Credible Defense

Submission Statement

The United States has embarked upon a wide-ranging campaign to refresh and deepen alliances all across the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS is perhaps the most concrete of those thus far. While its signature accomplishment is the procurement of nuclear submarines for Australia(Pillar 1), the initiative also involves knowledge and technology sharing across a wide spectrum of fields, including quantum and AI(Pillar 2). This interview serves to lay down some of the goals for the AUKUS partnership and the future progress needed to realize those goals.

This seems to be a transcript of an actual interview that happened live and was presumably recorded. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a video of the interview. If someone can find it I would be grateful!

Key Takeaways:

-Interoperability and interchangeability are watchwords for AUKUS programs. The AUKUS submarines will be shared between two nations and will have many components common to US submarines as well.

-The Admiral is still vague on where Virginia class subs that will be sold to Australia will come from. Maybe stockpiles, maybe new production. It sounds very contingent on whether the US shipyards currently building Virginias can hit their targets soon.

-AUKUS Pillar 2(tech sharing) has received interest from a range of nations, and both individuals were open to incorporating other nations based on their ability to contribute to the various fields encompassed.

-The first group of Australian submariners will graduate from the Nuclear Power School this week.

-The spy balloon incident highlighted the lack of military-military channels between the US and China.

-Pillar 2 has already had concrete achievements in AI and UAV technology but is still in a very preliminary stage.

Admiral Gilday is the son of a navy sailor and the 32nd Chief of Naval Operations. A surface warfare officer, he is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds master’s degrees from Harvard Kennedy School and the National War College.

Dr. Kurt Campbell serves as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the National Security Council. He was previously chairman and chief executive officer of The Asia Group.

AUKUS, as you can tell, is an extraordinarily ambitious program, and we're just beginning to understand the scale of those ambitions. This means investments into our own and our allies' systems, a real linking of Asian and European allies, an integration—to a larger degree—of our industrial capabilities. The ambition of this undertaking has grown commensurately with the scale of the challenge that we are all presented with. AUKUS was undertaken against the backdrop of a deteriorating security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, specifically, centering around the explosive growth of China's military capabilities and the increasingly aggressive use to which those military capabilities are put. Those two trends have heightened security concerns in the region and motivated AUKUS members to begin aligning their strategies and respond to the challenges posed by Beijing.

We're going to talk today largely about AUKUS. But there's the Quad. There are trilateral engagements that we've undertaken in Northeast Asia. We've sought to build on closer ties with Japan, with South Korea, with the Philippines. You will have seen last week, I think, a pretty substantial diplomatic initiative to open a much closer period of strategic orientation and partnership between the United States and India.

CNAS takes a critical look at the current state of the US munitions stockpile and finds a number of improvements that could improve the volume and stability of the munitions supply chain. While the article itself is a good summary of the findings, the report it is based on is attached at the bottom of the article and is worth looking into as well. It goes into quite a bit more detail, breaking out the status of stockpiles and supply chains for various munitions, as well as comparing the status of those supplies to the goals laid out in NDS 2022.

Stacie Pettyjohn is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at CNAS. Her areas of expertise include defense strategy, posture, force planning, the defense budget, and wargaming.

Ultimately, the state of the industrial base will make or break whether the United States can produce enough weapons to realize the NDS. The war in Ukraine has shed light on serious deficiencies in the United States’ ability to quickly surge production of key weapons. To bolster industry, the DoD is pursuing the multiyear procurement (MYP) and large lot procurement (LLP) programs for several key PGMs. These programs will yield cost savings, but their primary benefit is strategic. MYP and LLP will strengthen the industrial base, providing industry with the stability it needs to expand production capacity. A healthy missiles-and-munitions industrial base enables the United States to counter Russia and will be a powerful deterrent to China.

Despite the progress that the FY24 budget makes in realizing the NDS by filling in critical gaps in the PGM portfolio, there remain significant shortfalls in stockpile depth and in industrial capacity. The DoD’s inventory of key PGMs, especially standoff weapons, maritime strike PGMs, and air defense interceptors remains too small to blunt an initial invasion, let alone prevail in a protracted conflict against China. It will take years to rebuild American stocks to pre-2022 levels for some of the PGMs given to Ukraine. Moreover, there is a risk that these plans do not come to fruition because of service or congressional pushback against the MYP and LLP programs. More can and should be done to address these deficiencies.

For the DoD, the authors make the following recommendations:

Make key conventional PGMs a separate reporting category and create a process that ensures a joint perspective is taken on key PGMs in each budget cycle.

Continue to buy long-range weapons, but also develop more medium-range weapons for the pacing threat. The DoD must seek an affordable mix appropriate for different U.S. delivery platforms.

Continue to invest in maritime strike from all domains. The Air Force should follow through on projected buys of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) and Joint Strike Missile (JSM). The Army and Marine Corps should accelerate development and procurement of weapons such as the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST), the SM-6, and the long-range Land-Based Anti-Ship Missile (LBASM) that increase their ability to project power in the Pacific. Likewise, the Navy should continue to buy the Mk-48 heavyweight torpedo as well as SM-6 multirole missiles.

Continue to invest in an integrated and layered system of air defenses that includes a high-low mix that can be purchased in quantities sufficient to counter the Chinese threat. Specifically, the Army needs more of the affordable interceptors intended for air and cruise missile defense.

Embrace MYP for key conventional PGMs to provide a consistent demand signal to industry.

For Congress, the authors make the following recommendations:

Mandate that the DoD provides a report on key conventional PGM procurement annually and an assessment of its progress toward its stockpile requirements.

Continue to provide supplemental appropriations to support key weapons that will be needed for Ukraine and other allies and partners, which the NDS says are a center of gravity. Appropriate funds for the proposed MYP and LLP programs.

Consider making MYP for munitions a normal authority, expanding its use, and appropriating funds for these efforts.

Submission Statement

In addition to being just a genuinely excellent work of journalism, this article possesses both tactical and strategic insights into the war in Ukraine. Tactically speaking, this article is a soft acknowledgment that, despite armored vehicle aid being provided by the West, Ukraine continues to make heavy use of dismounted infantry and small-unit tactics. I'm skeptical of the article's claim that this was intended to keep the movement low profile--judging by the description of the defenses, even a small amount of armor would have been massively helpful in clearing the village quickly. Rather, this is likely a function of limited stockpiles of such vehicles and emphasizes the need for greater mobility aid to be donated by Western partners. Another point of interest is the coordination of soldiers and artillery by drone operators. The operators were the link between soldiers on the ground and their artillery support. Drones and drone operations as the nerve center of the Ukrainian offensive have been mentioned before but I found it interesting that the description given here implies that drones are the key to Ukraine's flexible and responsive reconnaissance/fires complex.

Another tactic mentioned here is artillery-based demining operations. Specifically, the article describes the (probably unguided) artillery barrage as being intended to destroy mines scattered around the outside of the village. While this makes intuitive sense(the pressure from the blast should detonate mines within a certain radius of the shell's impact) I had not heard of this tactic before. On the subreddit, there was a recent question about the feasibility of artillery-based demining and users seemed skeptical of its efficacy. From the way the article describes it, the tactic is at least plausible enough that the Ukrainians attempted it here.

