foot poles. Wouldn't this seem to be political and professional suicide (it seems Senator Boxer understood this)? If not then what does that say about us?

Excerpts: “Moffett will join former senator David Vitter (R-La.) in lobbying for a company racing to defend itself in Washington amid questions over its links to Chinese government surveillance and oppression. Another former senator, Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), registered to lobby for the company, but withdrew from that representation in January amid public criticism.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration banned Americans from investing in the company, citing its links to the Chinese military. Hikvision, whose largest shareholder is owned by the Chinese government, faces another critical threat from U.S. regulators who are considering whether to issue a nationwide ban on purchases of the firm’s equipment.

 

3. Emerging Biden doctrine and future of China dream

The Korea Times · by Yun Byung-se · June 27, 2021

A Korean view of the Biden Administration's foreign policy.

Excerpt: “It is the paradox of history that the world is on the threshold of a new Cold War and is becoming the victim of its own success. Which dream or scenario will ultimately come true? Pax Americana or the China Dream? Thucydides's Trap (a likely war) or "Kindleberger Trap" (of incapability to provide global public goods)? It will depend on how strategic competition will unfold in the coming years and decades. Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, offers a good recipe for avoiding the war through managed strategic competition.

One big moment of truth will come sooner than later, when President Biden and President Xi are set to meet with each other probably at the G20 summit in October. But a wise counsel is in order, from John Lennon, "A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

 

4. The Debt the U.S. Owes to My Afghan Interpreter—and Others

WSJ · by Matt Watters

Excerpts: “During the Special Forces Qualification Course, Vietnam veterans showed us pictures of the Montagnards who’d fought alongside them and were never seen again. “They were the best allies we could have asked for,” an old Green Beret told me. “Never let this happen again.” Yet today, by following bureaucratic stipulations and casting aside those who never dreamed of doing the same to us, we are dangerously close to forgetting that lesson.

Shafo keeps the faith, but his wife worries for his safety. She is expecting their third child and fears her husband won’t be alive for the birth. “We have a moral commitment to those who helped us,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has said.

We also have a national-security imperative. If the U.S. abandons those who served with such loyalty and conviction, why would anyone risk his life to help America again? Who will tell our soldiers which streets to avoid?

 

5. Attacks from lone terrorists in the US are more severe than those who are affiliated with groups.

blogs.lse.ac.uk · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “Effectively estimating the threat of the lone actor is important to guiding policy decisions. Above all, our findings emphasize the need to scrutinize existing counterterrorism policies in their ability to detect and prevent lone-actor attacks. The traditional strategies for thwarting terrorist plots largely consist of intercepting communications between plotters and utilizing undercover officers and informants to obtain information. While these tactics may be effective for terrorists who are involved with groups, the very nature of lone-actor terrorism flies in the face of such strategies. Some scholars have even suggested that those who seek to engage in terrorism in the US prefer to work alone simply because they fear that involving someone in their plans may jeopardize the success of the plot.

However, many lone actors discuss their violent intentions with bystanders, including family, friends, or random strangers. As a result, the focus in recent years has shifted towards soliciting information directly from the public, with programs such as the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) establishing a system for gathering, analyzing, and investigating tips from the community. Programs like the NSI which use the general public as a resource for identifying suspicious behaviors may be useful in detecting and thwarting lone actor plots, but more research is needed to determine their effectiveness, especially for the online context. Nonetheless, policymakers should continue to utilize our increasingly robust understanding of lone actor terrorism to propose counterterrorism policies that are tailored to the nature of this threat.

 

6. The Myth of American Militarism

The National Interest · by Hal Brands · June 26, 2021

From two scholars who are among the nation's foremost thinkers on grand strategy.

Excerpts: “The key here is understanding that America has always had a checkered history fighting limited wars because those are the wars in which it has the most trouble translating its massive power into decisive results. U.S. interventions in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Mexico in the early twentieth century rarely left behind lasting stability. American intervention in Russia after World War I was a confused mess. During the Cold War, America achieved only a bloody, disillusioning stalemate in Korea. America’s first intervention in Lebanon, in 1958, was a comedy of errors; its second one, from 1982 to 1984, was a bloody tragedy. Vietnam was the costliest and most counterproductive limited war of all, in human and strategic terms alike.

The point is not that America never succeeds in military interventions. It is simply that intervention for limited aims is inherently a fraught business because the limit on aims leads to both a limit on means and a willingness to accept middling outcomes rather than wage total war in pursuit of total victory. In World War II, by contrast, the United States endured bloody setbacks that eclipse any of the “military failures” of the post-Cold War era, but the stakes were high enough that America stayed in the fight long enough to achieve ultimate victory

Conclusion: “The United States has a mixed record with the use of force, as one might well expect of this most demanding aspect of statecraft. Yet its choices over the past thirty years have been wiser, its restraint and selectivity have been greater, and the domestic blowback it has suffered has been smaller than many critics allege. There are cases, alas, where the use or threat of force will be necessary in the future. There will be instances when choosing not to intervene now forces policymakers to contemplate higher-cost military interventions later. In addressing these challenges, policymakers will need something better than the Magic Eight Ball of restraint, which always answers “my sources say no” when asked for guidance on hard choices. Prescription begins with diagnosis. Busting the myth of American militarism is the first step toward positioning America, intellectually and strategically, for success in a dangerous future.

 

7. Even the Taliban are surprised at how fast they're advancing in Afghanistan

NBC News · by Dan De Luce, Mushtaq Yusufzai and Saphora Smith · June 25, 2021

Video and graphics at the link:

Excerpts: “The Taliban's recent seizure of districts in three provinces — Wardak, Logar and Laghman — that surround Kabul signaled a potentially ominous sign for the government's staying power. If those provinces fall, then "the path to take Kabul is wide open," Roggio said.

The Afghan military's retreat has prompted a revival of former anti-Soviet, anti-Taliban militias, with Afghan President Ghani and other officials embracing the groups and calling for a united resistance against the Taliban. The call to arms for local militias seemed to underscore the Afghan government's perilous position, and carried the risk that the rival groups could plunge the country back into a wider, anarchic civil war like the one that raged in the 1990s.

The U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the Taliban appeared poised to seize provincial cities once U.S. and NATO forces leave, and painted a bleak picture. "The possible slide toward dire scenarios is undeniable," she said.

 

8. Biden Says Afghans Must ‘Decide Their Future’ as U.S. Troops Withdraw

The New York Times · by Thomas Gibbons-Neff · June 25, 2021

I wonder what would have happened in December of 2001 when Kabul was liberated if someone had said the same works that are in the title of this piece? "Afghanistan, your future is up to you."

 

9. Should I Hang Out With Someone Whose Political Views I Hate?

The New York Times · by Kwame Anthony Appiah · June 23, 2021

My question: how can one profess to love our country when one hates so many people who live in it? Scalia and Ginsberg are dead and there seems to be no one living up to their ideals. Or even trying. By that I mean their ideals of civil discourse and even affection for each other despite their opposing political views.

"I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.” - Antonin Scalia

Excerpt: “Identity precedes ideology: Who you are determines what you believe.”

Reflect on this: “When I was 15 and in Britain for school, I came to know a neighbor of my English grandmother’s. Then in his 60s, he was a right-wing member of Parliament whose views on the major issues of the day were utterly remote from mine. All the same, we enjoyed spending time together — when he took me trout fishing, it always involved more talk than trout — and though politics was far from the only thing we discussed, it wasn’t a topic we avoided. Once, when he drove me to visit the college he had attended (and that I would too, just as he hoped), I spent two full hours trying to persuade him to support an upcoming resolution to maintain the abolition of capital punishment for murder. We must have made an odd pair — a reactionary M.P. with the strapping build of the heavyweight boxing champion he was as an undergraduate; a willowy brown teenager who kept up with what was then known as The Peking Review. Still, as we whizzed past the hedgerows and incurious sheep of the Cotswolds, we carried on a vigorous debate over an issue we both cared a great deal about.

I do understand why people prefer to limit their socializing to people who share their view of the world and to steer clear of the maddeningly misguided. In recent years, certainly, America has reshaped itself in ways that accommodate the tendency. With the rise of “assortative mating,” bankers — to paint in broad strokes — no longer marry secretaries; they marry other bankers. Doctors no longer marry nurses; they marry other doctors. And so on, up and down the lines of income and class. (Although social scientists have argued that this trend has deepened economic inequality, it also reflects substantial and welcome gains in gender equality in the workplace.) More to the point, the United States has become politically sorted: Increasingly, your neighborhood will be predominantly red or blue, not mixed. If racial segregation has diminished somewhat over the past generation, partisan segregation has risen.

 

10. Dragon Man skull offers clues to human evolution

asiatimes.com · by Alan Kirk · June 26, 2021

An interesting discovery perhaps. But also note the continued impact of the Japanese occupation in pre-WWII.

 

11. What a collapsed trial says about US claims of Chinese high-tech spying

Technology Review · by Karen Hao · June 27, 2021

I think it would be a bad assumption that Chinese spying is less than we think it is. I don't think we should draw that conclusion from one trial.  Mr. Nowrasteh's "logic" is the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I would not bank on that kind of logic when dealing with China. Perhaps they are practicing good tradecraft.

Excerpts: ““The DOJ doesn’t need a special initiative targeting China to go after spies,” says Alex Nowrasteh, the director of immigration studies and the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. “They should be able to use their normal methods and procedures.”

Hu’s trial suggests “that the scope of Chinese espionage is probably a lot less than people think,” he adds. “If there was a lot more of it, you’d think it'd be a little bit easier to find, and they wouldn’t have to make up cases.”

As for Hu, his nightmare is far from over.

He is still under house arrest, pending a decision from either the Department of Justice to renew the case or drop it, or the judge to dismiss the government’s charges entirely. He has been jobless since his US work visa expired, but he has also not been granted leave from house arrest so he can return to Canada to renew it. Doing so could put him in the crosshairs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to his lawyer.

All he can do is wait for the US government to make its next move.

