Friday News Roundup — March 11, 2022
Friday greetings from Washington, D.C. Last night’s Senate passage of a $1.5 trillion omnibus package brings to an end the partisan haggling over spending levels and the worries of government shutdowns. Still, there is the cost of continuing resolutions and the inability to fund the government on time.
Now headed to President Biden’s desk, the package also includes $14 billion in aid for Ukraine and other U.S. allies in Europe. Shocking scenes of wholesale destruction, including the bombing of a children’s hospital demonstrate the depravity of the Kremlin and its war machine. The horrifying images raise our outrage, and our frustration at how little can be done in light of the greater horrors that runaway escalation in this conflict could bring. In this week’s roundup, Ethan discusses the paths of escalation and how to thread the needle of supporting Ukraine and protecting civilians, while avoiding the pathway to World War III.
In The Hill, Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs Director, Joshua C. Huminski argued that the West needs to be smart, cautious, and creative in its policy towards Russia in Ukraine to avoid escalation and unintended “own goals”. He later joined the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show to discuss his op-ed.
For the Diplomatic Courier, Joshua reviewed “War Transformed” by Major General Mick Ryan (Australian Army, ret.). Ryan, in contrast with other military analysts, focused more on transformation via ideas, institutions, and people, and less on technology. “War Transformed” also explored what would not change in war, as much as what could change in the future.
In this week’s roundup, in addition to Ethan’s analysis, Wes looks at the lethal aid being given by the U.S. and its allies to Ukraine. Dan analyzes how Russia’s invasion and our response mark a turning point for a globalized world — one that matters for U.S.-China relations. We wrap with news you may have missed.
Finally, we say farewell to our intern Evelyn Jimenez, thanking for her roundup contributions and wishing her the best of luck in the future!
Here is how to escalate the war in Ukraine
Ethan Brown
Russia continues to press the limits of inhumanity during this crisis in Ukraine — while refugee caravans were attempting to flee the warzone under the alleged protection of ceasefires, artillery shells created bodies out of innocent civilians. Russia, for its part, has never felt compulsion to adhere to humane methods of warfare, where carpet bombings and scorched earth tactics tattooed the conflicts in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Chechnya in the 1990s, and Syria in the 21st century. The actions taken to inflict harm on other human beings who are victims of war cannot and should not be taken lightly, nor should such actions be met with a lack of consequences.
However, a no-fly zone is not the cure-all to influencing Russian military or political behavior, and is a tool of military strategy that is not understood in public discourse, shockingly being bandied about as the miracle response to these atrocities taking place. A no-fly zone can only be achieved when certain criteria are realistically capable of being met, which they certainly are not in Ukraine skies, and only taken under specific circumstances that favor the state implementing the order. Sealing off airspace is similar to directing a blockade, the latter of which is indeed considered an act of war — one whose purpose is intended to deprive an adversary of its basic needs and functions.
In history, consider some successful no-fly zones and their parameters:
Operation Deny Flight (1993): Established by NATO over Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia to prevent the genocidal attacks against ethnic Minority Muslims by the Bosnian Serb regime. NATO possessed overwhelming air superiority, mass, and the crisis there had already been under the Atlantic alliance and UN peacekeeping purview following the atrocities taking place against minority Muslims. This was only after thousands upon thousands of civilians were butchered and brutally repressed.
Operation Northern/Southern Watch (1990s): Implemented to dissuade Saddam Hussein’s violent oppression and airstrikes against minority Kurds in Northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the South, an option only achievable due to the degraded nature of Iraqi air defenses following the Gulf War in 1991. The purpose of the no-fly zones there was to “control and contain the Saddam Hussein regime and pressure the regime to comply with applicable UN Security Council Resolutions”. The no-fly zone remained largely in effect up to the second invasion in 2003, with occasional challenges by surface to air missiles and rare air intercepts.
What do these examples all have in common? For one thing, overwhelming advantage in aerial capabilities that essentially left the air-blocked country powerless to do anything to react — to do so would have resulted in swift and overwhelming repercussions which none of the aggressors were willing to risk. Further, those wars…rampant bloody acts doomed from the outset…were a gambit for which the aggressors were in a losing race against time for international responses to their actions. The outcome in Ukraine, at least insofar as the ground war and assault on Kyiv is concerned, remains very much in doubt even as global response through sanctions, financial and institutional excommunication, and further isolation of the Russian state has yet to really manifest in ways which will surely become more acute in the coming weeks and months. The point being, the consequences of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine will become more painful for the state apparatus and Russian populace in the near future, which begs the question why an act of overt, confrontational aggression like a no-fly zone, is lobbied for with such vigor.
How would a no-fly zone spark a conflict?
