News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.
1. George Shultz Showed U.S. Foreign Policy Is Strongest When We Combine Realism and Human Rights
2. George Shultz Understood That Money Was Power
3. After Vietnam, American Society’s Relationship with Its Military Was Badly Frayed. After Twenty Years of Post-9/11 Wars, It Is Again. (Book Review essay)
4. Bureaucratizing to Fight Extremism in the Military
5. The Human Face of Nuclear Deterrence
6. Army Special Operations School Drops 'III' Logo Adopted by Extremist Group
7. ‘The system worked as designed’ is bad news
8. Air war against ISIS holds lessons for future battles
9. Biden to visit Pentagon hoping to shift from Trump turmoil
10. Lloyd Austin takes first steps to repair a battered Pentagon
11. LongShot: The DARPA Drone That Could Change Warfare
12. Military struggles to determine how many extremists are in the ranks
13. Blinken: ‘America is stronger with alliances’
14. Biden signals a ‘cold peace’ contest with China
15. The Great Firewall Cracked, Briefly. A People Shined Through.
16. How China uses extensive spying operations to assert its global dominance: From India to Afghanistan, the US and beyond
17. Biden's First Foreign Policy Speech: A Preview of Mistakes to Come?
18. US will not accept WHO's findings out of Wuhan investigation
19. As WHO coronavirus mission leaves empty-handed, China claims propaganda win
20. Leaders Should Prioritize Troops Over Weapons Amid Defense Spending Cuts, Former Officials Say
21. Biden's foreign policy diplomats sweep back to power
22. Major General Eldon Bargewell, a special operations legend
23. During the Vietnam War, the US created a highly classified unit that still influences modern special operations
24. The feds say he’s an extremist leader who directed rioters. He also had top-secret clearance and worked for the FBI, attorney says.
25. 50 Pro Tips for Strategists whether they're striving, struggling, or successful
26. Resourcing Irregular and Conventional Warfare Capabilities
1. George Shultz Showed U.S. Foreign Policy Is Strongest When We Combine Realism and Human Rights
TIME · by Robert D. Daplan · February 9, 2021
Conclusion:
“Realism never dies because it is about limits, constraints, and hard choices. Idealism never dies because ever since the Hebrew prophet Isaiah and the Greek tragedian Euripides it has appealed to the human spirit. In the creative tension between the two tendencies America finds its true reputational calling. That was the secret to winning the Cold War. As for our own era of great power struggles, it is partly a matter of recovering the quiet, unassuming example of George Shultz."
2. George Shultz Understood That Money Was Power
Bloomberg · by Hal Brands · February 8, 2021
Teaser: But by the late 1980s, the Cold War was ending on American terms, democracy was spreading like wildfire, and the U.S. was moving into a new era of economic primacy. Shultz made three signal contributions to this recovery.
3. After Vietnam, American Society’s Relationship with Its Military Was Badly Frayed. After Twenty Years of Post-9/11 Wars, It Is Again.
mwi.usma.edu · by Scott Cooper · February 10, 2021
Conclusion:
“Veterans need an audience that listens, an audience of civilians who must seek to understand—simply thanking veterans for their service and moving on is also an abrogation of responsibility. But veterans also need an audience that is critical. Perhaps the solution lies in the title of Mark Treanor’s novel, its significance revealed at the end as Marty reflects on “how all of us marched to the same quiet cadence of belief in each other and America and in the value of serving something bigger than ourselves.” His is a melancholy call to service and citizenship that asks us to acknowledge that we all owe our country something, and that each of us must do our part to create the kind of country and society we seek. More pointedly, A Quiet Cadence recognizes the fundamental reality that in the aftermath of Vietnam we swept the difficult experience under a rug, individually and collectively. As we shift our focus away from the post-9/11 wars, we shouldn’t make that mistake again.”