 

12. The Misguided Continuity on Foreign Policy

realclearworld.com · by Will Krumholz

Conclusion: "Too often, critical questions like these that strike at the heart of Washington’s flaccid foreign policy assumptions go unanswered, while those trusted to expose the truth remain transfixed, spinning a narrative for mass appeal. That keeps liberal hegemony humming along, but it’s far from serving legitimate U.S. interests."

 

13. Rebuke for the junta in Myanmar

dailypioneer.com · by The Pioneer · June 26, 2021

I think more than a rebuke is necessary.

 

14.  Congress’s National Guard Quick Reaction Force: An Ill-Advised Military Requirement

realcleardefense.com · by Donald McGregor

 

15. Harriet Tubman honored as a Civil War spy

kgun9.com · by Craig Smith · June 26, 2021

Another great American hero who deserves to be honored.

 

16. William Pitsenbarger: The commando who died so that others could live

sandboxx.us · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · June 24, 2021

Where do we find such Americans? I thought the film about him was very moving.

 

17. Conceal or Reveal? Managing Clandestine Military Capabilities in Peacetime Competition

direct.mit.edu · by Brendan Rittenhouse Green

Although a year and a half old, I just came across this (thank you social media). The PDF can be downloaded here. 

This deals with anti-submarine warfare capabilities and more broadly on clandestine technical capabilities. But the logic may also apply to more human aspects - not necessarily clandestine (or covert) intelligence activities but more along the lines of what Robert Jones has called unconventional deterrence - the employment of political resistance potential to deter an adversary.  

Excerpts: “If international relations theory is right that concealment of clandestine capabilities is the dominant behavior among states, then the world is headed for a future with nasty military shocks and untimely discoveries of hidden doomsday machines. But are political advantage and war-fighting effectiveness always and everywhere contradictory? When does a genuine trade-off between signaling information about the military balance and concealing clandestine capabilities arise? When will states signal, and when will they conceal? What are the conditions for effective signaling and concealment?

In this article, we aim to answer these questions, qualifying the dominant conclusions of the existing literature. We argue that the military and political utility of clandestine capabilities were most sharply opposed in the crisis and wartime settings that have been the focus of previous scholarship. In peacetime interactions, however, a dilemma between signaling and concealing clandestine capabilities can emerge. Peacetime signaling will often be more informative and more effective than in crisis or wartime situations, opening the path toward several potential long-term political benefits that might be worth the military costs.

Within the context of long-term peacetime military competitions, we propose that states are more likely to signal clandestine capabilities in two circumstances. First, the less unique the capability, the more attractive signaling is relative to concealment. Second, the less responsive the adversary is anticipated to be at implementing countermeasures, the more likely states are to reveal the clandestine capability. In both cases, signaling increases in attractiveness as the military costs of revelation decrease. We test these propositions with a two-part study of U.S. strategic antisubmarine warfare (ASW) during the Cold War, which meets the conditions of our theory, while in many respects providing a “hard test.”

 

18. ‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war

The Guardian · by Philip Oltermann · June 26, 2021

Reminds me of the 1970's Robert Redford film: Three Days of the Condor except now with computers and AI.

 

-------------

 

 "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." 

- Rosa Parks

 

"Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late."

-Thich Nhat Hanh. 

 

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

- Lao Tzu

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. North Korea Admits Kim Jong Un Lost Weight

2. N.K. resident voice concerns over Kim's weight loss

3. Emerging Biden doctrine and future of China dream

4. N.K. paper urges 'maximum vigilance' against COVID-19 amid global spread of Delta variant

5. Minister vows to act 'more quickly' for resumption of dialogue with N. Korea

6. North Korea policy failures causing food shortage: experts

7. Kim Jong-un: Prisoner in his own castle?

8. Will North Korea Remain Stable For the Foreseeable Future?

9. Korea’s holiday isle emerges as high-tech testbed

 

1. North Korea Admits Kim Jong Un Lost Weight

voanews.com · by William Gallo · June 27, 2021

Perhaps north Korea could generate income as an international weight loss center.  Kim Jong-un can be the poster child for their advertisements. (note my attempt at sarcasm).

But the weight loss issue must have been a difficult one for the Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD) to handle.  If you mention it then are you calling Kim fat before his weight loss?

But it is interesting to see how the PAD has handled this and for what probable intended purposes.

Excerpts: “Minimally, someone decided that Kim’s visible weight loss would be the elephant in the room — the now palpably much slimmer elephant in the room — if they DIDN'T mention it, as everyone is talking about it. You can't not notice it,” Aidan Foster-Carter, a veteran, Britain-based Korea specialist, told VOA in an online message.

...

The KCTV comments about Kim's health could be part of a domestic propaganda campaign designed to show that Kim is “tightening his belt” during hardship, says Peter Ward, a Seoul-based Korea specialist and PhD candidate at the University of Vienna.

“But I doubt he lost weight because of that,” Ward added.

“The fact that the media is talking about it means the authorities understand it’s a major story inside the country,” he says. “And they want the people to speak in specific ways about it. Call it the North Korean version of message discipline, if you will.”

 

2. N.K. resident voice concerns over Kim's weight loss

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 27, 2021

This is how the regime's PAD is handling the weight loss issue.  The people want him fat.

Excerpt: "The people were most heartbroken to see the respected General Secretary looking thinner," a North Korean resident said during an interview with Korean Central Television on Friday.

"Everyone is saying that they are moved to tears," the resident said.

 

3. Emerging Biden doctrine and future of China dream

The Korea Times · by Yun Byung-se · June 27, 2021

A Korean view of the Biden Administration's foreign policy.

Excerpt: “It is the paradox of history that the world is on the threshold of a new Cold War and is becoming the victim of its own success. Which dream or scenario will ultimately come true? Pax Americana or the China Dream? Thucydides's Trap (a likely war) or "Kindleberger Trap" (of incapability to provide global public goods)? It will depend on how strategic competition will unfold in the coming years and decades. Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, offers a good recipe for avoiding the war through managed strategic competition.

One big moment of truth will come sooner than later, when President Biden and President Xi are set to meet with each other probably at the G20 summit in October. But a wise counsel is in order, from John Lennon, "A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

 

4. N.K. paper urges 'maximum vigilance' against COVID-19 amid global spread of Delta variant

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 27, 2021

The continued world wide pandemic gives the regime plenty of "ammunition" to justify the continued crackdown against the Korean people living in the north and make them continue to sacrifice for the protection of the regime.

 

5.  Minister vows to act 'more quickly' for resumption of dialogue with N. Korea

en.yna.co.kr · by 고병준 · June 27, 2021

You have to give Minister Lee credit: he is consistent, tenacious, and relentless in his pursuit of engagement and peace "at any cost."

 

6. North Korea policy failures causing food shortage: experts

The Korea Times · by Kang Seung-woo · June 27, 2021

It is important to emphasize that the north's problems are a result of Kim Jong-un's deliberate policy decisions (I will continue to beat the horse more dead on this).  There is important economic analysis in this from William Brown who is arguably one the nation's experts on the north Korean economy.  The regime would actually do well to listen to him as he probably has better economic insights than the regime's "economists" do.

 

7. Kim Jong-un: Prisoner in his own castle?

The Korea Times · by David Tizzard · June 27, 2021

I could not pass up highlighting this comment: "It's an easy yet informative read for those of us looking for some respite from the minutiae of missile technology or the Leninist communist sympathizer "tankies" on Twitter."

I will read this book.  I just ordered it.

Excerpts: “Ultimately, Schafer reaches a somewhat contradictory but appealing conclusion: Kim Jong-un and many around him in North Korea are both perpetrators of great misery and tragedy, but at the same time also victims. They are prisoners inside a system that brings out the worst in humanity and offers little respite or hope of escape. None of the people inside North Korea, including those in the most visible positions, asked to be there. They may, Schafer argues, even dream of having been born elsewhere ― somewhere with greater freedom. But, trapped as they are, they have little choice but to seek their own survival in an environment that is as deadly as it is suffocating.

Schafer's book is dedicated to the people of North Korea and the hope that they might have a better life. His passion for the people and frustrations with the regime can be felt throughout. It's not often that you get to read the thoughts of someone who has spent eight years of their life living and working in Pyongyang, so for that reason, regardless of whether you agree with him or not, Ambassador Schafer's book makes for an important read for anyone seeking to get a fuller understanding of North Korea.

 

8. Will North Korea Remain Stable For the Foreseeable Future?

The National Interest · by Naoko Aoki · June 26, 2021

A lot of people are writing about the potential for north Korean instability (and some even about regime collapse). Are we looking at and preparing for the range of possible contingencies?  Could there be a "perfect storm" in the north?

The “Big 5” for the Korean Peninsula

    1. War - must deter, and if attacked defend, fight, and defeat the nKPA.

    2. Regime Collapse - must prepare for the real possibility and understand it could lead to war and both war and regime collapse could result in resistance within the north.

    3. Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity - (gulags, external forced labor, etc) must focus on as it is a threat to the Kim Family Regime and undermines domestic legitimacy - it is a moral imperative and a national security issue. KJU denies human rights to remain in power.

    4. Asymmetric threats (provocations, proliferation, nuclear program, missile, cyber, and SOF) subversion of ROK, and global illicit activities.

    5. Unification - the biggest challenge and the solution.

We should never forget that north Korea is master of denial and deception in all that it does from military operations to strategy to diplomatic negotiations.

 

Key Questions for the Summit(s) and  Beyond

1. Has the regime abandoned its strategy of the use of subversion, coercion, extortion, and force to unify Korea under northern domination to ensure regime survival?
2. Has the regime abandoned its objective to split the ROK/US Alliance to support its strategy?
3. Who does Kim fear more: US or Korean people?
4. What do we want to achieve in Korea? 
5. What is the acceptable durable political arrangement on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia that will serve and protect US and Alliance interests?

Will North Korea Remain Stable For the Foreseeable Future?

A worsening of the food situation and North Korea’s overall economic health pose risks for Kim, on top of the situation with the coronavirus pandemic.

 

9. Korea’s holiday isle emerges as high-tech testbed

asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · June 26, 2021

 

--------------

 

 "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." 

