How to Conduct the Biden Administration's Korea Policy Review

The National Interest · by David Maxwell · March 8, 2021

My recommendations on what must be done for the Korea policy review.

Will Lloyd Austin stand up to the generals?

The Hill · by Mark E. Mitchell, opinion contributor · March 8, 2021

Though the timing is coincidental, this is a critically important OpEd from Mark Mitchell that is a counterpoint to LTG Mulholland's MIlitary Times OpEd.

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

1. U.S. proposes interim power-sharing government with Taliban in Afghanistan

2. Retying the Gordian Knot: US Special Operations Command as a service

3. Biden Endorses Female Generals Whose Promotions Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump’s Reaction

4. Support for QAnon Is Hard to Measure. Polls May Overestimate It

5. Xi Jinping’s Eager-to-Please Bureaucrats Snarl His China Plans

6. The Stories China Tells: The New Historical Memory Reshaping Chinese Nationalism

7. How the US military is preparing for a war with China

8. What Is Biden’s ‘Foreign Policy for the Middle Class’?

9. A Hack Like This Could Start the Next World War

10. This Is How the Biggest Arms Manufacturers Steer Millions to Influence US Policy

11. ‘Weaponised the internet’: The rise of extreme right-wing groups in Australia

12. Opinion | U.S. Military Power, and the Lessons of History

13. Whispers from Wargames About the Gray Zone

14. Abandon Old Assumptions About Defense Spending

15. A hip-fired electromagnetic anti-drone rifle

16. The Women Who Changed War Reporting

17. FDD | Biden Must Do More to Deter Russian Aggression and Uphold Global Norms

18. Why is military history in retreat at universities?

19. Special Operations News Update - Monday, March 8, 2021 | SOF News

 

1. U.S. proposes interim power-sharing government with Taliban in Afghanistan

The Washington Post · by Karen DeYoung · March 8, 2021

I will leave this to the Afghanistan experts for comment.

 

2. Retying the Gordian Knot: US Special Operations Command as a service

militarytimes.com · by John F. Mulholland · March 7, 2021

LTG Mulholland is opposed to USSOCOM as a service. But I will continue to argue that USSOCOM needs service authorities and not just "service-like" responsibilities and authorities. The commander of special operations should have a seat in the tank as a member of the Joint Chiefs. This can be done without making SOF a separate service if the Pentagon fully implements the intent of Section 922 of the NDAA. And that is the real issue: How and when will the Pentagon fully comply with the law and Congressional intent for effective SOF civilian oversight. And remember one of the provisions of Section 922 was to insert the ASD SO/LIC into the administration chain of command: POTUS, SECDEF, ASD SO/LIC, and USSOCOM.

 

I agree that Ezra Cohen overstepped his bounds but he is no longer in a position of power and LTG Mulholland does give him the benefit of the doubt recognizing he was likely a man in the moment when he made his statement.

Key quotes:

“Forcing USSOCOM into a formal service role would be a self-inflicted wound that would jeopardize the best aspects of SOF performance over the last four decades.

In short, to compel USSOCOM and USSOF into its own formal Service would force it to behave in a way intrinsically opposed to it purpose for existence.

To force USSOCOM into pure “service-hood” would divert the command massively — and disastrously — from its original intent to be an operationally focused headquarters fixed on generating and employing the world’s finest special operations force. 

The relationship between USSOCOM and the services, I’d offer, has never been better, closer or more mutually beneficial than it is today. 

 Such an action would, indeed, tie a new Gordian Knot around the neck of USSOF. To what end? To fix what problem? Who seeks such a solution?

To the last point I would again ask are we implementing the law in Section 922 of the NDAA and meeting Congressional intent? After all it was the wisdom of Congress that underpins all the arguments LTG Mulholland makes and gave us USSOCOM.”

 

3. Biden Endorses Female Generals Whose Promotions Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump’s Reaction

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper · March 7, 2021

A civil-military relations issue.

 

4. Support for QAnon Is Hard to Measure. Polls May Overestimate It

defenseone.com · by James Shanahan

Maybe some good news. Maybe there are not as many whack jobs out there that we thought or that the online proliferation of the cult would appear to indicate.

 

5. Xi Jinping’s Eager-to-Please Bureaucrats Snarl His China Plans

WSJ · by Chun Han Wong

Is China like north Korea or is north Korea like China? Some interesting similarities here:

Some of Beijing’s proposed remedies only seem to encourage more bureaucracy. As the pandemic’s economic fallout heaped pressure on officials struggling to meet poverty-relief targets, party authorities ordered in April a fresh push to curb red tape.

Among its demands: compiling an anthology of Mr. Xi’s remarks on “formalism and bureaucratism” and making it required reading for all cadres.

Within weeks, a party publisher had released a 136-page volume featuring 182 passages, and government agencies and state businesses started arranging seminars for officials to study the text.

The publishing arm of the party’s disciplinary commission released six new books last year, including a comic, to teach officials how to recognize and prevent “formalistic” practices.

 

6. The Stories China Tells: The New Historical Memory Reshaping Chinese Nationalism

Foreign Affairs · by Jessica Chen Weiss · March 4, 2021

Excerpts:

“The CCP faces an uphill battle in selling its newly revised version of China’s World War II history to audiences outside China. Part of the problem lies in Western historiography and prejudice, Mitter writes: China’s role in the war has been neglected for so long in Western countries that few people in those places have an interest in learning more. Mitter has tried to correct that in this book, building on the scholarship of his previous and also excellent work Forgotten Ally.

But foreign countries and their citizens hardly pose the biggest obstacle to China’s quest to use history to burnish its legitimacy: the CCP itself is the main barrier. Even when the party allows a more thorough investigation of the wartime past, it still ruthlessly suppresses narratives—whether about Hong Kong, Tibet, or Xinjiang—that challenge its increasingly ethnonationalist definition of who and what belongs to China. And as filmmakers navigate the party’s limited tolerance for ambiguity, the result is often big-budget films that emphasize the scale and horror of World War II without the kind of nuance that would humanize its victims and perpetrators. For many Western critics, these films provide too much “loud spectacle and cheap sentiment,” writes Mitter, describing the critical responses to Zhang Yimou’s Flowers of War, which chronicles Japan’s brutal occupation of Nanjing, and Feng Xiaogang’s Back to 1942, which recounts the Henan famine.

...

For China’s neighbors and rivals, the CCP’s mixture of cooperation and confrontation defines the “China challenge”: how to work with Beijing on controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, slowing climate change, and preventing nuclear proliferation while also parrying the effects of China’s growing authoritarianism and pugilistic nationalism. Beijing’s attempt to recast the history of World War II might help them do so. Without endorsing the CCP’s version of history or excusing Beijing’s aggression abroad and abuses at home, leaders in Washington and elsewhere could more explicitly acknowledge China’s contributions to ending World War II and creating the existing order. Doing so might mitigate the growing sense among Chinese citizens that the United States and its partners will never allow China to play a leading role on the world stage. That recognition could in turn help Washington press the CCP to pull back on its campaign to intimidate and punish its critics abroad. An agreement of that kind would not solve many of the problems plaguing relations between the United States and China. But it is precisely the kind of carefully finessed arrangement that Washington and Beijing will have to get much better at crafting if they are to achieve anything resembling peaceful coexistence.”

 

7. How the US military is preparing for a war with China

Asia Nikkei· by James Stavridis · March 7, 2021

Conclusion: "Taken together, it seems clear that the U.S. military is stepping up its presence and combat capability in the Western Pacific, and positioning for a conflict with China over the coming decades."

 

8. What Is Biden’s ‘Foreign Policy for the Middle Class’?

Bloomberg · by Hal Brands · March 7, 2021

Excerpts:

“The Joe Biden administration hasn’t wasted time staking out its proposed grand strategy: “Foreign policy for the middle class.”

That idea, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has explained, is the central organizing concept for America’s global role: “Everything we do in our foreign policy and national security will be measured by a basic metric: Is it going to make life better, safer and easier for working families?”

A foreign policy for the middle class is the product of sustained intellectual effort by the new administration. It has implications for issues ranging from foreign economic policy to the “forever wars” in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The concept is rooted in a recognition that winning the pivotal contest of our time, the clash between America and China, will require fortifying the domestic foundations of U.S. power. Above all, it constitutes Biden’s answer to the fundamental question America faces — whether it can preserve its traditions of enlightened internationalism and liberal democracy against the forces of aggressive unilateralism and illiberal populism that were on display under President Donald Trump.