4. Bureaucratizing to Fight Extremism in the Military
warontherocks.com · by Doyle Hodges · February 10, 2021
The author begins making an unexpected argument using special operations and history: Quote: "Countering violent domestic extremism promises to be an even more challenging bureaucratic problem than enabling the success of special operations forces."
Conclusion:
“What type of bureaucratic organization is needed to address the problem? On one hand, raising the issue to the level of a Senate-confirmed position would communicate a strong commitment to addressing the problem. But such a move would also require legislation and mire the process in the politics of confirmation. A better answer may be to create an office with the institutional authority of a deputy assistant secretary of defense, which can be done by the secretary of defense without legislative action. Such an office, which would logically be located within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, would command the bureaucratic clout to move resource and demand responses from services and other agencies, while staying out of the current charged partisan political atmosphere.
The problem of extremists in the military is a serious subset of the problem of extremism and political violence in American society. As the events of Jan. 6 showed, participation in extremist violence by current and former military personnel undermines the foundations of public trust in the military. If Americans have reason to fear that the person to whom they have handed a gun may use it to violently advance an extremist cause, then American civil-military relations will move from focusing on “luxury goods” such as the balance of bureaucratic power between the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to focusing on existential questions related to the integrity and competence of the armed forces. Preventing this outcome demands a serious solution that can command lasting, serious resources.”
5. The Human Face of Nuclear Deterrence
warontherocks.com · by Usha Sahay · February 10, 2021
A fascinating essay with many interesting insights and historical anecdotes.
Example: "The American president probably did not know what Khrushchev had said about his first nuclear weapons briefing a few years earlier: “I couldn’t sleep for several days. Then I became convinced that we could never possibly use these weapons, and when I realized that, I was able to sleep again.” But lest anyone think this actually meant we could never possibly use these weapons, Khrushchev added, “all the same, we must be prepared.”
An interesting insight from Sir Lawrence Freedman: "Lawrence Freedman, a renowned nuclear scholar and author of the book Deterrence, told me that deterrence is psychologically discomforting because it relies on inaction rather than action. “You’re asking people to develop these weapons, man the systems,” he said. “And the idea that they can do this as some sort of elaborate charade is always going to be difficult. They’re always going to want — need — to have something to do in the event that the crisis comes.”
6. Army Special Operations School Drops 'III' Logo Adopted by Extremist Group
military.com · by Matthew Cox · February 9, 2021
Controversies for the medical group from the goat lab to extremists appropriating their symbols.
Excerpts:
"Certain aspects of that logo have a striking resemblance to the symbology of an extremist organization -- specifically the Roman numeral three with the Betsy Ross star circle, which was used by Trauma 3," Col. Matt Gomlack, chief of staff at the JFK SWCS, told Military.com.
Trauma 3 had used the symbol "way longer" than the Three Pecenters, which was formed in 2008, Gomlack said, describing how its military use goes back to the 1990s.
...
The command has also briefed all of its personnel on a list of 14 symbols that have been linked to extremist groups by the New York Police Department's Intelligence Bureau. The symbols range from the Nazi swastika to the Oath Keepers' symbol, which bears the far-right militia group's name on a gold and black tab resembling that of the Army Rangers.
The command released a statement late Friday to all of its personnel stating that the future wear or posting of "any of these symbols" could result in "military punishment."
"The command is doing two things: We are protecting our formation from potential misperceptions ... and two, we are also sending a message that extremism is not tolerated in the Department of Defense and certainly not in our organization." Gomlack said.
7. ‘The system worked as designed’ is bad news
Defense News · by Caroline Baxter · February 9, 2021
An "interesting" critique about the "Combat Cloth Face Covering, or CCFC."
Excerpts:
It took a full year for the service to design, approve and distribute a face mask — called a Combat Cloth Face Covering, or CCFC — for its soldiers, an effort that required an additional $43.5 million in contracts to provide temporary solutions. That comes out to about $45 per mask, if you assume every active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldier received one. A pack of 20 N95 masks at Home Depot costs about $20.