For one thing, any interdiction of Russian aircraft by NATO antagonists is just one more opportunity for a small gesture to be misinterpreted — The Gulf of Tonkin incident cemented its legacy in history as a phantom battle (a radar screen on a Navy warship incorrectly identified blips as enemy ships and gunfire) which plunged the United States into a bloody confrontation that spanned administrations and cost the lives of thousands of U.S. service members across more than a decade of poor strategy and failed policy decisions.
Flying an airplane is difficult even under ideal conditions, and the intensity of flying in an active warzone sends every nerve to guitar string-like tension. The errant stray of one sortie, too close to Russian sovereign airspace could be misconstrued as an act of counter-aggression. Most of Ukraine is already within range of the incredibly sophisticated Russian surface-to-air defense inventory, and if lessons from Crimea are to be learned, whatever personnel are manning many of those SAM sites have impatient trigger fingers. And the moment that a Western aircraft was shot at, let alone actually being shot out of the sky, is the inevitable next step into full-scale conflict.
The perception of direct aid to Ukrainian forces by NATO aircraft (flown by NATO personnel) — targeting, airstrikes, intelligence collection (which, of course, is already being executed en masse), would alone serve as an indication that NATO was prepared to confront Russian military activities tit for tat. To boot, The counterpoint one might offer is that the only purpose is to prevent Russian aircraft from committing further atrocities, but without actually interdicting those Russian aircraft in the act…what good is a no-fly zone?
More options for creating a shooting war between Russia and the West
Aircraft being shipped into Ukraine by NATO members, to be flown by Ukrainian pilots, is a fool’s errand, because it arms Putin with disinformation ammo to point to American intervention and escalation is sure to follow. Providing supplies, emergency aid, field-expedient infrastructure is one thing, even sending supplies that are military in nature (uniforms, small arms, ammunition, communications equipment) is one thing, sending combat aircraft is a whole new level of escalation entirely.
And one of my most contemptuous soap-boxes: a remote war against targets not vetted by ground intelligence and forward coordination. Fortunately, no lingo in any existing Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) on record today empowers the U.S. government to engage in wanton airstrikes against another state or its military in the Russian vein. Drones and other remote systems have taken center stage in this conflict — something of keen interest to myself and much of the team here at the Center, but these are starkly different from the U.S. waging an over-the-horizon campaign on a peer-adversary like Russia.
Now of course, the vague generalities afforded under Title 50 operations still gives some legal wiggle room for operations intended to enable intelligence collection and counterintelligence, the scope of which is often broadly interpreted, but to the administration’s credit (at least as far as we know publicly), those authorities have yet to be abused in such a fashion. Title 50 of the U.S. code authorizes the federal government to “Conduct Intelligence activities…for the purpose of collection of information obtained in the course of a lawful foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, or other investigation”. If you’ve never read the U.S. Code, Title 50 and its 40+ chapters, the wide-ranging authorities granted therein to the executive might be surprising to say the least.
Suggesting that operating in the shadows of this war in its early phases, as some have opined, and using the diverse clandestine apparatus to do so when legitimate and transparent responses to Russian aggression are underway from a (mostly) unified global front, is another clumsy gambit to help the West stumble into an all-out conflict. Now as time moves on, there is potentially an argument (albeit a ruthless one) for helping Ukraine in the same way that we helped the Afghan mujahideen — forcing Russia into a protracted war of insurgency, death by a thousand cuts, just as we endured in Afghanistan ourselves. This sobering realist theory scarcely passes the moral sniff test, and we aren’t that far down this road yet. Hopefully it never gets there either, and if it does, those are the kinds of miserable choices that Russia clearly hasn’t hesitated to make.
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Of course, there is a human empathy component to this terrible situation — we are watching the news cycle as reports of Russian atrocities mount each day. Civilians die in war, and we — rational humans who should not and do not want to see it continue — want immediate steps taken to stop the bloodshed and violence. But war is a bloody and terrible affair, and there are never comfortable or easy solutions. The hard decisions then, are patience and avoiding these kinds of escalatory actions and letting the legitimate actions take hold.
Lethal Aid to Ukraine Defies Historical Precedent
Wesley Culp
Some of the most vaunted elements of the collective West’s response to Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine have come in the form of hard-power support Ukraine. Billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment has already been delivered to the Ukrainian armed forces from a variety of countries, ranging from state-of-the-art Turkish Bayraktar drones to infantry anti-air and armor weapons. There have, however been logistical and political challenges, illustrated by the logistical and political hurdles surrounding Poland’s proposal to transfer of Soviet-legacy MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine. Looming beyond NATO and Western support for Ukraine’s military is the question of whether such transfers are perceived in Moscow as Western entry into the war — and whether there is a risk or not of Russian retaliation. While the outcome of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is yet to be decided, history will likely record how swift and comprehensive lethal aid to Ukraine was after years of reluctance to provide the same support.