Strategically speaking, the forces described here are interesting. 70 Ukrainian TDF soldiers(plus 20 or so reinforcements) vs. 150 Russians and an unknown number of Storm Z. First off, this is further confirmation that TDF has been mostly subsumed into the broader military structure as opposed to being linked to their home territories. Secondly, the Ukrainians were apparently told to expect 20 or so enemies. It's a major ISR failure that troops walked into a force concentration 10 times that. By all rights, this battle should have been a bloody failure, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are other villages where that was the case. As it was, the attack was stopped in its tracks until developments on the front nearby forced the Russians to leave their position. Tactical intelligence sharing would be massively helpful in these cases. I have no doubt that US ELINT and SATINT would have been more than capable of accurately assessing the force concentrations in the area. It's a low-cost, low-profile intervention that would save Ukrainian lives and enable their offensive operations massively. Frankly, I'm a bit mystified that it's not happening already. Third, this is another blow against the idea that the victories of this counteroffensive are happening in the "grey zone" of the Russian occupation. The Russians are clearly deploying their troops forward of their entrenchments and fighting for every inch of land. That might(emphasis on "might") mean that Ukraine has an easier task ahead of it than those red-line maps imply.

A final, extremely speculative note: the casualty assessment reported here is positive for Ukraine. More than 12 Russian casualties vs. probably about 24 or so Ukrainian casualties (6 dead, 1:3 KIA/WIA ratio) implies that Ukrainians are overperforming the assumption that the attacker takes 3 times as many casualties as the defender. Obviously, this is very speculative. Casualty estimates are always unreliable, especially when talking about such a tiny sliver of the battlefield. There are certainly areas where the ratio is equally lopsided in favor of the Russians. But it's an interesting data point that I wanted to at least mention.

These aren't all the takeaways. I strongly recommend reading through the article as a whole.

The Ukrainian soldiers thought the Russians would quickly retreat from Neskuchne, a tiny village in southern Ukraine, especially after a concerted artillery barrage and a rocket strike on their headquarters.

Instead, the Russians dug in, fighting for two days before giving up the village last month, leaving their dead decaying on the roadside and piles of expended ammunition around their makeshift defenses.

The Russian defeat, on June 9, was Ukraine’s first win in a prolonged counteroffensive that is well into its fourth week but moving at a slower pace than expected. In that respect, the battle for Neskuchne served as an early warning that Kyiv’s and the Western allies’ hopes for a quick victory were unrealistic and that every mile of their drive into Russian-occupied territory would be grueling and contested.

Submission Statement

Part of the reason indigenous production is so attractive to countries is that once an assembly line shuts down, it can take significant investment to reopen. Workers develop best practices and optimizations to make their tasks more efficient, many of which are lost when they move on to other positions or retire. At best, losing that knowledge can result in slower production. At worst, a critical unwritten rule can be the difference between a part working or failing. This article provides a good example of the effort required to restart a production line.

Marcus Weisgerber is the global business editor for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security.

Raytheon has called in retired engineers to teach its employees how to build the Stinger missiles heavily used by Ukraine’s military—using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration.

It’s the latest example of a private company working to ramp up production of a now-in-demand weapon that the Pentagon hasn’t purchased in decades.

“Stinger's been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it's the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of RTX’s Raytheon division, said during an interview last week at the Paris Air Show.

When the U.S. Army placed an order for 1,700 Stingers in May 2022, the Pentagon said the missiles wouldn’t be delivered until 2026. Kremer said it will take about 30 months for Stingers to start rolling off of the production line largely because of the time it takes to set up the factory and train its employees.

On top of that, the electronics used in the missile are obsolete, said RTX CEO Greg Hayes.

“We're redesigning circuit cards [and] redesigning some of the componentry,” Hayes told Defense One in a June 14 interview. “That just takes a long time.”

While engineers these days often tout 3D printing and automation as a way to speed up the manufacturing process, that’s not possible with the Stinger—because doing so would not only mean redesigning the weapon, but also undergoing a lengthy weapon certification process.

“You'd have to redesign the entire seeker in order to automate it,” Kremer said.

That means they must build the weapons the same way they were built four decades ago: including installing the missile’s nose cone by hand.

Submission Statement

The shift towards UAVs as wing"men" for pilots was mentioned in a previous submission. Now, the UK seems to be trending in the same direction, looking to add catapult capabilities and a suite of unmanned aircraft to its carrier complement.

Frankly, this seems a bit like a waste, especially when the Prince of Wales remains stranded in drydock with a constantly slipping date for its return to service and dogged by rumors that it is being stripped for parts to sustain its sister ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth. It's hard to imagine that a handful of bespoke drones(that will likely be competing with F-35Bs for limited hangar space) outweigh the additional capabilities that would be granted by sustaining an additional STOVL carrier. Perhaps the MOD anticipates a sustained surge in funding due to the war in Ukraine, but I'm skeptical of that as well. As the course of the war becomes increasingly well-defined, the risks to the UK will become easier for politicians to brush aside. Any increased funding will have to go toward rebuilding stockpiles before it can be splurged on pricey upgrades.

Richard Scott is a well-known U.K.-based writer on the Royal Navy and other naval forces worldwide.

The U.K. Royal Navy is studying the introduction of aircraft launch and recovery systems onboard its two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers to “open up” the flight deck to a broader range of crewed and uncrewed air systems.

Speaking at the Defence Leaders’ Combined Naval Event 2023 conference in Farnborough on May 24, U.K. Royal Marine Col. Phil Kelly, the head of carrier strike and maritime aviation within the Royal Navy’s Develop Directorate, outlined a plan to retrofit the arresting gear and assisted launch equipment as part of a broader Future Maritime Aviation Force (FMAF) vision. FMAF is a multi-strand program exploring the widespread fielding of uncrewed aviation across the surface fleet, with a specific focus on future carrier aviation.

In its current configuration, the Queen Elizabeth-class flight deck arrangement – with a 12.5 degree ski-ramp fitted forward and a vertical recovery deck offset to port – has been shaped by the operation and support of a single fixed-wing aircraft type: the F-35B Lightning II short takeoff vertical landing Joint Strike Fighter. No assisted launch or arresting machinery is installed.

According to Col Kelly, one strand of FMAF – known as Project Ark Royal – is exploring options for the phased introduction of aircraft launch and recovery equipment to enable the operation of high-performance uncrewed strike and support systems, and potentially fixed-wing crewed aircraft.

“We are looking to move from STOVL to STOL [short takeoff and landing], then to STOBAR [short takeoff but arrested recovery] and then to CATOBAR [catapult-assisted takeoff but arrested recovery]. We are looking at a demonstrable progression that spreads out the financial cost and incrementally improves capability,” Kelly said.

The first step would be to increase the available length for the unassisted launch of uncrewed air systems.

“This November we will [launch] a Mojave [STOL] aircraft off the angle of the flight deck off the U.S. east coast,” said Col Kelly. “This aircraft can take off in 300 feet of runway, so enough for the trial, [but] we have already undertaken design work to add sponsons and make a full run of 700 feet available.”

The next stage would be to introduce a recovery system into the Queen Elizabeth design. The large fixed-wing UAS envisaged under FMAF – a persistent capability known as Vixen – is expected to depend on some form of arrestment for recovery.

A final step would be to add an assisted launch system. “Adding catapults would allow us to operate the heaviest aircraft you can imagine,” Kelly said.

USNI News understands that various assisted launch and recovery system options have already been reviewed under Project Ark Royal. These include the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear equipment delivered by General Atomics for the U.S. Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers, and the U.K.’s own Electro Magnetic Kinetic Induction Technology demonstrator, developed by GE Power Conversion.

The FMAF plan remains pre-decisional at this stage. The U.K. is continuing to explore capabilities, undertake experimentation and gather evidence in order to inform its next Integrated Review in 2025.

Submission Statement

From the Wikipedia article on mission command: Mission command, also referred to as mission-type tactics, is a style of military command, which is derived from the Prussian-pioneered mission-type tactics doctrine, combines centralized intent with decentralized execution subsidiarity, and promotes freedom and speed of action, and initiative within defined constraints. Subordinates, understanding the commander's intentions, their own missions, and the context of those missions, are told what effect they are to achieve and the reason that it needs to be achieved.