And yet, the Army congratulated itself on the “expedited” timeline, compared to the 18- to 24-month procurement cycle such an effort would normally take.
“The system worked as designed,” tweeted a former Marine.
And that is precisely the problem. National security strategy is supposed to align ends and means.
Conclusion:
“There are two sides to the Army’s CCFC experience. On one side is the story of Army ingenuity — of finding ways to stay within the lines of the system while simultaneously bending it into efficiency. On the other side is a story of how, even when faced with a clear and present threat, these systems can only bend so far and so fast.
This presents us with a choice: Change the system or scope the threat list. One of these is easier than the other and can be accomplished if civilian leaders choose that path. The lives lost behoove them to do so.”
8. Air war against ISIS holds lessons for future battles
airforcetimes.com · by Todd South · February 9, 2021
The RAND report can be accessed here.
Excerpt: The report authors detail the 2014 to 2019 timeline of the Operation Inherent Resolve campaign in phases and case studies. Their analysis paints a picture of an air war that was critical in the defeat of ISIS, but that differed in many ways from recent counterinsurgency operations and brought home key areas that need improvement for future conflicts.
9. Biden to visit Pentagon hoping to shift from Trump turmoil
militarytimes.com · by Robert Burns and Lolita Baldor · February 10, 2021
This is going to be an interesting process: "Austin also is launching a broad review of how U.S. forces are positioned around the world. In announcing his “global force posture review” last week, he said it will assess the military “footprint, resources, strategy and missions.”
We have been through a lot of similar reviews for the last few decades. I am looking forward to seeing the results.
10. Lloyd Austin takes first steps to repair a battered Pentagon
When I see these headlines I wonder how the uniformed and long time civil servants feel about them. So did the uniformed military wrest civilian control from the civilian leadership over the past years?
Excerpts:
“Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has taken initial steps toward reasserting civilian control of the military, in a drive to energize a group that saw its power drain under the former president.
...
“Austin is inheriting a civil-military balance inside the building with a joint staff that is perhaps more powerful than it should be,” said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University and expert in civil-military relations. “Austin has to teach his team what best practices are and what are the norms ... they can’t be smug.”
11. LongShot: The DARPA Drone That Could Change Warfare
19fortyfive.com · by Caleb Larson · February 9, 2021
Seems like a very useful concept! But changing warfare? Those headlines always catch my eye (which of iis what they are designed to do).
Excerpts:
“DARPA explained the LongShort drone as a “novel UAV that can significantly extend engagement ranges, increase mission effectiveness, and reduce the risk to manned aircraft.”
Essentially DARPA wants to take away the risk from human pilots and transfer that to drones. “It is envisioned that LongShot will increase the survivability of manned platforms by allowing them to be at standoff ranges far away from enemy threats,” the DARPA announcement explained, “while an air-launched LongShot UAV efficiently closes the gap to take more effective missile shots.”
12. Military struggles to determine how many extremists are in the ranks
Stars and Stripes · by Missy Ryan · February 9, 2021
The first question is how do you define an extremist? This cannot be like pornography: "I will know it when I see it." We cannot screw this up or we will not only potentially catastrophically damage the military we will cause extremists organizations to gather not only more recruits but also increase "legitimacy" as mistakes in this effort will play right into the narratives of extremists organizations.
13. Blinken: ‘America is stronger with alliances’
asiatimes.com · by Dave Makichuk · February 9, 2021
Excerpts:
“If we do all of these things and all these things are within our control, we can engage China from a position of strength.”
The former diplomat — who grew up in Paris and speaks impeccable French, staunchly believes that the US should work with its allies and within international treaties and organizations — has come out strongly in regard to the Uyghur issue, calling them victims of an ongoing genocide.
Yet, these are words that make Beijing bristle with anger, and do little to advance “diplomacy” in the region.
“The president has been very clear that he wants to put … human rights and democracy back at the center of our foreign policy,” said Blinken.