 

9. A Hack Like This Could Start the Next World War

Bloomberg · by Tim Culpan · March 8, 2021

Excerpts:

“So far, despite dozens of cyberattacks among superpowers over the past two decades, the world has kept spinning on its axis and life for most people has continued on largely unhindered. That could change at any moment.

...

And so the cyber capabilities will grow and incursions continue, tit-for-tat. All you need is one such hack to have gone too far and to trigger an outsize response, one that results in a set of chain reactions with multiple and continuous cyber retaliations paralyzing power grids, data transmission, agriculture, information flow, transportation systems, and food supply chains. While it may lack the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb or explosive force of missile strikes, the devastation could be as widespread and even lead to military confrontation.

That’s why the best hope may be that the cyber equivalent of nukes are developed and obtained — and publicly acknowledged — by all major powers. These would be perceived to have the potential to overwhelm and cause so much upheaval and destruction that using them would be impossible. Yet their mere existence may once again give rise to the notion — and fear — of mutually assured destruction, and its paradoxical benefit: peace.

 

10. This Is How the Biggest Arms Manufacturers Steer Millions to Influence US Policy

military.com · by Stephen Losey · March 7, 2021

Excerpts:

"These connections make for cozy relationships and highly useful contact lists," the report says. "Overworked and underpaid congressional staffers can also hope that lucrative lobbying jobs await them at the same companies who come to them pushing their own agendas."

The so-called "revolving door" also exists on Capitol Hill, the report adds. Over the last 30 years, nearly 530 staffers have both worked for a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees of both houses of Congress or the Defense Appropriations subcommittees, and then as a lobbyist for defense companies.

The report highlights former Defense Secretary Mark Esper as an example of the revolving door in action. Esper worked for the Senate Foreign Relations and House Armed Services committees in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as an assistant deputy secretary of defense, before moving to Raytheon's government relations office. After seven years in that job, President Donald Trump made him secretary of the Army and then head of the Defense Department.

 

11. ‘Weaponised the internet’: The rise of extreme right-wing groups in Australia

news.com.au · March 5, 2021

Excerpts:

“A relatively new group to Australia – the National Socialist Network – claims to have an active footprint in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth and a number of regional cities.

The nation’s spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, says increasing numbers of young Australians – some just 14 years old – are being radicalised by both extreme right wing and Islamist groups.

 

12. Opinion | U.S. Military Power, and the Lessons of History

The New York Times · by  Stuart Gottlieb  · March 7, 2021

Excerpt: "American military power and leadership were eventually required to restore the peace, and they remain just as vital today. And while a more sustainable balance between force and diplomacy is sorely needed, it would be a mistake to think that we can trade one for the other."

 

13. Whispers from Wargames About the Gray Zone

warontherocks.com · by Robert C. Rubel · March 8, 2021

Excerpts:

“Military wargames are undertaken for specific reasons, and their design is usually based on a set of well-defined objectives. The process of gaming is therefore disciplined, which is necessary given the expense in terms of time, effort, and resources needed to conduct them. Especially in the case of research games, as opposed to those conducted solely for educational purposes, one or more specific research questions are established that guide design, execution, and analysis. Normally a “hot wash” — a plenary discussion of what happened in the game in which all the participants compare notes — is conducted, and sometime later, perhaps weeks or months, analysts prepare a game report. Such discussions, analyses, and reports are usually focused on answering the research questions and addressing game objectives. Yuna Wong and Garret Heath recently called for the employment of more rigorous research tools to determine whether wargaming actually works. Such a project might be able to produce answers with respect to the formal objectives of games, but likely would not be able to shed any light on the more subtle ability of games to reveal things not connected to their objectives.

Wargames, being weakly structured research tools, can reveal so much more, but it takes a sensitive and discerning observer to detect the weak signals or “whispers” — indications that might be easily ignored and that might be counterintuitive or even threatening. Yet it is these whispers we are interested in here. They can reveal the underlying logic of human competition, which is especially relevant today.”

 

14. Abandon Old Assumptions About Defense Spending

warontherocks.com · by Robert Levinson · March 8, 2021

Excerpts:

“Arguments about how big a Navy or an Air Force the United States should have, or how much to spend on defense overall, can be grounded in an assessment of what the nation needs for its security, rather than simply what it can afford, because it may be able to afford much more spending on defense and much else.

The most influential economist in history, John Maynard Keynes, said in 1936: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” Perhaps the United States needs to abandon some old assumptions and listen to other economists who aren’t so defunct.”

 

15. A hip-fired electromagnetic anti-drone rifle

ZDNet · by Greg Nichols

Gives new meaning to "shooting from the hip."

 

16. The Women Who Changed War Reporting

The Atlantic · by George Packer · March 6, 2021

Excerpts:

“Women no longer face the barriers that confronted Becker’s Vietnam reporters, but they are still less likely than men to gain easy admittance to the insular world of U.S. military officers and national-security officials. So perhaps it makes sense that the most thoroughly Iraqi book of the war by an American journalist has been written by a woman. Getting a book like The Spymaster of Baghdad into readers’ hands at this stage of the post–September 11 conflicts is an uphill battle. But as Iraq begins to be rebuilt by its people, there is real value in revisiting the country through an all-Iraqi narrative. The Spymaster of Baghdad achieves through an excellent yarn what Fire in the Lake achieved through the epic synthesis of history, politics, and culture. Coker’s Iraq, like FitzGerald’s Vietnam, emerges as its own country, more impressive than the stage of an American drama that absorbed us for a few years, more real than the projection of American fantasies and traumas, returning to its own people, finding its own destiny.”

 

17. FDD | Biden Must Do More to Deter Russian Aggression and Uphold Global Norms

fdd.org · by Anthony Ruggiero · March 5, 2021

Excerpts:

“Meanwhile, while the Biden administration and the European Union have so far proven unwilling to heed Navalny’s call to target major Russian oligarchs, the allies should at least enforce their existing sanctions by targeting individuals and entities that facilitate sanctions evasion. For example, Navalny’s organization alleges that Bortnikov’s son Denis “acts as a ‘wallet’ for his father’s ill-gotten gains to hide their true beneficiary and avoid existing sanctions.”

The new sanctions are an important first step toward fulfilling Biden’s pledge to stand up to Russian aggression and reinvigorate the transatlantic alliance. But those sanctions are not enough. Additional transatlantic action can help the United States and its allies deter further CW use and uphold global norms against CW use and violations of human rights."

 

18. Why is military history in retreat at universities?

universityworldnews.com · by Nathan M Greenfield ·  March 6, 2021

 

19. Special Operations News Update - Monday, March 8, 2021 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · March 8, 2021

 

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“If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”

- Ulysses S. Grant

 

“A political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign policy in order to live.”

- George F. Kennan

 

"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stuart Mill

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

1. U.S., South Korean Negotiators Reach a Cost-Sharing Accord on Troops

2. Cost-sharing deal finally clinched, amount not disclosed

3. Seoul still faces complications despite defense cost-sharing deal

4. The Case for North Korea Sanctions

5. Pentagon Nominee Hints at Downsizing U.S. Forces Korea

6. S. Korea calls on N.K. to take 'wise, flexible' approach toward military exercise with U.S.

7. S.Korea, U.S. Stage Scaled-Down Military Exercise

8. It’s time to get serious about a pressure strategy to contain North Korea

9. North Korea’s New Byungjin: Nuclear Development and Economic Retrenchment

10. Why the U.S.-South Korea Nuclear Partnership Matters

11. North Korea's Kim Jong-un a Trillionaire? His Nation Is Loaded in Resources

12. Hyesan lockdown downgraded following strong complaints from locals

13. R.O.K.-U.S. joint military drills skip field training exercises for three years

14. The US and South Korea must stop threatening Kim Jong Un with war drills

15. Chinese Police Arrest North Korean Trade Workers for Illegal Gambling

 

1. U.S., South Korean Negotiators Reach a Cost-Sharing Accord on Troops

WSJ · by Michael R. Gordon Andrew Jeong  

Cost sharing not burden sharing. (title is right subtitle is inaccurate) It is not a burden on either country, It is in the interests of both countries to properly share costs for mutual defense.

