Friday News Roundup — January 19, 2024
This week saw war in the Middle East centered on the conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group escalate dangerously. After multiple attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, a U.S.-led coalition launched multiple counterstrikes against missile sites inside that civil-war torn country. That follows recent U.S. military strikes against Iran-backed militants in Syria and Iraq, and regular exchanges of missile and artillery fire between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
For its part, after recently suffering an ISIS terrorist attack on its own soil, Iran lashed out this week with missile strikes against targets in Iraq, Syria and even Pakistan. Pakistan predictably responded by firing retaliatory strikes into Iran. While Iran is thought to want to avoid direct confrontation with the United States and its allies, the conflict sparked by the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 — with more than 1,200 Israeli killed in the worst day for Jews since the Holocaust — shows every sign of spreading throughout the entire region. Meanwhile, the loss of life in Gaza has exceeded 22,000 people, most of them civilians, and the humanitarian situation there is described by aid workers as catastrophic.
Back on the home front, former President Donald Trump’s overwhelming victory in the Iowa caucuses this week began his front-runner bid for the Republican presidential nomination, with the New Hampshire primary up next week. That sets the country up for an unprecedented and potentially volatile presidential election campaign, with the possible Republican nominee being a twice-impeached former commander-in-chief facing multiple criminal indictments.
This week President Joe Biden convened leaders at the White House to discuss the urgent need for Congress to pass an aid package for Ukraine to ensure that it has the military resources it needs — especially air defense and artillery ammunition — to continue defending itself against Russia’s brutal invasion. No deal was reached at the meeting, however, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., continued to insist that House Republicans would first need to see “transformative” changes at the southern border to restrict the number of migrants entering the country, to include finishing the Trump administration’s border wall. In reality, House Republicans seem determined to keep the immigration issue alive throughout the election campaign as a sure-fire vote getter, and the far-right House Freedom Caucus seem unmoved that tying it to Ukraine aide could mean abandoning Kiev to Russia’s aggression, severely damaging America’s status as a reliable ally and defender of the international rules-based order.
In what counts as significant progress in today’s hyper-partisan and often dysfunctional political climate, Congress did approve this week the third stopgap “continuing resolution” spending bill of the last four months, avoiding at the 11th-hour another government shutdown crisis, at least until March. Such disruptive brinksmanship even over Congress’ most mundane responsibility — funding the federal government — seems likely to increase as the presidential campaign season heats up in the coming months.
This week Joshua C. Huminski, the Director of the Mike Rogers Center, sat down with Dr. Jack Watling of RUSI to discuss his new book “The Arms of the Future,, which examines the impact of emerging technology on warfare, and the lessons of Ukraine.
CSPC’s book series continues next week with Bethany Allen discussing her book “Beijing Rules” — selected as a Diplomatic Courier best read of the year and long-listed for the Financial Times’ best business book of the year. She will be in conversation with Huminski about Taiwan’s recent elections, and strategic competition between the United States and China. You can register here if you would like to attend in-person.”
Ethan Brown’s debut appearance on the “At the water’s edge” Podcast this week talks about the Military recruiting crisis (see Ethan’s analysis from December for the Modern War Institute here) with host Scott Kelly, in addition to America’s growing national security challenges and a path forward in the era of disinformation.
Vladimir Putin’s Growing Confidence and Russia’s Surprising Resilience
By Joshua Huminski
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed growing confidence in his campaign of aggression against Ukraine, noting in a year-end address that Russian military forces are “modestly improving their position,” and “virtually all are in an active stage of action.” He also announced that Moscow will spend a record $157 billion on its military forces and Ukraine campaign this year, a 70 percent increase in the defense budget over last year. This comes as the Ukrainian counter-offensive last summer notably stalled without achieving its strategic objectives, and Kiev has failed to secure an urgently needed $61 billion aid package from the United States, and a $76 billion European aid package.