“And so, whether it’s China or any other country where we have deep and serious concerns, this will be something that is front and center.”
14. Biden signals a ‘cold peace’ contest with China
asiatimes.com · by Richard Javad Heydarian · February 9, 2021
I guess "extreme competition" is the foreign policy phrase we will be using.
Key excerpts:
“Earlier, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan described the Quad as “a foundation upon which to build substantial American policy in the Indo-Pacific.”
“With our allies and partners in both Europe and Asia, we represent well more than half of the world’s economy,” said Sullivan during a conversation hosted by a Washington-based think tank in late-January.
He described the Quad and other alliance platforms as indispensable “leverage we need to be able to produce outcomes” in both constraining China and addressing other shared global challenges.”
15. The Great Firewall Cracked, Briefly. A People Shined Through.
The New York Times · by By Li Yuan · February 9, 2021
Excerpts:
“The Chinese government blocked the app Monday afternoon. I knew it was coming, and yet I still didn’t expect to feel so dismayed.
For that brief moment, people in China proved that they are as creative and well spoken as people who enjoy the freedom to express themselves. They lined up, sometimes for hours, to wait for their turns to speak. They argued for the rights of the government loyalists to speak despite their disagreements. They held many honest, sincere conversations, sometimes with tears and sometimes with laughter.
Those conversations helped illuminate why the Chinese government blocks free speech online in the first place. Those free-flowing exchanges threaten to debunk the caricatures that the state-controlled media often foists upon the Chinese people. The state media dismisses people like the Tiananmen protesters, pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong or those in Taiwan who want the island to take a different path from the mainland.”
16. How China uses extensive spying operations to assert its global dominance: From India to Afghanistan, the US and beyond
opindia.com · February 9, 2021
A view from India.
(Note: OpIndia (a unit of Aadhyaasi Media And Content Services Private Limited) is a news and current affairs website. We publish opinion articles, analysis of issues, news reports (curated from various sources as well as original reporting) and fact-check articles. More here.
17. Biden's First Foreign Policy Speech: A Preview of Mistakes to Come?
The National Interest · by James Jay Carafano · February 8, 2021
I did not assess the speech in the same way. But I think we still have action yet to come.
But regardless of whether you agree with the President's Speech or Jim's analysis below, this excerpt should be pondered:
“Strategic leadership is a blend of rhetoric and action. For sure, soaring words matter. Who can forget Ronald Reagan telling Moscow to “tear down that wall”? The speech was unforgettable. Reagan’s oratory still rings because the wall came down. In contrast, former President Barack Obama gave a very well-received speech in Cairo to the Muslim world. Yet few remember a single word of it. That’s because there was no action to match the rhetoric. In fact, the region got worse in the aftermath of the speech. The Islamic State caliphate ran wild, building a terrorist enterprise the size of a country.
In the age of great-power competition, where the world doesn’t simply do what the United States asks, action must match rhetoric. Arguably, action matters even more than words, because America’s competitors don’t care what it has to say. They care about its actions. Donald Trump’s foreign policy is a case in point. His rhetoric was often out-of-tune to many in the world, but his actions safeguarded U.S. interests and were often spot on.”
18. US will not accept WHO's findings out of Wuhan investigation
The Korea Times · February 10, 2021
19. As WHO coronavirus mission leaves empty-handed, China claims propaganda win
The Washington Post · by Gerry Shih · February 10, 2021
Excerpts:
“Richard H. Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University who has accused the WHO of bending to Chinese pressure and criticized Daszak for his apparent conflict of interest, said asking questions wasn't enough. (Daszak could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.)
"Any institution and nation seeking to clear its name would've moved quickly to make available all its databases of genetic sequences and strains, provided lab notes, records and private interviews with research, waste removal and janitorial staff," Ebright said. "None of that happened or was even requested" as part of the agreement to send experts to China.
Skeptical experts argue that records from the WIV should be analyzed closely because the institute collected nearly 300 bat coronaviruses from southwest China in the past decade, including two of the closest genetic relatives to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These experts do not suggest that the virus was engineered to be a bioweapon.