Three key points. 

The ROK national assembly must approve the agreement so it is not a done deal and we should not expect a "rubber stamp" from the legislature.

There needs to be some transparency on the agreement rather quickly. Yes both sides have to go through their internal reviews before the agreement is initialed and made public but the details need to be transparent or else antibodies will build up in South Korea.

ROK and US diplomats need to be designing and executing an effective IO program to inform and educate the press, pundits, politicos, and publics and explain to both publics why this agreement is good for them.

 

2. Cost-sharing deal finally clinched, amount not disclosed

koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · by Sarah Kim  

The longer the numbers are not revealed the more resistance to the agreement will build up in the national assembly and the Korean public.

Cost-sharing deal finally clinched, amount not disclosed

 

 

3. Seoul still faces complications despite defense cost-sharing deal

The Korea Times · March 8, 2021

Yes there are so many more issues that must be continually worked.

Here is a list (not all inclusive) of issues that need to be addressed:

·     Operational Control (OPCON) Transition : The conditions must be met to ensure the security of the ROK.

·     Combined Exercises and Training: These are critical to maintain military readiness as well as supporting the OPCON transition process and they cannot be negotiated  away with the north.

·     U.S. Forces Korea access to training areas : This is a critical problem for maintaining readiness of U.S. forces.

·     U.S.- China Competition and the impact the ROK/U.S. Alliance. This will continue to be a source of alliance friction.

·     Pandemic response : This impacts not only the entire populations of both nations, but also the economies, and military readiness.

·     ROK-Japan historical enmity . Trilateral cooperation is necessary for the security of all three countries.

·     ROK/U.S. Trade Issues : Although China is the ROK’s largest trading partner, economic relations between the ROK and U.S. are a key component of the alliance.

 

4. The Case for North Korea Sanctions

The National Interest · by Robert E. Kelly · March 7, 2021

I am heartened to read this from Professor Kelly. All policy makers need to read and heed this analysis.

This is a key point (one of many): "The immiseration claim is only true in the general sense that sanctions restrict inputs into the North Korean economy, crippling North Korean growth and in turn reducing per capita income. This misses the much more important context of terrible North Korean political-economic decisions going back decades. The North Korean state, specifically the leadership around supreme leader Kim Jong-un, is far more responsible for domestic suffering. If Kim made different decisions—most obviously, spending less on weapons and more on human development—the lives of North Koreans would be vastly different. Also, there are humanitarian carve-outs from sanctions which the regime chooses not to utilize."

 

5. Pentagon Nominee Hints at Downsizing U.S. Forces Korea

english.chosun.com · March 8, 2021

I am not surprised there are Koreans who would pick up on Colin Kahl's remark. But I think they are reading too much into this. As President Biden wrote he is not going to extort the alliance with threats of troop reductions. Dr. Kahl's focus (like POTUS) is on a values based alliance.

That said, he does not want to be focused on a specific number for troop levels. It is all about capabilities and commitment and not just maintaining a specific number of troops (though that is by far the only metric anyone uses to judge commitment). The global force posture review may reveal some necessary adjustments. The review has to take into account all US interests and prioritize them appropriately. There could be adjustments to US force levels but any adjustment will be made based on an objective and thorough assessment of how it best supports US and ROK/US alliance strategic interests. Recall the recent words of other US officials that note the near term priority of the north Korean threat.

 

6. S. Korea calls on N.K. to take 'wise, flexible' approach toward military exercise with U.S.

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · March 8, 2021

I think it would be wise if the Unification Ministry did not comment on such things as exercises.  

 

7. S.Korea, U.S. Stage Scaled-Down Military Exercise

english.chosun.com

Scaled down? Maybe that is the message they want to give to the South Korean public. I am pretty sure given the level of north Korean espionage in the South, the regime knows just how "big" the training is. From reports from participants I am not at all worried about any scaling back. As I expected, the exercise planners have designed a robust exercise that will provide critical training to the commanders and staff of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command and its component HQ. 

We should not minimize the importance of the Combined Command Post training and how important it is to maintaining the readiness of the headquarters as well as supporting OPCON transition.

 

8. It’s time to get serious about a pressure strategy to contain North Korea

atlanticcouncil.org Issue Brief by Andrea R. Mihailescu· March 4, 2021

The 12 page report can be downloaded here.

Key point: "Containment of the Kim regime and its military developments will likely outlast any present-day US presidential administration, but American leadership is necessary in the global effort to isolate and put pressure on the nuclear ambitions of Kim Jong-Un."

 

9. North Korea’s New Byungjin: Nuclear Development and Economic Retrenchment

en.asaninst.org · by Go Myong-Hyun

From our good friend Dr. Go Myong-hyun.

Excerpts:

“The combination of economic retrenchment and growing nuclear capability raises the prospect of a more intransigent North Korea when it comes to denuclearization. Economic retrenchment should not be interpreted as an indicator of regime’s desperation, but as an active response by the regime to stabilize the economy. Economic measures are meant to reassure the public that is suffering from economic hardship, but the regime will intensify internal control through propaganda and cult of personality at the same time.

A retrenched economy also implies less dependence on foreign trade, which in turn diminishes the impact of sanctions. Kim Jong Un will dig heels in and demand the United States to negotiate over North Korea’s nuclear state status rather than denuclearization. Kim does not seem to be keen on embarking on nuclear adventurism as witnessed in the 2016-17 period, at least for now. But with the predictable failure of the new five plan looming over the horizon, Kim will soon resort to the only credible leverage that his regime still possesses. The advances that North Korea has achieved on nuclear and missile fronts means that this time the North will not relent until the United States is ready to accept it as a de facto nuclear state.”

 

10.  Why the U.S.-South Korea Nuclear Partnership Matters

The National Interest · by Stephen Greene · March 7, 2021

But President Moon seeks to phase out nuclear power in South Korea.

Excerpt: "Although the domestic nuclear industry in each country faces different challenges—an aging fleet and competition against cheap natural gas in the United States, and social and political opposition in much of South Korea—a renewed emphasis on fighting climate change in both countries may lead each to recognize the value of nuclear power in that effort. This recognition should, in turn, provide the opportunity for bilateral cooperation to strengthen domestic civil nuclear industries in the United States and South Korea, while bolstering what both countries can do together as they support the growth of nuclear power internationally."

 

11. North Korea's Kim Jong-un a Trillionaire? His Nation Is Loaded in Resources

dailynk.com  ·  by Mun Dong Hui · March 8, 2021

Again the first report I read on the natural resource deposits was the 1989 UN report on the Tumen River Area Development Program.

Excerpts:

“According to the United States Geological Survey, “the rare earths are a relatively abundant group of 17 elements composed of scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides. The elements range in crustal abundance from cerium, the 25th most abundant element of the 78 common elements in the Earth’s crust at 60 parts per million, to thulium and lutetium, the least abundant rare-earth elements at about 0.5 part per million.”

It adds: “The elemental forms of rare earths are iron gray to silvery lustrous metals that are typically soft, malleable, and ductile and usually reactive, especially at elevated temperatures or when finely divided.”

The uses of rare-earth minerals can vary greatly from magnets and speakers to camera lenses and MRI machines.

North Korea could also be rich with gold deposits as well. Recent data from Statistics Korea has revealed that gold deposits in the country are estimated to be about two thousand tons, which is more than forty times the amount present in South Korea. “

 

12. Hyesan lockdown downgraded following strong complaints from locals

dailynk.com  · Mun Dong Hui · March 8, 2021

An indicator of resistance potential and the recognition of such potential by the regime?

The authorities moved to downgrade the lockdown when they realized the widespread anger could lead to unrest in the city, based on the source’s account.

The downgrading of the lockdown order only applies to activities occurring within Hyesan city limits; locals are still not allowed to travel to areas outside of the city.

“People are still prohibited from going out of the city, and outsiders are not allowed in,” the source said,

 

13. R.O.K.-U.S. joint military drills skip field training exercises for three years

donga.com · March 8, 2021

Combined Command Post training and Field training are apples and oranges. There is a lack of understanding of multi-echelon training and how to maintain readiness. 