Recent events thus challenge the widely held view from Western capitals that Russia is in wholesale geopolitical retreat. The reality is far more complicated than the gospel heard in London, Paris, Berlin, or Washington, D.C. Yes, Europe has largely and successfully severed both its financial and energy linkages with Russia, and the ruble’s value is down considerably, falling to 100 against the U.S. dollar. Its conventional ground forces have certainly been severely degraded by fighting in Ukraine, and Russian intelligence operations were sharply curtailed when significant numbers of operatives were expelled from Western Europe after the invasion. Moscow also remains diplomatically isolated from Europe and the United States, with little expectation of a resumption of even base level contacts. With Finland’s recent accession to NATO, and with Sweden expected to soon follow suit, the Western alliance now sits astride the totality of Russia’s northwestern border.
However, expectations that Russia’s economy would be brought to heel by sanctions, and therefore Moscow would be forced to abandon its war against Ukraine, have thus far proven unfounded. Despite the severing of economic and business ties with most of Europe, the Russian domestic economy remains strong and surprisingly resilient, and is buoyed by continued oil exports and high government defense spending. After Western nations responded to Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 with widespread sanctions, Moscow began shifting to an “import-substitution” economy. Domestic companies stepped into the gap created by fleeing Western corporations, assuming or outright taking over their operations.
Semiconductor imports have continued to surge through Central Asia and through straw-buyers, largely circumventing Western sanctions. Over the long term technology restrictions will certainly have an impact on Russian manufacturers who will be unable to match the advances of their Western counterparts. Russia’s export market both for defense and non-defense goods will eventually suffer. Whichever way the war in Ukraine is ultimately decided, Moscow will also inevitably find the transition of its industries from a war-footing to a post-conflict environment difficult.
Energy sanctions, price caps and export restrictions have also adversely affected Russia’s hydrocarbons economy, but here too the picture is complicated. Exports to and through India and China, and continued high prices on the international market, have offset some, if not most, of the Western import restrictions.
Moscow’s turn to the East and South is also reflected in its diplomatic relations. While the United States and Western Europe (along with Australia, Japan, and to a lesser degree South Korea) have severed or reduced their diplomatic engagement in an effort to isolate Moscow, the collective “global south” has remained on the sidelines. Moscow’s continued relations with the other “BRICS” (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and its use of proxy forces such as the Wagner Group in Africa, ensure that it retains considerable influence beyond Europe. This point is often missed in overly optimistic Western calculations.
Russia’s conventional ground forces have certainly been degraded by two plus years of fighting in Ukraine, but its total military force structure remains relatively strong. The Kremlin never fully committed its tactical air forces to Ukraine, for instance, and its strategic air and rocket forces remain intact. Russia Black Sea fleet has suffered losses and has been pushed back from Crimea, but it remains a threat to both Ukraine and commercial shipping. Meanwhile, Russia’s “blue water” navy remains a global threat, with NATO forces particularly concerned about its submarine fleet in the North Atlantic. Russia also still possesses space-based and offensive cyber capabilities that could strategically threaten both NATO and the United States. It also continues to commission icebreakers for Arctic operations, retaining significant capability in what is expected to become a critical trade route in the years ahead.
Moreover, should the Ukraine war end in a cease fire or negotiated settlement, Russia can be expected to reconstitute its forces in relatively short order. The Kremlin’s 2024 budget suggests that Russia is banking on sustaining the war at least through 2024 by spending some six percent of its GDP on defense, expenditures likely to be at least partially offset by higher global energy prices and thus revenue into Moscow’s coffers.
Despite the West’s best efforts to isolate Moscow, and the initial hopes of many analysts, Russia will remain a power of significant global reach and influence for the foreseeable future. It may be unfashionable to admit this inconvenient truth, but doing so is the first step towards crafting a longer-term plan for containing and countering the persistent threat of a Putin-led Russia. As they say, hope is not a strategy.
Joshua Huminski is Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs
Japan Reconsiders Pacifism in an Increasingly Dangerous Indo-Pacific
By Kurt Johnston
In the wake of increasingly hostile rhetoric from its neighbors China and North Korea, Japan is reconsidering its pacifist constitution. Led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and former Prime Minister Taro Aso, the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has committed to a significant expansion of the Japanese defense budget. Japan’s current plans to export weapons to the United States as an indirect assist to Ukraine, and increase participation in joint military operations, are likewise testing the limitations of its codified pacifism.