- Rosa Parks

 

"Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late."

-Thich Nhat Hanh. 

 

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

- Lao Tzu

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. Opinion | Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

2.  On the Front Line: A Night With Afghan Commandos

3. Here's How Biden Can Wage Political Warfare Against Putin

4. Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment

5. Why the Pentagon UFO report is deeply troubling for US security experts

6. Xinhua Headlines: Why Western political theories can't explain success of century-old CPC

7. Japan ratifies world's biggest free trade deal involving China, ASEAN

8. Moscow Is Using Memory Diplomacy to Export Its Narrative to the World

9. How a Liberal Think Tank Did China's Bidding on Climate Change

10. AFSOC at "Strategic Inflection Point"

11. Is Washington Right to Leave Afghanistan? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

12. Indonesia, U.S Break Ground on Joint Strategic Maritime Centre

13. Spare Army counterinsurgency tasks, police does it better. Look at Punjab, Andhra, Tripura

14. Comrades in Tweets? The Contours and Limits of China-Russia Cooperation on Digital Propaganda

15. Eddie Gallagher Vs. the World: After War Crimes Trial, Notorious SEAL Is Out to Settle Scores

16. How to spot the latest trends in digital disinformation

17. China-U.S. Rivalry Brings Promise of Innovation Investors Crave

18. They Seemed Like Democratic Activists. They Were Secretly Conservative Spies.

19. The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize

20. Analysis | The most brutal debunking of Trump’s fraud claims yet — from Republicans

 

1. Opinion | Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

The New York Times · by Zeynep Tufekci · June 25, 2021

Troubling is right.

 

2.  On the Front Line: A Night With Afghan Commandos

The New York Times · by Jim Huylebroek · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “The night missions, witnessed by a photojournalist with The New York Times, are seen by Afghan military officials as key to hitting the Taliban when the insurgents are not expecting it, or at the least disrupting future attacks on government forces.

But these tactics — perfected by the United States over its long wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq — have had arguable if little success, as insurgencies in both countries continue to adapt and endure.

Night raids in Afghanistan especially have turned people, particularly those in the country’s rural areas, against the government and international forces. But the presence of these units helped government forces hold Lashkar Gah last month. For now, it is one of their best and limited ways of striking the insurgents in this two-decade-long war as government-held territory shrinks and units are stretched thin.

But even going on the offensive has deadly consequences, especially as Taliban forces have become even more emboldened with the departure of international forces. Earlier this month, more than 20 Afghan commandos were killed when their offensive operation to retake a district in the country’s northwest was derailed by a vicious Taliban counterattack.

 

3. Here's How Biden Can Wage Political Warfare Against Putin

thebulwark.com · by Kristofer Harrison · June 18, 2021

I missed this when it was published last week. 

The five "strategies:"

(1) America should start mucking about in his internal affairs

(2) The Biden administration should be pouring gasoline all over Belarus.

(3) Go after Russian corruption like crazy.

(4) Find a way to pull the plug on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project.

(5) Watch to see if Russian soldiers start coming home from Syria and Ukraine in body bags, and, when they do, make sure every man, woman, and child in Russia hears about it.

 

4. Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment

defense.gov  · June 25, 2021

UAP....  

The 9 page report can be downloaded here.

 

5. Why the Pentagon UFO report is deeply troubling for US security experts

The Guardian · by Julian Borger · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “It said there was no evidence that the objects were linked to another country such as Russia or China – but it did not rule out the possibility.

...

“And if a foreign power was actually testing really hi-tech equipment, they would be testing hi-tech equipment in a protected area of their country that the United States or other foreign powers couldn’t see,” Weinstein added. “If you get something that secret that can work that well, you’re not going to show it to anybody until you absolutely need it.”

Another option is that a foreign power had developed unmanned aircraft that could spoof US radar and instruments into seeing the incredible speeds and changes of direction that have been reported.

...

Thomas Bania, professor of astronomy at Boston University, said: “Without the range, then one simply cannot tell speed, acceleration, etc. So the interpretation of speeds and turns (ie accelerations) that our US technology cannot match is just bogus. No need for invoking a foreign power with superior – much superior – technology.”

“Were it me running their electronic warfare show, I would build small drones and stuff them with electronics that would monitor and record everything our military radars would send at them,” Bania said. “Then I would get busy reverse engineering what our weaponry did. Then I would develop protocols to spoof radar locks back at us giving ranges that would imply these ridiculous motions.”

 

6.  Xinhua Headlines: Why Western political theories can't explain success of century-old CPC

xinhuanet.com

Hmmm..... about simply authoritarianism rules?

And rather than think about 5000 years of Chinese history we can now consider modern China has very young with only 100 years of experience under the CCP. It is still early in its history.

 

7.  Japan ratifies world's biggest free trade deal involving China, ASEAN

thejakartapost.com · by June 26, 2021

 

8. Moscow Is Using Memory Diplomacy to Export Its Narrative to the World

Foreign Policy · by Jade McGlynn · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “The tone is one of high messianism—but a preacher needs converts to justify his cause.

It is difficult to assess exactly how successful Russian memory diplomacy has been at converting its targets; although there has been obvious success in exporting Russian commemorative traditions and activities, in most countries, the participants comprise compatriots or people who were already sympathetic.

But culture and history wars are raging in many countries, creating fertile ground for future Russian efforts. In many ways, the ability of other countries to withstand Russian efforts to promote an archaic revisionist view of the world through flawed historical narratives will depend on whether those countries can resist using history as a vehicle for politics themselves.

 

9. How a Liberal Think Tank Did China's Bidding on Climate Change

freebeacon.com · by Collin Anderson · June 24, 2021

Ouch. Quite a critique.

 

10. AFSOC at "Strategic Inflection Point"

dvidshub.net

Excerpts: “Operating in contested environments, Slife continued, may require changes in how AFSOC deploys its forces.

“To the extent that we can, we need to be independent of main operating bases such as large runways, large fixed facilities,” said Slife. “We need to get smaller, lighter, and more expeditionary to succeed.”

“It’s imperative to lower our signature,” he continued. “We have to be able to blend into the noise both physically and electronically around the globe, wherever we want to compete.”

In a fiscally-constrained environment, Robinson asked Slife what areas of AFSOC might still see growth.

“Going forward I think we need to talk about language,” said Slife. “We need to take a look at ourselves in AFSOC and decide to what degree do we need regionally specialized forces who have deepened understanding of regions and cultures and nations inside those regions.”

When asked what AFSOC needs from its sister services in terms of cyber, electronic and communication capabilities, Slife stated he is not interested in growing an organic capability.

 

11.  Is Washington Right to Leave Afghanistan? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

Foreign Affairs

This is a fascinating who's who of experts. I have never seen more diverse views over an issue expressed in a single article.

Please go to the link to click on each expert for the details of their views and to view the very unique and interesting graphic chart the expert views. 

 

12. Indonesia, U.S Break Ground on Joint Strategic Maritime Centre

US News & World Reports

It will be interesting to see the Chinese reaction to this.

 

13. Spare Army counterinsurgency tasks, police does it better. Look at Punjab, Andhra, Tripura

theprint.in · June 25, 2021

Who is best suited to conduct COIN? I think the answer is "it depends." This is why continuous assessments of the situation, conditions, and environment are critical.

But I would say that if the situation allows the less military involvement the better.

 

14. Comrades in Tweets? The Contours and Limits of China-Russia Cooperation on Digital Propaganda

carnegie.ru · by Alexander Gabuev, Leonid Kovachich

From Carnegie's Moscow Center in Russia.

Excerpt: “Shared Goals Yet Constrained Cooperation

At root, both Russian and Chinese leaders are driven by great power calculus. Therefore, they want to maintain strategic autonomy above all else, including in pushing back against the United States and its allies. Rhetorical support from a like-minded great power is nice to have, but it is not indispensable when it comes to the global information domain, an area unregulated by international legal norms. On the UN Security Council, by contrast, Moscow and Beijing frequently act far more in tandem because of the bureaucratic nature of the organization and both countries’ unique position as permanent members. For now, however, Chinese and Russian influence operations can be—and continue to be—conducted independently.

 

15. Eddie Gallagher Vs. the World: After War Crimes Trial, Notorious SEAL Is Out to Settle Scores

military.com · by Stephen Losey · June 26, 2021

Will he dig his own grave with new accusations and information?

 

16. How to spot the latest trends in digital disinformation

atlanticcouncil.org · by Nick Fouriezos · June 25, 2021

The full event can be viewed at this link: 

 

17. China-U.S. Rivalry Brings Promise of Innovation Investors Crave

Bloomberg · by Eric Lam · June 25, 2021

This is concerning: “The contest heralds the prospect of new national champions emerging in China. Huynh said he favors equities in the clean energy, consumer electronics and entertainment sectors, and that investors should increase their China exposure over time alongside their existing U.S. holdings.

Citigroup economist Li-Gang Liu sees a possible “Sputnik moment” for Chinese innovation, with the country’s goal of increased self-reliance triggering an era of rapid technological progress similar to the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that spurred the 1950s Space Race. Progress is already apparent, as just last month China’s Zhurong rover joined the U.S.’s Perseverance on Mars.

 

18.  They Seemed Like Democratic Activists. They Were Secretly Conservative Spies.

The New York Times · by Adam Goldman and Mark Mazzetti · June 25, 2021

No surprise especially considering those involved.

Excerpts: “At the center of the scheme was an unusual cast: a former British spy connected to the security contractor Erik Prince, a wealthy heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune and undercover operatives like Mr. Maier and Ms. LaRocca who used Wyoming as a base to insinuate themselves into the political fabric of this state and at least two others, Colorado and Arizona.

In more than two dozen interviews and a review of federal election records, The New York Times reconstructed many of the operatives’ interactions in Wyoming and other states — mapping out their associations and likely targets — and spoke to people with whom they discussed details of their spying operation. Publicly available documents in Wyoming also tied Mr. Maier and Ms. LaRocca to an address in Cody used by the former spy, Richard Seddon.