Yes, aggressive and robust field training is necessary year around to sustain tactical readiness. But field training exercises does not need to be conducted in conjunction with combined command post training events.  And the OPCON transition process will be in no way hindered by not conducting field training in conjunction with combined command post training.

 

14.  The US and South Korea must stop threatening Kim Jong Un with war drills

NK News · Cheehyung Harrison Kim · March 7, 2021  

This is behind the pay wall so it is not useful like most articles behind a paywall. I did get a chance to read the entire essay and I have to say it is based on dangerous analysis and thinking and a lock of understanding of military operations, readiness, and deterrence. The author tries to ameliorate some of the extreme ideas with some mention of the importance of military training but he just does not grasp how critically important is training at all levels.

If we terminate combined training then we will have to consider ending the alliance and withdrawing all US troops from the peninsula. This is exactly what Kim Jong-un wants and is the reason for north Korea propaganda that criticizes combined training and exercises.

 

15. Chinese Police Arrest North Korean Trade Workers for Illegal Gambling

rfa.org by Jieun Kim

You do what you must to survive.

Excerpts:

“It’s been a shock to people here in Dandong that the North Korean trade officials were playing mahjong for 100 to 200 yuan per game all day long. Even Chinese people who love gambling are hesitant to use three to five thousand yuan in a single day,” said the second source.

The second source added that many traders appear to owe a lot of money from losses.

“People are curious as to what punishment the authorities in Pyongyang will impose on the arrested trade workers. If the gambling was with the intention to earn foreign currency due to the lack of work, this will end with light punishment.

But if it is because the trade workers simply became habitual gamblers, it will be difficult for them to avoid heavy punishment when they are summoned to North Korea,” the source said.

 

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

 

“If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”

- Ulysses S. Grant

 

“A political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign policy in order to live.”

- George F. Kennan

 

"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stuart Mill

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

1. Flag Officer Announcements (INDOPACOM and PACFLEET)

2. With less U.S. tactical support, Afghanistan’s elite forces are struggling to roll back Taliban advances

3.  UK will work closely with India, Japan, US, Australia in Indo-Pacific: British High Commissioner

4. U.S. military planned to conduct drill off Senkakus last month

5. Biden proposes a Quad summit; this is why

6. When Does a Cyber Attack Become an ‘Act of War’?

7. Japan considers sending in troops to help meet China’s Diaoyu challenge

8. Foreign Policy for Pragmatists: How Biden Can Learn From History in Real Time

9. Guam: The Foundation of Any U.S. Military Strategy on China

10. Pentagon Announces Nominees to Lead INDO-PACOM, Pacific Fleet

11. Op-ed: Biden and Xi are offering dueling worldviews — the winner will shape the global future

12. Top China Diplomat Warns Biden to Tread Carefully on Taiwan

13. What Colonel John Boyd Would Warn About China Today

14. The New ‘End of History’

15. The January 6 Attack Deserves A Strong and Bipartisan Congressional Response

16. Russian Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19 Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say

17. Why it took us nearly a year to tell the full story of what happened to Navy Capt. Brett Crozier

18. The messy way the Marines joined US Special Operations Command

19. CSM Jack Joplin, celebrated Delta Force Warrior, Dies at 82.

 

1. Flag Officer Announcements (INDOPACOM and PACFLEET)

defense.gov· March 5, 2021

I expect we might soon see the announcement of the new US commander in Korea. I hope whomever it is will be is able to observe the exercise taking place over the next two weeks.

 

2. With less U.S. tactical support, Afghanistan’s elite forces are struggling to roll back Taliban advances

The Washington Post · by Susannah George · March 5, 2021

This is probably the most capable military force in Afghanistan. 

But articles this one always beg the question, how can the taliban be so effective without high technology and air support? And have created a military force in our image that is not capable of independent warfighting?

 

3. UK will work closely with India, Japan, US, Australia in Indo-Pacific: British High Commissioner

m.timesofindia.com

Someone tweeted that there will need to be a new name for the Quad. I think we have to stop using the shorthand of the Quad and come up with a new name that will be both inclusive and describe what the "grouping" is all about.

 

4. U.S. military planned to conduct drill off Senkakus last month

Japan News· by Yomiuri Shimbun · March 5, 2021

Cancelled due to bad weather. But this is a significant "assessment" of the exercise:

“The drill was apparently going to be conducted on the assumption that U.S. forces in Japan would be mobilized in the event of an emergency related to the Senkaku Islands.

The U.S. military had notified the Japanese side in advance that the drill was going to be conducted by U.S. forces alone. They planned to check a series of operations in which ammunition and other supplies would be dropped from a cargo plane and retrieved from the sea, the sources said.”

 

5. Biden proposes a Quad summit; this is why

asiatimes.com · by MK Bhadrakumar · March 7, 2021

Hopefully they will decide on a new name.

A view from India here.

 

6. When Does a Cyber Attack Become an ‘Act of War’?

thequint.com · by Karan Tripathi · March 7, 2021

Conclusion: "The framework for incorporating cyber warfare into law on armed conflict remains sketchy and under-developed, despite substantial strides being made in the recent past. While there have been frequent advancements in cyber technology, customary international law has remaining more or less static. International law must now adapt to the volatility of cyberspace."

 

7. Japan considers sending in troops to help meet China’s Diaoyu challenge

SCMP · by Catherine Wong · March 7, 2021

Excerpts:

“Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said last week that Japan could deploy its self-defence forces if its coastguard could not handle the situation on its own, and that “coastguard-style standards” might apply to the self-defence forces in terms of firing on foreign vessels.

According to national broadcaster NHK, the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) and coastguard had a joint exercise in the country’s southwestern waters on Wednesday.

The drill, designed to simulate response to attacks on an important facility by foreign vessels, involved a destroyer, a missile boat and two helicopters from the MSDF, as well as two coastguard patrol ships. It was the first time in eight years the MSDF has sent a destroyer to join the annual exercise.

 

8. Foreign Policy for Pragmatists: How Biden Can Learn From History in Real Time

Foreign Affairs · by Gideon Rose · March 5, 2021

Interesting perspective:

“Learning in U.S. foreign policy has come largely across administrations. President Joe Biden’s goal should be to speed up the process, allowing it to happen within an administration. Call it the Bayesian Doctrine: rather than being wedded to its priors, the administration should constantly update them.

The way to do so is to make theorists, not principals, the administration’s true team of rivals, forcing them to make real-world predictions, and to offer testable practical advice, and then seeing whose turn out to be better in real time. In this approach, searching intellectual honesty is more important than ideology; what people think matters less than whether they can change their minds. Constantly calculating implied odds won’t always win pots. But it will help the administration fold bad hands early, increasing its winnings over time.

​...

The Biden administration, in short, does not face a tragic choice of pessimism, optimism, or just winging it. Instead of embracing realism or liberalism, it can choose pragmatism, the true American ideology. The key is to draw on diverse theoretical traditions to develop plausible scenarios of many alternative futures, design and track multiple indicators to see which of those scenarios is becoming more likely, and follow the evidence honestly where it goes.

Such an approach to foreign policy would not change the world. But it would allow the United States to see the world clearly and operate in it more effectively. Which would be nice for a change.

 

9. Guam: The Foundation of Any U.S. Military Strategy on China

19fortyfive.com · by James Holmes · March 7, 2021

Excerpts: 

"... Funding for the air and missile defense of Guam is my Number 1 priority—most importantly because Guam is U.S. homeland.”

...

Makers of maritime strategy in Washington and allied capitals fret constantly about whether to designate the Chinese mainland as a “sanctuary” in time of war, refraining from going after bases and forces stationed there. The reason for such restraint is straightforward: China is a nuclear-armed antagonist, and assailing its territory would fill its people and leadership with terrible resolve—prompting a massive, and perhaps atomic, response. Safer to put the mainland off-limits.

Davidson, sotto voce, put Beijing on notice that the same is true in reverse. PLA commanders and their political masters must not blithely assume they can attack sovereign U.S. territory with impunity—even if that territory happens to be located in Asia’s marine environs rather than North America. Terrible resolve works both ways.

One hopes the message gets through. Prospects for peace will brighten if it does.