In fact, 2024 marks a record year for the Japanese defense budget. In December the Cabinet authorized over 7.95 trillion yen ($53 billion) in military spending, a sixteen percent rise from the previous budget. Over the next three years, the government hopes to add a further 43 trillion yen ($290 billion) to its rising defense expenditures. These increases in spending correspond with softened arms control laws; guided missiles manufactured in Japan can now be sold to the United States and other Western allies.
According to Forbes, the Japanese Defense Ministry has emphasized a four-pronged approach to increased military readiness. Along with growing its weapons export market, the Japanese government is committing to participation in joint military operations with its allies, production of long-range weapons capable of striking North Korea, and a partnership with Italy and the United Kingdom to develop a new fighter jet.
These policies contradict a literal reading of Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, adopted in 1947. The article states that the “land, sea, and air forces…will never be maintained” as “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right.” Expanding the defense budget and producing lethal weapons for export clashes with the constitution’s repudiation of “the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”
However, this passage has been reconsidered over time as the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have gradually accumulated influence and popular support since its formation in the 1950s. The SDF saw its powers significantly expanded by the former Shinzo Abe administration, for instance, particularly its ability to fight overseas as part of a collective self-defense alliance. The LDP’s continuation of this more robust military role led some observers to call for revising Article 9. However, such efforts face both procedural hurdles and a disinterested public.
Despite the unambiguous growth of Japanese military capacity, Article 9 reform is unlikely in the short-term. A Kyodo News survey in May 2023 found that only 49 percent of the Japanese public would support amending the constitution’s pacifist clause. However, faced with hostility from China and North Korea, Japanese military expansion is unlikely to stop — even if the constitution remains unchanged.
Indeed, Japan’s renewed commitment to military spending coincides with increasingly belligerent Chinese rhetoric targeting Taiwan. On January 13th, Taiwan elected Lai Ching-te as its next president, keeping the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in power for a third consecutive term. Unlike his two rival candidates, Lai emphasized Taiwan’s democracy and autonomy from mainland China. These remarks spurred Chinese hostility toward Lai and the DPP, with Beijing strongly opposing the president-elect’s candidacy. Ahead of the vote, Xi Jinping warned that Chinese control of Taiwan was a “historical inevitability.” Lai’s immediate embrace of Japanese and American delegations after his election thus signals Taiwan’s fear of invasion.
North Korea also poses a threat to regional security. Pyongyang’s arsenal of missiles continues to grow, with test launches routinely falling into the Sea of Japan. On Tuesday, Kim Jong Un announced that North Korea would no longer promote Korean unification, instead viewing South Korea as the “principal enemy.” This shift in rhetoric comes as the North Korean regime not only activates a second nuclear reactor, but also boosts its satellite capabilities in what some perceive as a potential preparation for war. Japan, South Korea, and the United States performed a joint naval drill on Wednesday in response. In that context, the financial bolstering of the SDF can be viewed as a natural reaction to growing regional threats.
The military policies currently being pursued by the Japanese government align with statements given by LDP Vice President and former Prime Minister Taro Aso in recent months. In an event hosted last week by CSPC, Aso referenced “broken windows” theory, a thesis advanced by criminologists which states that evidence of crime that is ignored ultimately produces more crime. Japan is understandably concerned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced a broken window that may be seized upon as an opportunity by China and North Korea in East Asia.
Aso’s timely promotion of economic and security cohesion between Japan and the United States is no coincidence. Japan senses an impending threat and hopes to discourage its autocratic neighbors through an enhanced military capacity and strengthened diplomatic and military ties with allies. Only time will tell if Japan’s increased focus on military readiness serves as a sufficient deterrence to Chinese and North Korean ambitions.