What the effort accomplished — and how much information Mr. Seddon’s operatives gathered — is unclear. Sometimes, their tactics were bumbling and amateurish. But the operation’s use of spycraft to manipulate the politics of several states over years greatly exceeds the tactics of more traditional political dirty tricks operations.

 

19. The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize

vitalinterests.thedispatch.com · by Thomas Joscelyn

This is quite an accusation against the US MIlitary. Will we see another Pentagon Papers?

 

20. Analysis | The most brutal debunking of Trump’s fraud claims yet — from Republicans

The Washington Post · by Aaron Blake · June 24, 2021

I do not mean this as a partisan statement (I remain a lifelong independent who voted neither for Trump nor Biden, nor Trump or Clinton in 2016). I offer this only as one who remains unshaken in my belief in the strength and brilliance of our federal democratic republic system and the American experiment in pursuit of our more perfect union).

The big lie is a threat to democracy. However, I fear those who believe in it are going to be hard pressed to "unbelieve it." Perhaps it can be debunked by other Republicans but I fear it is too ingrained in people's psyche and part of their (at least political) identity.

 

-----------------

 

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

- Chief Tecumseh

 

"War's one of those things, don't you think, where everyone always thinks they're in the right have you noticed that? Nobody ever says we're the bad guys, we're going to beat shit out of the good guys."

-Caryl Churchill da

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. U.S. must consider reconstituting six-party talks with N. Korea: former U.S. envoys

2. Patterns of Impunity: Human Rights in North Korea and the Role of the U.S. Special Envoy

3. North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex: Assessing Activity at the Radiochemical Laboratory

4. North Korean Stability is in the Eye of the Beholder

5. Kim Jong-un's Demand for Self-Reliance Risks North Korean Lives

6. Kim Jong-un’s COVID-19 Policy Could Lead to Mass Starvation

7. What Is the North Korea’s Recently Minted 'General Secretary' up To?

8. South Korea open to dialogue with North despite latest snub, report says

9. North Korea defined by 'hybridity,' South Korean analyst says in new book

10. South Korea’s needless censorship of North Korean material

11. Is North Korea Struggling to Move Toward the Future?

12. A New Chapter in U.S.-South Korea Relations: Seoul Embraces a Broader Role in Asia

 

1. U.S. must consider reconstituting six-party talks with N. Korea: former U.S. envoys

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · June 26, 2021

Would a new 6 party talk format be 5 against 1 or 3 against 3? Or even 4 against 2?

 

2. Patterns of Impunity: Human Rights in North Korea and the Role of the U.S. Special Envoy

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea · June 24, 2021

For anyone interested in human rights in the north, the job of the US Ambassador for Human Rights, and the importance of information, NGOs, and international pressure, it is worth 70 minutes of your time to watch this. I ordered Ambassador King's new book and I look forward to reading it.

 

3. North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex: Assessing Activity at the Radiochemical Laboratory

38north.org · by Olli Heinonen · June 25, 2021

Excerpt: "It is also important to note that the reactor is maintained and likely ready to operate when needed."

 

4.  North Korean Stability is in the Eye of the Beholder

The National Interest · by Patrick M. Cronin · June 25, 2021

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

I am pleasantly surprised by how much Korea watchers are paying attention to the possibility of north Korean instability and regime collapse.  

It is like deja vu all over again only now we may have much better insights than we did in the 1990s.

And an intel assessment from the 1990s: in the next 10 years north Korea may attack the South, collapse, or muddle through. The same assessment can be made today.

And while this conclusion is logical we must anticipate what might happen and be prepared for it because we could have no choice if the regime collapses. If collapse occurs it will be catastrophic for the Koreans in the north, South Korea, Northeast Asia, the US, and the international community. (the same goes for war of course too)

For all the troubles North Korea causes the world, and for all the horrors the regime inflicts on many of its people, the sudden failure of North Korea could be even worse than its continued existence.

 

5. Kim Jong-un's Demand for Self-Reliance Risks North Korean Lives

The National Interest · by Spencer D. Bakich · June 25, 2021

Look. We need to understand the nature of the Kim family regime and its vital national interest. That is: it is the survival of the Kim family regime, not survival of the nation-state or the Korean people in the north. The Korean people in the north exist to be exploited and/or sacrificed to ensure the regime's survival. The Korean people are suffering and will suffer because of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong-un.

 

6. Kim Jong-un’s COVID-19 Policy Could Lead to Mass Starvation

The National Interest · by Sojin Lim · June 26, 2021

The COVID mitigation measures are for the dual purpose of ensuring survival of the regime and for further oppressing the population to prevent any kind of political or violent resistance. They are not designed to protect the people and their protection through these measures is purely incidental,

 

7. What Is the North Korea’s Recently Minted 'General Secretary' up To?

The National Interest · by Doug Bandow · June 25, 2021

I hope the de facto or pseudo trilateral alliance is discussing contingencies.  We must anticipate the likely contingencies. As I told some students last week, while we call north Korea the Hermit Kingdom sometimes we act like we are part of the Ostrich Kingdom because our heads seem to be buried in the sand when it comes to north Korea and potential futures and outcomes.

 

8. South Korea open to dialogue with North despite latest snub, report says

upi.com · June 25, 2021

Four to six months? If they have the vaccines and a distribution system I bet the discipline of the north Korean system and society might be able to accomplish this even faster than four to six months.

Excerpts: “Dr. Kee B. Park, director of Korea Health Policy Project at Harvard Medical School, said Friday at the 16th Jeju Forum that Gavi officials could vaccinate the entire country in four to six months, Seoul Shinmun reported.

Vaccine deliveries to North Korea may have been delayed, however, according to the report.

 

9. North Korea defined by 'hybridity,' South Korean analyst says in new book

UPI · by Elizabeth Shim · June 25, 2021

Hopefully this will be translated into English. I wish FBIS was still around. I do not think OSC is doing any major translation work.

I would agree with Thae Yong-ho below except for the fact the regime has closed the border with China, restricted movement and information flow and is trying to prevent the use of foreign currency. All of these are necessary for the markets to function. It is the markets (and the ROK Sunshine Policy) that saved the Korean people and the regime after the Arduous March of 1994-1996. But we may see neither repeated in 2021 and the actions to mitigate COVID effects are a self inflicted wound on the markets.

Excerpts: “Koh argues in his book that marketization theory may not be sufficient to understand contemporary North Korea. Recent history indicates that even though a marketization from below is taking place, the direction of the North Korean leadership suggests Pyongyang has not changed since the Cold War.

The author instead proposes hybridity may best capture what is occurring at multiple levels of North Korean society, where different systems exist side by side. Social Change and Hybridity is the first volume in a six-book series from Koh.

...

Informal markets in North Korea have played an important role in replenishing the food supply, according to defectors.

Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean diplomat now lawmaker in Seoul, told KBS Friday that North Korea's current food shortage does not compare to the famine of the '90s.

Markets have taught the North Korean people the ability to "self-sustain" and it is unlikely mass starvation will occur as in the past, Thae said, according to the report.

 

10. South Korea’s needless censorship of North Korean material

eastasiaforum.org · by Martin Weiser · June 26, 2021

We should not censor the enemy’s propaganda. Superior ideas, ideals, and values defeat inferior ones. Censorship also connotes weakness.

 

11. Is North Korea Struggling to Move Toward the Future?

The National Interest · by Andrew Yeo · June 25, 2021

A future defined by the Kim family regime?

I am reminded of a discussion I had with a retired ROK Navy Admiral outlined here:

Differences (and similarities) Between north and South

Survive and Thrive

• Two Miracles in Korea
• Miracle on the Han – development of Korea
• Only nation to go from major aid recipient to a major donor nation
• Grew out of the ashes of the Korean Civil War – political, economic, cultural development- Great Middle Power – 8-11^th largest economy in the world
• Miracle on the Taedong (river in Pyongyang similar to the Han River in Seoul)
• After 7 decades the Korean people in the north continue to survive despite living in conditions of the worst human rights atrocities and crimes against humanity since WWII.
• Commonality among Korean people in the north and South
• When faced with hardship they will survive
• Neither north nor South had a history of democracy or free market economy
• When given an opportunity they will thrive – note the nearly 500 markets thriving in the north

 

12. A New Chapter in U.S.-South Korea Relations: Seoul Embraces a Broader Role in Asia

americanprogress.org · by Tobias Harris and Haneul Lee · June 25, 2021

But can the ROK and US execute what came out of the summit? The agreements reached were strategic and important but they must be effectively implemented. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Conclusion: “The Moon-Biden summit is a significant landmark for the U.S.-ROK alliance and South Korean domestic politics. South Korean progressives, who have historically wanted the alliance to focus on North Korea, are becoming more open to the idea of expanding the U.S.-ROK alliance beyond the peninsula. This is a positive development in South Korea’s increasingly partisan political atmosphere, and a benefit to the United States, which has always viewed the alliance as capable of both addressing North Korea and playing a role in regional affairs. There is truly no limit on what the two allies can accomplish together in the region if there is a bipartisan consensus in South Korea that Seoul can and should play a greater role in confronting the region’s most urgent challenges in coordination with the United States and other democracies.”

 

------------------

 

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

- Chief Tecumseh

 

"War's one of those things, don't you think, where everyone always thinks they're in the right have you noticed that? Nobody ever says we're the bad guys, we're going to beat shit out of the good guys."

-Caryl Churchill 

 

"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."