 

10. Pentagon Announces Nominees to Lead INDO-PACOM, Pacific Fleet

news.usni.org · by Sam LaGrone · March 6, 2021

 

11. Op-ed: Biden and Xi are offering dueling worldviews — the winner will shape the global future

CNBC · by Frederick Kempe · March 6, 2021

Conclusion:

“In the end, the world is not going to be organized either by Chinese or American fiat, but rather by a concert of national interests, influenced by the trajectory of the world's two leading powers.

Xi's bet is that China's momentum is unstoppable, that the world is sufficiently transactional, and that his economy has become indispensable to most U.S. allies. President Biden must not only shift that narrative but also work in common cause to reverse the reality of democratic weakening.”

 

12. Top China Diplomat Warns Biden to Tread Carefully on Taiwan

Bloomberg · by Bloomberg News · March 7, 2021

Excerpts:

“At the same time, Wang reiterated China’s willingness to work with the U.S. to address shared concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and the global economy. “I hope China and the U.S. restarting cooperation on climate change can also bring a positive change of climate to bilateral ties,” Wang added.

While China has expressed optimism that relations would improve under Biden, it continues to put the onus on Washington to fix the damage done during Donald Trump’s four-year tenure. On Sunday, Wang cited Beijing’s battle with “hegemony, high-handedness and bullying” and “outright interference in China’s domestic affairs” in a list of the country’s diplomatic accomplishments over the past year.”

 

13. What Colonel John Boyd Would Warn About China Today

The National Interest · by James Holmes · March 7, 2021

Excerpts:

“Think about the competing narratives. Beijing claims that the South China Sea has belonged to China for centuries and was stripped from the nation by seaborne conquerors. Powerful stuff. By contrast, Washington’s rallying cry in Southeast Asia is “status quo!” Try leading soldiers over the top with that. Ergo, it’s at least conceivable that China holds an edge in uniting government, people, and military for long-term strategic competition against America and its Asian allies.

And lastly, says Clausewitz, “we must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect the war may have on them.” To borrow from General Patton, people love a winner while shying away from likely losers. U.S. leaders must calculate strategy and diplomacy with regional audiences in mind, including friends and allies, bystanders, and third parties able to influence the competition’s outcome. If the United States appears unable or unwilling to compete over the long term, China’s neighbors may well start accommodating themselves to Beijing’s wishes in Southeast Asia. They may have no other recourse with no strong external patron to back them.

Am I counseling despair? Hardly; more like a sense of urgency. As Boyd and Clausewitz teach, fathoming the nature of a struggle constitutes the beginning of strategic wisdom. For the United States, this is a campaign far from home, for seemingly abstract goals, against a rival that prizes its purposes and thus—by Clausewitzian logic—has undertaken an open-ended effort involving a heavy expenditure of resources to achieve those purposes.

The time for acting is long overdue. Let’s get serious about observing, orienting, and deciding so we can act.”

 

14. The New ‘End of History’

The National Interest · by Parag Khanna · March 6, 2021

Another interesting perspective and an interesting grouping of the four power centers.

And so, rather than the global hierarchy freezing in 1989, we have arrived at a landscape of at least four coherent and viable centers of global leadership: the United States, Europe, China, and democratic Asia (especially the budding entente among Japan, Australia, and India). Geopolitically, it’s three against one. Economically, it’s every power for itself. And ideologically, each holds itself to be superior to the rest. Thirty years ago, “The End of History?” challenged Western declinism with a recipe for triumphalism. Today it is clear that no model will prevail over the others.

Linear ideologies are by their very nature teleological, whereas today’s complex world presents a series of ever unfolding dialectical collisions producing novel outcomes that pull the system in new directions. Europe’s return to Asia as a commercial rather than colonial power and its tense co-development with China of the new Eurasian Silk Roads is just one example.

The antithesis, then, of Fukuyama’s putative thesis isn’t any singular ideological proclamation but a panoramic shift from small ‘h’ history to big “H” History, a recognition that the end of one phase of history already contains the seeds of the next phase’s dynamics. The foresight we need to cope with the complexity of today and tomorrow will derive more from unpacking these collisions through a holistic geopolitical frame rather than with the ideological blinders of political science. The past three decades have proven to be anything but boring. We should expect nothing less from those lying ahead.

 

15. The January 6 Attack Deserves A Strong and Bipartisan Congressional Response

georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org · by Brianna Lifshitz · March 6, 2021

Conclusion:

“By choosing to pursue justice, Congress would also be placing far-right extremism and white supremacy at the forefront of counterterrorism efforts. For too long, homegrown white supremacy has been an afterthought of the American national security apparatus, despite a rise in terrorist attacks and plots since 2013 that have been carried out by this exact demographic. An independent commission that investigates the motives, collaboration, networks, and plans of Jan. 6 would give insight into how this group thinks and acts, providing useful information to prevent future attacks. Overall, a detailed commission similar to the 9/11 commission could generate a roadmap to avoid future security breaches and emphasize far-right extremism as a national security threat.

Going forward, it would be beneficial for Congress to look at a variety of factors that contributed to one of the United States’ biggest recent security failures. This investigation should examine both local security failures (including Capitol Police’s plan or lack thereof), as well as the extremists (who was responsible for organizing, what their motives were, and how the attack was planned). The investigation should also cover any potential links to foreign governments.

The attacks on January 6 were horrible. A failure to act in a bipartisan manner, come together as a country, and condemn violence as exhibited would spell deeper consequences of our nation.“

 

16. Russian Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19 Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say

WSJ · by Michael R. Gordon and Dustin Volz

And so it goes. Russia may be a declining military power with a backwater economy but it excels in trying to dominate the information domain.

Subversion takes many forms and it is an integral part of Russian strategic doctrine.

 

17. Why it took us nearly a year to tell the full story of what happened to Navy Capt. Brett Crozier

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · March 6, 2021

 

18. The messy way the Marines joined US Special Operations Command

news.yahoo.com· by Stavros Atlamazoglou · March 6, 2021

I would be interested in hearing from the Marines (and USSOCOM staff) who were present at the creation about how they assess this article.

 

19. CSM Jack Joplin, celebrated Delta Force Warrior, Dies at 82.

Sandboxx · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · March 2, 2021

It was an honor to serve with CSM Joplin. He was my battalion CSM when I was a young team leader. Leaders with his level of experience taught us all so much.

 

----------

 

“The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.”

- George F. Kennan

 

“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"The station which we occupy among the nations of the earth is honorable, but awful. Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence. All mankind ought then, with us, to rejoice in its prosperous, and sympathize in its adverse fortunes, as involving everything dear to man. And to what sacrifices of interest, or convenience, ought not these considerations to animate us? To what compromises of opinion and inclination, to maintain harmony and union among ourselves, and to preserve from all danger this hallowed ark of human hope and happiness."

-Thomas Jefferson

 

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

1. Scaled-down joint drills with U.S. start Monday

2. Seoul's leniency on Pyongyang worries some in international community

3. Quo Vadis, CVID? (Korea)

4. N.K. leader calls on local party officials to bring 'clear changes' for the people

5. S. Korea, U.S. extend defense cost-sharing talks for another day: source

6. S Korea, US scale back drills over virus, N Korea diplomacy

7.  Is South Korea changing its calculus over Japan as Moon Jae-in counts down his days in office?

8. North Korea warning: WW3 fears sparked as Kim Jong-un 'continues nuclear activity'

 

1.  Scaled-down joint drills with U.S. start Monday

koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · by Sarah Kim

It pains me to read the rhetorical gymnastics concerning these annual, routine, very necessary, defensive exercises.

We have cancelled, postponed, and scaled abc exercises to "support diplomacy" for the past three years and there has be no reciprocity in terms of reducing north Korean training exercises or its offensively postured forces on the DMZ with the 70% of the 4th largest army in the world deploy between the DMZ and Pyongyang. As we speak the nKPA is conducting its annual winter training Cycle bringing its forces up to the highest state of readiness at the optimal attack time of MArch when the ground is still hard from the winter freeze and the rice paddies are not yet planted in the South. This is why for years we conducted Team Spirit at this time which until its last exercise in 1993 was the largest exercise in the free world.