Kurt Johnston is an intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress
China’s PLA officer purge
Ethan Brown
2023 ended in curious fashion for China’s People’s Liberation Army hierarchy, and portends an interesting year ahead for the Chinese Communist Party. For those in the West who were enjoying their (hopefully) peaceful and rejuvenative time with loved ones celebrating the holidays, Chinese shakeup at the top of the world’s largest Army came after nine top generals were removed from their posts.
At first glance, there are plenty of hot takes, sensational correlations, and simply, the opportunity to misattribute the actions of one authoritarian leader for historical analogies which are not effective. I should note that I’m depending quite heavily on Robert May and Ernest Nuestadt’s book “Thinking in Time,” a fine treatise on the misuse of historical analogy in policy development and a strongly recommended read. Simply, while historical analogy is useful in policy, finding the differences in events, contextualizing them factoring in human judgments and persuasions influencing events, and entering policy deliberation with clear objectives and goals regardless of the opposing side while pursuing understanding of their goals is necessary. Only then does historical analogy serve purpose in policy crafting.
The first bad take and misuse of historical analogy needs addressing first. What Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s actions should not be compared to, are Stalin’s Red Army Purges from 1937–1941. First, a mere nine flag-level officers have been quietly removed from their posts as part of the National People’s Congress — China’s rubber-stamp legislature which merely serves as Xi’s modern popular assembly or lower congressional chamber, lacking any serious polity influence or independence. Conversely, the Great Purge ending in 1941 victimized tens of thousands of officers ranging from tactical unit commanders to high-ranking senior leaders, theoreticians, strategists, and indeed, their entire families.
Xi’s purged generals have merely disappeared from public view, and this space will not give way to conspiracy about modern sanguinary methods of removal. But history painfully and shockingly minces no words about the murders of those Red Army officers executed under Stalin’s paranoia (urged on by the conspiring of Kliment Voroshilov who used the fear of a military coup to oust his military rival and key Red Army strategist, Tukhachevsky). Those thousands of officers removed from Stalin’s Army, including more than 90% of the Division and Army Commanders, as well as over half of the Corps Commanders, were killed or sentenced to a slow death in the Gular Archipelago.
Paranoia and ruthless tyranny were the motivation for the Red Army purges in the 20th Century, creating a dearth of competent, strategic leaders capable of fighting an effective war against the rising National Socialist threat from Germany from 1940 onward. Quite simply, it was exploitation of a tyrant’s fear of losing power that led to the absolute gutting of a competent institution and its human capital. There is even archival reporting that suggests that the fear of the alleged coup was fomented by Nazi intelligence for the sole purpose of weakening the Red Army.
In 2024, we would be foolish to make a historical analogy of such an event and try to apply it to Xi Jinping’s culling of military officers, even with the turnover occurring at key positions with those replaced in recent months. For instance, the most recently ousted of the senior staff appears to be Defense Minister Li Shangfu, the high-ranking General who oversaw military equipment purchases. Generals Li Yuchao and his deputy, pivotal leaders within the PLA’s Nuclear Forces and Rocket forces, had been missing from the public eye going back to the Summer, replaced by Deputy Navy Chief Wang Houbin and a member of the Central Committee, Xu Xisheng. Qin Gang, formerly the Foreign Affairs Minister and dyed-in-the-wool Wolf Warrior, went missing from public view months ago, despite serving as a key voice and a Chinese Communist Party apparatchik and quite simply, China’s most important diplomat. Simply Gone. This list could well include Alibaba Executive Jack Ma and movie star Fan Beng, as well, for their public statements or commentary that didn’t wholly align with CCP dogma.
But there are two key considerations which further distance the Stalin-purge analogy or misconception about doubling down on an already oppressive hold on power from Xi Jinping’s precision culling. First, while relations between Washington and Beijing certainly took a calamitous turn from 2018 to early 2023, with COVID, trade wars, Taiwan and the South China Sea competition, technological competition, and the wayward emergence of the Thucydides Trap fallacy, the last few months have seen a stark, albeit slow, change in the waters. Even senior Chinese officials (such as Qin Gang’s replacement, Wang Yi) assert that cooperation in Sino-U.S. relations is “no longer an option, but an imperative” for the world.