- Neil Gaiman 

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. Iraq AUMF repeal vote delayed until mid-July

2.  U.S. to begin evacuating some Afghan nationals as they await visa approval

3. US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal

4.  DoD Quietly Calls for Shutdown of 70-Year-Old Committee on Women in the Military

5. Time to re-examine Japan’s longstanding ambiguity over Taiwan

6. AC-130 crew awarded Distinguished Flying Cross for saving 88 lives in firefight

7. FDD | New Research Shows Extent of China’s Cover-Up of COVID-19’s Origins

8. Disaster Looms in Afghanistan

9. Opinion | The U.S. can’t save Hong Kong. But it must keep the spirit of freedom alive.

10. Mark Milley, Anti-Racist

11. The Challenge of Educating the Military on Cyber Strategy

12. U.S. State Dept OKs possible sale of F-16s, missiles to Philippines

13. NSA Releases D3FEND To Improve Cyber Defenses, Info Sharing

14. A racially motivated clash in England during WWII forced the US military to grapple with inequality

15. This Army Navy Country Club charges enlisted troops $77,700 to join — double the price for retired officers

16. On Tweetership: The Pitfalls Awaiting Military Leaders on Social Media and How to Avoid Them

17. It Was the Best of COIN, It Was the Worst of COIN: A Tale of Two Surges

18. The burgeoning US-China values war

19. US Troops on Base Less Likely to Seek Extremist Content Than Americans in General, Study Finds

20. WSJ News Exclusive | App Taps Unwitting Users Abroad to Gather Open-Source Intelligence

21. Did a Chinese Spymaster Defect to the US?

22. Claim that Chinese team hid early SARS-CoV-2 sequences to stymie origin hunt sparks furor

23. Researchers believe internet memes are being used as modern-day leaflet propaganda

24. Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen

25. BRICS could be the world’s economic beacon

 

1. Iraq AUMF repeal vote delayed until mid-July

Defense News · by Joe Gould · June 24, 2021

 

2. U.S. to begin evacuating some Afghan nationals as they await visa approval

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III, Meghann Myers · June 24, 2021

I wonder what happens to any of these Afghan who go to a 3d country and then are denied a special immigrant visa for entry into the US?  I wonder why any third country would want to risk accepting them?  Surely they could not send them back to Afghanistan and risk certain death?  I wonder if any of the refugee statutes apply here.  If they can show that a return to their country will result in violence would these third countries have to grant these Afghans refugee status?

 

3. US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal

militarytimes.com · by Lolita Baldor, Robert Burns · June 24, 2021

And where will the necessary air power be based to support them?

 

4. DoD Quietly Calls for Shutdown of 70-Year-Old Committee on Women in the Military

military.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · June 24, 2021

The buried lede (at least to me -I did not know DOD was shutting down all these advisory boards - I also did not know there were 42 advisory boards): “The committee's hollowing out was part of a sweeping move by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to dissolve all 42 DoD advisory committees pending a cost and efficiency review. The Defense Business Board, which had been populated with those loyal to Donald Trump in the final throes of his presidency, got the most attention in this move.

 

5. Time to re-examine Japan’s longstanding ambiguity over Taiwan

japantimes.co.jp · by Ayumi Teraoka · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “In order to encourage China to continue thinking the issue of Taiwan can only be resolved through peaceful means rather than by force, Japan and the United States are facing an urgent need to consider and quietly prepare responses to possible contingencies in Taiwan and put them forward as part of a deterrence strategy toward China.

...

By leaving open the possibility that the U.S. might intervene militarily, the policy of strategic ambiguity seeks to deter China from attacking Taiwan while at the same time, by leaving the possibility that the U.S. might not intervene, it tries to deter Taiwan from taking provocative actions. In this way, the U.S. has attempted to establish “dual deterrence” and prevent unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

...

Japan, a U.S. ally that is geographically located in close proximity to Taiwan, has also remained ambiguous about how to respond in case of a contingency in the Taiwan Strait.

But one should note that Japan’s ambiguity was formed and maintained in a substantially different context from that of the U.S. Japan’s ambiguous position over Taiwan’s defense is neither based on a strategy of dual deterrence against both Beijing and Taipei nor maintained deliberately as a result of open strategic discussions.

...

Even if Japan and the U.S. work jointly to deepen cooperation with Taiwan, China could very well wage a campaign to criticize only Japan or go further to impose economic retaliation at Japanese firms, leading to geoeconomic confrontations.

If such a case occurs, it would likely create a stir and a divide among the Japanese public, especially the business circles, and as a result, could even cause discord, frustration or, if mishandled, distrust between Tokyo and Washington.

Moreover, if Japan fails to frame and present its preparations and cooperation for Taiwan contingencies wisely, it could also give the current Chinese leadership a political excuse to take aggressive steps against Taiwan.

The government must therefore repeatedly stress that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is key to protecting its people’s lives and properties, and that it strongly opposes all attempts to unilaterally change the status quo. Its stepped-up efforts on policies regarding Taiwan should all be explained based on these principles.

 

6. AC-130 crew awarded Distinguished Flying Cross for saving 88 lives in firefight

taskandpurpose.com · by David Roza · June 24, 2021

You have to love our gunships and crews.

Excerpts: “Task & Purpose requested more details from 1st Special Operations Wing about the specifics of the operation, including the objective of the mission, the number of enemy fighters involved and the number of casualties. We will update the story as the answers become available.

“I always say gunships are a team sport; you really can’t do something like this without a great team,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Christopher McCall, Shadow 71’s aircraft commander. The commander is also usually the pilot of the aircraft. “Shadow 71 has talent from front-to-back.”

McCall received the DFC alongside Capt. Jasen K. Hrisca, weapon systems officer; Capt. Tyler D. Larson, combat systems officer; Tech. Sgt. Jake M. Heathcott, lead special missions aviator; and Staff Sgt. Kyle W. Burden, sensor operator.

The recipients of the Air Medal were Maj. Brian D. Courchesne, co-pilot; and three special missions aviators: Staff Sgt. Alex Almarlaes, Senior Airman Brianna S. Striplin and Senior Airman Thomas I. Fay.

“To the entire crew of Shadow 71: Thank you for who you are; thank you for being our examples; thank you for your service to the nation; thank you for your dedication to our mission,” said Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, during the award ceremony on Tuesday.

 

7. FDD | New Research Shows Extent of China’s Cover-Up of COVID-19’s Origins

fdd.org · by Anthony Ruggiero · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “Some information is already available about what Beijing is hiding. The March 2021 WHO-China joint report on the pandemic’s origins noted that China is not providing access to more than 76,000 records from patients who had illnesses similar to COVID-19 in the earliest phase of the pandemic. Likewise, Beijing has not allowed sampling of blood donations from that period, which could help determine whether the virus was circulating in the fall of 2019.

The State Department also issued a fact sheet just before Biden took office, explaining that Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were sick with seasonal illnesses or COVID-19 in autumn 2019. That information has not been disputed by the Biden administration.

So far, the administration has not explained how it will increase the pressure on China to share the critical scientific data Beijing is now withholding. But the recovery of deleted records from the NIH database shows there may be information beyond the reach of the Chinese Communist Party that could help pinpoint the origins of the pandemic.

 

8. Disaster Looms in Afghanistan

WSJ · by The Editorial Board

Excerpts: “Some argue that terrorism should be deprioritized in favor of great power competition with China. But as China builds up its air power in the region, Mr. Biden is abandoning useful air bases in Afghanistan, especially Bagram near Kabul. No one is arguing for a massive troop commitment. A few thousand troops in the country is manageable, and next best is enough troops to defend a residual force of private contractors to maintain Afghan air support for its forces.

The abrupt pullout has undermined NATO unity as some Europeans are unhappy with Mr. Biden’s decision. And what are the Taiwanese thinking as the U.S. walks away from this commitment? News reports say Mr. Biden has finally agreed to move thousands of Afghan translators to third countries as they await the U.S. visas they were promised. But this will have to be done fast to avoid a slaughter.

A Pentagon spokesman said this week that the pace of the retreat could change but that all U.S. forces would be gone by September. By completing the withdrawal that Donald Trump started, Mr. Biden shares responsibility for the bloody consequences.

 

9. Opinion | The U.S. can’t save Hong Kong. But it must keep the spirit of freedom alive.

The Washington Post · by  Henry Olsen · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “The United States could go even further. In January, Britain offered Hong Kongers who hold a special passport the opportunity to flee their now repressive city and become British citizens. By mid-February, around 5,000 Hong Kongers had already taken advantage of this law. More are likely to do so now that freedom of the press has been effectively eliminated. President Biden could join Britain and offer our shores as a refuge for Hong Kongers desperate to live freely.

China’s rise as a global power has only been possible because of American forbearance. The United States led the effort to make China part of the global economy, largely based on the belief that greater wealth and exposure to Western ideas would weaken the last major Communist state from within. We now know that this won’t happen without sustained pressure, which only has bite if it carries economic consequences. China’s reneging on the promises it made to Hong Kongers that they could keep their democratic freedoms is only one of the obvious examples of the Communist Party’s perfidy — a perfidy that is financed by American dollars.

 

10. Mark Milley, Anti-Racist

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

Congressman Gaetz has the maturity level of perhaps a high school kid. He really embarrassed himself.

 

11. The Challenge of Educating the Military on Cyber Strategy

warontherocks.com · by Erica Borghard, Mark Montgomery, and Brandon Valeriano · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “The language in U.S. code that establishes these standards is vague by design, which will still provide the services with considerable latitude to interpret that requirement. However, absent specific references to the cyber domain in U.S. code, competing requirements may crowd out a focus on cyber security and strategy as curriculum and leadership change. Amending U.S. code is not an insurmountable hurdle: it was recently revised to include “operational contract support.” Therefore, on its face, there is little reason to deny similar adjustments to other emerging domains as they become necessary to improve the ability of the profession of arms to understand the evolving impact of technology on combat.

That said, amending U.S. code is not a panacea, especially given how the language in law is broadly construed. Therefore, additional measures, such as establishing common cyber education standards in the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Officer Professional Military Education Policy, which provides professional military education guidance across the services, can help institutionalize and refine cyber curriculum standards. This guidance is also more adaptable, as the environment — and the resulting operational needs and challenges — evolves.

Without meaningful change and investment in professional military cyber education, service efforts will likely remain in a state of flux and uncertainty. The potential consequences of maintaining the status quo are significant. For instance, academic research on military innovation has shown that military organizations adapt poorly to modern technology when they are not sufficiently educated on the dynamics of change. Budget cuts are a fact of life in the military community, but so are cyber and information operations. In the absence of strong educational foundations, the military is at risk of being unprepared to engage in rigorous thought about the future application of technology on the battlefield.