We should keep in mind this training is defensive in nature, designed to train the ROK/Combined Forces Command and its subordinate components in the defense of the ROK in response to a north Korean attack. All of north Korea's complaints are simply hypocritical. It is the north that trains for an invasion of the South while the combined forces train for the defense against the north. north Korea is not threatened by these exercises and its actions in response to them have only one objective : to drive a wedge in the ROK/US alliance with the ultimate goal of removing US troops from the peninsula. If you cannot train then US troops cannot remain in the peninsula. As Confucius said: "To send untrained people to war is to throw them away."

I think it is also important to note the importance of the command post computer simulation exercises. We have a concept in the military that is called multi-echelon training. Basically it means you must conduct the right type of training at the appropriate echelon. The higher echelon level the less effective is field training and the more effective is computer simulation. The larger the scale of the exercise the less value it has on the tactical forces at the lower echelons and the tip of the spear. The more effective training for the higher echelons the less effective for the lower echelons and vice versa. The purpose of this training is to train the Commanders and staff at the highest levels. Computer simulation offers a much more challenging and complex training for the higher levels. Think of it this way. The tactical forces are like football and soccer players or golfers. They have to practice every day to maintain their skills because training is perishable. The ROK and US military field training and live fire exercises at the tactical levels all year around. The training at the CFC and component level is much more intellectual than a bayonet charge (with apologies to T.E. Lawrence for borrowing his description of irregular warfare because it applies well to the higher echelons of command). This of the higher echelons as Paduk (or Go) or chess players. They have to think and act strategically and provide direction to the stones or chess pieces conducting the actual fire and move against the north Korean forces. However, no field training can come anywhere near to replicating the complex problems the higher echelons have to solve in terms of intelligence, planning, orders, and execution. The computer simulation run by thinking humans provide the realistic and complex problems the higher echelons must grapple with. So not one should denigrate the command post computer simulation exercise as being some kind of lesser form of training. And again, to emphasize, these exercises are defensive in nature. They are also necessary to prepare the future Combined Forces Command for OPCON transition when a Korean general will command the CFC someday in the future when the agreed upon conditions are met.

Lastly let me comment on the comments that field training exercises are not being conducted because of the COVID risk. Although it may seem counterintuitive at first the command post training is actually more dangerous in a COVID world. You will have thousands of ROK and US military personnel at multiple command posts around South Korea in bunkers rebreathing recirculated air. A COVID outbreak is more likely among people working indoors in close confines breathing recirculated air than among troops in the field who are dispersed conducting military training outdoors. This is why personnel from the US still had to be quarantined for 14 days and everyone participating has to be regularly tested. The good news of the ROK/US CFC demonstrated it is possible to conduct an effective and safe training exercise as they conducted the last command post computer simulation training last August with no COVID outbreak.

The bottom line is we have tested Kim Jong-un since June 2018 when Trump unilaterally announced cancellation of an exercise. We have cancelled, postponed, and scaled back exercises in support of diplomacy but there has not been any reciprocity or positive response from Kim Jong-un. To not conduct training would be the height of irresponsibility because it will put the ROK at great risk. We should not be swayed by north Korean rhetoric. We have to do what is right to ensure the security of the ROK and the protection of US interests in the region. And the right thing to do is to train correctly at all echelons.

 

2. Seoul's leniency on Pyongyang worries some in international community

The Korea Times  · by Kang Seung-woo · March 7, 2021

Yes, as it should. The South's actions are based on the flawed strategic assumptions about the nature and objectives of the Kim family regime. Kim does not share Moon's vision for peace and reconciliation. However basing policy and strategy on such an assumption is dangerous for the security of the ROK. The Biden administration must address this with the Moon administration and they must align and agree upon realistic assumptions and not those which are designed to support an agenda.

It must begin with answering these questions:

Do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?

In support of that strategy do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula? Has KJU given up his divide to conquer strategy - divide the alliance to conquer the ROK?

 

3. Quo Vadis, CVID? (Korea)

The Korea Times  ·  by Yun Byung-se  · March 7, 2021

A good run down of the various names of our Korea "policies." 

Excerpt: "Often times, each U.S. administration comes up with a new catchphrase or slogan on North Korea following such a policy review. Since the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993, I have witnessed diverse U.S. approaches, such as stick and carrot, thorough and broad approach, bold approach, broad concept, comprehensive approach, strategic patience, and maximum pressure."

But let's just stop deluding ourselves and admit this:

The only way we are going to see an end to the nuclear program and threats as well as the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime is through achievement of unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on individual liberty, rule of law, and human rights as determined by the Korean people. In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).

 

4. N.K. leader calls on local party officials to bring 'clear changes' for the people

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · March 7, 2021

Perhaps Kim Jong-un is hearing the criticism we are leveling against him. The suffering of the Korean people in the north is solely a result of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong-un. (the decisions of the Kim family regime over three generations and 7 decades).

But what he is really doing here is setting up the local party officials for future blame. He will be able to say he told those officials to "make changes" for the people. Their failure to do so effectively will result in KJU using them as scapegoats while maintaining his reputation (according to the Propaganda and Agitation Department) as the benevolent dictator. 

This is about enhancing KJU's reputation and setting up the ability to deflect blame.

Excerpts:

“He also called on the secretaries to carry out their tasks "in any case without fail," saying that the people and other officials will be keeping an eye on them with greater expectations after they attend the first-ever workshop.

In a photo session at the workshop, Kim was seen standing in the third row in between other officials, in an apparent show of friendliness and confidence. Kim usually sits in the front row and at the center in other photo sessions.”

 

5. S. Korea, U.S. extend defense cost-sharing talks for another day: source

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · March 7, 2021

Hopefully, this means both sides are negotiating hard but in good faith. I remain optimistic. But I urge the ROK and US diplomats to have a strong IO plan to explain to the press, pundits, politicos, and public why this agreement is important for each country and how it is good for the people of both countries.

 

6. S Korea, US scale back drills over virus, N Korea diplomacy

actionnewsjax.com · by Hyung-Jin Kim

See my previous comments about scaling back, postponing, or cancelling exercises in "support" of diplomacy and the results from the past three years of doing so. Also, a command post (in a bunker with recirculated air) is a higher risk for COVID than field training. 

 

7. Is South Korea changing its calculus over Japan as Moon Jae-in counts down his days in office?

SCMP · by John Power · March 7, 2021

I certainly hope it is. Both Moon and Suga need to pledge to make national security and national prosperity the priority while working to manage the fall out from historical issues. Strong national leadership is required in both countries.

 

8. North Korea warning: WW3 fears sparked as Kim Jong-un 'continues nuclear activity'

Express · by Claire Anderson · March 6, 2021

Good clickbait title.

But on a serious note if there is a conflict on the Korean peninsula it will have global effects.

 

-----------

 

“The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.”

- George F. Kennan

 

“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"The station which we occupy among the nations of the earth is honorable, but awful. Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence. All mankind ought then, with us, to rejoice in its prosperous, and sympathize in its adverse fortunes, as involving everything dear to man. And to what sacrifices of interest, or convenience, ought not these considerations to animate us? To what compromises of opinion and inclination, to maintain harmony and union among ourselves, and to preserve from all danger this hallowed ark of human hope and happiness."

-Thomas Jefferson

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2OWwyC8qulOAWMJcympfMX

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cyber-strategy-and-tactical-cyber-integration/id1534621849?i=1000511633577

(Also available on most other podcast services) 

Col. Eric Kreitz, 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne)'s Director of Information Warfare sits down with Dr. Richard Harknett, one of the world's leading cybersecurity experts, and Maj.Jay Kosturko, an Electronic Warfare Officer assigned to 1st SFC(A) to help frame how we should think about the cyber domain.

Bio's: Col. Eric Kreitz is the Director of Information Warfare at 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne). He has more than 14 years in the PSYOP Regiment and has commanded at the Detachment and Battalion levels. Maj. Jay Kosturko is leading the effort for tactical cyber integration at 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne). Dr. Richard Harknett is a Professor and the Department Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Cincinnati, where he's also the Co-Director of the Ohio Cyber Range Institute and Chair of the University’s Center for Cyber Strategy and Policy. Previously, he served as a Fulbright Scholar in Cyber Studies at Oxford University and as the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at US Cyber Command and the National Security

Link: https://mwi.usma.edu/the-battle-of-marawi/ 

 

In this episode of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast, John Spencer is joined by Dr. Charles Knight. He is a senior lecturer in terrorism, asymmetric conflict, and urban operations at Charles Sturt University and a senior researcher at the University of New South Wales.