Worth noting here that wargamers and leading strategists in Washington acted out the potential conflict over Taiwan exactly one year ago. The result, simply, is that everyone would lose, although the United States would expectedly emerge the de facto military victor while the world writ large would suffer the impact of this conflict for years to come. Deterrence then, healthy competition that dissuades open conflict was the optimal strategy.
Xi’s removal of those key personnel suggest two things: those removed either had a history of implicit or explicitly hawkish positions on the United States (Qin Gang the Wolf Warrior), or were considered to be removed as a result of the rampant corruption across the People’s Liberation Army hierarchy, a genetic defect of any communist political system, and the Supreme Chinese leader is invariably, aggressively pursuing a course of action to bolster and legitimize Chinese Party credibility on the world stage. This is difficult to achieve as the People’s Liberation Army and Communist Party writ large, lacks a legal standards and conduct apparatus, akin to the American Judicial branch of the Federal government, to provide oversight and faithfully enforce legislative standards. Again, historical analogy is apt only if we understand the contextual differences, so Xi’s Communist Party should not be confused with Stalin’s ‘nest of vipers’ (his inner circle of murderers, plotters and sycophants), but it is relevant that much of the PLA faces extensive corruption in a social-political system where markets are so deeply embedded with the state enterprise. Compromised leaders in key positions would be a logical culling by Xi’s executive hand.
In the West, we should not dismiss these actions by the Chinese leader as a simple power consolidation, Xi needs no such assurances and will likely retain power until the later hours of his life. Instead, he remains fixated on competition with the West while taking a patient, “imperative cooperation” approach, culling ineptitude which reduces the efficacy of his regime and military. We should not consider such moves a weakness of the CCP system writ large, but a smart, harsh, and concerning political move to strengthen China’s long-term position as the United State’s key rival in world affairs, who continue to look deeper into the future than we do, a detriment of our grand strategic politicking.
Ethan Brown is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress
News You May Have Missed
The Houthis Are Targeting Global Trade
Greyson Hunziker
Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas, the Houthi militia in Yemen — part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” of militias and terrorist groups in the Middle East — declared support for Hamas, firing missiles at Israel and attacking ships in the Red Sea. They claim to attack only Israeli ships and ships heading to Israeli ports, but many of the targets have not met these criteria. The United States and the United Kingdom have launched several successful air strikes at Houthi targets in response.
The assaults on commercial shipping have been concentrated in the Bab el Mandeb Strait, a narrow chokepoint at the southern opening of the Red Sea. Ships must pass through the Bab el Mandeb to enter or return from the Suez Canal. Thus, the Houthis are disrupting a major node in the global shipping network. Around one trillion dollars of goods, or 12 percent of global trade, pass through the Red Sea. During the first half of 2023, nine million barrels of oil came through the Suez Canal daily, meaning energy prices could easily be affected. Currently six of the ten largest commercial shipping firms have redirected their routes around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, adding around nine days to a ship’s journey from Taiwan to the United Kingdom. As a result the price of using a container rose about 15 percent last week, and from November to December of 2023 global trade fell by 1.3 percent. The longer shipping times and increased costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers, adding to inflation woes.
Greyson Hunziker is an intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress
The Last of Merrill’s Marauders passes away.
Ethan Brown
(Photo courtesy of the Three Rangers Foundation)
Army Veteran Russell “Huck’’ Hamler, the last surviving member of “Merrill’s Marauders,” passed away on December 26, 2023 at the age of 99. The Marauders, led by Brigadier General Frank Merrill, formally designated as Composite Unit Provisional 5307 or Unit Galahad, were the progenitors of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. In World War II, Merrill’s Marauders were the elite shock troops and jungle warfare specialists who conducted deep raids behind Imperial Japanese lines across the Battlefields of Burma, while also executing advanced reconnaissance, intelligence collection, and other special warfare operations… During the time when special operations and clandestine warfare remained in their contemporary infancy, Hamler was a pioneer and plank-holder for the Modern Rangers.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.