 

12. U.S. State Dept OKs possible sale of F-16s, missiles to Philippines

Reuters · by David Brunnstrom

Wow. F-16 for the Philippines. That will be quite an upgrade in capabilities.  The key will be spare parts and training.  And they certainly are not buying these for operations in Mindanao (I hope).  I wil take the OV-10s and the MD-500s there any day.

 

13. NSA Releases D3FEND To Improve Cyber Defenses, Info Sharing

breakingdefense.com · by Brad D. Williams · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “ATT&CK can be used to build threat models, as well as cyber kill chains of actual incidents, to include adversaries’ behaviors and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), in part because ATT&CK is based on real-world threats.

Likewise, D3FEND can be used to develop cyber defenses by “illustrat[ing] the complex interplay between computer network architectures, threats, and cyber countermeasures… illuminat[ing] previously-unspecified relationships between defensive and offensive methods.”

Because D3FEND is so detailed, it can serve as a useful guide for architecting, designing, and implementing cyber defenses.

D3FEND is based, in part, on 500 countermeasure patents from the last two decades, according to its website. Notably, however, D3FEND and ATT&CK are vendor-agnostic frameworks, which can be applied to safeguarding a wide range of IT environments, including national security systems, Defense Department networks, and defense industrial base assets.

 

14. A racially motivated clash in England during WWII forced the US military to grapple with inequality

Stars and Stripes · by Chad Garland · June 24, 2021

Racism never existed in the military.  Right Congressman Gaetz?

You have to admire the British pub owners: “Blacks in the service at the time endured “friction” over the use of recreational facilities, interracial dating and “the resistant attitude of some leaders which affected military justice and training,” Osur wrote in 2000. But the British public gave them “relatively fair treatment.”

Anthony Burgess, author of the book “A Clockwork Orange,” taught in Bamber Bridge after the war, writing in his autobiography that when U.S. military authorities demanded local pubs institute a “colour bar,” the owners barred white troops.

“There used to be one pub that had a notice saying, OUT OF BOUNDS TO WHITE SOLDIERS, but that was stopped by Washington or somebody,” Burgess wrote in a 1973 New York Times article.

Burgess also wrote that the locals would tell of the time during the war that “black troops held the camp with machine guns against whites, though this never got into the newspapers.”

 

15. This Army Navy Country Club charges enlisted troops $77,700 to join — double the price for retired officers

taskandpurpose.com · by Haley Britzky · June 24, 2021

I hope this is a case where the first report is always wrong.  I have to believe that is a typo.

 

16.  On Tweetership: The Pitfalls Awaiting Military Leaders on Social Media and How to Avoid Them

mwi.usma.edu · by Joe Byerly · June 25, 2021

Some good advice.

Excerpts: “At the End of the Day, We Represent Something Greater than Ourselves

Unfortunately, it seems that people move much more quickly to the sounds of outrage than they do professional discourse. The strength of Pericles rested in the fact that he understood he had to make a conscious effort not to allow himself to be energized by the emotions that moved through the crowd. We can make the same choice. By understanding there are psychological forces operating in the background of our minds that can pull us into fray, we can pause for a moment. We can then examine our thoughts by asking ourselves a series of reflective questions and avoid acting impulsively.

As US military practitioners, we represent the American people as part of a trusted organization that supports and defends the Constitution of the United States. We owe it to them to put our best foot forward and to show them we possess the presence of mind to not be enticed by trolls, that we can rise above online mobs, and that we continue to be worthy of the mission they ask us to do.

 

17. It Was the Best of COIN, It Was the Worst of COIN: A Tale of Two Surges

mwi.usma.edu · by Mike Nelson · June 24, 2021

Excerpt: “All warfare is political, and all warfare shifts on human decisions made in complex circumstances. But this is doubly true of counterinsurgent warfare. It is a complicated endeavor that requires deft understanding of the motivations and goals of multiple actors. America’s mistake, in two theaters, was in trying to reduce one of the more complex forms of conflict into something simple, uniform, and replicable without regard to the environment. While the United States should not shy away from studying, determining principles of, developing doctrine for, and preparing to conduct counterinsurgency, we must remember that these guidelines are only as good as the means by which they are adapted to the fight at hand.

 

18. The burgeoning US-China values war

asiatimes.com · by Mark Valencia · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “China has belatedly recognized the danger of a Western-led united front against it and is sending verbal and military warnings of it opposition. President Xi Jinping recently told the Politburo that China needs “to tell its story better and win the struggle to be more lovable…. It is necessary to make friends, unite and win over the majority, and constantly expand the circle of friends [when it comes to] international opinion.”

As one of its “Wolf Warriors,” Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye, said, “The public-opinion war is a strength of the West but a weakness for us.” Indeed, China needs to step up its English-language public diplomacy. It needs to be less aggressive and avoid providing opportunities for the West to criticize its behavior, especially in the South China Sea.

It needs to match its soothing words with actions. And it needs to make better use of the ample ammunition provided by the hypocrisy of the US and the West. This values war will be a long-drawn-out contest that requires a long-term effective public diplomacy strategy. It is about time China stepped up its game.

 

19.  US Troops on Base Less Likely to Seek Extremist Content Than Americans in General, Study Finds

defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher

Some good news here.

 

20. WSJ News Exclusive | App Taps Unwitting Users Abroad to Gather Open-Source Intelligence

WSJ · by Byron Tau

You do have to admire their creativity.  In the old days this would take deploying actual personnel to physically spot, assess, and recruit assets to do this kind of work.  The beauty of this is that "agents" may not have to be formally recruited and they can remain unwitting.  We can now conduct "virtual" intelligence operations and perhaps even virtual support to resistance in a hybrid manner - the external support and guidance may be virtual while actions on the ground will continue to be physical.

Excerpts: “Premise began as a way to register prices in the developing world and help its customers better understand the needs of the population. But the company struggled to turn a profit in those markets, and the demand for its services was inconsistent, former employees say.

In 2018, the board brought in Mr. Blackman as CEO, hoping he could stabilize the company’s finances and bring in new business, according to current and former employees. Mr. Blackman had experience in the government contracting world, having earlier founded Accela, a company that developed software for government. He pushed to pursue more intelligence and military contracts, the employees said, which led to a culture clash within the company’s workforce, many of them veterans of the development world who objected to some uses of the military and intelligence contracts that were being considered for the platform. A spokesman for the company dismissed that account as coming from disgruntled former employees and said the company hasn’t departed from its original mission. David Soloff, Premise’s co-founder, who preceded Mr. Blackman as CEO, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, Premise’s data has been purchased by numerous defense contractors or government agencies working on defense programs, federal records show. The Air Force paid the company $1.4 million in 2019 to do “persistent ground ISR”—a military abbreviation that stands for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Air Force Research Laboratory said the contract was focused on data science and machine learning work for military units but declined to provide additional details.

At least five other defense contractors working on intelligence or defense contracts have purchased the data, federal spending records show. Premise stepped up its presence in Washington in recent years, posting jobs requiring security clearances on LinkedIn and bringing on employees whose LinkedIn profiles say they are veterans of the intelligence community.

 

21. Did a Chinese Spymaster Defect to the US?

spectator.org · by John Jiang · June 24, 2021

I hope so.  But I would also worry about something that might be too good to be true.  It will take a lot of vetting to ensure he has really defected or has other intentions. 

But all we seem to have is some circular reporting here.

 

22.  Claim that Chinese team hid early SARS-CoV-2 sequences to stymie origin hunt sparks furor

Science · by Jon Cohen · June 23, 2021

 

23. Researchers believe internet memes are being used as modern-day leaflet propaganda

wearethemighty.com · by Team Mighty · June 23, 2021

Yep.  The internet meme is the new PSYOP leaflet.  Someone finally recognized this.

Just imagine if we unleashed all the young PSYOP specialists (E4s) to create memes that resonate with the appropriate target audiences around the world.  I am sure that is what the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg is doing.

 

24. Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen

The Washington Post ·  Amy Gardner, Amy B Wang, Alice Crites,  Scott Clement and Sheila Regan · June 24, 2021

Just unbelievable. Incredible.

 

25. BRICS could be the world’s economic beacon

asiatimes.com · by Ken Moak · June 25, 2021

Hmmm.....

Excerpts: “Recruiting new members

Lack of financial and economic muscles and determination to contain China might be the reason the G7 invited India, Australia, South Korea and South Africa to the 2021 meeting in the UK, hoping to turn it into a G11.

Adding South Korea to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue would strengthen its geopolitical position to counter China in the Asia-Pacific region. The G7 probably hopes that plying South Africa away from China would erode the latter’s influence in the African continent.

However, the G7 may have a problem recruiting those four countries into the alliance, particularly when it is intended to counter China.

South Africa is not only a member of BRICS, but also relies heavily on China for investment and trade. South Korea is crossing its fingers that the US will not pressure it into joining the G7 for security as well as economic reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare how badly India needs Chinese investment, trade and health-care equipment. Australia has shown signs that it wants to improve trade relations with China.

Furthermore, joining the G7 to counter China would not only risk the invitees’ economic interests, but could worsen their security positions.

As the 19th-century British statesman Lord Palmerston observed, countries have no permanent friends or foes, only national interests. Joining the G7 is definitely not in the invitees’ national interests.

Against this backdrop, there is no better time for Modi and Bolsonaro to rethink their China policies. Ongoing BRICS meetings present a golden opportunity for the leaders of the club to talk cooperation, instituting trade, investment, health, security and technology agreements to achieve their nations’ economic and geopolitical potentials.

 

------------------

 

On this 71st anniversary of the attack by the communist north to steal freedom from the Republic of Korea:

 

“Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.” 