Dr. Knight has researched and and written about the 2017 Battle of Marawi, in which the Philippine Army fought against Islamic State fighters over the course of five months. With the two sides fighting through the streets, alleys, and buildings of Marawi, it was one of the biggest and most high-intensity urban battles of the modern era. In the conversation, Dr. Knight explains the context in which the battle must be understood, the phases through which the fighting progressed, and the types of tactics that characterized the battle.

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

1. Biden must expose China's COVID-19 cover-up | Opinion

2. Biden Nominee For Top Policy Post Grilled On Iran, Tweets

3.  China Is Losing Influence—and That Makes It Dangerous

4. Is The Pentagon Preparing To Fight The Wrong War?

5. Oh God, Not Another Long Telegram About China

6. Building a China Strategy Starts by Answering These Questions

7. China First to The Microphone on Info Ops

8. FicInt: Anticipating Tomorrow’s Conflict

9. US Special Forces train in Serbia, where China and Russia have strengthened military ties

10. FDD | The Problem With the Declassified Report on Khashoggi’s Death

11. FDD | What Red Line Tells Us About Syria’s Chemical Weapons (Book Review)

12. Afghan security forces withdrawing from checkpoints, bases

13. COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization Really Gone Viral?

14. N.J. man allegedly carved a QAnon hashtag into a centuries-old stone at ‘America’s Stonehenge’

15. Tie US Arms Exports to Values, Pentagon Policy Chief Nominee Says

16. Alphabet explosion: Pentagon commission for removing Confederate names sports unwieldy acronym

17. Five Reasons Not to Split Cyber Command from the NSA Any Time Soon – If Ever

18. What's worse, violence on the left or the right? It's a dangerous question

19. QAnon theorists switch date to March 20 after no Trump inauguration, call the 4th "false flag"

 

1. Biden must expose China's COVID-19 cover-up | Opinion

Newsweek · by Anthony Ruggiero · March 4, 2021

Excerpts:

“To begin, the Biden administration should insist the WHO immediately remove Beijing from what is now a joint investigation into the pandemic's origins. The administration should also lead a public-private review of the WHO report to ensure its objectivity.

...

NSM-1 mandates a report within 30 days on how the U.S. can strengthen and reform the WHO. The first requirement is new leadership. Tedros is clearly not up to the task of freeing the WHO from China's grip, although his five-year term will end in 2022. The Biden administration should work with fellow G7 members to put forward a joint candidate for next year's election, one who is capable of defending WHO's integrity.

The United States' ability to prevent the next pandemic is riding on the outcome of the investigation into COVID-19's origins. The pandemic's impact on the American economy and society shows the consequences of getting it wrong.

The Biden administration has trumpeted its reversal of Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO. Now the administration needs to show that it is rejoining on America's terms and defending America's interests, not engaging for the sake of engagement itself.”

 

2. Biden Nominee For Top Policy Post Grilled On Iran, Tweets

defenseone.com · by Katie Bo Williams

 

3. China Is Losing Influence—and That Makes It Dangerous

Foreign Policy · by Salvatore Babones · March 3, 2021

Or the author is counseling Napoleon's dictum, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

And there is the pre-WWII Japanese pressure analogy:

“The worst thing Biden could do is put so much pressure on China that its leaders lash out because they feel they have nothing to lose. That was arguably what happened in 1941, when the United States successfully countered Japanese expansionism with military aid to China, a trade embargo, and the freezing of Japanese assets in the U.S. banking system. Japan wasn’t on the rise in 1941; it was on the wane. Bogged down in China, checked by the Soviet Union in a little-remembered conflict in Mongolia, and increasingly squeezed by U.S. economic sanctions, Japan’s leaders recklessly sought a kantai kessen (“decisive battle”) with a naval strike at Pearl Harbor. They saw no other way to forestall a long, smothering defeat.

...

Politically and temperamentally, the hardest thing for any U.S. president to do is nothing. The extraordinary power concentrated in the president’s hands generates extraordinary temptation to use it, and there are many stirring arguments for decisive leadership. But in the current situation, decisive leadership can only disrupt an already benign policy environment. China’s only hope for victory in the current situation is to provoke a crisis—and then benefit from the ensuing disorder. Biden’s number one job is to make sure the crisis doesn’t occur.”

Of course the author's thesis is based on the assumption China is making a catastrophic mistake or that "gravity will take its toll."  Is that a sound assumption?

 

4. Is The Pentagon Preparing To Fight The Wrong War?

Forbes · by Michael Krepon · March 4, 2021

Excerpts:

“Yes, we live at a time of competition between major powers, but when hasn’t there been? And yes, there are now two major powers competing with the United States, but their leaders, like the U.S. president, have societies to lose by crossing the nuclear threshold.

Part of the answer is that we must plan for nuclear nightmares. We also need to think sensibly and creatively about how to avoid them. Admiral Charles Richard, the head of the Strategic Command, warns us that a regional crisis involving Beijing or Moscow “could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state.” This is surely true for North Korea, as well. But this analysis begs the question of why U.S. forces would execute conventional military campaigns that would invite Armageddon.

Crises do, indeed, lie in our future and plans are needed—even those that President Biden will try mightily to keep in locked safes. The plans that Biden will find most useful are ones that strengthen his hand while keeping a prudent distance from the nuclear threshold. Conventional and cyber capabilities can affect the outcome of crises. Scrimping on these capabilities to pay for nuclear weapons and their means of delivery is an unwise idea.”

 

5. Oh God, Not Another Long Telegram About China

Foreign Policy · by Tanner Greer · March 4, 2021

Is it hubris?

This is quite a critique: 

“Longer” is an apt adjective: the full report is 85 pages long. Unfortunately, the so-called telegram’s contents are not as clever as its title. It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of both the enemy it seeks to deflect and the democratic institutions it is purportedly designed to protect.

....

The problems posed by Taiwan’s defense point to the second great flaw in “The Longer Telegram”: a failure to come to terms with the limitations facing American political leaders.

But this conclusion is something we should all consider (whether you subscribe to the idea of the blob or not):

This is as good of evidence as any that professionals in “the Blob” have grown estranged from the nation they serve. The American people do not flourish for the sake of “maintaining US global conventional military dominance over any other adversary.” The United States should seek military dominance only in as much as it helps the American people flourish. Any national security professional who forgets this—regardless of their previous rank or experience—does not deserve to be given a serious place in the national debate.

The truth is that Americans live in an intensely partisan country. The demands of national security will not make these partisan divides go away. In this political environment, a consensus on issues like immigration and technology policy will not be forthcoming. We live in a time when the American people are more concerned with domestic than foreign affairs. In such an environment, U.S. military budgets will be placed under extreme pressure. American political leaders, the people who will be responsible for implementing any counter-China strategy, will not be China experts. They will almost always have some issue on their plate that seems more important than China diplomacy. These facts cannot be wished away.

American theorists often describe strategy as the coordination of ways, ends, and means. A useful counter-China strategy would begin with a realistic assessment of the means actually at U.S. strategists’ disposal. It would admit to the restraints strategists in Washington face. Its recommendations would not be for some parallel United States whose people have put aside every divide in their devotion to the cause of hegemony, but for the messy and limited country that actually exists. A strategy that cannot be implemented by America’s vehemently partisan, easily distracted political system is no real strategy at all. Kennan’s early Cold War warnings were distinctive in their cold, analytical realism. Anybody aspiring to be his successor needs to be as willing to apply that same gimlet-eyed vision to Washington as they are to Beijing.”

 

6. Building a China Strategy Starts by Answering These Questions

defenseone.com · by Mike Dana and Matthew R. Crouch,

Spoiler alert. The three:

“First, what problem are we trying to solve regarding China? 

Second, what would success look like with China in terms of cooperation and/or deterrence? Do we seek co-existence or containment?

Third, if we were to enter into armed conflict with China, what would victory look like? How would war with China unfold? Would the cost of this conflict be worth the investment in human treasure? What kind of war would we envision and to what end?”

 

7. China First to The Microphone on Info Ops

afcea.org · by George I. Seffers · March 4, 2021

Hmmmm.....   The USIA has grown to mythical proportions and has become the "easy button" for information operations.  Just bring back USIA is the mantra.