The surprise announcement from Warsaw that Poland would deliver its fleet of MiG-29 fighter aircraft to the U.S.-controlled Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for eventual transfer to Ukraine has been one of the most puzzling incidents of the West’s effort to support Ukraine. The MiG-29s are Soviet-era airframes which the Ukrainian Air Force already has operational experience with. After Poland’s announcement, the United States was quick to pour cold water over the proposition on the grounds that transferring military aircraft from a U.S. airbase in Germany to Ukraine by air could be seen by Moscow as a sharply escalatory move. Even more confusing, the U.S. refusal came days after the EU foreign affairs chief declared that the EU would facilitate the transfer of Polish, Slovakian, and Bulgarian MiG-29s to Ukraine, only for Warsaw, Bratislava, and Sofia to reject any participation in such a scheme.
Legacy Soviet fighter aircraft are not the only high-tech support being supplied to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. On Wednesday, the British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the United Kingdom is considering providing Starstreak anti-air missiles to Ukraine. The Starstreak system is one of the most advanced anti-air systems currently available, and is capable of shooting down low-flying fixed wing, helicopter, and unmanned aircraft. Future deliveries of Starstreak systems would join the large quantities of Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAWs) and Javelin anti-tank systems currently being provided to the Ukrainian armed forces in significant numbers by the UK and United States. Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee saw NSA Director Paul Nakasone attest that the United States is providing the Ukrainian military with “actionable intelligence” applicable to combat operations, indicating that significant tools of the U.S. intelligence community are supporting Ukraine’s homeland defense.
Not all support provided to Ukraine has been “high-tech” in nature. The proposed government spending package as passed by the United States House of Representatives on Wednesday includes $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine, including $4 billion for support to internally displaced Ukrainians, $2.5 billion for USAID to provide food and health care to Ukrainians, and $1.4 billion to support migrants and refugees moving out of Ukraine. In addition, the EU allocated $547 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine as millions of Ukrainian refugees continue to enter the EU through Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Even continued Russian partners such as Kazakhstan and China have offered humanitarian aid to Ukraine, albeit at in more symbolic quantities.
While Russia has not forcefully retaliated against the West’s overt support for Ukraine against Moscow’s invasion, the Kremlin has signaled that it does not take the delivery of lethal aid to Ukraine lightly. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned Western lethal aid deliveries as “dangerous” on Thursday and accused Western capitals of violating their own principles and morals. This echoes President Putin’s warning to the outside world on the eve of his invasion of Ukraine that those who sought to “interfere” with his attack would face unparalleled consequences for their actions. With that said, Russia has not directly challenged the flow of weapons from the West to Ukraine. Moscow has also not retaliated against NATO countries which border Ukraine which have served as conduits for lethal aid support to Kyiv.
Whatever the outcome of the MiG-29 saga may be, the sheer volume of lethal aid provided to Ukraine already is unprecedented in NATO’s relationship with its non-NATO Eastern European neighbors. The scale of the West’s support for Ukraine is itself new territory for Western decision-makers. Moscow’s reaction to the West’s support campaign for Ukraine in its existential battle against Russia’s invasion may still be on the horizon, as Russian battlefield commanders have faced significant setbacks because of the proliferation of Western weapons systems on the battlefield.
A Fork-in-the-Road for the Globalization
Dan Mahaffee
With Russian tanks streaming into Ukraine and the Western world disconnecting decades’-built economic ties with Russia in the matter of days, war has shocked the globalized system. Assumptions and platitudes about peace and economic interdependence mean little when despots harmonize historic and nationalist grievances into the drumbeat for war. Russia’s invasion has provoked a fork-in-the-road for the global system, and one that will also shape the path of U.S.-China relations.
What Russia’s assault on Ukraine finally did was to bring the broader conflict that Putin has with the west to the level of what we consider conflict. For years, the Kremlin attacked the west, probing our defenses with their state-affiliated hackers, unleashing assassins using chemical and radiological weapons in our cities, shooting down a civilian airliner, shoring up the Assad regime, and, lest we forget, already invading Ukraine. Despite this, there was little in the way of consequences. It is the same story half a world away of course, where Beijing also hacks our infrastructure, steals our intellectual property, launches a genocide against the Uyghurs, brutally represses Hong Kong, and sharpens its sword pointed at Taiwan — a sword pointed at the heart of the world’s technological supply chains.