- Korean War Memorial

 

"In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. [...] Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores."
- President Harry Truman

 

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal." -John Steinbeck

 

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs

1. Iraq AUMF repeal vote delayed until mid-July

2.  U.S. to begin evacuating some Afghan nationals as they await visa approval

3. US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal

4.  DoD Quietly Calls for Shutdown of 70-Year-Old Committee on Women in the Military

5. Time to re-examine Japan’s longstanding ambiguity over Taiwan

6. AC-130 crew awarded Distinguished Flying Cross for saving 88 lives in firefight

7. FDD | New Research Shows Extent of China’s Cover-Up of COVID-19’s Origins

8. Disaster Looms in Afghanistan

9. Opinion | The U.S. can’t save Hong Kong. But it must keep the spirit of freedom alive.

10. Mark Milley, Anti-Racist

11. The Challenge of Educating the Military on Cyber Strategy

12. U.S. State Dept OKs possible sale of F-16s, missiles to Philippines

13. NSA Releases D3FEND To Improve Cyber Defenses, Info Sharing

14. A racially motivated clash in England during WWII forced the US military to grapple with inequality

15. This Army Navy Country Club charges enlisted troops $77,700 to join — double the price for retired officers

16. On Tweetership: The Pitfalls Awaiting Military Leaders on Social Media and How to Avoid Them

17. It Was the Best of COIN, It Was the Worst of COIN: A Tale of Two Surges

18. The burgeoning US-China values war

19. US Troops on Base Less Likely to Seek Extremist Content Than Americans in General, Study Finds

20. WSJ News Exclusive | App Taps Unwitting Users Abroad to Gather Open-Source Intelligence

21. Did a Chinese Spymaster Defect to the US?

22. Claim that Chinese team hid early SARS-CoV-2 sequences to stymie origin hunt sparks furor

23. Researchers believe internet memes are being used as modern-day leaflet propaganda

24. Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen

25. BRICS could be the world’s economic beacon

 

1. Iraq AUMF repeal vote delayed until mid-July

Defense News · by Joe Gould · June 24, 2021

 

2. U.S. to begin evacuating some Afghan nationals as they await visa approval

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III, Meghann Myers · June 24, 2021

I wonder what happens to any of these Afghan who go to a 3d country and then are denied a special immigrant visa for entry into the US?  I wonder why any third country would want to risk accepting them?  Surely they could not send them back to Afghanistan and risk certain death?  I wonder if any of the refugee statutes apply here.  If they can show that a return to their country will result in violence would these third countries have to grant these Afghans refugee status?

 

3. US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal

militarytimes.com · by Lolita Baldor, Robert Burns · June 24, 2021

And where will the necessary air power be based to support them?

 

4. DoD Quietly Calls for Shutdown of 70-Year-Old Committee on Women in the Military

military.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · June 24, 2021

The buried lede (at least to me -I did not know DOD was shutting down all these advisory boards - I also did not know there were 42 advisory boards): “The committee's hollowing out was part of a sweeping move by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to dissolve all 42 DoD advisory committees pending a cost and efficiency review. The Defense Business Board, which had been populated with those loyal to Donald Trump in the final throes of his presidency, got the most attention in this move.

 

5. Time to re-examine Japan’s longstanding ambiguity over Taiwan

japantimes.co.jp · by Ayumi Teraoka · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “In order to encourage China to continue thinking the issue of Taiwan can only be resolved through peaceful means rather than by force, Japan and the United States are facing an urgent need to consider and quietly prepare responses to possible contingencies in Taiwan and put them forward as part of a deterrence strategy toward China.

...

By leaving open the possibility that the U.S. might intervene militarily, the policy of strategic ambiguity seeks to deter China from attacking Taiwan while at the same time, by leaving the possibility that the U.S. might not intervene, it tries to deter Taiwan from taking provocative actions. In this way, the U.S. has attempted to establish “dual deterrence” and prevent unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

...

Japan, a U.S. ally that is geographically located in close proximity to Taiwan, has also remained ambiguous about how to respond in case of a contingency in the Taiwan Strait.

But one should note that Japan’s ambiguity was formed and maintained in a substantially different context from that of the U.S. Japan’s ambiguous position over Taiwan’s defense is neither based on a strategy of dual deterrence against both Beijing and Taipei nor maintained deliberately as a result of open strategic discussions.

...

Even if Japan and the U.S. work jointly to deepen cooperation with Taiwan, China could very well wage a campaign to criticize only Japan or go further to impose economic retaliation at Japanese firms, leading to geoeconomic confrontations.

If such a case occurs, it would likely create a stir and a divide among the Japanese public, especially the business circles, and as a result, could even cause discord, frustration or, if mishandled, distrust between Tokyo and Washington.

Moreover, if Japan fails to frame and present its preparations and cooperation for Taiwan contingencies wisely, it could also give the current Chinese leadership a political excuse to take aggressive steps against Taiwan.

The government must therefore repeatedly stress that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is key to protecting its people’s lives and properties, and that it strongly opposes all attempts to unilaterally change the status quo. Its stepped-up efforts on policies regarding Taiwan should all be explained based on these principles.

 

6. AC-130 crew awarded Distinguished Flying Cross for saving 88 lives in firefight

taskandpurpose.com · by David Roza · June 24, 2021

You have to love our gunships and crews.

Excerpts: “Task & Purpose requested more details from 1st Special Operations Wing about the specifics of the operation, including the objective of the mission, the number of enemy fighters involved and the number of casualties. We will update the story as the answers become available.

“I always say gunships are a team sport; you really can’t do something like this without a great team,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Christopher McCall, Shadow 71’s aircraft commander. The commander is also usually the pilot of the aircraft. “Shadow 71 has talent from front-to-back.”

McCall received the DFC alongside Capt. Jasen K. Hrisca, weapon systems officer; Capt. Tyler D. Larson, combat systems officer; Tech. Sgt. Jake M. Heathcott, lead special missions aviator; and Staff Sgt. Kyle W. Burden, sensor operator.

The recipients of the Air Medal were Maj. Brian D. Courchesne, co-pilot; and three special missions aviators: Staff Sgt. Alex Almarlaes, Senior Airman Brianna S. Striplin and Senior Airman Thomas I. Fay.

“To the entire crew of Shadow 71: Thank you for who you are; thank you for being our examples; thank you for your service to the nation; thank you for your dedication to our mission,” said Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, during the award ceremony on Tuesday.

 

7. FDD | New Research Shows Extent of China’s Cover-Up of COVID-19’s Origins

fdd.org · by Anthony Ruggiero · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “Some information is already available about what Beijing is hiding. The March 2021 WHO-China joint report on the pandemic’s origins noted that China is not providing access to more than 76,000 records from patients who had illnesses similar to COVID-19 in the earliest phase of the pandemic. Likewise, Beijing has not allowed sampling of blood donations from that period, which could help determine whether the virus was circulating in the fall of 2019.

The State Department also issued a fact sheet just before Biden took office, explaining that Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were sick with seasonal illnesses or COVID-19 in autumn 2019. That information has not been disputed by the Biden administration.

So far, the administration has not explained how it will increase the pressure on China to share the critical scientific data Beijing is now withholding. But the recovery of deleted records from the NIH database shows there may be information beyond the reach of the Chinese Communist Party that could help pinpoint the origins of the pandemic.

 

8. Disaster Looms in Afghanistan

WSJ · by The Editorial Board

Excerpts: “Some argue that terrorism should be deprioritized in favor of great power competition with China. But as China builds up its air power in the region, Mr. Biden is abandoning useful air bases in Afghanistan, especially Bagram near Kabul. No one is arguing for a massive troop commitment. A few thousand troops in the country is manageable, and next best is enough troops to defend a residual force of private contractors to maintain Afghan air support for its forces.

The abrupt pullout has undermined NATO unity as some Europeans are unhappy with Mr. Biden’s decision. And what are the Taiwanese thinking as the U.S. walks away from this commitment? News reports say Mr. Biden has finally agreed to move thousands of Afghan translators to third countries as they await the U.S. visas they were promised. But this will have to be done fast to avoid a slaughter.

A Pentagon spokesman said this week that the pace of the retreat could change but that all U.S. forces would be gone by September. By completing the withdrawal that Donald Trump started, Mr. Biden shares responsibility for the bloody consequences.

 

9. Opinion | The U.S. can’t save Hong Kong. But it must keep the spirit of freedom alive.

The Washington Post · by  Henry Olsen · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “The United States could go even further. In January, Britain offered Hong Kongers who hold a special passport the opportunity to flee their now repressive city and become British citizens. By mid-February, around 5,000 Hong Kongers had already taken advantage of this law. More are likely to do so now that freedom of the press has been effectively eliminated. President Biden could join Britain and offer our shores as a refuge for Hong Kongers desperate to live freely.

China’s rise as a global power has only been possible because of American forbearance. The United States led the effort to make China part of the global economy, largely based on the belief that greater wealth and exposure to Western ideas would weaken the last major Communist state from within. We now know that this won’t happen without sustained pressure, which only has bite if it carries economic consequences. China’s reneging on the promises it made to Hong Kongers that they could keep their democratic freedoms is only one of the obvious examples of the Communist Party’s perfidy — a perfidy that is financed by American dollars.

 

10. Mark Milley, Anti-Racist

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

Congressman Gaetz has the maturity level of perhaps a high school kid. He really embarrassed himself.

 

11. The Challenge of Educating the Military on Cyber Strategy

warontherocks.com · by Erica Borghard, Mark Montgomery, and Brandon Valeriano · June 25, 2021

Excerpts: “The language in U.S. code that establishes these standards is vague by design, which will still provide the services with considerable latitude to interpret that requirement. However, absent specific references to the cyber domain in U.S. code, competing requirements may crowd out a focus on cyber security and strategy as curriculum and leadership change. Amending U.S. code is not an insurmountable hurdle: it was recently revised to include “operational contract support.” Therefore, on its face, there is little reason to deny similar adjustments to other emerging domains as they become necessary to improve the ability of the profession of arms to understand the evolving impact of technology on combat.

That said, amending U.S. code is not a panacea, especially given how the language in law is broadly construed. Therefore, additional measures, such as establishing common cyber education standards in the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Officer Professional Military Education Policy, which provides professional military education guidance across the services, can help institutionalize and refine cyber curriculum standards. This guidance is also more adaptable, as the environment — and the resulting operational needs and challenges — evolves.

Without meaningful change and investment in professional military cyber education, service efforts will likely remain in a state of flux and uncertainty. The potential consequences of maintaining the status quo are significant. For instance, academic research on military innovation has shown that military organizations adapt poorly to modern technology when they are not sufficiently educated on the dynamics of change. Budget cuts are a fact of life in the military community, but so are cyber and information operations. In the absence of strong educational foundations, the military is at risk of being unprepared to engage in rigorous thought about the future application of technology on the battlefield.

 

12. U.S. State Dept OKs possible sale of F-16s, missiles to Philippines

Reuters · by David Brunnstrom

Wow. F-16 for the Philippines. That will be quite an upgrade in capabilities.  The key will be spare parts and training.  And they certainly are not buying these for operations in Mindanao (I hope).  I wil take the OV-10s and the MD-500s there any day.

 

13. NSA Releases D3FEND To Improve Cyber Defenses, Info Sharing

breakingdefense.com · by Brad D. Williams · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “ATT&CK can be used to build threat models, as well as cyber kill chains of actual incidents, to include adversaries’ behaviors and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), in part because ATT&CK is based on real-world threats.

Likewise, D3FEND can be used to develop cyber defenses by “illustrat[ing] the complex interplay between computer network architectures, threats, and cyber countermeasures… illuminat[ing] previously-unspecified relationships between defensive and offensive methods.”

Because D3FEND is so detailed, it can serve as a useful guide for architecting, designing, and implementing cyber defenses.

D3FEND is based, in part, on 500 countermeasure patents from the last two decades, according to its website. Notably, however, D3FEND and ATT&CK are vendor-agnostic frameworks, which can be applied to safeguarding a wide range of IT environments, including national security systems, Defense Department networks, and defense industrial base assets.

 

14. A racially motivated clash in England during WWII forced the US military to grapple with inequality

Stars and Stripes · by Chad Garland · June 24, 2021

Racism never existed in the military.  Right Congressman Gaetz?

You have to admire the British pub owners: “Blacks in the service at the time endured “friction” over the use of recreational facilities, interracial dating and “the resistant attitude of some leaders which affected military justice and training,” Osur wrote in 2000. But the British public gave them “relatively fair treatment.”

Anthony Burgess, author of the book “A Clockwork Orange,” taught in Bamber Bridge after the war, writing in his autobiography that when U.S. military authorities demanded local pubs institute a “colour bar,” the owners barred white troops.

“There used to be one pub that had a notice saying, OUT OF BOUNDS TO WHITE SOLDIERS, but that was stopped by Washington or somebody,” Burgess wrote in a 1973 New York Times article.

Burgess also wrote that the locals would tell of the time during the war that “black troops held the camp with machine guns against whites, though this never got into the newspapers.”

 

15. This Army Navy Country Club charges enlisted troops $77,700 to join — double the price for retired officers

taskandpurpose.com · by Haley Britzky · June 24, 2021

I hope this is a case where the first report is always wrong.  I have to believe that is a typo.

 

16.  On Tweetership: The Pitfalls Awaiting Military Leaders on Social Media and How to Avoid Them

mwi.usma.edu · by Joe Byerly · June 25, 2021

Some good advice.

Excerpts: “At the End of the Day, We Represent Something Greater than Ourselves

Unfortunately, it seems that people move much more quickly to the sounds of outrage than they do professional discourse. The strength of Pericles rested in the fact that he understood he had to make a conscious effort not to allow himself to be energized by the emotions that moved through the crowd. We can make the same choice. By understanding there are psychological forces operating in the background of our minds that can pull us into fray, we can pause for a moment. We can then examine our thoughts by asking ourselves a series of reflective questions and avoid acting impulsively.

As US military practitioners, we represent the American people as part of a trusted organization that supports and defends the Constitution of the United States. We owe it to them to put our best foot forward and to show them we possess the presence of mind to not be enticed by trolls, that we can rise above online mobs, and that we continue to be worthy of the mission they ask us to do.

 

17. It Was the Best of COIN, It Was the Worst of COIN: A Tale of Two Surges

mwi.usma.edu · by Mike Nelson · June 24, 2021

Excerpt: “All warfare is political, and all warfare shifts on human decisions made in complex circumstances. But this is doubly true of counterinsurgent warfare. It is a complicated endeavor that requires deft understanding of the motivations and goals of multiple actors. America’s mistake, in two theaters, was in trying to reduce one of the more complex forms of conflict into something simple, uniform, and replicable without regard to the environment. While the United States should not shy away from studying, determining principles of, developing doctrine for, and preparing to conduct counterinsurgency, we must remember that these guidelines are only as good as the means by which they are adapted to the fight at hand.

 

18. The burgeoning US-China values war

asiatimes.com · by Mark Valencia · June 24, 2021

Excerpts: “China has belatedly recognized the danger of a Western-led united front against it and is sending verbal and military warnings of it opposition. President Xi Jinping recently told the Politburo that China needs “to tell its story better and win the struggle to be more lovable…. It is necessary to make friends, unite and win over the majority, and constantly expand the circle of friends [when it comes to] international opinion.”

As one of its “Wolf Warriors,” Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye, said, “The public-opinion war is a strength of the West but a weakness for us.” Indeed, China needs to step up its English-language public diplomacy. It needs to be less aggressive and avoid providing opportunities for the West to criticize its behavior, especially in the South China Sea.

It needs to match its soothing words with actions. And it needs to make better use of the ample ammunition provided by the hypocrisy of the US and the West. This values war will be a long-drawn-out contest that requires a long-term effective public diplomacy strategy. It is about time China stepped up its game.

 

19.  US Troops on Base Less Likely to Seek Extremist Content Than Americans in General, Study Finds

defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher

Some good news here.

 

20. WSJ News Exclusive | App Taps Unwitting Users Abroad to Gather Open-Source Intelligence

WSJ · by Byron Tau

You do have to admire their creativity.  In the old days this would take deploying actual personnel to physically spot, assess, and recruit assets to do this kind of work.  The beauty of this is that "agents" may not have to be formally recruited and they can remain unwitting.  We can now conduct "virtual" intelligence operations and perhaps even virtual support to resistance in a hybrid manner - the external support and guidance may be virtual while actions on the ground will continue to be physical.

Excerpts: “Premise began as a way to register prices in the developing world and help its customers better understand the needs of the population. But the company struggled to turn a profit in those markets, and the demand for its services was inconsistent, former employees say.

In 2018, the board brought in Mr. Blackman as CEO, hoping he could stabilize the company’s finances and bring in new business, according to current and former employees. Mr. Blackman had experience in the government contracting world, having earlier founded Accela, a company that developed software for government. He pushed to pursue more intelligence and military contracts, the employees said, which led to a culture clash within the company’s workforce, many of them veterans of the development world who objected to some uses of the military and intelligence contracts that were being considered for the platform. A spokesman for the company dismissed that account as coming from disgruntled former employees and said the company hasn’t departed from its original mission. David Soloff, Premise’s co-founder, who preceded Mr. Blackman as CEO, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, Premise’s data has been purchased by numerous defense contractors or government agencies working on defense programs, federal records show. The Air Force paid the company $1.4 million in 2019 to do “persistent ground ISR”—a military abbreviation that stands for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Air Force Research Laboratory said the contract was focused on data science and machine learning work for military units but declined to provide additional details.

At least five other defense contractors working on intelligence or defense contracts have purchased the data, federal spending records show. Premise stepped up its presence in Washington in recent years, posting jobs requiring security clearances on LinkedIn and bringing on employees whose LinkedIn profiles say they are veterans of the intelligence community.

 

21. Did a Chinese Spymaster Defect to the US?

spectator.org · by John Jiang · June 24, 2021

I hope so.  But I would also worry about something that might be too good to be true.  It will take a lot of vetting to ensure he has really defected or has other intentions. 

But all we seem to have is some circular reporting here.

 

22.  Claim that Chinese team hid early SARS-CoV-2 sequences to stymie origin hunt sparks furor

Science · by Jon Cohen · June 23, 2021

 

23. Researchers believe internet memes are being used as modern-day leaflet propaganda

wearethemighty.com · by Team Mighty · June 23, 2021

Yep.  The internet meme is the new PSYOP leaflet.  Someone finally recognized this.

Just imagine if we unleashed all the young PSYOP specialists (E4s) to create memes that resonate with the appropriate target audiences around the world.  I am sure that is what the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg is doing.

 

24. Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen

The Washington Post ·  Amy Gardner, Amy B Wang, Alice Crites,  Scott Clement and Sheila Regan · June 24, 2021

Just unbelievable. Incredible.

 

25. BRICS could be the world’s economic beacon

asiatimes.com · by Ken Moak · June 25, 2021

Hmmm.....

Excerpts: “Recruiting new members

Lack of financial and economic muscles and determination to contain China might be the reason the G7 invited India, Australia, South Korea and South Africa to the 2021 meeting in the UK, hoping to turn it into a G11.

Adding South Korea to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue would strengthen its geopolitical position to counter China in the Asia-Pacific region. The G7 probably hopes that plying South Africa away from China would erode the latter’s influence in the African continent.

However, the G7 may have a problem recruiting those four countries into the alliance, particularly when it is intended to counter China.

South Africa is not only a member of BRICS, but also relies heavily on China for investment and trade. South Korea is crossing its fingers that the US will not pressure it into joining the G7 for security as well as economic reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare how badly India needs Chinese investment, trade and health-care equipment. Australia has shown signs that it wants to improve trade relations with China.

Furthermore, joining the G7 to counter China would not only risk the invitees’ economic interests, but could worsen their security positions.

As the 19th-century British statesman Lord Palmerston observed, countries have no permanent friends or foes, only national interests. Joining the G7 is definitely not in the invitees’ national interests.

Against this backdrop, there is no better time for Modi and Bolsonaro to rethink their China policies. Ongoing BRICS meetings present a golden opportunity for the leaders of the club to talk cooperation, instituting trade, investment, health, security and technology agreements to achieve their nations’ economic and geopolitical potentials.

 

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On this 71st anniversary of the attack by the communist north to steal freedom from the Republic of Korea:

 

“Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.” 

- Korean War Memorial

 

"In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. [...] Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores."
- President Harry Truman

 

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal." -John Steinbeck