20. Leaders Should Prioritize Troops Over Weapons Amid Defense Spending Cuts, Former Officials Say
defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber
Conclusion:
“With a declining defense budget seems inevitable, McCuser said there is no “easy button” for where to make cuts.
“I don't think there's low-hanging fruit,” she said. “I think that the department really went through that years ago under the Budget Control Act, and there's not going to be a way to absorb big decreases in the budget without a lot of impact. And what John and I are proposing is that we learn from the way this has been done in the past so that we don't expose the force to a lot of risk.”
Leaders Should Prioritize Troops Over Weapons Amid Defense Spending Cuts, Former Officials Say
There’s no “easy button” for finding items to cut the budget.”
21. Biden's foreign policy diplomats sweep back to power
Axios · by Lachlan Markay
22. Major General Eldon Bargewell, a special operations legend
sandboxx.us · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · February 8, 2021
Yes he was.
23. During the Vietnam War, the US created a highly classified unit that still influences modern special operations
Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou
Yes, there is still so much we can learn from MAC-V SOG. And it is just not for JSOC.
24. The feds say he’s an extremist leader who directed rioters. He also had top-secret clearance and worked for the FBI, attorney says.
The Washington Post · Katie Shepherd · February 9, 2021
So again, how do we root out "extremists? How do we define extremists?
But there is always more to the story:
“Those details were revealed in a motion filed Monday asking a judge to release Caldwell from custody, citing his long military career and ability to pass vetting for the high-security clearance. His attorney also said that Caldwell has disabilities from his military service that would have prevented him from storming the Capitol.
The FBI did not immediately return an inquiry late Monday about Caldwell’s past employment status. Caldwell’s filing, which says he was paid as a GS-12, does not explain how he could have served as an FBI section chief while also being classified at a significantly lower federal pay scale than typically comes with such a position.
The claims about Caldwell’s high-security clearance and FBI service add to concerns about extremism in the military and law enforcement. The indictments against numerous alleged rioters with military and police connections have led local agencies to open investigations and the Pentagon to order each military branch to dedicate time to addressing the problem in the coming months.”
The feds say he’s an extremist leader who directed rioters. He also had top-secret clearance and worked for the FBI, attorney says.
25. 50 Pro Tips for Strategists whether they're striving, struggling, or successful
Some useful tips. Some worthy of further discussion in PME classes.
26. Resourcing Irregular and Conventional Warfare Capabilities
realcleardefense.com · by Charles Barham
We must accept that political warfare is an inherent part of and the major method of operation in great power competition. To that end we must accept that irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare and resource accordingly.
Excerpt:
“Given finite resources, DoD and specifically the Services, face tough decisions regarding the allocation of those resources. The Services focus on warfighting and increasing the lethality of the force, while harvesting the resources of organizations and or capabilities that do not directly contribute to this increase in lethality as bill payers. For example, the Army had planned to shutter the Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI). This move appears to be a result of some in Army leadership positions laser focused on a return to peer competition using largely conventional ways and means. This position contrasts with that of other Army leaders who support the future requirement for a counterinsurgency (COIN), specifically the stability component of COIN, as a future multi-domain operations warfare requirement. Even in great power competition, USG adversaries will likely not fight the United States head-to-head. They will use other countries and even non-State actors (violent extremist organizations, trans-national criminal organizations, etc.) as proxies or attempt to destabilize USG partner nations. Institutions such as the PKSOI exist to provide DoD leadership and Joint Force Commanders with a broader range of options to employ in the protection of USG interests.”
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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"I do not claim to have any developed or sophisticated views in political philosophy, but I think that one of the lessons of the last few hundred years of history is that the greatest threat to human prosperity and well-being is fanaticism and intolerance, even in the name of apparently laudable goals."
- Tim Crane
"Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries."
- Peter Padfield