While in theory this form of command is widely adopted by Western militaries in practice political objectives and commanding officers' own tendency to micromanage often end up constraining subordinates to narrow courses of action. This article details a particularly salient case where the opposite occurred. NORDBAT2 was able to flaunt political constraints to carry out what it saw as the overarching mandate, contrasting with other UN forces at the time. This is an entertaining read that encapsulates the promise(and perils) of mission command.

Tony Ingesson is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lund University. His research is primarily focused on the political impact of tactical-decision-making and organizational cultures. He has previously served in the Swedish Army, Air Force and Navy.

In late 1993, a reinforced Swedish-Danish-Norwegian mechanized battalion (Nordbat 2) deployed to Bosnia as part of an ongoing UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force).[1] The battalion was under Swedish command, and with the exception of a Danish tank company and a Norwegian helicopter detachment, was comprised of Swedish former conscripts, led by active-duty officers. The former conscripts had volunteered to return from civilian life to serve in a professional capacity. These Swedish troops, coming from a nation that had not experienced war for almost 200 years, faced a rigid UN bureaucracy, an unclear mandate, and the UN-imposed rules of engagement bordered on the absurd.[2] However, the Swedes had one thing the others didn't: a culture of mission command that had grown and developed for decades.

To the surprise of many, even in Sweden, Nordbat 2 quickly established a reputation as one of the most trigger-happy UN units in Bosnia. The troops and officers from some of the least belligerent nations in the world turned out to be quite adept at both using force and playing the odds in a high-stakes political game. This article outlines how a well-entrenched culture of mission command enabled Nordbat 2 to take on completely new and unexpected situations with remarkable results. While this culture of mission command turned out to be a potent force multiplier and an exceptionally effective strategic asset, it also had another side: Nordbat 2 on multiple occasions utterly disregarded orders from its highest political authorities, to the frustration of the Swedish government.

In "The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach," Jörg Muth argues that the U.S. Army needs to understand the culture of mission command in order to implement it.[3] This article provides a brief case study of the tactical and strategic impact of one such culture. While the events described here occurred over twenty years ago, they are as relevant as ever to further our understanding of the strategic role of leadership culture in mission command.

The most essential component of mission command is trust. As long as political leaders can trust the local commander to make the right choices, mission command can be an incredibly powerful force multiplier. Even though Nordbat 2's first battalion commanders were very unpopular with the Swedish government for their refusal to take orders from home, they were nevertheless greeted as heroes upon their return and remain viewed so to this day. This meant the Swedish government did not have to deal with the political fallout of the otherwise failed UN mission. The Dutch government, for example, was hard-pressed by public opinion after the massacre at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. In 2002, the entire Dutch government was forced to resign over Srebrenica, after a detailed report blaming the government for the failure was released to the public.

While unrestrained mission command can be an effective tool, it also requires that political leadership relinquishes a significant degree of control. Thus, to be effectively harnessed in complex operational environments, the culture of mission command is one that has to be understood and to some extent shared by the civilian leadership as well as the military. This approach is clearly not without risk, but in a life-and-death scenario the basic rule of mission command remains relevant: it is better to make a mistake than to do nothing at all.

I’m trying this out on a purely experimental basis. Please strive to keep your discussions focused, courteous, and credible. Links to combat footage without significant further analysis will be removed. That sort of footage should be posted to [email protected].

Also, please report things which break the rules! It’s unlikely I’ll see everything that happens in a thread, so reporting is the best way to remove content that doesn’t fit our standards.

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Submission Statement

This 45 minute interview of two senior officers synthesizes some of their takeaways from a NATO meeting regarding lessons learned from Ukraine. Takeaways include:

-Air superiority is key to choking off logistics and ensuring fast victory. Russia failed to achieve this air superiority because of a lack of joint operations and failure to evolve beyond its platforms. Russia's air force's sum was less than its parts.

-Air access--use of air assets strategically in a contested environment for maximum effect.

-Building broad-based counter-A2AD capabilities in NATO is a major priority. Want to avoid brutal artillery slog like in Ukraine.

-Private space power is making access to space cheaper and more important than ever. Starlink has been critical for Ukrainian efforts, but other space capabilities have been important as well. Space is likely to grow more contested--it's key to develop defensive and offensive capabilities in this area. Commercial satellite imaging has democratized access and understanding of the war like never before.

-Low-end munitions(eg drones) + networking blur the line between unmanned systems and precision weapons.

-Collaborative Combat Aircraft will work with F-35s, including those of NATO partners. Idea is still being finalized, may include countermeasures, weapons load, sensors, etc. while being more expendable than a manned aircraft.

-Russians may see their cruise and ballistic missiles as an asymmetric advantage at the moment. A more complex air environment overall demands a more layered approach. Ex: unexpected resurgence of gun-based AD.

-Deeper magazine depths are critical, perhaps more important than being at the absolute cutting edge. Quantity gives leeway in being able to use capabilities more freely.

-Information sharing is another priority. US went from sharing 30 points of interest a month with NATO partners to sharing 3,000 a month with a stroke of a pen. More to be done in other areas, like F-35 info sharing.

-Dispersal of units is getting more focus. The rise of precision munitions means that aircraft must be dispersed across multiple airbases. Locations are changed to remain inside of the enemy's decision cycle.

This is a podcast, if you are looking for a similar resource in text form, I highly recommend RUSI's article "The Russian Air War and Ukrainian Requirements for Air Defence".

This episode comes to you from Ramstein Air Base, where Ryan spoke with Gen. James Hecker of the U.S. Air Force and Air Marshall Johnny Stringer of the Royal Air Force about what we can learn from airpower and spacepower almost a year and a half into the war in Ukraine.

Submission Statement

Russian society has historically failed at reintegrating veterans from their wars of expansion. This article lays out the ways in which the Russian healthcare system is failing veterans of the Ukraine War with trauma or injuries, and the possible long-term impacts of their inability to do so. There are also a few notes on the exact dynamics of Russia's partial mobilization which I had not known before, including that soldiers cannot be discharged are death, retirement, imprisonment, or medical discharge. In other words, contract soldiers whose deadlines for service have expired are being forced to fight on, which cannot be good for morale.

The author notes an interesting line taken by Russian propaganda by tying their service to WW2 imagery. This kind of framing is likely to be ineffective, given that many of those currently returning from the frontlines are former prisoners now terrorizing their communities. I would not be surprised if the negative connotations spread from these prisoners become the dominant stereotype of Russian veterans as a whole, further exacerbating the negative social effects described.

Dara Massicot is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Before joining RAND, she served as a senior analyst for Russian military capabilities at the Department of Defense.

Much attention in recent months has focused on Russia's faltering military offensive and staggering casualties in Ukraine. But there are other problems, largely unnoticed outside Russia, lurking for the country's armed forces and society more broadly. Russia's wartime military-personnel policies, instituted last September, temporarily prohibit active-duty and mobilized soldiers from leaving service. Russia faces a crisis in military retention and a larger social crisis of veteran mental-health disorders when these restrictions are lifted. Just as the terms “Afghan Syndrome” and “Chechen Syndrome” emerged to describe the plight of Russian veterans who lacked support and struggled to adapt to civilian life after those conflicts, it is only a matter of time before “Ukraine Syndrome” grips Russia, as thousands of veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other conditions return home.

Indefinite deployment and inadequate rest and rotation, due to a shortage of soldiers, mean that Russian soldiers endure prolonged exposure to combat stress, which intensifies feelings of resentment and helplessness. When these restrictions are lifted, and they will have to be eventually, the army could face large-scale resignations among officers and other professional soldiers, including those whose contracts expired while fighting in Ukraine. The mood among Russian troops in Ukraine is not easy to gauge, but anecdotal evidence—from social media, intercepted phone calls to families, officer accounts, and other sources—suggests that many are likely to resign as soon as it becomes possible.

Russian forces have sustained more casualties in the past 16 months than in a decade of war in Afghanistan in the 1980s or two campaigns in Chechnya in the 1990s. Casualty estimates vary, from official Russian numbers from late last year (just under 6,000 killed in action), to more than 23,000 confirmed military funerals, according to the BBC and Mediazona, to Western military estimates of 40,000–60,000 killed in action with 100,000–140,000 wounded. The higher estimates are staggering figures, with enormous implications for the future of Russian military power and for Russian society.

The Russian medical system is already straining, even though most Russian soldiers are still deployed. Many hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded. Some of those experiencing severe psychological trauma are discharged untreated.

Spending money on prosthetic limbs and psychiatrists is one thing, creating the right environment for treating PTSD quite another. Russian law was recently changed to criminalize statements seen as discrediting the armed forces. This could discourage returning troops from discussing their wartime traumas candidly, impeding their recovery. Russian authorities are using second-world-war iconography to cast veterans as heroes or liberators, but it is unclear if these efforts will lead to less social alienation than that experienced on their return by soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Symptoms of untreated combat trauma include increased risk of criminal behavior, substance abuse, domestic violence, and problems at work. These issues will be felt all across Russia when the soldiers return home. The domestic prestige of the armed forces, badly dented in the wake of those earlier conflicts, will once again be at risk.

Submission Statement

There's been a lot of discussion about Prigozhin's abortive uprising--probably too much if we're honest. However, I found this article by Alexander Burns still worth sharing. the article is a high-level contextualization of Prigozhin's coup and a comparison of its current state to possible historical analogs. Before reading this article I had been falling into the trap of comparing Prigozhin's rebellion to Soviet political machinations, or to the tsardom that preceded the USSR. However, I was convinced by the historian's argument that the rebellion bore more resemblance to feudal-era coups, and that's the comparison I think I'll lean toward in the future. The aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace in particular I think is very relevant here, especially given recent reporting that the criminal case against Prigozhin has not been dropped.

Alexander S. Burns is an assistant professor of history at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, studying the American Continental Army’s connection to European militaries. His edited volume, The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy, was published in 2022. You can follow him @KKriegeBlog.

Part of what held our attention stemmed from surprise. How could Putin’s Russia, a state famously run prioritizing loyalty over competence, be facing a coup? My doctoral advisor, Professor Katherine B. Aaslestad, had the answer. Before her passing in 2021, she constantly reminded her lecture halls and graduate seminars: “Regimes that choose war rarely achieve their goals at the outset. War has a way of changing the situation. War takes on a life of its own.” She most frequently said this in the context of the wars of the French Revolution, but it is the case across military history. While Spartan King Archidamus and Athenian Pericles reluctantly led Sparta and Athens into the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, neither was alive in 404 when the war ended. The political landscape had been totally reshaped by war, reshaping each side’s goals and objectives with it. We can observe a similar change in Russia today.

Despite all of the possible parallels in Russian history, I believe that the most interesting parallel to the current situation is the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion during Henry VIII’s reign in England.

In October of 1536, Catholic believers in the North of England rose in revolt against the church reforms of Henry VIII. Although their motivations were economic and religious, important similarities between these peasants and Prigozhin exist. They called their rebellion the Pilgrimage of Grace, trying to disguise it as a military movement. They insisted that their grievances lay not with the actions of the king, but with “persons of low birth and small reputation” who were, they claimed, advising him poorly.

Knowing that it would be difficult to stop the pilgrim army, which numbered in the tens of thousands, Henry VIII’s government chose to negotiate. The pilgrims were promised immunity, that a special parliament would meet and address their grievances, and that the king would agree to their immediate demands until the parliament met. Seizing upon a pretext to abandon this pledge, forces loyal to Henry then suppressed a new uprising and executed around two hundred leaders of the initial rebellion.

There are many similarities between Prigozhin’s uprising and the Pilgrimage. Prigozhin referred to the events of June 23rd to 24th as “марш справедливости” or “the March for Justice,” rather than a coup. He insisted that Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, not Putin, was at fault for the failures and that they deliberately misled Putin. Like the Pilgrimage of Grace rebelling against the “evil councillors” of Henry VIII, Prigozhin cloaked a formidable military effort to destabilize the state in language that suggested loyalty to the monarch. Likewise, once the initial emergency had passed, both Henry VIII and Putin appeared all too eager to change the terms of the deal. Although it initially seemed that Putin might have caved to Prigozhin’s demands for Shoigu’s removal, Putin appeared alongside his defense minister in a meeting on June 26th.

What comes next? I’ve previously argued that Prigozhin reminds me of a Freikorps Inhaber rather than Prince Wallenstein, and his possible fate of Belarussian exile reminds me of the story of Polish Prince Jerzy Marcin Lubomirski, a mercenary commander who had to stay one step ahead of his former employers. So where does this leave us? I’ll admit to being quite surprised by these developments, and echo my comments that historians should be historians, not ersatz policy commentators and predictors. History provides a range of possibilities from which to understand the present, and in history, unlike Putin’s Russia, we know where we are in the story. With that said, although cracks are appearing in the foundation of Putin’s Russia, Prigozhin will be lucky to avoid the fate of Pilgrimage of Grace leaders like Sir Robert Aske, who was hung in chains.

Submission Statement

Though this paper focuses on arms control through the lens of AI-enabled measures, I found it a useful primer on the dynamics of arms control more generally. While I don't believe AI meets the six criteria to be amenable to regulation, I can see a path for certain AI applications to be regulated via treaty. For example, mandates requiring a man-in-the-loop or man-on-the-loop seem to minimally disrupt weapon effectiveness, while greatly limiting the disruptive nature or "horribleness" of autonomous killers.

Paul Scharre is the Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS. He is the award-winning author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Megan Lamberth is a former Associate Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS. Her research focuses on U.S. strategy for emerging technologies and the key components of technology competitiveness, such as human capital, R&D investments, and norms building.

Watts identifies six criteria that he argues affect a weapon’s tolerance or resistance to regulation: effectiveness, novelty, deployment, medical compatibility, disruptiveness, and notoriety.11 An effective weapon that provides “unprecedented access” to enemy targets and has the capacity to ensure dominance is historically resistant to regulation. There is a mixed record for regulating novel weapons or military systems throughout history. Countries have pursued regulation of certain new weapons or weapons delivery systems (e.g., aerial bombardment) while also resisting regulation for other novel military systems (e.g., submarines). Weapons that are widely deployed—“integrated into States’ military operations”—tend to be resistant to arms control. Weapons that cause “wounds compatible with existing medical protocols” in military and field hospitals are historically difficult to ban or regulate. Powerful nations have historically tried to regulate or ban weapons that are “socially and militarily disruptive” out of fear that such weapons could upend existing global or domestic power dynamics. Campaigns by civil society groups or widespread disapproval from the public can increase notoriety, making a weapon potentially more susceptible to arms control.12

Whether arms control succeeds or fails depends on both its desirability and its feasibility. The desirability of arms control encompasses states’ calculation of a weapon’s perceived military value versus its perceived horribleness (because it is inhumane, indiscriminate, or disruptive to the social or political order). Thus, desirability of arms control is a function of states’ desire to retain a weapon for their own purposes balanced against their desire to restrain its use by their adversaries.

AI technology poses challenges for arms control for a variety of reasons. AI technology is diffuse, and many of its applications are dual use. As an emerging technology, its full potential has yet to be realized—which may hinder efforts to control it. Verification of any AI arms control agreement would also be challenging; states would likely need to develop methods of ensuring that other states are in compliance to be comfortable with restraining their own capabilities. These hurdles, though significant, are not insurmountable in all instances. Under certain conditions, arms control may be feasible for some military AI applications. Even while states compete in military AI, they should seek opportunities to reduce its risks, including through arms control measures where feasible.

Submission Statement

The destruction of the Kakhova Dam earlier this month has resulted in renewed anxiety that Russian occupation may result in the destabilization or destruction of Ukraines nuclear power infrastructure. Damage done to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant's facilities and Russia's continuing choice to use said plant as a base for military operations raises the specter of a nuclear disaster that could spread radiation across a broad swathe of Europe. Such an event could result in the triggering of Article 5, the collective defense clause of the NATO alliance. This article details possible Western policies that could decrease the likelihood of such an event occurring. Appealing to Russian economic interests as a major supplier of nuclear power infrastructure is an angle I had not considered before.

Ultimately, the only sustainable resolution to the threats facing the ZNPP is the withdrawal of Russian troops and personnel from the plant and the return of the facility to Ukrainian authorities. In the meantime, though, Ukraine’s partners should pursue four lines of effort to help to prevent a radiological incident at the plant.

First, pressure should be placed on Russian authorities and Rosatom management at the ZNPP to grant the International Atomic Energy Agency all requested access. This is critical to enable the agency to continue regular reporting on the status of the ZNPP’s operations — including the state of water levels and key support systems. While the agency may not always wish to publicize key thresholds, it should continue to warn of critical developments and correct alarmist narratives. The agency should also be empowered to report on any denial of access or failures to cooperate. While water supply remains a concern, it is also important that the agency consider and report on ways to minimize water usage at the plant. This should include exploring options for moving ZNPP’s unit five reactor from hot to cold shutdown as soon as this can be safely done.

Second, diplomatic pressure should be applied to create a deconfliction mechanism between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries to allow for the continued supply of water, diesel fuel, emergency equipment, and spare parts, as well as the rotation of workers and International Atomic Energy Agency personnel. This could be supervised by international observers who could identify any disruptions and establish responsibility for them. Moscow places considerable strategic and economic importance on its civilian nuclear sector and exports. With this in mind, appealing to Russia’s desire to maintain its reputation as a responsible nuclear operator may be one admittedly imperfect way of incentivizing cooperation. Stressing the damage that a radiological incident could have on the global nuclear sector and demands for the construction of new nuclear facilities worldwide might also help motivate Russia to keep the ZNPP operating safely.

Third, Ukraine’s partners should make clear to Russia that it does not stand to benefit from engineering — or carelessly permitting — an accident at the ZNPP. Russia does not want further involvement in the conflict from Ukraine’s partners and may calculate that a radiological incident would act as a deterrent or result in pressure on Ukraine to negotiate. Kyiv’s partners should stress to Moscow that they would respond to a radiological incident at the ZNPP by providing Ukraine with more — not less — support. The precise nature of that support would need to be negotiated among Ukraine’s allies and with Kyiv to ensure that it is credible.

Fourth, the attractiveness of manufacturing a radiological incident could be further decreased by reducing its likely impact on Ukrainian military forces. This could be achieved by providing them chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training and equipment to ensure that they have the right capabilities to respond to the situation. Czechia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, in particular, have considerable expertise in this area. By collaborating to provision and train Ukrainian forces, they could help to convince Russia that there would be little military utility in causing or allowing an accident at the ZNPP.

"War is the continuation of policy with other means."

Clausewitz's statement may be so broadly accepted as to be a truism, but the forces and motives which drive a nation to go to war remain topics of great debate and study. Many wars not only fail to advance a nation's goals but actively undermine or defeat them entirely. The 2002 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq sit within those ranks, having sapped US soft and hard power while delivering benefits that were questionable at best. Given its recency and cultural cachet, a number of thinkers have tried to discern the precise concerns that led the US to conclude that invading Iraq was necessary to achieve its policy goals. This article provides a useful summary of two of those camps, those that believe the US was motivated by concerns over its security, and those who believe it was driven by a desire to protect US hegemony. It makes an attempt at synthesizing the two schools and speaks to the implications of each interpretation on US policy. Finally, the authors call for broader and more culturally/globally inclusive scholarship on the war.

This article is an excellent resource for readers of all stripes. For novices, this is an excellent birds-eye view of the current state of Iraq War scholarship. Those who already have a strong inclination toward one of the two schools described will find valuable sources for broadening and adding depth to their understanding.

This article maps out the debate on the Iraq War’s origins as they have developed over the last 20 years. It aims to play honest broker between competing schools of thought, clearly laying out their interpretations, assessing points of tension, and factoring in the influences of politics and ideology on scholarship. Below, I will show how divergent interpretations of the war have emerged from the different lenses, methodologies, and objectives that scholars have brought to the table.

No single article can tackle every aspect of Iraq War scholarship. Thus, this essay focuses on three questions that are essential for explaining the war’s origins but that continue to divide scholars. First, was the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq driven more by the desire for security or the pursuit of primacy? Second, was the Bush administration’s decision to pursue “coercive diplomacy” in the fall and winter of 2002–2003 a genuine attempt to avoid war or a means to legitimize a decision for war made earlier in 2002? Third, how much did neoconservatives matter in the making of the Iraq War?

The first question — security vs. hegemony — constitutes the primary point of scholarly disagreement about the Iraq War. Security-focused explanations like those found in Leffler’s new book argue that the Bush administration’s primary motive was protecting the nation from future terrorist attacks in the transformed, post-9/11 environment in which threats like Iraq had to be re-evaluated.2 Scholars in the hegemony school like Ahsan Butt argue, in contrast, that the Bush administration used 9/11 and the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to justify a war that was motivated primarily by the desire for regional and/or global hegemony.3 Other important questions flow from this security-hegemony divide, including the nature of Bush’s coercive diplomacy strategy and the role of neoconservatives in causing the war.

A few caveats: This essay does not defend the existence of the security-hegemony divide nor take sides in this debate. Instead, it seeks to explain its parameters, evolution, and stakes. Some may object to this depiction of two broad interpretive camps as oversimplifying a vast body of nuanced scholarship. To address this problem, this article tries to identify possible means of synthesizing these interpretations. The security and hegemony camps do overlap in some ways, as discussed below, but this divide also reflects that scholars themselves have identified genuine differences about what set of factors drove the causal boat. Finally, this essay concludes with a plea for more global and cultural analysis of the Iraq War as a way to challenge this binary.

In sum, competing interpretations of the war’s origins are entwined with debates about its lessons. It is proper that scholars contest how this war should inform the future of U.S. foreign policy. Nonetheless, partisans in this debate risk filtering history through ideological prisms and using it to win arguments. Still, this article suggests that even as the United States refocuses toward great-power competition, the meanings and lessons of the Iraq War remain hotly contested and highly consequential for America’s global role. This is especially true as the generation that fought the Iraq and Afghanistan wars enters leadership positions in the military and politics. Their interpretations of that conflict will matter immensely for how they think and act, just as competing viewpoints about the Vietnam War mattered for that generation.

Submission Statement

Top leadership is under particular scrutiny during any war effort, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is no different. Sergei Shoigu(Russia's defense minister) and Valery Gerasimov(commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine) have received particular scrutiny for their roles in the Russian military's failures in Ukraine. This scrutiny escalated into crisis when Denis Prigozhin marched towards Moscow with Wagner PMC, allegedly as a response to failures by Shoigu and the MOD in Ukraine. This article by FT examines the fallout and immediate implications for Shoigu and Gerasimov in the wake of this attempted insurrection. Quotes from Dara Massicot and an anonymous insider provide valuable prognostication about the immediate future of the two. I was particularly struck by the point Massicot made, that(at least in the short term) Putin dismissing either of the two would be seen as having terms dictated to him by Prigozhin. It may be the case that this coup attempt has actually made it more likely that Shoigu and Gerasimov will continue in their positions, regardless of their lack of performance.

Max Seddon is the Moscow bureau chief at FT. Dara Massicot is a senior policy researcher at RANDCorporation focusing on defense issues in Russia.

There was no sound on the brief video of Sergei Shoigu published on Monday morning or any indication of where Russia’s defence minister was as he pored over a battlefield map.

But the seemingly mundane footage was the first evidence that Shoigu was still in his job. Neither he nor Valery Gerasimov, commander of Russia’s invasion force, have been seen in public since Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an extraordinary coup attempt to oust them on Friday.

“Shoigu and Gerasimov are so bad in their jobs that it’s dangerous to Putin to leave them in place,” said Dara Massicot, a senior political scientist at the US-based Rand Corporation. “But loyalty and stability are number one for Putin. I just don’t see how he’s going to have these terms dictated to him like this.”

“Shoigu and Gerasimov are now obvious lame ducks and they will be removed, I think,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based defence think-tank. He did not exclude the possibility that the two men’s departure could have been part of the brokered deal that led to Prigozhin standing his men down. The Kremlin has denied this.

The damage to Russia’s prestige has been such that even pro-war commentators on state television and social media admit that the coup called the entire war into question.

“This is a serious blow to the authority of the country and the authority of the president,” Karen Shakhnazarov, a Kremlin-linked film director, said on a popular online livestream show. “There was a feeling here that everything was unshakeable, and that turned out not to be the case.”

The reception Wagner’s men got in Rostov shows the popularity of Prigozhin’s tirades against the army leadership. On Saturday morning, when Prigozhin demanded a face-off with Shoigu and Gerasimov, Vladimir Alekseyev, deputy head of Russian military intelligence, laughed: “Take them!”

When Wagner left the southern city that was the launch pad for the coup, crowds waved, cheered and took selfies with Prigozhin — but booed the security forces who came to replace them.

Though Putin publicly backed Shoigu’s efforts, Prigozhin vehemently refused — conscious of the damage such an arrangement would do to his standing as a powerful warlord who answered only to Putin, according to a person who has known him since the 1990s.

“He understands fully well that if he turns into a zero, then Shoigu would have dealt with him at some point. So he went all out and decided to show Putin that he’s the only real one out there and he needs to be left alone with his money,” the person said. “He got it a bit wrong, and everything went to shit, as it usually does [in Russia].”

Putin’s biggest mistake, Rand’s Massicot said, was to give Shoigu his backing without finding an acceptable way for Prigozhin to save face.

“When he threw his support behind the defence ministry, it basically put a target on Prigozhin’s back,” she said. “A competent statesman would have reached out to offer Prigozhin an incentive, or something to buy him off. Clearly, that wasn’t done.”

With Prigozhin now in exile, Shoigu’s position could even be strengthened, according to the person who knows the warlord — as Putin will see no reason to fire a loyalist.

“Shoigu’s the only winner,” the person said. “He’ll be the defence minister forever.”

Submission Statement

Stephen Kotkin is a highly respected Russian historian. This interview did an excellent job situating Prigozhin's insurrection within the broader context, both in terms of Russian history and the war effort as a whole. I was particularly struck by the comparison of this to 1917, where security measures taken to stabilize the country unintentionally accelerated its collapse.

Stephen Mark Kotkin is an American historian, academic, and author. He is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Key points:

Prigozhin is improvising, but his successes have already changed the game.

Social media is a massive X-factor for modern governance. This coup was executed more on smartphones than on the streets.

Instability is being watched closely by all powers, but especially China.

Allowing an alternative to arise was a colossal mistake, not what Kotkin expected from Putin.

Ukraine is presently ill-positioned to take advantage of Russian instability, but that could change as rifts in the Russian military/government continue to deepen.

Right now, Western powers need to stay out, lest Putin paint Prigozhin as a Western puppet.

Submission Statement

Several analysts have pointed out that the approaching multipolar world is quite different in character from the Cold War era and even the periods before. Unlike then, the powers of the modern-day are not characterized by an ideology or system they wish to impose upon a sphere of influence. Rather, they are defined by their support or opposition to the current liberal order as a whole. China and Russia seek to weaken and subvert the world order, without articulating a real alternative to said order. Conversely, the US and the West seek to preserve the world order. In that vein, this article submits a hypothesis on why China feels its actions are the most optimal for its own success. The pessimistic view on the gamble China is making is that China sees the changes in the liberal international order right now as inevitable and continuous. They believe that the order will continue to decline regardless of their actions and that they are simply positioning themselves to take advantage of the world to follow.

Interestingly, implicit in this article is a theory of victory for the United States. If America can ensure that the institutions of the liberal international order remain intact and inclusive, that smaller countries have more to gain from engaging with the rest of the world than withdrawing, and that current attempts to sabotage that world order do not succeed, then China will find that bet they have made on a fragmented world will turn out to be an unwise choice after all.

MARK LEONARD is Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the author of What Does China Think? and The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict.

Although China and the United States agree that the post–Cold War order is over, they are betting on very different successors. In Washington, the return of great-power competition is thought to require revamping the alliances and institutions at the heart of the post–World War II order that helped the United States win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. This updated global order is meant to incorporate much of the world, leaving China and several of its most important partners—including Iran, North Korea, and Russia—isolated on the outside.

But Beijing is confident that Washington’s efforts will prove futile. In the eyes of Chinese strategists, other countries’ search for sovereignty and identity is incompatible with the formation of Cold War–style blocs and will instead result in a more fragmented, multipolar world in which China can take its place as a great power.

The very different responses of China and the United States to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the divergence in Beijing’s and Washington’s thinking. In Washington, the dominant view is that Russia’s actions are a challenge to the rules-based order, which must be strengthened in response. In Beijing, the dominant opinion is that the conflict shows the world is entering a period of disorder, which countries will need to take steps to withstand.

Chinese leaders see the United States as the principal threat to their survival and have developed a hypothesis to explain their adversary’s actions. Beijing believes that Washington is responding to domestic polarization and its loss of global power by ramping up its competition with China. U.S. leaders, according to this thinking, have decided that it is only a matter of time before China becomes more powerful than the United States, which is why Washington is trying to pit Beijing against the entire democratic world. Chinese intellectuals, therefore, speak of a U.S. shift from engagement and partial containment to “total competition,” spanning politics, economics, security, ideology, and global influence.

China is confident that the United States is mistaken in its assumption that a new cold war has broken out. Accordingly, it is seeking to move beyond Cold War–style divides. As Wang Honggang, a senior official at a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, put it, the world is moving away from “a center-periphery structure for the global economy and security and towards a period of polycentric competition and co-operation.” Wang and like-minded scholars do not deny that China is also trying to become a center of its own, but they argue that because the world is emerging from a period of Western hegemony, the establishment of a new Chinese center will actually lead to a greater pluralism of ideas rather than a Chinese world order. Many Chinese thinkers link this belief with the promise of a future of “multiple modernity.” This attempt to create an alternative theory of modernity, in contrast to the post–Cold War formulation of liberal democracy and free markets as the epitome of modern development, is at the core of Xi’s Global Civilization Initiative. This high-profile project is intended to signal that unlike the United States and European countries, which lecture others on subjects such as climate change and LGBTQ rights, China respects the sovereignty and civilization of other powers.

China’s leaders have made an audacious strategic bet by preparing for a fragmented world. The CCP believes the world is moving toward a post-Western order not because the West has disintegrated but because the consolidation of the West has alienated many other countries. In this moment of change, it may be that China’s stated willingness to allow other countries to flex their muscles may make Beijing a more attractive partner than Washington, with its demands for ever-closer alignment. If the world truly is entering a phase of disorder, China could be best placed to prosper.

Submission Statement

Michael Kofman shares his thoughts about the last 24 hours in Russia. Unfortunately, I have no way of sharing the podcast in a publically available manner, but the key points are below.

Michael Kofman is the Director of Russia Studies at CNA and a Senior Adjunct Fellow at CNAS.

Summary of Events

-Almost exactly 24 hours ago, it looked like Prigozhins conflict with the MOD had reached a boiling point, when he announced a march on Moscow, demanding the resignation of Shoigu and Gerasimov.

-The Russian government moved quickly to shore up its ranks, releasing public statements from within the Russian military(General Surovikin) and Russian government(FSB) against the coup

-Most of Wagner was likely not at the front when the announcement was made. They were likely in training camps in Luhansk. This facilitated a very quick advance into Rostov-on-Don and the Southern Military District headquarters located therein.

-Most Russian units stood by due to chaos and confusion, as well as the perception of Wagner forces as friendly units.

-By morning, a relaxed "standoff" had developed between Wagner and MOD forces in the city, with some Wagner and infantry pointing guns at the SMD building while others drank coffee or smoked cigarettes.

-This was not bloodless. Wagner was bombed by SU-34s and took down several aircraft themselves. Wagner may have done more damage to Russian aviation than Ukraine has in the past month.

-Kofman cannot imagine that this ends here.

Analysis

-Prigozhin is clearly getting desperate and running out of options, but he may understand something about Shoigu and the regime that we do not as outside observers. Prigozhin saw that Shoigu was weak, that the regime was far more hollow than it looks, and that he had the opportunity to launch this attack and extract concessions even when from the outside it looked pretty futile.

-Even if Prigozhin is talking about Shoigu and Gerasimov, this is a coup against Putin. It is Putin's power that is being challenged here.

-Wagner's forces were let through unopposed likely due to confusion and stupidity rather than as a show of support.

-Coup failed to generate support from elites within the system. Clearly, key security systems(FSB) were on the side of the regime.

-Prigozhin's timing is terrible. the Russian army is clearly doing better defensively than most had expected, sapping some of the weight from his arguments.

-Most coups fail very quickly and early on. Russia in particular does not have a good history of successful military coups.

-If Prigozhin walks out of this with a deal and his head, we will have learned a lot about Russia in the past 24 hours.

-Personalist authoritarian systems must prevent alternatives from emerging. A coup-proofing system emerges from this. Whether or not he was under a delusion about it, what Prigozhin did was a challenge to that system. Based on what Kofman saw in Rostov-on-Don, the performance of that system was not encouraging.

-Wagner's regime ties may be through the GRU, and the FSB was likely opposed to its existence. FSB is likely to send an "I told you so" message to Putin.

-Probably 1500-2000 Wagner forces crossed the border with Prigozhin. The forces that entered Rostov-on-Don looked like two companies worth. Prigozhin is overstating the size of Wagner overall(not 15,000, and certainly not 25,000).

-Prigozhin planned this, but he was also pushed to this by RUMOD ultimatums that would mean the functional destruction of Wagner(forcing Wanger soldiers to sign contracts with military). Russia made the mistake of pushing Prigozhin into a desperate act while also not preparing for that act. Very stereotypical of the competence level of this regime.

-Wagner troops are going to be fine, they are going to be given a general amnesty for this. Putin clearly and publically put the blame on Prigozhin, not his soldiers.

-If Kofman was Prigozhin, he would not trust that deal for a minute. If RUMOD is using this deal to buy time to mobilize their forces, this will not go his way.

-This could have been the beginning. If this had gone on for more than a day, it could have catalyzed the disintegration of the regime as a whole.

-Key questions: Will Wagner abandon their main bargaining chip, Rostov? What are troops and commanders on the front lines thinking about what's going on back home? What was Prigozhin's theory of victory, and why did he turn back? Does he understand the full implications of what he did?

Submission Statement

Michael Kofman almost does not require an introduction. While this interview was before Prighozin began his march to Moscow, there is a brief discussion on the leader of Wagner to the end that, in hindsight, comes off a bit like foreshadowing.

Michael Kofman is the Director of Russia Studies at CNA and a Senior Adjunct Fellow at CNAS.

In today’s episode, Mike looks at the slow progress of the Ukrainian offensive and what, if anything, it means for the course of the war. He also discusses Russia’s defensive strategy and how grateful he is not to be in Yevgeny Prigozhin’s head. Mike and Nick recorded this show on Friday, June 23rd before the Wagner insurrection began to escalate. We will have more podcasts and articles on the recent events in Russia in the coming days and weeks.

Submission Statement Given recent events, the dynamics underpinning military coups are understandably in vogue at the moment. This article focuses specifically on military coups and the factors which determine their success: the capacity to perform a coup, the motivation to do so, the lack of opposition, and the amount of popular support.

While I did find this article to be illuminating, I do have some reservations. The factors listed seem to be descriptive rather than predictive--that is, they are good for describing why a coup was successful or a failure, but they are bad at predicting the course of coups in progress, or before they occur. An attempt to apply these factors to the recent move by Wagner, for instance, will quickly run into frustration. Wagner certainly has the motivation, but what about capacity? Certainly not in theory, but watching them march to Moscow unopposed it's hard not to imagine that Russia's actual capacity to resist Wagner is significantly less than it ought to be. Similarly, opposition. Putin should be capable of mounting a serious challenge to Wagner's attack, but it's easy to imagine a situation where he flees and the current government collapses in his wake. If anybody knows of any literature that attempts to predict the progress of a coup, I would appreciate it if you could share it.

Florence Gaub is a Franco-German researcher, security expert, and futurist who focuses on foresight-based policy formation for international relations and security policy. She is the director of the research division at the NATO Defense College.

Until three years ago, it was widely perceived in Europe that the era of military intervention in politics was over: strongmen like Idi Amin and Hafez al-Assad were long dead, and the world had seen the likes of Mubarak toppled and Pinochet voted out of power. The armed forces appeared to have returned to the barracks for good. Although the coups in Egypt and Thailand, in 2013 and 2014, respectively, were a reminder that the military can still play a political role, it was the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey which drove this point home. As the military’s raison d’être is clearly the defence of a state, any venture by it into politics is generally seen as an anomaly – yet this repeatedly occurs. So why (and when) do coups happen? Mainly for four reasons: the armed forces have the capacity, the interest, no legitimate opponent and a degree of popular support. If all four elements are not present, however, a coup will fail – as was, arguably, the case in Turkey.

Right now, the signal-to-noise ratio is heavily tilted in favor of noise. But there are a few things that are certain. About 5 hours ago, the commander of Wagner, Denis Prigozhin, claimed that the RUMOD had ordered a missile strike on Wagner fighters. He followed this up with what can only be interpreted as a threat of violence again the MOD. This was followed up by a number of statements by both Prigozhin and other Wagner telegrams backing up his message. Given these threats' public and unambiguous nature, this is very unlikely to be a false flag or 5D chess. Comments like this are at the heart of a state's monopoly on violence. Such an attack can only be responded to by the Russian government as an existential threat. By all indications, this is exactly what has happened. Major generals have come out to publicly condemn Prigozhin, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. That's the summary of what we know for sure.

As far as on-the-ground information, there is very little to go on at the moment. Apparently columns of vehicles have been spotted in a city near the Russia-Ukraine border, but it is still unclear what units they belong to. Rosgvardia(Russian internal security forces) have clearly been deployed in force and are making themselves known in Moscow and Rostov. Obviously, Ukraine is watching this with great interest, and there have already been reports of advances in the Bakhmut area that could possibly be connected to this. In addition, the US government is clearly taking this seriously, with Biden having reportedly been briefed on the matter.

Submission Statement

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced many countries to reevaluate their security postures, and Japan is no exception. In fact, the Ukraine War is exceptionally relevant to Japan's security situation, given that the island nation may soon find itself indirectly or directly supporting a different democracy under threat by an authoritarian power. Given that context, this article provides a valuable starting point for some of the lessons that Japan can take away from the current conflict. In particular, the emphasis on logistics, stockpiles, and sustainment is a key element that has received renewed focus during this war and will arguably be even more important in a war over Taiwan.

Jeffrey W. Hornung is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Japanese leaders have already begun internalizing key lessons from Ukraine. As shown in a triad of strategic documents released last December, Tokyo is ramping up spending on munition stocks, maintenance, and base hardening and readiness, as well as making new investments across all domains. But despite this, Japanese officials are silent on whether they are preparing for a short conflict or a long one. This matters because, as the Ukrainian war demonstrates, a protracted struggle could require different plans from the ones Japan is possibly making.

Any conflict involving China and the United States is unlikely to be a short one. For Japan to participate effectively in any East China Sea conflict — even in its own defense — Japanese forces should take six key lessons from the current fight in Ukraine: prepare for a protracted conflict; ensure an adequate logistics posture; be ready for active combat; assist the broader fight; use unmanned capabilities; and sustain the will to fight. Addressing these issues can help Japan — and the alliance — become better prepared to rapidly respond in support of U.S. operational timelines.

Submission Statement An excellent look into the feasibility of a Dnipro crossing, starting from first principles and satellite images of the terrain. In my opinion, this is the definitive assessment of the prospects of a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro, at least in the short term. Special attention should be paid to the second- and third-to-last paragraph--while a crossing would undoubtedly be difficult, it does come with some excellent tactical benefits, not least the element of surprise.

Riley McCabe is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Alexander Palmer is a research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is senior fellow for imagery analysis with the iDeas Lab and Korea Chair at CSIS.

Another key constraint on a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast is the logistics operations that would have to follow to support a large and sustained offensive. Forces can only fight if they are supplied, and Ukraine would have to regularly cross the river to deliver ammunition, fuel, vehicle parts, and reinforcements to its units on the far bank. Without such supply lines, any forces committed would risk being isolated in a Russian counterattack or be unable to exploit the success of an initial assault.

The width of the Dnipro River and lack of existing bridges means that Ukrainian logistics and follow-on forces would need to establish new bridging, rely on ferries, or a combination of both. During its 2022 withdrawal from the city of Kherson, Russia used ferries to move troops and equipment across the river, as shown below. Ukraine presumably refrained from targeting Russia’s ferry operation because it wanted the Russians out of the city. Today, however, Russia would attempt to strike the vulnerable dock and loading areas if Ukraine were to fail to first push back enemy indirect fires. Any bridging operation across the river would need to account for the same threat of indirect fires.

By delaying a potential offensive in Kherson Oblast, the dam’s breach increases pressure on ongoing offensive operations elsewhere along the front. Russia is already reportedly redeploying units from the south to reinforce defensive positions further north. These redeployments will increase the number of Russian troops available to defend against Ukrainian attacks and may free operational reserves to contain Ukrainian breakthroughs or conduct counterattacks.

Even still, a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River remains possible in the coming months. Common knowledge of an operation’s difficulty can work in the attacker’s favor by generating operational surprise. The landing at Inchon in 1950 during the Korean War was initially dismissed by both UN and North Korean forces as too difficult, but the amphibious assault by UN forces against underdefended enemy positions took and created the conditions the near-total collapse of the In Min Gun within a month.

A successful crossing of the Dnipro River near Kherson is extremely unlikely to have such a dramatic strategic effect, but it could catch Russian forces off guard and allow Ukraine to bypass the defensive systems Russia has constructed further north and strike important groundlines of communication leading from Crimea.

For now, however, a Ukrainian offensive in Kherson Oblast is extremely unlikely to be viable for at least several weeks because the reconnaissance and planning that determines the success of any major river-crossing operation will need to begin again. In the meantime, Russia will continue to capitalize on the defensive advantages it gained from the breach.

As opposed to conventional munitions, which have a single warhead, cluster munitions operate by dispensing a number of smaller warheads over an area. They are particularly useful against soft and mobile targets, especially those dispersed over a wider area or entrenched in a specific location. However, cluster munitions are banned by most countries due to the risk of unexploded ordinance. In the case of DPICMs, the form of munition most often discussed to be sent to Ukraine, this rate hovers around 2-5%. It’s important to note that Ukraine, Russia, and the US are not signatories to the treaty which banned cluster munitions, and all three possess at least some stockpiles of such munitions. In addition, both Ukraine and Russia have been reported as using cluster munitions during the war. However, Russia’s use of cluster munitions has been significantly greater and appears to have indiscriminately targeted civilian population centers on many occasions. Ukrainian usage has likely been limited by their smaller stockpiles of such weaponry, but the country has used cluster weapons in populated areas in the past, though not with the lack of tactical benefit and disregard for civilian life displayed by the Russians. Ukraine has also been receiving DPICM munitions from Turkey, likely with informal consent from the Biden administration. While I haven’t seen any footage of their use, its likely they have already been deployed somewhere along the front. Neither side has given any indication that they are limiting use based on ethical concerns with tactical munitions.

When discussing DPICM munition aid, it is important to balance the human cost of cluster munitions against the damage that could be caused by a prolonged conflict. Sending DPICMs will unquestionably result in civilians being harmed, now and in the future. It's unpleasant, but it's the truth. However, it is also true that civilians are dying now, to a Russian army that has shown a reckless disregard for human life and is engaging in terror bombing of cities it has no chance of taking. Just because cluster munitions have harm associated with them, does not mean that sending them would not decrease the overall harm of the conflict overall. Furthermore, restrictions on the use of such munitions would go a long way toward minimizing civilian harm while retaining most of their combat effectiveness. DPICMs would be massively useful in clearing trenches, for instance, but such usage has far less risk to civilians than attacking a city.

Submission Statement The outcomes of wars are determined in part by the capacity of factions to maintain and replace capabilities as they degrade. While Western stockpiles are large, they are not infinite, and excessive depletion could endanger other allies. Both the existing progress and political commitments reported in this article are positive signs for the sustainment, and therefore future success, of the Ukrainian war effort.

The U.S. has sharply increased production of a key artillery shell, helping to alleviate a global shortage of the ammunition that threatened to squeeze Ukrainian forces as they battle Russia, the U.S. Army’s acquisition chief said.

Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisitions, logistics and technology, said in an interview that the U.S. is currently producing around 24,000 155-millimeter howitzer shells each month, up from around 14,000 a month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. wants to hit monthly output of between 70,000 and 80,000 shells a month by early in the 2025 fiscal year, he said.

“We are on a very rapid path to get to really high numbers,” Bush said. The U.S. has drawn down some of its own stockpiles of the ammunition to supply Ukraine. Bush said those stockpiles are more robust than many people believe, and that they will return to prewar levels quickly.