In building economic ties with Russia and China, there was the assumption that economic engagement would drive their political reform. Revenue, and the opportunity for more of it, was more than enough to distract from how we’ve made ourselves vulnerable to economic blackmail and set aside our values. Now, with Putin’s horrors broadcast to the world, western governments and businesses have reached for tools once thought heavily debated or even controversial — e.g. SWIFT unplugging, energy sanctions, wholesale withdrawal from the Russian market — and rapidly demonstrated that a country can be quickly disconnected from the global economy.
This is a turning point in history, demonstrating the end of this era of globalization, and as a result, presenting a fork-in-the-road for U.S.-China relations. First, in terms of globalization, we are accelerating the split between a U.S.- and allied-led commercial and technological systems and those of the world’s authoritarians. Mind you, this is a historic first and the consequences are unfolding in real time, but the precedent is set for disconnecting a major world power from our markets, trade, and technology. China has been working to build its own economic frameworks and architectures to compete with ours, while also exploring how to insulate its economy from the tools we have now deployed against the Russian economy.
Thus, we arrive at the fork-in-the-road in U.S.-China relations, and much will depend on how events unfold in Beijing and Washington. The growing affinity between Beijing and Moscow extended before this invasion, but China’s next steps will tell us much. Looking at internal politics, as Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on power, the influence of commercial and economic voices has waned — both in government reshuffles and his crackdown on high-profile entrepreneurs and major tech companies. Economic reformers — who understand how China has benefited from trade and commerce in a global economy — hold less influence than those who see China’s interests in terms of geopolitical competition. In Washington, we are adopting policies that also recognize the realities of our near-term economic interdependence with China with our needs for future national security and economic prosperity. Already, the past trade deal with China looks to be falling apart, and a hawkish approach to Beijing is a rare point of bipartisan agreement in Washington.
As tensions rise in the Pacific, let the consequences of what we see in Russia and the west’s response serve as a template for our policies to make it clear to Beijing that there is no military solution to Taiwan that China can afford. In the absence of making that clear, I am afraid the lessons-learned by Beijing will be: A) accelerate the decoupling of the Chinese economic system from the west and B) any invasion of Taiwan must be quick and brutal as to present Taiwan and the world with a fait accompli before any response can be mustered.
The spikes in energy and food prices, the concerns of famine and economic disruption, the shocks to supply chains and resulting inflation — all together these illustrate how unprovoked aggression and the breakdown of the global order have a cost both in quality of living, and tragically, the toll of lives lost. If we are settling into a long period of conflict and uncertainty, there will be a material difference from what we once took for granted. Here there will be another fork-in-the-road, this time in our hearts, minds, and politics.
As these conflicts will likely drag on, there will be pressure to return to normal or find some accommodation. For Europe, it is one thing to say you will no longer use Russian energy — finding the alternatives and building the infrastructure is another. This conflict shows how the developing world is dependent on Ukrainian harvests; so too are we in the United States dependent on China and Taiwan for far, far more. It is easy to stand up for our values when the cost is only rhetoric. Will our leaders employ their rhetoric to explain to us what is at stake, even as we shoulder higher prices? Will we understand that the prosperity and freedom coming from a world at peace cannot coexist with a system where despots can upend it at their whim?
News You May Have Missed
Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act Passes Senate With Unanimous Vote
With a 422–3 vote in the House of Representatives, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act moved to the Senate on Monday, March 9th, 2022, where it earned a unanimous vote. With President Joe Biden’s signature, the long-overdue act will make lynching a federal hate crime. The NAACP defines lynching as the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. The legislation was named in honor of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year old who was murdered by a white mob in Mississippi in 1955. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) states “The first anti-lynching legislation was introduced a century ago, and after so long, the Senate has now finally addressed one of the most shameful elements of this nation’s past by making lynching a federal crime”. According to the bill, a crime can be prosecuted as lynching when the offender intends to commit a hate crime that results in death or inflicts serious injuries. The offender can be sentenced to 30 years in prison for committing crimes relating to kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault or an attempt to kidnap, abuse, or kill. While the bill does not forgive or erase past injustices, it carries symbolic weight, and the hope is that it will assist in decreasing future hate crimes and discrimination.
Russian Sanction Demands Endanger Iran Nuclear Talks
Talks on Iran’s nuclear program have continued in Vienna amid the backdrop of Western sanctions severing most of the remaining links between the West and Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the future viability of the talks have been called into question by surprise Russian demands for guarantees that Russian businesses in Iran be exempt from any U.S. and EU sanctions. The United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and China have all expressed skepticism that such demands will be able to be accommodated. External expectations that a final deal was close prior to Russia’s invasion have been shattered, as Russia seeks to inject the topic of sanctions imposed on Russia into the talks. Iran is particularly eager to secure a quick return to an international deal on its nuclear program in order to take advantage of high oil prices triggered by Russia’s invasion.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.