Excerpts:

“He described his own experience as a military dependent in West Germany in 1978, during the Cold War. “We had the U.S. Information Agency that had tens of thousands of people across the globe, primarily in Europe, and we were doing operations across the Soviet Union and in Western Europe to deny, disable and discredit Soviet propaganda.”

Gen. Vowell noted that the Information Agency no longer exists. “We have some mechanisms through media, and we have some influence through other governments, but we’re not organized to be able to be ‘firstest with the mostest’ and with the right information.”

And unfortunately, he added, being first often is what matters most. “Truth doesn’t matter. The message first matters, and then trying to get people to the truth is the hard part.”

 

8. FicInt: Anticipating Tomorrow’s Conflict

usni.org · March 4, 2021

FicInt: fictional intelligence.

Please do not overlook reading this author's impressive bio.  She must be the pride of the USNA, the USMC, the cyber corps, and probably in the future, the foreign area officer corps.  Not many boxers and Gospel singers.

I am surprised she did not reference the film Three Days of the Condor which was built on the foundation of FicInt.  

 

9. US Special Forces train in Serbia, where China and Russia have strengthened military ties

Stars and Stripes· by John Vandiver · March 5, 2021

Competition.

 

10. FDD | The Problem With the Declassified Report on Khashoggi’s Death

fdd.org · by Thomas Joscelyn · March 4, 2021

Excerpts:

“None of this justifies Khashoggi’s murder or is a defense of MBS—not in the least. And the U.S. government should regularly reexamine its partnerships and alliances, including ties to Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration is doing that, but MBS’s critics are unlikely to be satisfied.

In addition to releasing the ODNI’s assessment, the Biden administration announced a new “Khashoggi ban,” which restricts the travel of individuals suspected of targeting dissidents abroad and prohibits them from entering the U.S.

 

11. FDD | What Red Line Tells Us About Syria’s Chemical Weapons (Book Review)

fdd.org · by David Adesnik Senior Fellow and Director of Research · March 4, 2021

Excerpts:

“While the red line debate is anchored in Syria, it is also inseparable from broader arguments regarding whether overextension or resignation is the greater threat to U.S. national security. As Obama prepared to leave office, he sought to recast his red line decision as a model of heroic restraint. “I’m very proud of [that] moment,” Obama said. “The overwhelming weight of conventional wisdom and the machinery of our national-security apparatus had gone fairly far,” he added, “the fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America’s interest” avoided a debacle.

Red Line, despite its name, barely touches on the afterlife of Obama’s decision; however, Warrick’s account of how it was made emphasizes the influence of public opinion rather than principled restraint. Obama’s national security team “overwhelmingly favored a military strike” and the president intended “to launch the attack within days.” (p.73) Then the British Parliament voted against intervention, leading Obama to hesitate and seek congressional approval for military action, mistakenly presuming lawmakers would support him. Instead, opinion polls and constituent opposition turned Congress against intervention. Yet “we didn’t have a Plan B,” Samantha Power, then-U.S. ambassador to the UN, tells Warrick. (p.109) All that saved the policy from unraveling was the Russian president’s unexpected offer to have Assad turn over his arsenal.

A pleasure to read, Red Line also comprises a valuable addition to the growing literature on the war in Syria. In addition to recounting the unlikely stories of Ayman the chemist as well as Tim Blades and the Margarita Machine, the book includes equally compelling accounts with characters ranging from UN weapons inspectors and Syrian doctors to Islamic State operatives planning their own chemical attacks. In Warrick’s hands, their experiences come alive.

 

12. Afghan security forces withdrawing from checkpoints, bases

longwarjournal.org · by Bill Roggio · March 3, 2021

 

13. COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization Really Gone Viral?

justsecurity.org · by Michael King and Sam Mullins · March 4, 2021

Conclusion:

“Trends in terrorism are notoriously difficult to predict. Depicting the pandemic as a perfect storm is reminiscent of previous attempts to forecast how exceptional events will impact terrorism, such as when the Arab Spring was heralded as the demise of al Qaeda, or when the collapse of the ISIS “caliphate” was expected to cause a wave of terrorism by returning foreign fighters. These predictions were logically sound, but people do not always act logically.

The “perfect storm” theory of the pandemic’s impact on terrorism is also logical, yet its assumptions have not been carefully considered. Lockdown conditions have unquestionably been challenging, but it is not yet clear whether and to what extent our collective vulnerability to violent extremism has increased. People are spending more time on the internet, but this does not necessarily increase their chances of engaging with extremist content, even if they are bored and lonely. Among those who have encountered such content online, the risk of radicalization is generally low and as our data show, there has so far been no spike in terrorism.

We would be remiss not to point out the various other manifestations of violence such as the possession of weapons and home-made explosives, online threats, physical assaults, violent protests, and destruction of public property, all of which were clearly linked to circumstances arising from the pandemic. Sadly, anti-Asian hate crimes have also proliferated during the past year. However, these incidents do not meet the threshold of terrorism. Indeed, the vast majority of people driven to hatred and violence during the pandemic, including members of the Boogaloo and QAnon movements, have engaged in various forms of criminality that occasionally get dangerously close to, but ultimately fall short of, qualifying as acts of terrorism. Where precisely the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 sits within this context is presently unclear, but it does not change the fact that the vast majority of people driven to violence amidst the pandemic have done so through relatively low-level forms of crime.

Some will maintain that it is too early to pass judgement, that the incendiary effect of the pandemic has been tempered by the associated restrictions of movement and that the “perfect storm” is still brewing. While we cannot rule out that possibility, it is insufficient to simply argue about when if the underlying why is flawed. As we have seen, the premise that the pandemic will result in more terrorism is based upon a series of assumptions that—although not entirely disproven—are far from foregone conclusions. In writing this article, our goal is to offer a contrarian view to the conventional wisdom about the impact of the pandemic on terrorism in the West. Above all, we wish to stimulate a more thoughtful debate and thorough analysis.

 

14. N.J. man allegedly carved a QAnon hashtag into a centuries-old stone at ‘America’s Stonehenge’

The Washington Post · March 4, 2021

These QAnon cultists are some real whackjobs.

 

15. Tie US Arms Exports to Values, Pentagon Policy Chief Nominee Says

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

 

16. Alphabet explosion: Pentagon commission for removing Confederate names sports unwieldy acronym

washingtontimes.com · by Mike Glenn

This was not approved by the Pentagon's Acronym Control Officer (PACO). Of wait, there is no such officer.  That was actually my dream job.  I wanted to be a GS-15 with an E4 from each of the services who would sit around all day checking and double checking acronyms to determine how they would be butchered by the troops ( prevent the requirement for the CJCS to send a message to the force spelling out the pronunciation for the US Joint Force Command and prohibiting the use of "Jiffycom" for the acronym JFCOM).. 

Of course this acronym CNIDODCCSAAPWSVCSA may not be able to be butchered and turned into something irreverent. It should just not have been approved for use!! (though I doubt anyone actually officially put that acronym together.  But it sure is an unwieldy title for the commission.)

 

17. Five Reasons Not to Split Cyber Command from the NSA Any Time Soon – If Ever

warontherocks.com · by Chris C. Demchak · March 5, 2021

The five:

Reason 1: Scale of Adversaries

Reason 2: Speed in Trade-Off Decisions

Reason 3: Synergy in Innovative Shared Operations

Reason 4: Immutable Interdependence

Reason 5: No Automatic Advantage

 

18. What's worse, violence on the left or the right? It's a dangerous question

The Hill · by Andrew C. McCarthy, opinion contributor · March 4, 2021

Conclusion:

“The country should be uniting against political violence. It should be that rare thing these days that Americans of good will can agree about, regardless of their partisan affiliations, their political views, or the twisted ideologies of the terrorists. Democrats, instead, are choosing to further divide the country through a libelous narrative. Whatever political advantage they see in this will be fleeting. The damage they are doing will endure.”

 

19. QAnon theorists switch date to March 20 after no Trump inauguration, call the 4th "false flag"

Newsweek · by Emily Czachor · March 4, 2021

Again, these QAnon cultists are real whackjobs.

 

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“Look at everything as though you are seeing it either for the first or last time, then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” 

- Betty Smith

 

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings