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【香港保衛戰當年今日・九】

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diff --git a/columns.xml b/columns.xml index b9fbaf4e..bb59f71e 100644 --- a/columns.xml +++ b/columns.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2024-09-15T11:24:53+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV端午漫谈屈原2024-06-11T12:00:00+08:002024-06-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/talking-about-qu-yuan-during-the-dragon-boat-festival<p>过端午节要吃棕子，赛龙舟，现在还放一天假。这都托屈原的福，得感谢他，是他投江自尽用生命带给后人的福利。</p> +Jekyll2024-09-16T11:33:27+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV端午漫谈屈原2024-06-11T12:00:00+08:002024-06-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/talking-about-qu-yuan-during-the-dragon-boat-festival<p>过端午节要吃棕子，赛龙舟，现在还放一天假。这都托屈原的福，得感谢他，是他投江自尽用生命带给后人的福利。</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/feed.xml b/feed.xml index 8b59807c..cfe9eacf 100644 --- a/feed.xml +++ b/feed.xml @@ -1 +1 @@ -Jekyll2024-09-15T11:24:53+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV \ No newline at end of file +Jekyll2024-09-16T11:33:27+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/heros.xml b/heros.xml index b4f84ad0..1bdbea85 100644 --- a/heros.xml +++ b/heros.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2024-09-15T11:24:53+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV无治与虚无主义：后果2009-10-17T12:00:00+08:002009-10-17T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Aragorn-a1_c-anarchy-and-nihilism-consequences<p>无治主义者的范围包括抗议队伍里的小丑、锱铢必较的压迫认证专家和打着黑旗的马克思主义者，这并不是对无治主义思想的谴责，而是一个重要的停顿理由。在这种停顿中，我们必须挑战我们对无治主义的假设。在无治主义的大帐篷里（或者应该称为马戏团的帐篷），我们与其他人真正分享的是什么？</p> +Jekyll2024-09-16T11:33:27+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV无治与虚无主义：后果2009-10-17T12:00:00+08:002009-10-17T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Aragorn-a1_c-anarchy-and-nihilism-consequences<p>无治主义者的范围包括抗议队伍里的小丑、锱铢必较的压迫认证专家和打着黑旗的马克思主义者，这并不是对无治主义思想的谴责，而是一个重要的停顿理由。在这种停顿中，我们必须挑战我们对无治主义的假设。在无治主义的大帐篷里（或者应该称为马戏团的帐篷），我们与其他人真正分享的是什么？</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/hkers.xml b/hkers.xml index 5dd748fc..c5ef3641 100644 --- a/hkers.xml +++ b/hkers.xml @@ -1,4 +1,141 @@ -Jekyll2024-09-15T11:24:53+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIV【勇武7人案・審訊裁決】2024-08-29T12:00:00+08:002024-08-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-verdict<ul> +Jekyll2024-09-16T11:33:27+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.44 © MMXXIVRealise Service Integration2024-08-30T12:00:00+08:002024-08-30T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/realise-service-integration<p><em>This conference report is based on the discussions at a one-day workshop held in September 2023 to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> + +<p>This conference report is based on the discussions which occurred during a one-day workshop held in September 2023 at RUSI’s headquarters in London, attended by a range of representatives from defence companies and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). The purpose of the workshop was to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force. The workshop examined where and how the MoD, the armed services and, especially, UK Strategic Command (StratCom) and its new Integration Design Authority (IDA) can achieve immediate results to galvanise the broader effort to deliver the stated aspiration of providing “integration as a service”.</p> + +<p>The workshop focused on the questions of how different actors, both past and present, have approached the challenge of data integration, and sought to examine which transferable lessons might be drawn from precedents from both the world of defence and beyond it, in areas such as the financial sector. This report, based on the workshop and subsequent secondary literature review, examines the immediate steps that the MoD can take to set the conditions for a broader effort to achieve multi-domain integration.</p> + +<p>A key deduction from the day’s discussions was that if, as is likely to be the case, software-driven evolution will play an important role in determining how the joint force fights, perhaps to an even greater degree than hardware adaptation, then it will be of considerable importance that frontline commands (FLCs) are able to cohere capability at all stages, even as the software is continually adapted.</p> + +<p>It was noted that traces of this change are already visible in operational theatres such as Ukraine, where software can and must be adapted on a six-weekly basis to stay ahead of adversary cyber- and electronic-warfare capabilities; this rate far exceeds that of hardware replacement or adaptation.</p> + +<p>If the joint force is to operate across domains, FLCs must pursue iterative change in a coordinated manner. Consequently, the specific focus of the workshop was on achieving common data standards within defence. The workshop and subsequent research relied on historical case studies from both the UK and other nations to identify the drivers of success and failure in integration efforts.</p> + +<p>The day’s discussions also examined the development of civilian networks, which have succeeded through the existence of standards sufficiently broad to enable change but well defined enough to allow for interoperability. The lessons derived are applicable to other areas where integration and standardisation of capabilities across all services is a priority.</p> + +<h3 id="key-findings">Key Findings</h3> + +<p>Key findings surfaced from the day’s discussions, and reinforced by a review of secondary literature, are as follows:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>There is limited precedent for successful integration on a top-down basis. Moreover, success has often involved procedures which – by virtue of their secrecy – existed outside normal procedures.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>In several areas there are strong service- and defence-level incentives to collaborate, but no individual service owns responsibility for an outcome. This separates operational from financial risk. Helping resolve these “tragedy of the commons” areas would allow the IDA to work with, rather than against, the grain of service imperatives.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>A common set of foundational standards which FLCs can use to drive the process of integration could serve as a starting point. Data standards are a key part of the foundations. Achieving standards in one area can create functional spill-overs (where integration in one area makes it difficult to function without integration in other areas, leading to a cascading process that eventually requires no top-down supervision).</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<h3 id="the-challenge-of-integration">The Challenge of Integration</h3> + +<p>As was discussed at the workshop, a number of factors can pose challenges to the effective integration of capabilities across the joint force. Among them are:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>A tendency towards feature creep – the expansion of an integration effort to include more tasks than can reasonably be accomplished, thereby increasing complexity.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>An over-emphasis on technical capabilities, as opposed to specifying the operational requirements that justify the costs and complexities inherent to integration.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Non-adoption or partial adoption of standards once they are created.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Standards that act as barriers to entry for new capabilities because of their complexity.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>During the workshop, it was noted that these challenges have been prominent features of previous UK efforts at joint force integration, particularly the Network Enabled Capability (NEC) programme, which began in the 2000s. The challenges that the UK has faced with the adoption of the NEC are in certain respects emblematic of the issues one may expect to encounter. As pointed out by one of the participants, the NEC was a victim of the fact that FLCs were not involved in articulating operational use cases. Moreover, the programme was not closely aligned at the enterprise level. Ideally, it would have encompassed both the relationships between different acquisition lines and areas such as operator education. It was noted that because NEC-related programmes were not situated within an operational use case, the costs were harder to justify within individual services where the benefit was not as great as for others. As a result, when services had to make trade-offs between individual NEC capabilities (such as a cooperative engagement) and other lines of effort, NEC capabilities were often sacrificed, scaled back or only partially adopted.</p> + +<p>Case studies discussed at the workshop, such as the US Air Force’s Airborne Battle Management System (ABMS) programme, illustrate another major risk that integration efforts face: feature creep. The programme, which began as a replacement for the E-8 JSTARS, morphed into a wider effort to deliver an internet of things. While this development was not problematic in itself, the fact that use cases were driven by programme executive offices led to uncoordinated feature creep and cost increases.</p> + +<p>In those instances where effective top-down integration was achieved, notably the US Navy’s NIFC-CA programme, it was enabled by two things. First, a clear single service chain of command within a well-defined mission set allowed the US Navy to control requirements and enforce them. Second, as observed by a workshop participant who was involved in the rollout of the programme, the heavy classification of the programme meant that decision-making was restricted to a small number of individuals who had the authority to make and enforce systems engineering trade-offs (even though, in many cases, the reasons for specific requirements were not communicated to those charged with implementing them). Narrowing the group responsible for making decisions made it possible to avoid feature creep. Once established, requirements were imposed on engineers with little room for consultation, given the classifications involved, while the decision-makers’ authority could not be challenged. It was noted at the workshop that the ability to develop stringent requirements and ensure their adoption without pushback was only possible because many existing procedures for procuring and integrating capability were circumvented in a programme which was subject to highly centralised (and specific) processes.</p> + +<p>Participants discussed the fact that that these criteria will be difficult to achieve outside very specific contexts. So instead of integrating specific platforms, a different approach to integration might be taken – one that uses the authorities of bodies such as StratCom to solve emerging tragedies of the commons, over which no individual service has effective control or responsibility. Participants agreed that where StratCom can add value as the “strategic integrator” is not by solving specific integration challenges as an external part of the programme, but rather by creating toolkits that allow integration to be driven by MoD Finance and Military Capability (FMC) using existing management systems.</p> + +<p>The following sections describe working use cases which might become a basis for focused support to cross-service integration by StratCom.</p> + +<h3 id="opportunities-to-enable-cross-service-integration">Opportunities to Enable Cross-Service Integration</h3> + +<p>Several solutions emerged from the day’s discussions. First, the IDA could provide a mechanism to cohere capability if it more systematically informed the Defence Capability Risk Assessment Register (DCAR) process. Although the IDA does not have budgetary authority, it can provide FMC with information about which capability gaps can be closed through integrating existing or likely capabilities and which require additional capacity rather than integration. Through the IDA and leveraging its responsibilities for Defence Digital, StratCom can generate an information base regarding data standards, which FMC can then use to insert requirements into specific programmes. This might be analogised to the way in which consultancy firms are used by governments to fill gaps in both expertise and capacity. With a staff drawn from across the services and the capacity (through the Permanent Joint Headquarters) to assess the operational use cases for individual service capabilities, StratCom can provide FMC with the information needed to inform decisions regarding data standards.</p> + +<p>As was discussed at the workshop, the importance of a feedback loop between StratCom and FMC will become greater in the medium term, as the demands of integration will increasingly affect hardware. Most concepts for distributed operations, such as DARPA’s “STITCHES” Initiative, introduce considerable requirements for processing power to enable network integration and the translation of data at the tactical edge. This will in turn introduce size and cost requirements on platforms which StratCom and FMC can only drive in tandem. A model which is initially applied to data- and software-led development can then serve as a microcosm for a more ambitious system which will be needed in a 10-year timeframe. The model can enable StratCom and FMC to develop the procedures needed to coordinate with each other and the FLCs, and can introduce the services to new practices.</p> + +<h3 id="creating-a-market-of-standards">Creating a Market of Standards</h3> + +<p>During the workshop, it was noted that delivering the integration identified above could be facilitated immediately by creating a market of common standards which services can opt into for specific functions. In this way, StratCom could set the stage for future integration.</p> + +<p>Notably, if software-led integration is a priority, flexible standards will be essential. This has been observed in civilian networks, which are able to maximize their effectiveness through a combination of relatively specific bearer standards and much more flexible standards for transport and middleware layers of a system.</p> + +<p>Participants also observed that there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that backwards integration with open source software is possible, with examples from the world of integrated air and missile defence particularly prominent. It is possible to define broad parameters within which messages must fit and to then rely on middleware to translate data across the different formats.</p> + +<p>Participants noted that not all tasks will require comparable levels of data standardisation. For tasks such as electronic warfare, for example, the requirements for rapid updating and the stringency of security requirements impose a need for well-defined standards, which limit the amount of time needed to translate data across formats. Similarly, a particularly stringent set of standards could be adopted by the FLCs to share F-35 data while they might select different standards for other functions. Conversely, in other cases, such as joint logistics, a more flexible set of standards might be applied.</p> + +<p>One key determinant of the degree to which standards are necessarily stringent will likely be the degree to which network compromise can be expected, as pointed out during discussions regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine. Where network compromise is highly likely (for example, because platforms will operate within reach of adversary electronic warfare capabilities), it will probably be the case that data will need to be packaged in ways that enable encryption while balancing the trade-offs involved between encryption and latency. As was discussed at the workshop, this will be of particular importance when a decision is made to exploit civilian bandwidth for certain functions – the relative lack of security of the network layer makes the security of the messaging layer all the more important. In other instances, compromise may be likely but accepted as the cost of scalability – for example, when commercial off-the-shelf UAVs are being incorporated into force structures. Finally, there are some instances where the security of a network against different modes of compromise is sufficiently robust that risk can be accepted at the level of data. One example is communications using millimetric wave frequencies.</p> + +<p>Both discussions during the workshop and existing research suggest that the experience of organisations such as the International Organization for Standardization lends itself to the argument that a diverse set of voluntary standards can be effective in allowing agents to select standards that are best suited to enabling their operations. Rather than driving the process, StratCom and the IDA could generate multiple options which can be relevant to specific multi-domain tasks, from which FLCs can jointly select based on cross-service consultation. By resolving the informational challenge of generating options, Stratcom can narrow the set of options from which services can choose and provide them with an incentive to choose from the options it provides by removing the requirement to generate standards by themselves.</p> + +<p>A conclusion reached by participants was that where StratCom might add value is through the provision of a typology of trade-offs. Data standards could be categorised on whether they are designed to allow access to multiple network types, reduce latency or increase security – mindful of the fact that one can typically only achieve at most two of these three ideals. FLCs could then justify trading off one priority against others based on the demands of a specific operational requirement. For example, if forward reconnaissance elements of the force are expected to operate in communications-denied or -disrupted environments, they might opt to trade latency for the ability to securely use multiple modes of communication. Levels of encryption sufficient to pass data along multiple types of networks with different levels of vulnerability to compromise necessarily impose demands in terms of the TTPs and the size of data packages, meaning a cost in latency which precludes certain things such as the frequent use of full video links.</p> + +<h3 id="case-study-distributed-tactical-ledgers">Case Study: Distributed Tactical Ledgers</h3> + +<p>The final part of the workshop was based on group discussions of potential use cases. One area where participants identified the potential to achieve “quick wins” was the development of a system comparable to those based around distributed ledgers that have emerged in the world of finance. The key points that emerged from discussions around this use case are outlined below.</p> + +<p>Any system that requires coordinated collective action requires agents to have information about each other’s whereabouts, capabilities and obligations. For example, if an air defence interception is to be performed on a collaborative basis that might involve an Army-operated GBAD system, an RAF combat aircraft and a ship, it will be necessary to know what capabilities are held on each platform, how well suited they are to the task of an interception and how valuable it would be for each platform to perform the interception as opposed to another function. In other words, ledgers of both capabilities and the value of using a given capability in a specific way would be needed.</p> + +<p>As was discussed in the breakout sessions, awareness currently existing at the theatre level includes the Recognised Air Picture (RAP) at a Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC). However, if envisioned concepts of distributed operations are to be achieved, this awareness and capacity for collaboration must be pushed to the edge. One prerequisite for this is a shared set of standards by which information about available cross-domain blue forces and tasking orders can be shared locally.</p> + +<p>Participants in the breakout sessions agreed that the ability to task capabilities in a decentralised manner would require, at a minimum, both the ability of units to communicate their availability to nearby units from across the force, and a basis on which tasking requests might be either accepted or rejected. In the civilian world, applications such as Uber accomplish this through the broadcasting of data by taxis and the use of a price mechanism. However, this model is not directly transferrable to a military context. The constant broadcasting of data represents a security risk, while decisions about what a platform is tasked to do typically reflect the allocation of resources to a task by a higher authority through, for example, an air tasking order. However, many emerging concepts of operations, such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Mosaic Warfare, presume a comparable dynamic recombination of assets, with systems sometimes being tasked to a zone rather than a specific function. In a military context, communications would likely need to be local rather than broadcasted, because broadcasting availability creates risk and would rely on directional transmissions which, in turn, create a requirement for blue force tracking which would be difficult to assure in GPS denied environments. The requirement for accurate blue force tracking stems from the fact that to share data safely, as F-35s have done with US Marine Corps HIMARS batteries in tests, systems need to use Link 16 on directional antennae rather than relying on omni-directional broadcasts, which would reveal their positions. Directional transmissions require an accurate understanding of the location of a receiving antenna, which has been achieved in tests but which would be difficult to deliver in conflict. The need for blue force tracking incentivises an effort to leverage multiple networks, but this must be balanced against the requirement for security. In effect, there is something of a trade-off between the flexibility of a system in terms of the network it uses and the data used. The more flexible a system is at the network level, the more stringent data standards must be.</p> + +<p>Such a system would necessitate a shift from mission command to mission definition at the edge, as operators would exercise control over not only how they executed preset missions but also which tasks they opted to support. For example, an aircraft over a part of the battlefield for the purpose of SEAD may face a choice between engaging a SAM or broadcasting data to enable another system such as a GMLRS to engage another target. This requires the pilot to know how valuable the alternative target is regarding the ground forces mission set as opposed to the SAM, which could be otherwise engaged as part of the SEAD mission. In effect, a military analogue to a pricing mechanism is necessary for multi-domain operations, but it must be secure.</p> + +<p>The coordination of capabilities will require network standards that are sufficiently flexible to enable the use of multiple pathways, as well as data standards that are stringent enough to allow for tasking requests to be communicated securely, since multiple networks of varying reliability are being used in the face of adversary compromise. Also, a mechanism for assessing whether the application of a system to a task is appropriate given the system’s availability would be necessary.</p> + +<p>While this task is both complex and a multi-level system engineering task, the full extent of which should be the basis for subsequent discussions a first step towards such a system might involve delivering:</p> + +<ol> + <li> + <p>A distributed cross-domain system for tracking blue forces and delivering tasking orders without communications to higher echelon.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>A distributed system for assigning value to tasks.</p> + </li> +</ol> + +<p>This system of distributed ledgers would at a minimum require shared standards for indexing data about locations, capabilities and values, as well as voting protocols to enable changes to locations and target values without systemic risk. There are multiple network types which can support such a system. Area-wide communications networks, including civilian systems such as Starlink, might represent one mode. Alternatively, each platform in an area can communicate locally to update peers on its position, enabling them to pass this data further on to platforms adjacent to them. This could enable data to be “daisy chained” between adjacent systems to allow for broad situational awareness to be achieved without the constant broadcasting of data. Local communication with adjacent nodes can be achieved with low wavelength communications frequencies that are less susceptible to compromise.</p> + +<p>In certain instances and use cases, particularly where situational awareness is desirable over a broad area (for example, in the context of distributed operations in the maritime domain), it may be desirable to accept stringent standards of encryption as a means of utilising multiple network types. In other instances, for example within the land operating environment, the relative proximity of multiple units may allow for the use of mobile ad-hoc networks to enable the daisy chaining of data using less easily compromised modes of communication such as millimetre wave radios or tropospheric scatter – in turn allowing for more flexible data standards that allow lower latency and a lower requirement for operators to generate encryption keys. Security in this context is delivered by the network and not the data, and the relative simplicity of the data being transmitted (which allows for low latency) does not need to be lost due to a requirement for padding.</p> + +<p>Insofar as such a system does not exist, it can be directly shaped by central bodies in a way that creates a common good around which service-level lines of effort would adapt. Generating a set of differentiated data standards that might underpin such a system would be likely to secure service-level buy-in for several reasons. First, it simplifies the task of selecting standards for individual services. Second, such a system would not necessarily require services to immediately grapple with the intricacies of networking platforms to generate complete situational awareness. Rather, it would require the ability to receive and transmit simple data regarding the presence of friendly platforms and the value of any given adversary target across a shared indexing system. Third, a broad market of standards could allow different trade-offs to be weighed by services based on the tactical imperatives of one or more services in a specific context. Generally, the acceptance of standards tends to depend on the number of impositions that standards create. The more intricate a set of standards, the less likely it is that buy-in will be achieved. A flexible set of standards which is only restrictive on issues that directly pertain to security can circumvent this issue and, importantly, allow tasks to determine approaches. Because services can agree standards based on their appropriateness to a shared cross-service task, this can secure support, because the need for a given standard is rooted in an operational requirement rather than a top-down diktat. This bottom-up approach has characterised previous successful efforts at cross-service coordination, such as the 31 initiatives between the US Army and US Air Force which led to the emergence of AirLand Battle.</p> + +<h3 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h3> + +<p>Several deductions emerged from the discussions held as part of the workshop. Of greatest salience was the suggestion made throughout the day that, as it approaches the task of integrating the force, StratCom will benefit from an approach that builds from relatively modest goals, but with a clear sense of where it is heading. It must eventually achieve the following aims:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>Establish organisational procedures which allow it to determine integration requirements in light of operational demands.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Establish a shared set of routines for coordinating with FMC.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>An effort to establish shared data standards could serve as a starting point. Standards need not immediately impinge on service-level prerogatives regarding platform-level decisions and can be approached in a flexible way, as illustrated by voluntary standards markets. The tasks for which standards are sought might initially involve less stringent capabilities, such as a shared indexing system.</p> + +<p>The creation of a range of options can be of greater utility than the imposition of standards, not least because standards imposed by fiat are often opposed, and moreover tend to create perverse incentive structures. By contrast, the creation of an option set allows one or more services to explicitly weigh trade-offs and justify choices made in light of the trade-offs acceptable in the specific operational contexts in which the assets of more than one FLC interact. On the basis of the system and precedents set, StratCom and FMC could begin to articulate a more coherent system and division of labour, which could then be applied to more complex systems engineering challenges.</p> + +<p>Tackling the relatively modest task of creating a flexible set of data standards and solving broad tragedies of the commons could, then, create the conditions for a more ambitious future approach to integration.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Sidharth Kaushal</strong> is Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research at RUSI covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.</p>Sidharth KaushalThis conference report is based on the discussions at a one-day workshop held in September 2023 to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force.【勇武7人案・審訊裁決】2024-08-29T12:00:00+08:002024-08-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-verdict<ul> <li>首案涉恐怖主義 6人《反恐條例》爆炸罪及串謀殺警罪脫 1人交替爆炸罪成 1人籌集財產罪脫</li> <li>張俊富早前認藏煙花及胡椒噴劑 判囚18個月</li> <li>張俊富還柙3年半 晚上獲釋</li> @@ -89,7 +226,29 @@ <hr /> -<p>案件編號：HCCC164/2022、255/2023</p>獨媒報導首案涉恐怖主義 6人《反恐條例》爆炸罪及串謀殺警罪脫 1人交替爆炸罪成 1人籌集財產罪脫 張俊富早前認藏煙花及胡椒噴劑 判囚18個月 張俊富還柙3年半 晚上獲釋【勇武7人案・審訊第 82 日】2024-08-28T12:00:00+08:002024-08-28T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-day-82<ul> +<p>案件編號：HCCC164/2022、255/2023</p>獨媒報導首案涉恐怖主義 6人《反恐條例》爆炸罪及串謀殺警罪脫 1人交替爆炸罪成 1人籌集財產罪脫 張俊富早前認藏煙花及胡椒噴劑 判囚18個月 張俊富還柙3年半 晚上獲釋After Wagner2024-08-29T12:00:00+08:002024-08-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/after-wagner<p><em>Although the Wagner Group’s presence in Ukraine may have ended, a range of other non-state actors have stepped up to take its place, many of which display extreme right-wing beliefs.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>With the Wagner Group ceasing to exist last year after the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, it may seem that the threat from non-state actors on the battlefield in Ukraine has disappeared. However, while the most well-known group might have stopped its activities, Ukraine continues to attract various paramilitary groups, most of which hold far-right views.</p> + +<p>One of the most notorious groups that is known for its involvement in Ukraine is Rusich, which has been actively involved in the conflict in Ukraine since 2014 and holds extreme right-wing, neo-Nazi beliefs. One of its leaders, Alexei Milchakov, became infamous not only for publicly and proudly calling himself a Nazi, but also for his penchant for sadistic violence after he made a video of himself killing and eating a puppy. It must be noted, however, that Rusich does not seem to be particularly popular among the Russian far right. Thus, Sergei Korotkih, one of the creators of the Russian National Socialist movement and an ally of Russia’s most infamous neo-Nazi, Maxim Martsinkevich (nicknamed Tesak), was quoted as saying that people like Milchakov are considered “losers” in the movement and see the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to gain traction on social media. This may be true, as the group’s social channels contain very little ideological content and the small amount that is available is mostly dedicated to the thrill of killing Ukrainian soldiers who, it appears, Rusich considers a second-class race.</p> + +<p>Another far-right group is the Russian Imperial Movement (or specifically its military wing, the Imperial Legion) and its smaller affiliates, which consider themselves “nationalists”. They believe that Ukraine as a state should not exist and it is simply part of Russia; hence, they see their participation in the war as contributing to the unification of Russian territories, with the final goal of creating new Russian Empire with a monarch ruling it. The group’s social media is full of posts dedicated to explaining its views and justifying its involvement in Ukraine. It should be noted that despite its enthusiastic welcome of the war and active involvement, the group presents itself as an opposition to the Russian government. In its rhetoric, it appears to hope that its involvement will eventually help it achieve its strategic goal of changing the regime in Russia and seizing political power.</p> + +<p>In the last year, the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) has also gained a certain amount of fame as a Russian group fighting on Ukraine’s side. This group was founded in August 2022 by Denis Kapustin (now Nikitin), a Russian national from Germany. It is believed that Kapustin holds neo-Nazi views, and he has even been labelled as a “key figure in European extreme far-right circles” and “one of the most dangerous neo-Nazis in the region”. Another member of the movement, Alexei Levkin, used to be the head of neo-Nazi group Wotanjugend, and called Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik a hero. Several other members also have a history of expressing public support for extreme right-wing groups and terrorists.</p> + +<p>Nikitin himself, in an interview with PBS, said: “Islamisation, cultural Marxism, multiculturalism, I think all those – all those things are harmful. European culture is definitely endangered. I believe in things like the Great Replacement”. These and other comments made by Nikitin resonate with far-right ideology, which leaves no doubt as to his and his movement’s political views. It appears, however, from interviews with other members that the degree of acceptance of these views varies – some members say that they hold traditionalist views but do not agree with more extreme far-right ideas, and others have even argued that the image of RVC as being an extreme right group was created and promoted by their adversaries in Russia (the group is designated as a terrorist organisation in Russia). While this might be true, Russian neo-Nazis have expressed support for RVC on their social media (such as the Telegram channel “National Socialist”) and have even called for donations to help wounded RVC fighters receive medical care.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">It appears that despite the disappearance of the Wagner Group, Ukraine still remains an attractive target for various non-state actors</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>In addition to these, there are also two more groups supporting Ukraine – “Freedom of Russia Legion” and “Sibir Batalion” – however, there is not enough credible information to make firm conclusions about their ideological orientations.</p> + +<p>In any case, it appears that despite the disappearance of the Wagner Group, Ukraine still remains an attractive target for various non-state actors, many of which hold extreme right-wing beliefs and are active on social media reporting about their activities and recruiting new members, as well as committing acts of violence. Their presence in the region is a reason for concern, as not only does it further aggravate the situation on the battlefield, but it also poses a security threat for Europe as these groups may attempt (as some already have) to move their activities beyond the borders of Ukraine.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Anna Kruglova</strong> is a lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of Salford. Her research focuses on radicalisation, propaganda and disinformation.</p>Anna KruglovaAlthough the Wagner Group’s presence in Ukraine may have ended, a range of other non-state actors have stepped up to take its place, many of which display extreme right-wing beliefs.【勇武7人案・審訊第 82 日】2024-08-28T12:00:00+08:002024-08-28T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-day-82<ul> <li>陪審團問若未能達有效裁決 應繼續討論直至有人改變立場 還是尋求指引</li> <li>陪審團指其中兩罪未能達有效裁決 官要求繼續商議</li> <li>陪審團退庭商議19小時仍未有結果 押後至明天繼續</li> @@ -383,7 +542,57 @@ <hr /> -<p>案件編號：HCCC69-70/2022</p>獨媒報導伍健偉陳情全文：長夜終盡，黎明將至，民主終將再次得勝 吳敏兒指無意顛覆、犯案是「人生最大錯誤」 已與政治劃清界線 譚凱邦獲林超英撰信讚為環保出力 官質疑柯耀林難言參與較他人少【勇武7人案・審訊第 81 日】2024-08-27T12:00:00+08:002024-08-27T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-day-81<ul> +<p>案件編號：HCCC69-70/2022</p>獨媒報導伍健偉陳情全文：長夜終盡，黎明將至，民主終將再次得勝 吳敏兒指無意顛覆、犯案是「人生最大錯誤」 已與政治劃清界線 譚凱邦獲林超英撰信讚為環保出力 官質疑柯耀林難言參與較他人少UK’s Astute Fleet2024-08-27T12:00:00+08:002024-08-27T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/uks-astute-fleet<p><em>With the growing threat posed by Russia’s Northern Fleet and increased demand in the Indo-Pacific, the Royal Navy must overcome its submarine challenges to remain relevant.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>The readiness of the UK’s fleet of nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) has been a source of enduring concern over the previous half decade. With five Astute-class SSNs currently in service (less than half of what the UK had at the end of the Cold War), the Royal Navy fields fewer submarines than has been the case at any given time in recent history. Moreover, challenges with respect to maintenance, compounded by the priority accorded to ensuring that the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent remains operational, have resulted in periods during which the UK did not have an attack submarine at sea. In light of the growing threat posed by Russia’s Northern Fleet, ensuring the readiness of a capability which remains a key UK offer to NATO as an alliance member will be critical.</p> + +<h3 id="the-balance-of-forces">The Balance of Forces</h3> + +<p>The competition to maintain a commanding position in the undersea operating environment played a crucial role in the Cold War. During the early years of the Cold War, tracking Soviet SSNs as they attempted to break through the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap was vital to Allied efforts to ensure that US reinforcements could cross the Atlantic. In the 1980s, NATO’s approach shifted. In the context of a forward maritime strategy, the ability of NATO to menace Soviet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in their bastions was a key component of deterrence against the USSR, which was presumed to enjoy considerable advantages in Central Europe. The success of this approach was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that by the end of the Cold War, the commander of the Soviet Northern Fleet was compelled to request a trebling of his budget if the maritime component of Russia’s nuclear triad was to be adequately protected.</p> + +<p>Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a rough symmetry in how Allied and Russian forces have evolved, with both sides undergoing quantitative reductions but qualitative improvements. The Russian Northern Fleet fields 13 active SSNs and guided missile submarines (SSGNs), a far cry from its heyday, but vessels such as the Yasen and improved Akula II and III are considerably quieter than their predecessors. Allied submarine fleets including the Royal Navy’s submarine flotilla have endured a comparable drop in capacity, with the Royal Navy fielding fewer than half as many submarines as it did in 1990, although the Astute is also considerably quieter and more capable than the Trafalgar class.</p> + +<p>The major shift, however, is that the US SSN fleet will increasingly be focused on demands in the Indo-Pacific, where robust Chinese anti-access/area denial capabilities will put surface vessels at ever greater risk, but where US submarines still enjoy considerable advantages over the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s noisy SSNs and immature anti-submarine warfare assets. As the size of the US submarine fleet (which is already well short of the 66 boats the US navy requires to meet its commitments) shrinks during the late 2020s and reaches a low of 46 boats by 2030, it is not unlikely that the Pacific, where 60% of US submarines are typically deployed, will receive an ever larger portion of a temporarily smaller SSN fleet. Past 2026, the US navy expects to increase its build rate to three attack submarines per year, which should see it return to and then exceed its current strength by 2035, although the real effects of this regeneration of capability (if achieved) will be somewhat attenuated by the fact that the Chinese threat will not stand still.</p> + +<p>In Europe, this raises the possibility of short-term capability gaps emerging. In this context, the readiness of the Royal Navy’s submarines – which are, among other things, the only non-US Allied nuclear submarines that regularly perform under-ice operations – is both a national and an Alliance-level concern.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">With five Astute-class SSNs currently in service, the Royal Navy fields fewer submarines than has been the case at any given time in recent history</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>It would be a mistake to assume that the Russian submarine fleet is ten feet tall. Of the 13 SSNs and SSGNs currently fielded by Russia’s Northern Fleet, only a handful can be described as truly modern. While the Russian Yasen and Yasen-M are competitive against Western submarines, four of the Northern Fleet’s SSNs are aged Sierra II and Victor III-class boats, and the fleet also fields two older (though still credible) Oscar-class SSGNs. The fleet’s Project 971M/I Akula-class submarines are slowly returning to readiness after a trough in capability during the last decade, with SSNs such as the K-328 Leopard and K-154 Tigr completing refits in the early 2020s. Even so, the number of project-improved Akulas at the fleet’s disposal in the next several years should hover around six, meaning that the fleet currently fields eight SSNs/SSGNs (six Akulas and two Yasen/Yasen-M) that are credible in a modern context. Although Russian practice has historically prioritised surge capacity over presence at sea (which is why the Soviet Navy only deployed 25% of its SSNs at any given time during the Cold War as opposed to the 66% which the US navy maintained), a very high readiness rate of 80% would imply six or so modern SSNs being available in Russia’s Northern Fleet in a crisis (though submarines could be moved to the north from the Pacific Fleet).</p> + +<p>Russia will field more Yasen-class SSGNs by the end of this decade. While the lead boat of the class, the Severodvinsk, took 15 years to build, its successor the Kazan was constructed in eight years and accepted into service after 12, while the third and fourth submarines in the class (both allocated to the Pacific fleet) reached full operational capability in eight and nine years respectively. Two more boats were ordered in the first tranche of Yasen-class submarines to be built, and will likely enter service in 2024–25. In this period, the Northern Fleet’s complement of Yasen-class boats will increase from two to three (with three Yasen-class boats in the Northern and Pacific Fleets respectively). The Russian navy has commissioned a further six boats in the class which will likely enter service in the 2030s, assuming a comparable build rate. At present, there is some indication that the Yasen fleet appears to have been committed to the maintenance of a near year-round presence off the coast of the continental US – something which will likely require all four of the boats currently in service to maintain, and which will leave the fleet with limited surge capacity. One reason for this might be that the Russians are replicating the Soviet policy of delivering an “analogous response” to US missile deployments in Europe (which will occur from 2026 onwards) through the deployment of missile-equipped submarines to the Western Hemisphere. If this is the case, the ability of the Yasen fleet to surge multiple SSNs into the Atlantic will be limited until the early 2030s.</p> + +<p>The first part of the 2030s, then, will represent a point of particular concern as a nadir in US capability coincides with the growth of the Yasen SSGN fleet as a consequence of investments being made now. Past the mid-2030s, both a recovery in US numbers and progress on SSN (R)/SSN AUKUS will (in the absence of delays) result in the rectification of this imbalance. While the situation in the Atlantic is not presently critical, it is vital that steps are taken to ensure that a window of vulnerability does not open in the 2030s.</p> + +<h3 id="getting-more-out-of-astute">Getting More Out of Astute</h3> + +<p>It should be assumed that some of the issues plaguing the Royal Navy’s submarine readiness right now can be resolved at the speed of relevance if the threat is likely to become most acute at the end of the decade. To use one example, the lack of available docks at Devonport (which has forced a prioritisation of SSBN maintenance) should be resolved in the coming years, as 10 Dock at Devonport becomes available and 15 Dock is converted to service the Astute class. Furthermore, the floating docks being procured under the Additional Fleet Time Docking Capability (AFTDC) programme should help with the issue of readiness, although this programme is nascent and no date has been set yet for the tender. Finally, the Astute fleet will grow by two SSNs during the next few years. While still considerably smaller than the Russian Northern Fleet in numerical terms, the Royal Navy can, in conjunction with other European SSN operators such as the Marine Nationale, offset the effects of a relative reduction in US capacity and match a notional Russian force of 10–11 modern attack submarines which may be operated by the Northern Fleet in the early 2030s.</p> + +<p>This is by no means a certainty, however, and the fate of programmes such as the AFTDC remains to be seen. Moreover, infrastructure investments will not entirely resolve some of the challenges highlighted by Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff Lieutenant General Rob Magowan, which include supply chain management and the availability of engineers.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the question of availability will only be exacerbated by the rotational deployment of an Astute-class submarine to Perth beginning in 2027. To be sure, AUKUS is not necessarily a drag on capacity – investments in the UK’s submarine industrial base by Australia may be an important part of the solution to certain issues such as supply chain management. However, the timing of the rotational deployment bears considering, since this could coincide with the point at which the Russian submarine threat peaks. There may be competitive advantages to be gained in Europe from the deployment of submarines to the Pacific. To the extent that Russia (incorrectly) assesses AUKUS to be a full-fledged military alliance, it is likely to view any steps to delivering on it as a threat to the Russian Far East where, notably, half of the incoming batch of Yasen-class SSGNs will be based. As such, the strategic ambiguity of a rotational presence could play a role in fixing Russian assets away from Europe.</p> + +<p>These opportunities notwithstanding, a more salient question for the Royal Navy may be the timing and form that its rotational commitment to Submarine Rotational Force West takes. One approach to how the rotational deployment might be conducted by partner states could conform to the logic of dynamic force employment articulated by former Secretary of Defence James Mattis, in which forces were expected to make short, irregular deployments geared towards an emphasis on readiness and operational uncertainty. If the deployment schedule of British and US SSNs was made shorter and larger in scale (with multiple SSNs on any deployment but for a shorter period), this could impose a degree of operational uncertainty on Russia while maintaining a regular drumbeat of visits to Australia for functions such as training and political signalling.</p> + +<p>Alternatively, if a likely multi-year rotational forward presence is deemed politically vital to the success of AUKUS, the UK would do well to deliver its part of the commitment before 2030, which is when the threat in Europe will peak.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">The period from 2025–35 will likely be one of maximal concern as the demand from the Indo-Pacific and a qualitative increase in the Russian threat converge</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>In addition to thinking about how longer-term commitments are managed and sequenced, the tasking of the Astute fleet could become more focused. For example, the role of SSNs as Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM) launchers in support of expeditionary activity might reasonably be sacrificed given that this entails the use of a highly specialised platform for functions that can eventually be played by surface vessels, and draws on capacity in support of relatively peripheral missions. Until the Type 26 enters service, readiness for the contingent employment of limited stocks of TLAM outside Europe might be treated as a task to be effectively gapped.</p> + +<p>In a similar vein, a greater emphasis might be placed on committing more resources to key activities such as ASW and exercises such as Ice Exercise, in which the Royal Navy and US Navy practice under-ice SSN operations (something no European partner other than the UK provide the US), even if this comes at the expense of other standing commitments (beyond nondiscretionary missions like protecting the deterrent). A more narrowly focused pattern of activity could help optimise a limited fleet for its core functions, which during the latter part of this decade and the first part of the next could in turn set the conditions for a more balanced pattern of activity towards the middle of the next decade and beyond.</p> + +<p>Third, the relative balance between the submarines of the Russian Northern Fleet and Allied capabilities can be influenced in certain ways. As mentioned, the rotational deployment of Yasen-class submarines in what appears to be an analogous response posture will rob Russia of surge capacity. Similar long-distance deployments as part of an analogous response approach might be incentivised by forward operations in the Barents Sea (which former commander of the Russian Navy Admiral Yevmenov discussed with some concern in the journal Morskoi Sbornik), or through live exercises simulating the firing of submarine-launched cruise missiles from forward positions (something which is viewed as a matter of concern since British missiles are viewed as a component of a much larger US prompt strike capability). These represent notional examples rather than concrete solutions, but the broader point is that the pattern of activity the submarine service should aim for is one in which short bursts of Allied activity stimulate much longer Russian deployments. While the number of hulls in the Russian Northern Fleet cannot be impacted, the number available to Russia at any time can be.</p> + +<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> + +<p>Ultimately, there are no simple fixes to the challenges that shortfalls in SSN numbers will pose. These shortfalls will not be acute until later in this decade, by which time the UK should have overcome some of its own short-term challenges. The period from 2025–35 will likely be one of maximal concern as the demand from the Indo-Pacific and a qualitative increase in the Russian threat converge. In this window, it will likely be vital to narrow the number of tasks performed by the Astute fleet as much as possible. Beyond this point, there will be greater room for the fleet to support longer-term goals, including those entailed under AUKUS.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Sidharth Kaushal</strong> is Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research at RUSI covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.</p>Sidharth KaushalWith the growing threat posed by Russia’s Northern Fleet and increased demand in the Indo-Pacific, the Royal Navy must overcome its submarine challenges to remain relevant.【勇武7人案・審訊第 81 日】2024-08-27T12:00:00+08:002024-08-27T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-valiant-conspiracy-day-81<ul> <li>3男6女陪審團今早開始退庭商議</li> </ul> @@ -6051,428 +6260,4 @@ <hr /> -<p>案件編號：HCCC51/2022</p>獨媒報導官裁3控罪表證成立 黎智英選擇親自作供 押後至11.20續審Russia &amp; Iran In Latin America2024-07-25T12:00:00+08:002024-07-25T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/russia-and-iran-in-latin-america<p><em>In January 2023, Venezuelan authorities inaugurated a mural in the capital, Caracas, in honor of Qasem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force leader who was killed by a U.S. drone attack in 2020.</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>Soleimani, a prominent figure of the Islamic Revolution and Tehran’s ultraconservative, theocratic regime, is depicted standing alongside former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, leader of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution — a movement that has been deemed socially progressive and vigorously secular. Given these contradictions, what are the ties that bind these two figures?</em></p> - -<p>The cement of the relationship between Venezuela and Iran is perhaps best described by the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Their shared priority is to ensure their respective regimes’ survival in the face of perceived threats, with the United States as the primary foe. Ayatollah Khomeini, the first leader of the Islamic republic, dubbed the United States the “Great Satan,” while Chávez referred to former U.S. president George W. Bush as “the devil.” This rhetoric and outlook matches that of Russia and other active rejecters of the U.S.-led international order; indeed, Russian president Vladimir Putin has spoken out against the “collective West” in Ukraine.</p> - -<p>While Western observers have focused their attention on joint connivances of Russia and Iran in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East, where Russo-Iranian military-security operations directly affect U.S. and European interests, the Western Hemisphere is not isolated from the two countries’ quests for global influence. In fact, in many ways it is an essential piece of the puzzle. First, both Iran and Russia perceive Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as a fertile ground for exploiting popular resentment vis-à-vis the United States and the “collective West,” which they — rather successfully — harness to advance their view of a multipolar world. Second, LAC partners could prove instrumental in offsetting the impacts of Western sanctions against Moscow and Tehran by mitigating their diplomatic and economic isolation. Finally, certain LAC countries could also serve as less scrutinized partners for further developing Russo-Iranian warfare capabilities or cooperation, sheltering mercenaries or militias — such as Hezbollah — and acting as vectors for “horizontal escalation” of conflicts in which Russia and Iran are currently involved.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">While Western observers have focused their attention on joint connivances of Russia and Iran in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East, where Russo-Iranian military-security operations directly affect U.S. and European interests, the Western Hemisphere is not isolated from the two countries’ quests for global influence.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>This paper examines Russia’s and Iran’s creeping influence over the Western Hemisphere, assessing the historic legacy as well as the current diplomatic, economic, informational, and military-security links that contribute to the region’s continued willingness to engage with these two countries. It then offers analysis and recommendations to Western policymakers, outlining new approaches the transatlantic community should adopt to contain potential Russo-Iranian coordination in LAC.</p> - -<h3 id="anti-western-sentiments-as-historical-entry-points-for-russia-and-iran-in-lac">Anti-Western Sentiments as Historical Entry Points for Russia and Iran in LAC</h3> - -<p>Russia has a long history of engagement with LAC countries, dating back to the nineteenth century, when the Russian Empire opened embassies in Brazil and Mexico in 1828 and 1890, respectively. Moscow’s presence on the continent only grew under the Soviet Union, and especially during the Cold War era. The Soviet leadership focused on countries where it could capitalize on existing anti-U.S. sentiment and interstate and intrastate rivalries. For instance, the Kremlin provided extensive military-security and economic assistance to Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Peru to support revolutionary movements. By doing so, the Soviet Union aimed to undermine U.S. standing and strengthen its footprint on the continent.</p> - -<p>However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly established Russian Federation was unable to provide financial or security aid to LAC countries and was forced to disengage. Furthermore, in the 1990s, as Russia sought rapprochement with the United States under President Boris Yeltsin, the strategic significance of LAC in the eyes of Moscow diminished. While Yeltsin visited the United States four times during his eight years of presidency, he did not make any trips to LAC.</p> - -<p>An attempt to establish and maintain amicable relations with the United States did not mean, however, that the Russian political elite had fully disregarded the geopolitical importance of LAC countries. The Primakov doctrine — named for Yevgeny Primakov, a foreign minister and prime minister under Yeltsin — famously posited that, as the West was meddling and exerting influence in Russia’s “backyard” through NATO expansion and the imposition of the U.S.-dominated world order, Russia’s presence in its opponent’s “near abroad” was crucial to level the playing field. Consequently, as U.S.-Russian bilateral relations became more tense starting in the mid-2000s, Moscow began resuscitating diplomatic, economic, and security ties with its former Cold War allies Cuba and Nicaragua and built new relationships with other regional powers antagonistic toward the United States, such as Venezuela.</p> - -<p>Similar to Russia, albeit comparatively limited in scale, Iran’s entry into LAC was preceded by revolutionary regime change and the anti-U.S. sentiments it unleashed. In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a leftist insurgency spearheaded by Daniel Ortega, deposed the dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. That same year, the shah fled Iran, ushering in the modern Iranian theocratic state with Ayatollah Khomeini at its head. While the two movements had starkly different ideological origins, they shared a common opposition to the United States, rooted in Washington’s support for the regimes they had ousted. By the early 1980s, Nicaraguan and Iranian leaders were discussing cooperation and efforts to balance vis-à-vis both the United States and the Soviet Union.</p> - -<p>With the close of the Cold War, Iran found its appeals to anti-U.S. sentiment losing saliency in the hemisphere as many of the militant leftist groups in the region laid down their arms or negotiated peace. In their place, Iranian proxy Hezbollah established a beachhead in the region. Its affiliate, Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, while Hezbollah allegedly masterminded the devastating 1994 bombing of the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association.</p> - -<p>However, it was not until the mid-2000s and the height of LAC’s “pink tide,” which carried a series of socialist and otherwise U.S.-skeptical governments into power, that Iran’s engagement with the hemisphere took on a more robust, institutional character. The Chávez government in Venezuela was especially important in opening the door for Iran. In addition to their shared derision of the United States as a geopolitical demon, Chávez and former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actively worked to cultivate like-minded LAC governments. Venezuela’s oil wealth and diplomatic clout gave it a powerful platform to advocate for an expanded role for Iran in the hemisphere, and between 2005 and 2009, Iran opened embassies in six new countries in the region: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. This policy has continued for the most part, especially as the Trump administration’s pursuit of a maximum-pressure sanctions campaign against both Venezuela and Iran caused these two governments to double down on their bilateral ties.</p> - -<p>Today, as Russia and Iran continue to face mounting political and economic pressure from the United States and its Western allies, expanded ties to countries in LAC, rooted in history, can serve as an important release valve for both Moscow and Tehran. Strengthened relations, not only with staunch anti-U.S. governments like those in Cuba and Venezuela but also with regional powers such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, could help Russia and Iran mitigate the impact of sanctions and offer them much-needed legitimacy on the world stage. Regular visits by high-ranking Russian and Iranian officials to the region have proven a comparatively low-cost means of challenging Washington’s preeminence in LAC. While these visits often tend to focus on the hemisphere’s three consolidated dictatorships — Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — Russia and Iran continue to seek political, economic, and military-security relations with a broad array of LAC countries.</p> - -<h3 id="converging-patterns-of-russian-and-iranian-engagement-in-lac">Converging Patterns of Russian and Iranian Engagement in LAC</h3> - -<p>A growing consensus among policymakers in the United States acknowledges the Western Hemisphere as a new frontier in geopolitical competition, especially following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has emboldened authoritarian regimes to more directly challenge the U.S.-led international order. However, most analyses of great power competition in the region have focused their attention on China as the U.S. rival with both the desire and resources at its disposal to challenge Washington in its neighborhood. By contrast, neither Russia nor Iran (commonly considered “junior partners” to China in the region) possess the economic heft to comprehensively engage all countries in LAC. Instead, both have relied on asymmetrical strategies to undermine U.S. objectives and support a small set of regional allies who serve as springboards for further influence.</p> - -<p>Yet a lack of economic clout may in fact make Russia and Iran more threatening actors in the short term. Unencumbered by China’s need to manage perceptions and diplomatic relations across more than two dozen countries, Russia and Iran can double down on disruptive and destabilizing practices. More troubling still, there is mounting evidence that, in some sectors at least, Russia and Iran may not merely be pursuing parallel strategies but could be moving toward a more coordinated approach to engagement with the hemisphere.</p> - -<h4 id="diplomatic-relations">Diplomatic Relations</h4> - -<p>Russia’s post-invasion diplomatic approach to Latin America has been guided by its updated foreign policy concept, which posits an imminent decline of Western hegemony and the emergence of a multipolar world order. For instance, during his tour of the region in April 2023, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized Russia’s respect for the sovereignty of Latin American nations, referring to the region as one of the emergent centers of the multipolar world despite U.S. “bullying and imperialism.”</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/cnXstoy.jpeg" alt="image01" /> -<em>▲ Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro meet at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas in April 2023. Lavrov called for like-minded countries to “join forces” against Western sanctions “blackmail” as the longtime diplomat continued his tour of Latin America.</em></p> - -<p>While a majority of the region has voted in favor of UN resolutions decrying Russia’s war on Ukraine, Moscow has managed to secure sympathy and tacit support from regional powers. For instance, Brazil, under the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), has repeatedly championed peace proposals for the Ukraine war, most recently with the release of a set of “common understandings” between Brazil and China on the contours of a possible settlement. However, Lula has faced criticism for his perceived bias toward Russia in these negotiations. Indeed, following a 2023 tour in which he claimed that both Kyiv and Moscow shared the blame for the conflict, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby accused the Brazilian president of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda.”</p> - -<p>Lula is joined in the bid to forge peace in Ukraine by outgoing Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (colloquially known as AMLO), who put forth his own peace plan in the summer of 2022. AMLO, who has previously rejected U.S. intelligence claims that Mexico City is the world’s biggest Russian espionage hub, proposed a plan calling for an immediate ceasefire and the launch of a dialogue to address the war’s underlying causes. Ukrainian diplomats rejected this option as a de facto freezing of the front lines that would allow Russia to maintain its military presence in occupied territories.</p> - -<p>Tellingly, neither Brazil nor Mexico signed on to the final communiqué issued at the June 2024 summit on peace in Ukraine. Regional dissonance over the correct path to a negotiated settlement in Ukraine helps muddy the waters on peace and indirectly allows Russia to undermine efforts to build a truly broad-based international coalition dedicated to a just settlement to the war.</p> - -<p>Similarly, Iran’s diplomatic approach toward Latin America is built on its claims to be “a nation unjustly harassed by the West,” which help it gain sympathy and secure political and economic support from the states that are either antagonistic or ambivalent at best toward the United States. For instance, in June 2023, when now-deceased Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi visited Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for the first time since taking office, he highlighted the need for the revolutionary movements in both Iran and LAC to reassert their independence and sovereignty. “The Americans have always considered you, Latin America, as their backyard. But thank God, now you have sovereignty,” the Iranian president remarked. Raisi left the region having secured dozens of agreements with his LAC counterparts in the energy, agriculture, healthcare, education, information technology, and maritime transportation sectors.</p> - -<p>In addition to Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, Iran has maintained close diplomatic relations with Bolivia. The two nations have signed defense and security agreements that might have included the delivery of Bolivian passports to Iranian citizens. As Argentina’s minister of security, Patricia Bullrich, pointed out, such an agreement, if confirmed, would open a door to Iranian citizens with Bolivian passports across the hemisphere — a strategy that Tehran has already used in Venezuela to infiltrate the region.</p> - -<p>Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has also severely damaged its relations with LAC, presenting another opportunity for Iran to make inroads in the region. Keystone countries including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico have condemned the Israeli government’s prosecution of the war. The broad support among LAC governments for the Palestinian cause is primarily driven by domestic political dynamics, not foreign influence. However, as the rift between Israel and the region grows, Tehran could seize on these new openings to advance its diplomatic rhetoric as the self-proclaimed leader of the “axis of resistance.” The recent election of a more reform-minded candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, as the country’s new president is also unlikely to significantly change Tehran’s engagement with LAC as, in his own words, “[t]here is significantly more potential for cooperation between Iran and the countries of Latin America than what is currently being realized.”</p> - -<p>Javier Milei’s Argentina is nevertheless a major outlier, being one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel and of Benyamin Netanyahu in particular, the first leader whom the Argentinian president visited after his election. Argentina was the sole LAC country to vote against the UN General Assembly’s motion to recognize Palestine as a full member of the body, and it has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. This political dissonance with the rest of the continent is a source of tension, with Argentina’s security minister Patricia Bullrich accusing Bolivia and Chile of being hotbeds for Islamist groups and ordering reinforcements to the borders with these two countries, prompting them to pull their ambassadors from Buenos Aires. It also created a major spat between Argentina and Iran, with the latter’s integration into the BRICS in January 2024 having been a key factor in Milei’s decision to walk back his predecessor’s decision to join BRICS+. Following Buenos Aires’ designation of Hamas as a terrorist group, Tehran issued a stark warning that it “will make [Argentina] regret its enmity.”</p> - -<p>Overall, Russia’s and Iran’s diplomatic engagement with LAC, especially following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has in large part been based on presenting the West as an oppressor, which LAC countries could counter by exercising their right to sovereignty and supporting the establishment of a new, multipolar world order.</p> - -<h4 id="influence-operations">Influence Operations</h4> - -<p>The media environment in LAC presents the lowest barriers to entry and consequentially has been a sector where both Iran and Russia have made significant strides separately and, at times, in coordination. The Kremlin has been relying on the Spanish-language affiliates of state-backed outlets, such as RT Spanish (television and online) and Sputnik Mundo (radio and online), to spread Russian propaganda and disinformation on the continent for more than a decade. With Mexico often serving as a hub for Russian disinformation operations, these outlets overwhelmingly focus on the United States, questioning its domestic and foreign policies. According to U.S. intelligence reporting, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has used media contacts in 13 countries across the continent, including Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela, to weaken international support for Ukraine. RT, Sputnik, and their regional affiliates have disseminated conspiracy theories about “denazifying Ukraine,” alleged Ukrainian aggression against Russia, NATO expansionism, and “staged recording” of civilian deaths in Ukraine. They have also depicted ongoing sanctions against Russia as beneficial for the West but harmful for the global economy and food security. In December 2023, RT Spanish even won four prestigious awards from the Mexican Press Club for its coverage of the war in Ukraine, illustrating a stark disconnect in regional perceptions of Russian news sources.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">The media environment in LAC presents the lowest barriers to entry and consequentially has been a sector where both Iran and Russia have made significant strides separately and, at times, in coordination.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>Russian influence operations are not only concerned with shaping attitudes toward foreign policy. In Colombia and Mexico, Russia has reportedly sought to sway the results of key elections in favor of Moscow’s preferred candidates, through its official media platforms as well as through networks of trolls, bots, and regional pro-Kremlin affiliates. In Mexico, RT Spanish broadcast a long-running video series entitled “The Battle for Mexico,” which cast then-candidate López Obrador in a favorable light as the only leader willing to confront the United States and preserve Mexican sovereignty. In Colombia, Russia-linked bots on Twitter (now known as X) were found to have promoted Gustavo Petro’s candidacy in 2022. The extent to which such efforts swayed the final result should be treated with a degree of caution, as both Petro and López Obrador won due to a confluence of factors. Nevertheless, election interference efforts remain among Moscow’s most corrosive tools to undermine democracy and sovereignty worldwide.</p> - -<p>Iran’s Spanish-language media agency HispanTV has made similar strides in the region. In doing so, it has benefitted from partnerships with fellow authoritarian-leaning media outlets, which help amplify and advance its messages. National security analysts Douglas Farah and Alexa Tavarez have demonstrated, for instance, how Venezuelan outlet teleSUR, RT, and HispanTV often cite and recite one another’s work and rely on similar sets of pro-authoritarian journalists based in the region to convey their messages. These so-called “super spreaders” advance common messages critiquing U.S. policy toward the region as imperialist and uplifting the approaches of Iran, Russia, and China as seeking to challenge malign U.S. hegemony while encouraging economic development among LAC countries.</p> - -<p>The convergence between Russian and Iranian influence operations could be observed less than a month before the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On January 28, 2022, an article by Pablo Jofré Leal appeared in HispanTV calling for an “alliance against [U.S.] hegemony” to be spearheaded by Russia, China, and Iran. Leal, a Chilean journalist and frequent contributor to HispanTV, RT Spanish, teleSUR, and many affiliated websites, has acted as a key node for translating messages from Moscow and Tehran for a regional audience.</p> - -<p>Beyond the traditional media space, organizations like Nova Resistência, a neofascist organization and part of the broader New Resistance organization inspired by the ideas of Kremlin-backed philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, have worked not only to advance pro-Russian messages but also to praise the actions of Iran and Hezbollah. A 2023 U.S. Department of State report found that the Brazilian Nova Resistência chapter was “particularly active” in convening events, writing articles, and disseminating physical pamphlets and posters advancing pro-Kremlin narratives.</p> - -<p>Even absent formal coordination between Iran and Russia in the information space, their methods and objectives for fomenting anti-U.S. sentiment enjoy strong complementarity. As the cases of Pablo Jofré Leal and Nova Resistência also demonstrate, the audience for such messaging within LAC enjoys a high degree of overlap.</p> - -<h4 id="energy-and-economics">Energy and Economics</h4> - -<p>Russia’s economic clout in LAC is marginal, especially when compared to that of the United States and the European Union, which remain the key investors in the hemisphere, comprising 38 percent and 17 percent of Latin America’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in 2022, respectively. The major recipients of Russian FDI in the region include Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and these investments tend to focus on the extractive sectors, including minerals, oil, and gas. Bilateral trade between Russia and LAC countries stands at around $12 billion, with Russia mainly exporting fertilizers, mineral fuels, iron, and steel to the region (primarily to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico).</p> - -<p>Despite Russia’s small economic footprint in LAC, the Kremlin has expressed strengthened interest in the region’s energy sector in recent years and, in certain cases, has even managed to challenge the Western companies operating on the ground. Brazil presents a noteworthy example in this regard, replacing Turkey as the largest purchaser of Russian diesel in October 2023. Overall in 2023, Brazil imported 6.1 million tons of diesel with a value of $4.5 billion from Russia — a 6,000 percent increase from the 101,000 tons of Russian diesel worth $95 million that it imported in 2022. Such a sharp rise in Russian diesel market share in Brazil, from virtually zero in 2022 to 50 percent in 2023 and 70 percent in 2024, has in large part resulted from its competitive pricing — one of the effects of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Highly reliant on cheap diesel to keep its economy moving, Brazil’s decision to pivot away from the United States in favor of Russia can further increase Moscow’s diplomatic and economic ties with Brasília, securing support from the largest country in the region.</p> - -<p>Besides Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela also represent interesting case studies for Russia’s renewed focus on making inroads into the Western Hemisphere’s energy sector. In March 2023, Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s state oil company Rosneft, visited Havana and Caracas to discuss energy cooperation with the two countries. A year later, 90,000 metric tons of Russian oil arrived in Cuba to offer some relief to an island mired in power outages and gasoline shortages. Sanctioned by the United States, Cuba’s communist government has once again found itself beholden to the Kremlin, bringing additional revenue and economic and political opportunities to Russia. In the case of Venezuela, while Rosneft was pressured to cease its operations in Venezuela in 2020, Sechin’s visit amid the war in Ukraine and international sanctions imposed against Russia might imply and lead to renewed energy cooperation between the two countries. (In the past, Moscow relied on Rosneft to both expand the company’s portfolio and advance the country’s geopolitical interests vis-à-vis Caracas.) These intentions were reiterated during Lavrov’s visit to Venezuela in February 2024, with the Russian foreign minister promising to boost joint oil and gas production and foster “peaceful use of nuclear energy” in the country.</p> - -<p>In some instances, however, Moscow’s efforts have gone nowhere. In Argentina, Novatek — Russia’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — reportedly offered the Argentinian government the technology to build an LNG plant, but talks between the two parties broke off without a deal. In Bolivia, Gazprom — a Russian state-owned oil and gas company that has been present in the country for more than a decade — has failed to drill and develop any natural gas or oil fields during this period, prompting criticism from local experts.</p> - -<p>Russia has nevertheless made some advances in the clean energy and mining space, with state-owned firm Rosatom signing a $450 million deal in 2023 as part of a bid with China to develop Bolivia’s lithium reserves, estimated as the largest in the hemisphere. Overall, while Latin America’s energy sector is promising for Russia — especially following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has forced Russian companies to look elsewhere for energy deals and investments — it is still rife with risks, limitations, and competition.</p> - -<p>Like Russia, Iran’s economic influence in the hemisphere has been limited and primarily focused on energy cooperation. In Venezuela, Iran’s presence has had an outsized impact on the ability of the government of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, to remain in power. Iran’s expertise navigating mass international pressure was invaluable for the Maduro regime to retain oil revenues in the face of U.S. sectoral sanctions on the energy sector after the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. Venezuela shipped crude oil to Iran, Russia, and China in return for financial assistance and cheap gasoline to maintain fuel subsidies in a time of economic turmoil. Venezuela has also relied upon Iranian technical assistance, inking a deal with Tehran in 2022 to help repair Venezuela’s El Palito refinery to the tune of some €110 million (up to $120 million). Iranian technical support has been essential as Venezuela struggles to bring its hollowed-out oil sector back to life in anticipation of the lifting of sanctions. Tehran also significantly benefits from this arrangement, having leveraged its partnership with the Maduro regime to build and sell Iranian cars and reportedly acquire over a million hectares of farmland in Venezuela to support Iran’s agricultural sector.</p> - -<p>The cases discussed above show that the energy sector could be another area ripe for cooperation between Iran, Russia, and their allies in the Western Hemisphere, especially Venezuela. While all three countries are ostensibly competitors in the global oil market, the layers of sanctions they face have engendered a peculiar form of covert camaraderie. Russian joint oil ventures with Venezuela produced an estimated 120,000 barrels per day in 2022, or more than one-sixth of the country’s total oil production. Venezuela, in turn, has relied heavily on Iranian tankers to launder its oil and deliver it to buyers — most often to China. Each country has therefore seemingly intuited that they have more to gain from attempting to subvert U.S.-led sanctions together than by forging their own path.</p> - -<p>This arrangement appears to have frayed in the months following the October 2023 Barbados Accords, when the United States began issuing licenses to companies to resume oil production in Venezuela. Now able to trade oil with U.S. firms for cash in hand rather than fuel, Venezuela’s trade with Iran plummeted from 2022 to 2023, leading to a diplomatic scramble by the two countries to restore their alliance. However, with the reimposition of U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela in April 2024, energy cooperation between Venezuela, Iran, and Russia may be set to increase once more.</p> - -<h4 id="military-security-cooperation">Military-Security Cooperation</h4> - -<p>Russia’s engagement with LAC countries has been guided by the aforementioned Primakov doctrine — the idea that Russia should engage with the “near abroad” of the United States in response to Washington’s meddling in internal affairs of the countries Moscow views as its “near abroad.” This is particularly true against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. For instance, in June 2022, Nicaraguan president Ortega authorized the entry of Russian troops, military ships, and aircraft into Nicaragua to assist with military training, law enforcement, and humanitarian aid. Russian state media has linked the Russian military deployment in the country to U.S. engagement with Ukraine, with one television host stating, “If American missile systems can nearly reach Moscow from Ukrainian territory, it is time for Russia to roll out something powerful closer to the American city upon a hill.” According to some estimates, up to 3,700 Russian troops have participated in different military trainings and exchanges with the Nicaraguan army between 2014 and 2024. Russia has also operated a Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) satellite ground station in Nicaragua since 2017 (Moscow also operates four other ground stations further south in Brazil). Located just outside of the capital, Managua, the facility has raised concerns that it could be used to intercept satellite communications close to the equator, where many of the U.S. critical assets are located in geostationary orbits. Finally, Moscow has helped train the Nicaraguan National Police, implicated in serious human rights abuses, from its U.S.-sanctioned counternarcotics center, also in Managua.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">In June 2022, Nicaraguan president Ortega authorized the entry of Russian troops, military ships, and aircraft into Nicaragua to assist with military training, law enforcement, and humanitarian aid. Russian state media has linked the Russian military deployment in the country to U.S. engagement with Ukraine.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>In another especially symbolic display, a contingent of Russian soldiers took part in Mexico’s Independence Day parade in 2023. Meanwhile, Russian military exercises in the Caribbean, which included port calls in Cuba and Venezuela, have been framed by some analysts as a direct response to the Biden administration’s decision allowing Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with U.S. weapons systems. While the detachment posed little practical threat to U.S. national security, similar deployments may become more frequent as Russia looks to convey power and prestige on the world stage and continue to apply pressure to the United States within its neighborhood.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/k3fpDtQ.jpeg" alt="image02" /> -<em>▲ A woman and a girl wave as frigate Admiral Gorshkov, part of the Russian naval detachment visiting Cuba, leaves Havana Harbor. The detachment visited Cuba in June 2024 amid major tensions over the war in Ukraine.</em></p> - -<p>In addition to military deployments and joint training exercises with its partner countries, Russia has been supplying Latin America with arms. From 2000 to 2023, Russia was the number three supplier of weapons in the hemisphere, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), behind only the United States and United Kingdom in sales. However, since 2019, according to SIPRI data, Russia has not made any major sales in the region, and with the Russian defense industrial base geared primarily toward its own war effort, it seems unlikely that Moscow will be able to reenter the market in a meaningful way anytime soon. Still, Russian arms provide continued influence over Latin American states. Countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru, which operate stocks of Russian-supplied weapons, still rely on Moscow for maintenance and upkeep. Colombia, for instance, is struggling to maintain its fleet of Soviet-designed Mi-17 military helicopters, which the local authorities have said is the direct result of the war in Ukraine. The region has also rebuked efforts by U.S. and European leaders to sell their legacy Russian and Soviet arms to Ukraine, even with assurances of replacements. Ecuador came closest in February 2024, offering to sell $200 million worth of outmoded Russian and Soviet equipment to the United States (which could presumably pass this along to Ukraine), only to backpedal in the face of Russian economic pressure.</p> - -<p>While joint trainings, dual-use facilities, and the deployment of military assets have all featured prominently in Russia’s playbook in the region, these tactics have also increasingly become part of Iran’s tool kit for engagement in the Western Hemisphere. For instance, the drop in Russian arms sales has been accompanied by a spike in Iranian weapons to the hemisphere. This has been driven by one country, Venezuela, which in 2023 acquired at least six Peykaap-III fast attack boats, along with an estimated 25 anti-ship missiles. In April 2024, reports also surfaced that Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces were developing a loitering munition dubbed the “Zamora V-1” based on Iranian Shahed 131/136 drones. These drones have been widely used by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, thus enabling Tehran to combat test, improve, and promote Iranian-made weapons and technology globally. Details at the time of this writing are scarce, but Venezuela has demonstrated a capability to replicate Iranian designs, with an undisclosed number of Mohajer drones having previously been produced under license in Venezuela. Cooperation on drone production and local upgrades to Iranian drone models have helped Venezuela build technical expertise and capacity within the country’s arms industry, helping state aerospace company EANSA to become a capable manufacturer of combat drones in its own right. The Maduro regime’s growing partnership with Tehran in the defense space is especially troubling in light of Venezuela’s escalating rhetoric toward its neighbor Guyana over the disputed Essequibo territory. Cruise missile–toting fast attack craft and loitering munitions could allow the regime to menace shipping and oil platforms off the coast of Guyana, mimicking the tactics of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea and imperiling Guyana’s burgeoning offshore oil industry.</p> - -<p>Beyond arms sales, Iran’s security cooperation with the hemisphere has been far less mature, often relying on non-state proxies. In 2022, for instance, a Venezuelan 747 cargo plane with both Venezuelan and Iranian nationals aboard was detained in Argentina over suspicions of conducting espionage and smuggling on behalf of Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps sanctioned and designated as a terrorist entity by the United States. Iran’s 2023 naval world tour, which included stops in Brazil and transit through the Panama Canal, also illustrates how the rotation of military assets through LAC provides a means of asymmetric escalation against the United States.</p> - -<h4 id="proxies-and-partners">Proxies and Partners</h4> - -<p>Moscow and Tehran are both proficient in the use of non-state proxies to advance their interests, and the Western Hemisphere is no exception to this. The Iranian-backed militia group Hezbollah embodies this dynamic. The group’s successes at orchestrating large-scale terror attacks in the 1990s continue to shape regional perceptions today. With a decades-long presence in the region, Hezbollah continues to operate in the so-called Triple Frontier region between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.</p> - -<p>Today, Hezbollah’s operations have shifted northward to Venezuela, where it has allegedly embedded itself in criminal networks to facilitate money laundering and illicit financial activity. Former Venezuelan vice president Tareck El Aissami reportedly served as the intermediary between the Maduro government and Hezbollah, helping launder money for the group through contacts in the Colombian company Importadora Silvania. Furthermore, during his tenure, El Aissami was said to have arranged for members of Hezbollah to train on Margarita Island with members of the colectivos, Venezuela’s pro-regime paramilitary, thus maintaining a level of distance from formal state-to-state relations. A string of other high-profile money laundering cases over the past 20 years, from Paraguay to Colombia, has led one analyst to remark that Hezbollah “has achieved what other large terrorist groups could not, entrenching itself within the complex web of TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] and substate actors in a region far removed from its founding territory and spiritual heartland.”</p> - -<p>LAC’s varied reactions to the war in Gaza will likely shift these dynamics in unpredictable ways. Brazil and Colombia have both taken steps to curtail their relations with Israel over its conduct of the war, with the latter going so far as to sever relations entirely. Both countries had long-standing security cooperation with Israel, including a joint operation between the Mossad and Brazilian police in November 2023 that resulted in the arrest of two alleged Hezbollah operatives planning a series of attacks. However, strained relations with Israel may complicate future cooperation and intelligence sharing on Hezbollah activities in the Western Hemisphere.</p> - -<p>Russia, by contrast, is a comparatively recent entrant in its use of armed proxy groups within LAC. Perhaps the most notable episode occurred in 2019 when, amid mass unrest and fears of a potential coup against Maduro, some 400 Russian mercenaries, allegedly from the Wagner Group, arrived in Caracas to provide security for the embattled president. Similar to Wagner’s activities on the African continent, the private military contractors reportedly remain active, training the Venezuelan armed forces and protecting mining operations in the country’s Orinoco region. In May 2023, leaked U.S. national security documents showed that Wagner may have attempted to reprise this role, this time leading a scouting visit to Haiti.</p> - -<p>As LAC continues to grapple with resurgent transnational criminal organizations, there may be opportunities for Russia or even Iran to provide further security assistance. China has already exploited a perceived gap in U.S. security sector support to stand up at least 11 private security firms in the region. Meanwhile, Russia has proven adept at leveraging security challenges in Africa to expand its influence and fill its coffers. Russian private military contractors like the Wagner Group and its successor, the Africa Corps, are by now infamous for their ruthless counterinsurgency deployments in the Central African Republic, Mali, and Sudan. As electorates throughout the Western Hemisphere call for forceful action to be taken in the face of worsening criminal violence, the “brutal but effective” methods employed by authoritarian proxies may take on heightened appeal.</p> - -<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> - -<p>Russia and Iran are selective in their engagement with countries in LAC. While they cultivate close ties with the hemisphere’s three anti-U.S. dictatorships — Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — they simultaneously work to gain ground in more neutral or U.S.-skeptical countries, such as Brazil and Mexico. Furthermore, as this paper has argued, Moscow and Tehran do not act in isolation from one another and are in fact increasingly pursuing convergent and coordinated goals in the region.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Russia and Iran are selective in their engagement with countries in LAC. While they cultivate close ties with the hemisphere’s three anti-U.S. dictatorships — Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — they simultaneously work to gain ground in more neutral or U.S.-skeptical countries.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>The United States should strive to do the same in its response by partnering with like-minded allies both within LAC and across the Atlantic. In doing so, Washington should seek to strengthen its relationships with friendly nations, disrupt the ability of its foes to coordinate, and devise a resource-backed counteroffer for those countries within LAC that currently prefer to sit on the fence between the United States, Iran, and Russia.</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p><strong>Strengthen partnerships with friends.</strong> Building partner capabilities in the media and cybersecurity space are essential elements to helping counties in LAC better insulate themselves from malign influence operations. These sectors present the lowest barriers to entry and are the areas where Russia and Iran are most clearly coordinating. To counter Moscow’s and Tehran’s inroads in the media space, the United States should look to expand scholarship programs for journalists based in LAC to help cultivate a new generation of reporters. By investing in young reporters from a diversity of backgrounds, the United States can help shape a media environment that is more discerning, critical, and capable of counteracting authoritarian political narratives organically.</p> - - <p>LAC’s cyber defenses face a shortage of resources and strategy across the board. However, there are promising signs that like-minded countries are beginning to take concrete steps to shore up these vulnerabilities. Costa Rica may be an especially key ally: it was the only LAC country to sign on to U.S. sanctions against Russia in 2022, and it was the victim of a devastating ransomware attack by the Russia-affiliated Conti hacker collective. U.S. Southern Command has already allocated nearly $10 million to assist Costa Rica in building up its cybersecurity capabilities. Broadening these efforts to bring in additional interested parties by establishing a cybersecurity center of excellence within the hemisphere, among other measures, could help elevate the conversation and further insulate allies from malign interference.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Disrupt and deter coordination among authoritarian adversaries.</strong> It has become increasingly evident that dictatorial regimes across the world pursue a common “playbook” to stifle domestic opposition and resist international pressure. Countering this requires the democratic powers of the world to devise and articulate their own playbook.</p> - - <p>Curbing illicit financial flows is one especially important effort in the Western Hemisphere, as governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua rely on their international connections to keep their hands on the reins of power. A new investigation by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control into the universe of trade ties from Russia and Iran in LAC could provide novel insights and help better calibrate sanctions efforts against these regimes as well as the hemisphere’s dictatorships.</p> - - <p>The United States should also pay close attention to military-technical cooperation between autocratic regimes. Chinese, Iranian, and Russian arms have all been used as part of Venezuela’s effort to intimidate and coerce Guyana, while Venezuela’s interest in coproducing loitering munitions with Iran would provide Caracas with a worrying new capability if carried to fruition. Limiting the extent to which hemispheric adversaries can benefit from this cooperation will be crucial to managing interstate tensions and escalation dynamics in the Western Hemisphere.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Articulate a counteroffer for fence-sitters.</strong> The United States, for its part, should continue to emphasize and draw attention to Russian war crimes and abuses in Ukraine. But messaging will not be enough on its own, and a more fulsome, resource-backed effort is sorely needed.</p> - - <p>While Russia and Iran lack the economic dynamism of China, they remain capable of applying significant pressure to regional governments unprepared for it. The case of Ecuador’s about-face on delivering arms to Ukraine following Russian sanctions on its banana industry is particularly illustrative. Russia also remains a key supplier of fertilizer to Brazil’s all-important agricultural sector. The United States, in partnership with the European Union, should look to map potential vectors for Russian and Iranian economic pressure and seek to strengthen U.S. and EU cooperation to minimize these.</p> - - <p>The United States should also seek to compete more effectively in the energy and minerals sectors. Like its engagement on the African continent, Russia has used targeted overtures in nuclear power and conventional fuel sales to expand its leverage even as a web of international sanctions encircles Moscow. Bolivia and Brazil, for instance, have both cooperated with Russia on nuclear power projects in the past two years. Meeting regional demand for power and clean energy investment will be crucial to weakening this hold, and in doing so will clearly demonstrate that the United States and its allies can deliver on the economic front for their partners in LAC.</p> - - <p>Because the perception of the United States can sometimes be negative across the continent, Washington could also benefit from cooperating with other non-LAC like-minded partners that do not face similar levels of public wariness. Chief among them is the European Union, which is showing increasing interest in the region, as displayed during the Spanish presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2023 (despite the irritant of stalled free-trade agreement negotiations between the European Union and Mercosur — the trade bloc consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). This could also be the case with some of the closest U.S. Indo-Pacific partners who have a history or expressed interest in closer ties with the continent, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Although all these countries are trade competitors, they share similar strategic objectives, and while their focus has been on the threats and challenges posed by China, Iran, and Russia in Eurasia, they should consider LAC a full-fledged — not marginal — theater of strategic competition. They should harness their respective competitive advantages to build offers catering to LAC’s most urgent needs in terms of infrastructure, energy, security, and defense, as well as in the informational space.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Henry Ziemer</strong> is a research associate with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.</p> - -<p><strong>Tina Dolbaia</strong> is a research associate with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at CSIS.</p> - -<p><strong>Mathieu Droin</strong> is a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at CSIS.</p>Henry Ziemer, et al.In January 2023, Venezuelan authorities inaugurated a mural in the capital, Caracas, in honor of Qasem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force leader who was killed by a U.S. drone attack in 2020.Not Just Boots On The Beach2024-07-25T12:00:00+08:002024-07-25T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/not-just-boots-on-the-beach<p><em>The paper explores four coercive approaches that Beijing could use to change the status quo around Taiwan short of outright invasion or blockade. It also highlights the serious challenges Washington and Taipei must address to have a ready response.</em></p> - -<excerpt /> - -<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> - -<p>On September 18, 1931, a Japanese infantry regiment conducted a “false flag” attack on the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway, detonating an explosive near a stretch of the track and blaming the operation on Chinese troops nearby. The next day, in response to the alleged sabotage, Japanese troops attacked a Chinese military garrison. Within months, the Japanese army had conquered Manchuria and made it a puppet state. Although a commission formed by the League of Nations eventually unraveled the deception and concluded that Japan had illegally invaded China, the international community took no meaningful action, in part because the active period of crisis had settled into a new normal and political will had evaporated.</p> - -<p>More than 80 years later, in February 2014, soldiers wearing uniforms without insignias or other identifying information surrounded Ukrainian military bases and seized strategic points in Crimea. Although many observers immediately suspected that these “little green men” were Russian troops, Moscow claimed that they were “local self-defense units” acting on their own initiative. The Ukrainian government quickly lost control of Crimea, which was formally annexed to Russia. Meanwhile, Russian special operations forces began quasi-surreptitiously supporting separatist uprisings in Eastern Ukraine, an operation that eventually led to the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war that is still underway.</p> - -<p>Today, the United States and its allies are focused on the threat of an even bigger war: a possible Chinese assault on Taiwan and the cataclysmic, world-changing conflict it could provoke. But in contemplating Chinese moves against Taiwan, it is worth keeping these earlier incidents in mind because they highlight an important if underappreciated fact: great powers pursuing revisionist aims often seek to disguise their actions, create a cloud of uncertainty around them, or achieve gains through a sequence of “salami slices” in order to increase the odds of a successful fait accompli that will decrease the costs they must pay for their aggression. As Washington ponders China’s next steps vis-à-vis Taiwan, it is vital to understand how Beijing might utilize subterfuge, “salami slicing” tactics, and wedge-driving strategies to isolate Taiwan and ultimately compel “reunification.”</p> - -<p>This paper does not take the position that China has abandoned or will abandon the possibility of a more dramatic, full-on invasion of Taiwan, should Chinese leader Xi Jinping conclude that the road to “peaceful” annexation is closed (although the two authors of this report do differ in their views on how likely this scenario is). The potential for an outright invasion is real, and the consequences of such a gambit would be dire. A Sino-American war over Taiwan would be a global catastrophe, and it is imperative for Washington and its allies to do all they can to deter such an attack.</p> - -<p>Yet China has more than one way of coercing Taiwan into political capitulation. Indeed, the more successful Washington and its friends are in deterring the “D-Day” scenario, the more Beijing may be incentivized to focus on lower-intensity, or less obvious, forms of aggression instead.</p> - -<p>This paper puts aside the prospect of an invasion or direct blockade and instead discusses four coercive approaches that Beijing could use to change the status quo: (1) a decapitation strike meant to exploit uncertainty in Taipei’s continuity of government arrangements; (2) a quasi-disguised maritime quarantine; (3) the taking, perhaps through ambiguous means, of one of Taiwan’s outlying islands; and (4) the staging of a catalytic incident in the Taiwan Strait. Each of these approaches would feature some degree of ambiguity and deception. Each would also target key vulnerabilities in Taiwan and in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, not the least of which include Taiwanese political will and Taiwanese confidence in the availability of U.S. support.</p> - -<p>This is not to say that China will conduct any of these operations — each of which could fail and each of which would entail significant risks for Beijing. Nor is the argument here that a conflict with China over Taiwan is preordained. In the authors’ judgment, China would only dramatically increase its coercion of Taiwan — whether disguised or overt — if it believed it had a decent chance of success and it had run out of other, less violent options for shifting the status quo. Yet it is entirely possible that Beijing could arrive at this juncture sometime in the coming years. As is on display in Ukraine, dictators make decisions that often conflict with rationality. Thus, it is crucial to understand that the parameters of possible Chinese action vis-à-vis Taiwan are more expansive than is commonly understood, if only so that the United States and its allies can forge a comprehensive response. A complete deterrence strategy must keep Beijing from salami-slicing its way to victory in the Taiwan Strait, even as the United States also races to deter a deadly high-end fight.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">A complete deterrence strategy must keep Beijing from salami-slicing its way to victory in the Taiwan Strait, even as the United States also races to deter a deadly high-end fight.</code></em></strong></p> - -<h3 id="assumptions">Assumptions</h3> - -<p>This analysis rests on several assumptions about Chinese preferences and behavior:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>First, China wants to annex Taiwan or otherwise bring about its political capitulation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This has been a consistent desire of Beijing’s since 1949. Although there is a lively debate about Xi’s sense of urgency in achieving this goal, there is no doubt that he — like generations of Chinese leaders before him — seeks to bring Taiwan to heel, or that China is developing the tools, from hard military power to disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks, to do so. The fact that China is actively seeking multiple ways of achieving its long-held goal of annexation or forced capitulation means that the United States, its allies, and most importantly Taiwan itself should be contemplating all potential angles of attack.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Second, Xi or any future Chinese leader would prefer to take Taiwan with minimal international blowback. That blowback could include immediate repercussions such as economic sanctions or war with the United States; it could also include longer-term costs, such as a region that rallies against Beijing after Taiwan falls. The more dramatic the action China takes against Taiwan, the stronger the regional and global reaction might be. Beijing’s grand strategy encompasses goals beyond taking Taiwan, and so it will seek to balance its global aspirations with the important objective of achieving “reunification.”</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Third, and related, Beijing would prefer to take Taiwan in ways that make it harder for the United States to intervene effectively and rally regional and global support if it does get involved. This puts a premium on pursuing annexation in ways that mask Beijing’s intentions, or at the very least sow doubt about what is happening and who is at fault. Over the past 15 years, for instance, China has often blamed the Philippines or Japan for escalating tensions in the South and East China Seas — and then used the resulting crises to strengthen its presence around key hot spots. More recently, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) launched joint military exercises in the waters and airspace around Taiwan in response to a “provocative” inauguration speech by Taiwanese president William Lai. Decisions to use military force are ultimately political choices, and the more China can move in ways that complicate the politics and geopolitics of a U.S. response, the bigger the head start it will have toward achieving a fait accompli.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Fourth, Beijing would ideally like to avoid the most vexing governance and security challenges that could occur after a direct, full-bore assault. Put differently, Beijing would prefer to rule a Taiwan that is not ruined, physically and economically, by conflict or roiled by a raging insurgency. Coercing Taipei to accept a political settlement, even an unpopular one, minimizes the governance and security challenges in comparison to a post-invasion scenario. Assuming that Beijing cannot find a (coerced) political path forward, it may still prefer to use tools other than the PLA — such as the People’s Armed Police, the Chinese Coast Guard, or the intelligence services — to precipitate a change in the status quo. Of course, the realities of pursuing an annexation strategy may complicate Beijing’s desires; nonetheless, from a planning perspective, the cleaner and less violent the path to “reunification,” the easier the security and governance challenges that follow annexation will become.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Fifth, China does not necessarily have to pursue annexation in a single bite. It could try, instead, to coerce Taipei into formal political negotiations that would have unification as the eventual endpoint, on the assumption that those negotiations would be consummated after Taiwanese resolve and U.S. credibility are shattered. Again, recent experience is instructive: Beijing’s periodic assertiveness around Scarborough Reef and Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea is driven, in part, by the desire to put pressure on the U.S.-Philippines alliance by demonstrating that Washington can do little to help Manila uphold its economic rights and territorial claims in scenarios short of all-out war.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>With these assumptions in mind, some might look to Hong Kong’s recent experience as the model for Beijing’s preferred Taiwan strategy. Yet this analogy is both instructive and misleading. It is instructive in the sense that Beijing eventually achieved a decisive outcome — a significant blow to Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” arrangement — but it did so through measures meant to minimize collateral damage to the city’s position as a global financial hub. China did not, for instance, send the PLA into the city’s streets — a step that likely would have provoked greater global blowback. Instead, it used local police forces to quell the demonstrations and then — utilizing bureaucratic and legal channels — pushed through a draconian national security law that dealt the critical strike to Hong Kong’s autonomy. Because Beijing used lawfare to achieve its aims, it was politically and diplomatically challenging for the United States, the United Kingdom, and other stakeholders to do much beyond symbolic sanctions. The Chinese leadership calculated that this combination of measures would achieve their desired result — breaking the back of independent politics — with minimal geopolitical cost. Rather than demonstrating Xi’s unbridled appetite for risk, the Hong Kong example demonstrates his preference for lawfare and salami-slicing as a means to fundamentally alter the strategic landscape.</p> - -<p>But the Hong Kong analogy also has limitations, the most important of which is that the city had been Chinese de jure territory for more than 20 years by the time the culminating actions came. This gave Beijing legal channels through which to constrict Hong Kong’s political liberties. It also meant that China could use non-military forces, such as the police, to suppress the popular response. Such options would not be available to China in a Taiwan scenario, so Beijing would need alternative ways of generating the leverage necessary to achieve a decisive outcome.</p> - -<p>Of course, just because Beijing might want to take Taiwan through actions short of invasion does not mean it can do so. It is possible that increased, but not immediately decisive, coercion of Taiwan could actually encourage a stronger U.S. commitment to the island or incentivize Taiwan to take stronger measures to defend itself. It should be remembered that Mao Zedong’s shelling of Taiwan’s offshore islands in 1954 encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to push through a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Something similar has happened in recent years, as the PLA’s provocative military exercises have led to increased U.S. arms sales and more explicit promises of U.S. support by President Biden. Indeed, options beneath the threshold of outright war all suffer from this potential liability, which is why the notion that Chinese leaders might opt for dramatic, decisive military action meant to solve the Taiwan problem once and for all cannot be dismissed.</p> - -<p>But the extreme risks and potentially disastrous costs of invasion also must weigh heavily on Beijing’s calculus, which is why options short of invasion must be considered, too.</p> - -<h3 id="scenario-1-decapitation-strike">Scenario 1: Decapitation Strike</h3> - -<p>On March 19, 2004, President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu were traveling in an open-top Jeep in the southwest city of Tainan for a campaign stop when two bullets tore through their vehicle, injuring both Chen and Lu. The pair won reelection the following day, but before the authorities could complete their investigation into the assassination attempt, two of the suspected gunmen died under mysterious circumstances. Although some, including Vice President Lu, blamed the PRC for the attack, no conclusive evidence was found to support this assertion.</p> - -<p>In 2017, an assailant carrying a stolen Japanese sword attacked a military police officer outside of the Presidential Office Building. According to police reports, the man, surnamed Lu, had a PRC flag in his possession at the time of the attack. More recently, a member of the Presidential Office’s Department of Security Affairs and an officer from the National Security Bureau’s Special Service Center were convicted of leaking information to Chinese intelligence about then-president Tsai Ing-wen’s itinerary. According to media reporting, the intelligence included a “hand-drawn organizational chart of the Special Service Center,” as well as “the names, titles and work phone numbers of senior security officers guarding the Presidential Office and Tsai’s residence in the heart of Taipei.”</p> - -<p>These incidents highlight two underappreciated risks to Taiwan’s political resiliency: there is insufficient security around Taiwan’s elected leadership, and perhaps more worryingly, there is insufficient legal clarity on the line of succession.</p> - -<p>Although Taiwan reportedly has an internal plan for leadership transition, Article 49 of its constitution merely stipulates</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>“In case the office of the President should become vacant, the Vice President shall succeed until the expiration of the original presidential term. In case the office of both the President and the Vice President should become vacant, the President of the Executive Yuan shall act for the President; and, in accordance with the provisions of Article 30 of this Constitution, an extraordinary session of the National Assembly shall be convoked for the election of a new President and a new Vice President, who shall hold office until the completion of the term left unfinished by the preceding President.”</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>This language raises several worrying questions: What is the timeline for the convocation of the National Assembly? Hours? Days? Months? Article 30 stipulates that the president of the Legislative Yuan (LY) “shall issue the notice of convocation,” but it does not clarify under what timeline and what occurs should the president of the LY fail to issue the notice in a timely manner. Furthermore, what happens if all three individuals listed are incapacitated or killed? How can the National Assembly be convoked?</p> - -<p>Beijing may consider exploiting these vulnerabilities to create a sharp constitutional crisis, and it could use the resulting chaos to alter Taiwan’s political orientation. It might do so if years of accumulating political trends in Taiwan — such as continued Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) dominance of the presidency — convince Chinese officials that inaction would be the greater risk. Alternatively, Beijing might act if it believes that a dramatic change in cross-Strait dynamics — such as a formal declaration of de jure independence or the reestablishment of the U.S.-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty — was highly likely to occur. In other words, an assassination attempt on Taiwan’s political leadership would be intended to serve as a substitute for a full-on invasion, carried out in a way that is designed to create confusion for the Taiwanese people and the United States. And it would not come out of the blue; it would instead follow a progression of political and diplomatic developments that Beijing considered to pose a near-existential risk to its cross-Strait strategy.</p> - -<p>As in 2004, Beijing would be the early and obvious target of recrimination, but the key question is how or if Taiwan and the United States would be able to formulate an effective response. In the absence of clear proof, accusations would remain just that. And as was the case in Crimea in 2014, or Manchuria in 1931, even after the truth becomes apparent, the window of opportunity to take effective action might well have closed.</p> - -<p>How might this scenario play out? A successful attack on Taiwan’s president and vice president, perhaps during a presidential inauguration or during the president’s annual National Day address on October 10, would immediately throw the island into turmoil. If the president of the LY were unharmed, this individual would bear enormous responsibility for bringing political order to a badly shaken nation. Such an effort would be difficult even in the most mature of democracies. In this early chaos, Beijing would have ample opportunities to stoke fear and uncertainty through disinformation and covert political meddling. If the LY president were killed, Taiwan would face an even graver crisis due to the acute leadership vacuum. Even if Taiwan had an internal line of succession, the absence of a publicly and constitutionally recognized process for transferring political power would call into question how legitimate that transfer is in the eyes of a shell-shocked public. Turning again to current events, the current fractious nature of Taiwan’s legislative politics, owing to an extraordinarily divisive partisan political environment, should put a damper on how likely the prospect of the three main political parties “coming together” is.</p> - -<p>How might Beijing take advantage of the ensuing chaos? There is the prospect of Beijing unilaterally sending “security assistance” to help stabilize the situation, but even as Taiwan’s people reel, this might be seen as too direct an effort. A more realistic path is for pro-Beijing voices in Taiwan’s political system to seek to utilize the confusion and constitutional crisis to seize political power or otherwise open up space for a dramatically transformed political leadership on Taiwan. Success would not be guaranteed, of course, and Beijing would only consider such a move if it saw the cross-Strait situation as dire and felt the need to take drastic steps to reorient the status quo.</p> - -<p>As such, this type of brazen attack would be a huge gamble. Any assassination attempt may fail, exposing Beijing’s complicity in the process. Even if the attack were successful, there is no guarantee that a post-decapitation strike plan would be carried out with any precision. Moreover, if Beijing intended to send “security assistance” to Taiwan following an assassination, it would presumably have to build up its forces opposite the island beforehand, which might give the game away. And any attack on Taiwan’s leadership would likely be seen by many in Taiwan and the international community as obvious Chinese aggression, calling forth a punitive response.</p> - -<p>Beijing’s bet, in other words, would have to be that this option nonetheless carries less risk than either allowing Taiwan to drift further away from the mainland or taking more overt military action to change its trajectory.</p> - -<h3 id="scenario-2-quarantine">Scenario 2: Quarantine</h3> - -<p>In August 2022, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, making her the first speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to do so in a quarter-century. Beijing responded with military exercises meant to show off the PLA’s improving capabilities to conduct a blockade, bombardment, or invasion of Taiwan. Chinese missiles overflew Taiwan (albeit through outer space) and splashed down in its surrounding waters — a clear demonstration of Beijing’s ability to choke off vital sea lanes. In May, just after the inauguration speech of President William Lai, Beijing again launched massive military exercises encircling Taiwan, including “comprehensive law enforcement operations” by the Chinese Coast Guard.</p> - -<p>The most recent exercises highlight an option available to Beijing short of invasion and formal blockade: a quarantine meant to probe Washington’s risk tolerance and potentially strain its relationship with Taipei while sending a clear signal to the people on Taiwan that they are isolated. As a recent CSIS report on the prospect of a PRC quarantine of Taiwan concluded, “The purpose of a quarantine is not to completely seal Taiwan off from the world but to assert China’s control over Taiwan by setting the terms for traffic in and out of the island.”</p> - -<p>Beijing might seize on any variety of potential pretexts: a “provocative” statement or policy departure from Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te; a trip to the island by another high-ranking U.S. official; or a U.S. arms sale that, from Beijing’s perspective, threatens the status quo in the strait. A quarantine would be meant to mimic the effects of a more traditional naval blockade, without necessarily emulating its forms.</p> - -<p>For example, Beijing could announce that the Chinese Coast Guard, rather than the PLA Navy, would conduct customs inspections of shipping headed to and from Taiwan. It could further disrupt maritime traffic into Taiwan by conducting missile tests that terminate in frequently used shipping lanes in the international waters off the island’s major ports. Related, the PLA could announce a series of air and sea exercises in international waters off of Taiwan’s major western ports with no indication of duration, disrupting maritime trade under the pretext of “normal” military training. China could also ratchet up the pressure by having the PLA Air Force “escort” traffic into Taiwan’s air space, as some observers feared it might do at the time of Speaker Pelosi’s visit.</p> - -<p>China certainly has the capabilities for any of these scenarios. Its coast guard is the world’s largest; it features significant surface combatants and is, in essence, a second Chinese navy. Beijing also boasts the world’s largest conventional missile force, with a deep magazine of short-range missiles that can target the waters around Taiwan. Its inventory of fighter aircraft dwarfs Taiwan’s and whatever contingent the United States has available in the Western Pacific.</p> - -<p>What might make this option even more attractive is the dilemmas it would create for the United States, its regional allies, and Taiwan. Of the 193 UN member states, only 11 (plus the Holy See) diplomatically recognize Taiwan. So even though Washington and its allies would strenuously object to Chinese actions, a customs quarantine would be a less clear-cut act of international aggression than an invasion or even a conventional naval blockade of a fully sovereign state. By relying primarily on the Chinese Coast Guard and shore-based assets, this option would also reduce the danger of high-seas encounters between war-fighting navies (at the outset, at least). Similarly, this approach offers China the ability to achieve some effects of a blockade without crossing into what Taiwan deems as its territorial waters; missiles splashing down just outside of that limit could scare off shipping or at least drive insurance rates skyward.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">The soft quarantine would thus highlight, in a very public way, Taiwan’s inherent vulnerability as an island nation dependent on imports of food, energy, and other vital resources.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>The soft quarantine would thus highlight, in a very public way, Taiwan’s inherent vulnerability as an island nation dependent on imports of food, energy, and other vital resources. Even if a quarantine were only enforced selectively or intermittently, it would remind Taiwan of the economic noose Beijing can cinch tight around its neck. The United States and other friendly countries might try to defeat the quarantine by organizing a relief expedition and escorting planes and ships into Taiwan. But Washington might struggle to do so indefinitely, especially if this crisis happened when U.S. naval assets were already stretched thin by other commitments — for example, threats to freedom of navigation in the narrow waterways around the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, the true goal of this strategy might be to expose the limits of U.S. support of Taiwan — and thereby soften the island up for further pressures meant, eventually, to cause its capitulation. There is also the possibility that the voices calling for “restraint” in the United States and other Western capitals would win out, after debate on whether Washington really wants to risk a conflict with China over some ships being boarded in waters thousands of miles away.</p> - -<p>That is not to say this approach is risk-free for Beijing. A limited quarantine would still be seen as aggression by Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, Manilla, and Seoul, to say nothing of Taipei, and so while it may “succeed” in the short term, it might also strengthen international support for Taipei, just as Beijing’s firing of rockets into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in August 2022 helped galvanize a more assertive Japanese approach vis-à-vis China. This approach could still turn into a high-stakes game of chicken, if U.S. warships and aircraft escort relief shipments into Taiwan and dare Beijing to get in the way. If China does not blink, in that scenario, it could have a war on its hands; if it falters, that could undermine the credibility of its coercive threats. Moreover, blockades and quarantines have a poor record of convincing countries to give up their independence; just as often, the suffering they cause strengthens, at least for a time, the will to resist. But a quarantine might still appeal to Xi, not least because it would also force the United States to decide if it wants to escalate to a full-blown crisis — and to sustain Taiwan indefinitely — in a situation where the PLA has not yet fired a shot.</p> - -<h3 id="scenario-3-offshore-island-seizure">Scenario 3: Offshore Island Seizure</h3> - -<p>Several of Taiwan’s outer islands already live in the shadow of U.S. ambiguity, as the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act — which directs the president and congress to consider “appropriate action” in response to “threats to the security or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan” — covers only “the islands of Taiwan and the Pescadores [‘Penghu’].” This means that one of the only legally binding commitments the United States has to Taiwan does not extend to its outlying islands — Pratas, Kinmen, Itu Aba, the Wuchiu Islands, and Matsu. As a result, these islands are potential targets for a Chinese takeover, not necessarily as a stepping stone for a full invasion of Taiwan, but as a way of probing U.S. and Taiwanese risk appetite and exposing the limits of American commitment and credibility.</p> - -<p>This calculus has been demonstrated to exist in modern U.S.-China relations. During the two Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s (1954 and 1958), Mao Zedong repeatedly used the shelling of Taiwan’s offshore islands as a way to probe the United States and test its relationship with Taipei. As Mao stated in August 1958 meeting of the Politburo, “although we have fired dozens of thousands or rounds on Jinmen [Kinmen], we only mean to probe [America’s intention].” He added, “we need to see if the Americans want to carry these islands on their back.”</p> - -<p>An appealing target might be Pratas Island, which is sparsely populated with only a small contingent of Taiwanese coast guard and military personnel. The island is of little inherent strategic value to Taiwan, and its seizure might not provoke any substantial military response from either Taiwan or the United States, assuming casualties are low to zero. At a minimum, the takeover of the island would force the United States to confront the dilemma of whether it wants to risk major war with China over a small island of just 430 total acres that sits in the middle of the South China Sea.</p> - -<p>Indeed, Beijing has multiple options for taking Pratas Island. It could announce military exercises in the waters and airspace surrounding the island that would have the functional effect of cutting Pratas off from its regular shipments of water, food, and other supplies from Taiwan’s main island. Beijing might then signal through lower-tier diplomatic channels that Taiwan can rotate existing military and coast guard off the island, but it cannot bring new troops and coast guard on.</p> - -<p>Alternatively, a more confrontational — and riskier — approach would be simply to directly overpower the tiny contingent of coast guard and marines stationed on the island. This would, of course, invite condemnation from Taipei, Washington, Tokyo, Manila, and other capitals that would see such a move as naked aggression. But it is not at all clear that any of these countries, including the United States, would be able and willing to muster a proportionate punitive response. For the United States, the challenge would be explaining to the American people why a tiny island nearly 300 miles from Taiwan, and which is not covered by the Taiwan Relations Act, is worth a possible conflict with China, the world’s second-largest economy.</p> - -<p>In any of these scenarios, geography would severely constrain the response from Taipei and Washington, who would have to decide whether to tolerate the loss of a small, geopolitically insignificant chunk of Taiwan’s territory or risk a much bigger fight just a few miles from China’s shores. As Lancaster University’s Andrew Chubb has written, an outer island seizure “would offer Beijing greater flexibility and escalation control, lower risk of civilian casualties, and less likelihood of sparking a strong Taiwanese response or U.S. intervention.”</p> - -<p>A common objection to such scenarios holds that the capture of an outer island yields China little to no strategic benefit if the goal is the full annexation of Taiwan, as it would still need to attempt a direct attack on the main island of Taiwan, which would presumably be on high alert. Further, even if the PLA were to cleanly seize Pratas, it would simply confirm the fears of many countries in the region — its initial gain of Taiwan territory would have come at the expense of “tripping the alarm” and therefore galvanizing action in Tokyo, Manilla, and Canberra.</p> - -<p>But such objections are premised on the idea that Beijing’s immediate goal in undertaking such actions would be “reunification.” A more plausible objective for Beijing would be to cut a slice of salami that the United States and Taiwan will not be willing or able to defend. Here, the main goal would be a clear provocation that is met with an underwhelming response, for it would publicly demonstrate that Washington’s bark is worse than its bite when it comes to defending Taiwan. This strategy could thereby erode Taiwan’s confidence in U.S. support — to say nothing of its confidence in its ability to protect itself — while also provoking anxiety in U.S. allies and partners over Washington’s inability to credibly defend against incremental Chinese aggression. And at the point that Beijing is willing to undertake such a gambit, it may already be pricing in the erosion of its remaining goodwill in the region.</p> - -<h3 id="scenario-4-false-flag">Scenario 4: False Flag</h3> - -<p>A final scenario involves a false flag operation — akin to what Japan perpetrated in Manchuria in 1931 — meant to justify subsequent military action against Taiwan. The current situation offers plenty of possibilities. Chinese aircraft regularly fly across the center line of the strait or into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, where they are tracked by Taiwanese air defenses or intercepted by Taiwanese fighters. Run-ins between Taiwan’s coast guard and Chinese civilian vessels have occasionally turned deadly. Chinese drones overfly Taiwanese territory; Chinese forces intercept — and dangerously crowd — planes and ships belonging to Taiwan’s friends. The air and waters of the Western Pacific are becoming crowded, dangerous, and primed for some catalytic incident.</p> - -<p>China could concoct a Taiwanese “provocation” — a collision between Taiwanese and Chinese ships or aircraft, or perhaps even an alleged Taiwanese attack on Chinese forces operating in or around the strait. It could then use full-throated propaganda and disinformation to pin the blame on Taipei and exploit the incident to obliterate the status quo.</p> - -<p>One option would be to use the incident as justification for a large-scale, potentially decisive attack on Taiwan, in which case the point of the subterfuge would be simply to complicate the domestic and coalition politics of the U.S. response. Or Beijing could use the incident as pretext for something more limited, such as “retaliatory” strikes on Taiwanese bases and military assets. Likewise, the PLA Air Force could simply conduct large-scale, persistent intrusions into Taiwan’s airspace, meant to assert its ability to overfly the island at will — forcing Taipei to choose between submitting to this confidence-crushing humiliation or contesting these intrusions at the risk of war.</p> - -<p>This approach offers many benefits for Beijing. It would showcase China’s overwhelming escalation dominance in the area around Taiwan, which leaves Taipei with few good options for responding to limited strikes or stepped-up military pressure. It would exploit the ability of China’s state-directed propaganda apparatus to rapidly disseminate a false or misleading narrative, as officials and media outlets in the United States, Taiwan, and other nations would struggle to respond. It could also strain the U.S.-Taiwan relationship by forcing Washington to decide how much risk to run in pushing back against limited Chinese aggression — a real dilemma, given that U.S. officials would presumably not wish to see matters escalate further.</p> - -<p>Even if a false flag incident led to more dramatic forms of aggression, this approach could — by sowing ambiguity and confusion — slow U.S. decisionmaking and exacerbate the severe time pressures a distant United States faces, even in the most favorable circumstances, in rushing to Taiwan’s aid. A false flag operation does not have to fool everyone forever. It just has to foul up the international response long enough for Beijing to create new facts on the ground.</p> - -<p>The downsides are also considerable. The United States has shown, during the war in Ukraine, that it can sometimes detect and reveal false flag operations before they occur (although this may hinge on remarkable intelligence penetration of the sort Washington seems to have achieved in the Kremlin). Even if a false flag operation created momentary confusion, any further use of force against Taiwan could quickly bring clarity to the debate in Washington and other capitals. And if the false flag were merely a prelude to more limited military actions, the United States could still respond in ways that would make Taiwan a tougher nut to crack — by deploying larger numbers of troops on Taiwanese territory, for example. If this was the case, the outcome might actually be to increase Taiwan’s resilience by strengthening its faith in U.S. support.</p> - -<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> - -<p>None of these options is a silver bullet for Beijing. Deceptions can be unraveled. Coercion, even when clouded by confusion, can invite strategic blowback. To return to an earlier example, Russia’s ambiguous aggression in Crimea gave it control of that peninsula, but at the same time, Kyiv responded to the loss of Crimea by accelerating its alignment with the transatlantic community — and thereby confronted Putin with the dilemma he tried to solve, disastrously, with a full-on invasion in 2022. Yet China might still consider limited options — both because the near-term risks associated with them remain lower than the risks associated with a large-scale, overt aggression such as a direct invasion, and because these options could create significant political dilemmas for Taiwan and the United States.</p> - -<p>Each of the scenarios reveals a weakness China could try to exploit: from Taiwan’s deficient continuity-of-government procedures, to its inherent economic vulnerabilities, to uncertainties around how the United States would respond in crises short of all-out conflict. Most fundamentally, these approaches would target Taiwan’s political will to resist and its confidence in U.S. support — the two vital, interrelated intangibles that Beijing must weaken to achieve unification without a brutal fight.</p> - -<p>If these scenarios illustrate how Beijing might try to thread that needle, they also highlight some of the challenges Washington and Taipei must address. Taiwan’s survival may hinge as much on its internal security and continuity-of-government procedures as on its stockpile of anti-ship missiles and sea mines. The United States, for its part, needs to be developing contingency plans for cases of limited aggression. The specifics of those plans will vary according to the contingency. But the crucial point is that they must include sharp, non-kinetic punishments that allow the United States to inflict damage on China without sparking a larger military confrontation in places where the escalation dynamics are unfavorable — as well as measures that defeat the intended Chinese political effect of ambiguous aggression by significantly deepening U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic support for Taiwan.</p> - -<p>The United States might communicate to Beijing that any significant coercive change in the status quo would render the norms and agreements governing U.S.-Taiwan-China relations a dead letter — thereby clearing the way for, among other things, a thicker, more robust military-to-military relationship between Washington and Taipei, and perhaps even a larger, more capable, and more visible U.S. troop presence in Taiwan. Or it could indicate that aggression against outlying islands is likely to lead to more explicit U.S. security guarantees for the Taiwanese territory that remains. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act already sets the groundwork for such messages.</p> - -<p>Similarly, the United States might — in coordination with allies and partners — preload packages of economic sanctions that could be applied in cases of ambiguous aggression. The challenge here is that the magnitude of sanctions needed, and the importance of signaling them credibly and early, are all difficult to pull together, especially under scenarios where Beijing’s actions are in the gray zone, and therefore not always seen as sufficiently provocative to risk a possible global recession. It would also be useful to wargame scenarios short of outright conflict with Taiwan and other friendly countries, if only to form a stronger shared understanding of the difficulties those scenarios might create in the capitals whose combined effort would be needed to forge an effective response.</p> - -<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">In a contest short of war, the center of gravity is Taiwan’s confidence in its relationship with Washington and in its own ability to resist.</code></em></strong></p> - -<p>In a contest short of war, the center of gravity is Taiwan’s confidence in its relationship with Washington and in its own ability to resist. The goal should thus be to convince Beijing that violent half-measures will backfire strategically even if they succeed tactically, as they would strengthen U.S. and international support for Taiwan and thereby harden Taipei’s hostility to unification at the point of a gun.</p> - -<p>Most broadly, the upshot of this analysis is that Washington needs to expand its conception of deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. If the United States prepares only for incremental or ambiguous aggression, it risks making a full-scale invasion more attractive for Beijing. But if it focuses only on high-end deterrence, it could lose on the installment plan as China uses creative tactics that erode Taiwan’s sovereignty and its confidence in the United States. Beijing has many ways to change the status quo in a sensitive area. The United States will need a holistic deterrence strategy to match.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Jude Blanchette</strong> holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.</p> - -<p><strong>Hal Brands</strong> is Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.</p>Jude Blanchette and Hal BrandsThe paper explores four coercive approaches that Beijing could use to change the status quo around Taiwan short of outright invasion or blockade. It also highlights the serious challenges Washington and Taipei must address to have a ready response.【黎智英案・審訊第 91 日】2024-07-24T12:00:00+08:002024-07-24T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-91<ul> - <li>辯方指黎智英對談節目就如市民在茶餐廳評論政府 從沒籲外國制裁 官押明早裁表證成立與否</li> -</ul> - -<excerpt /> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ipEp6A0.png" alt="image01" /></p> - -<p>【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，控方早前舉證完畢，辯方今（24日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）作中段陳詞，要求法庭就黎面對的3項控罪裁定表證不成立。就串謀發布煽動刊物罪，辯方指涉案報導和評論僅為了引起公眾關注一些牽涉公眾利益的事情，這是一般報紙本來就會做的工作，而且言論和新聞自由均受憲法保障。就串謀勾結外國勢力罪，辯方指黎在網上對談節目中的確有提及制裁，但是不代表他正在呼籲外國實施制裁；黎與嘉賓僅評論國際事務，就如一般市民在茶餐廳裡評論時政，說香港政府有何不足、應該怎樣做等。法官押後至明日上午（25日）宣布裁定表證是否成立。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方言論及新聞自由受憲法保障-涉案文章僅引公眾關注為一般報紙工作">辯方：言論及新聞自由受憲法保障 涉案文章僅引公眾關注、為一般報紙工作</h4> - -<p>代表黎智英的資深大律師彭耀鴻指，言論自由和新聞自由均受到憲法保障。控方的案情指稱黎利用《蘋果日報》作為平台發布煽動刊物，辯方形容指控「奇怪」，因他們發布的報導和評論均為了引起公眾關注一些牽涉公眾利益的事情，這是一般報紙本來就會做的工作，而且不同報紙本來就帶有光譜上不同的政治立場，不應被視為「煽動刊物」。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/DOSzvJS.png" alt="image02" /> -▲ 資深大律師 彭耀鴻</p> - -<p>不過法官杜麗冰指，法庭判斷文章是否「煽動刊物」時，不單只要看文章內容，也要視乎發布的背景。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方國安法生效後沒有新的犯罪協議-官控方指稱犯罪協議持續">辯方：國安法生效後沒有新的犯罪協議 官：控方指稱犯罪協議持續</h4> - -<p>就「串謀」這一項控罪元素，彭耀鴻指「串謀」涉及多於一人協議做非法事情，或者協議用非法手段去做合法事情。彭力陳，即使在《國安法》生效之前，黎與其他《蘋果》高層之間存在犯罪協議，但是在《國安法》生效之後，便再沒有新的犯罪協議，因此不存在「串謀」。</p> - -<p>法官李運騰則指，控方的案情是指稱犯罪協議在《國安法》生效之前形成，當2020年7月1日《國安法》生效之後，相關協議變得不合法，然而黎與其他被告繼續。李官又指，這個議題是一個事實判斷，而非如辯方所說是一個法律議題。</p> - -<h4 id="官質疑黎叫撐住意味繼續犯罪協議-辯方僅籲同事繼續經營報紙">官質疑黎叫「撐住」意味繼續犯罪協議 辯方：僅籲同事繼續經營報紙</h4> - -<p>彭耀鴻則重申，在《國安法》生效之前，黎與其他被告協議去做的是合法事情，當它在《國安法》生效之後變得不合法，他們便從根本上更改了整個協議。法官杜麗冰則質疑，辯方從沒有在盤問控方證人期間，向他們指出以上說法。</p> - -<p>法官李運騰又質疑，在沒有任何證據下，辯方基於什麼基礎而指稱被告的協議是合法，而且合法與否並非基於被告自己的意見，不是被告覺得是合法便是合法。彭耀鴻則重申，黎與其他被告之間的協議並不涉任何罪行，一向都是完全合法（perfectly lawful）。根據張劍虹和陳沛敏的證供，《國安法》生效之後，他們徵詢法律意見，以確保《蘋果》不觸犯任何法律，可見他們的協議並非觸犯法律。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/mwz5Vjx.png" alt="image03" /> -▲ 前《蘋果日報》社長 張劍虹</p> - -<p>不過法官李素蘭質疑，黎還柙後仍然叫同事繼續「撐住」。彭耀鴻則指，黎的意思是叫同事繼續營運《蘋果日報》，不代表叫同事繼續犯法。李素蘭回應指，須視乎相關證據去理解黎說「撐住」的意思是什麼。彭重申，黎的意思是叫同事繼續經營及出版《蘋果》，法庭不能以此說話來推論黎籲同事觸犯法律。法官杜麗冰和李素蘭聞言均指，這是一個牽涉事實裁定的議題。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方黎智英對談節目確有提及制裁-但不代表呼籲制裁">辯方：黎智英對談節目確有提及制裁 但不代表呼籲制裁</h4> - -<p>彭耀鴻指，黎曾經在2020年7月之前曾提倡外國制裁，但是這是在《國安法》生效之前發生，其時相關行為完全合法，然而黎在《國安法》生效之後便沒有繼續呼籲制裁。</p> - -<p>辯方指，黎在2020年7月開始製作網上對談節目「Live Chat with Jimmy Lai」，但是他在節目中從沒呼籲外國制裁中國和香港。黎與其私人助手 Mark Simon 之間的訊息僅表達黎的個人意見，並不構成任何證據顯示有犯罪協議。</p> - -<p>辯方指，即使黎在 Live Chat 節目中的確有提及制裁，但是不代表他正在呼籲外國實施制裁。惟法官杜麗冰指，假設有人說「制裁有幫助，能迫使政府為自己的行為負責」等言論，可以被視為等同於呼籲制裁，視乎說話者在怎樣的情況下說這番言論。彭耀鴻回應指，因此法庭需要將語境考慮在內，就本案而言，「Live Chat with Jimmy Lai」每集時間頗長，討論內容均圍繞國際事務，與呼籲制裁大相逕庭，不足以作出推論指犯罪協議存在。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方黎智英節目僅討論國際局勢-正如市民在茶餐廳討論時政">辯方：黎智英節目僅討論國際局勢 正如市民在茶餐廳討論時政</h4> - -<p>辯方續指，黎智英與不同嘉賓在對談節目中僅就國際事務表達意見、評論拜登政府應該怎樣做等等，就如一般市民在茶餐廳裡評論時政，說香港政府有何不足、應該怎樣做、美國政府及歐洲政府應怎樣做等，然而這不足以達至推論指黎有犯罪協議。</p> - -<p>就黎智英刊於專欄「成敗樂一笑」的文章，辯方指黎僅表達其個人見解，沒有任何內容可以被用來推論黎串謀呼籲制裁。</p> - -<h4 id="辯方指蘋果編採政策不變不代表黎同意犯法-官質疑打擦邊球">辯方指《蘋果》編採政策不變不代表黎同意犯法 官質疑「打擦邊球」</h4> - -<p>控方案情指稱，在《國安法》生效之後，《蘋果》的編採政策沒有改變過。辯方則指，縱使證人供稱到獄中探訪還柙的黎時，黎寄語《蘋果》同事不要害怕、要繼續如常營運《蘋果》，亦沒有指示要改變編採政策，但是不代表黎同意干犯法律，他的意思只是叫同事繼續出版報紙。</p> - -<p>不過法官李素蘭則引述楊清奇的證供中「打擦邊球」說法，質疑《蘋果》冒險超越法律界線。彭耀鴻則強調《蘋果》高層想盡力維持在法律界線之內，就如打乒乓球般，雙方目標是令乒乓球留在界線內，而不是瞄準界線而來發球。</p> - -<h4 id="陳沛敏早前供稱黎智英提議製作制裁名單-辯方稱訊息非出自黎手筆">陳沛敏早前供稱黎智英提議製作制裁名單 辯方稱訊息非出自黎手筆</h4> - -<p>前《蘋果》副社長陳沛敏曾供稱，2020年7月14日，時任美國總統特朗普簽署《香港自治法》的行政命令之後，黎智英以 WhatsApp 傳送相關行政命令內文，以及提出準備一份「Shit List」，陳理解黎的意思是要製作「制裁名單」。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/3zOG2Tr.png" alt="image04" /> -▲ 前《蘋果日報》執行總編輯 林文宗（左）、前《蘋果日報》副社長 陳沛敏（右）</p> - -<p>辯方今指稱，從 WhatsApp 訊息的字眼可見，黎當時只是將另一名美國人的訊息，連同行政命令內文和「Shit List」的提議，一併複製並傳送給陳沛敏。因為相關行政命令是很重要的新聞，而陳當時身為高層，所以黎立即傳送給陳，然而「Shit list」並非黎本人的提議。法官杜麗冰質疑辯方是在作出假設，而且相關訊息是否由黎智英撰寫、黎是否同意訊息內容，皆屬於事實爭議。</p> - -<h4 id="控方有充份證據證明國安法生效後-黎智英仍然是犯罪協議的一份子">控方：有充份證據證明國安法生效後 黎智英仍然是犯罪協議的一份子</h4> - -<p>控方代表、副刑事檢控專員周天行重申，控方一直以來都是指稱黎與其他被告在《國安法》之前達成犯罪協議，並在國安法生效之後繼續相關協議。而且案中有充份證據證明《國安法》生效之後，黎智英仍然是協議的一份子，包括其網上對談節目內容、Twitter 上有關「重光團隊」、IPAC和裴倫德的帖文等。</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/zndiTrc.png" alt="image05" /> -▲ 副刑事檢控專員 周天行（左）、高級檢控官 陳穎琛（右）</p> - -<p>控方強調，法庭不能夠只著眼於《國安法》生效之後發生的事，而是要將黎智英在《國安法》之前所作的行為納入考慮，以全面地理解案情，因此控方從頭到尾、根據時序來顯示黎智英做過什麼。</p> - -<p>控方指，所有以從犯證人身份出庭作供的《蘋果》高層均供稱，在國安法生效之後，《蘋果》的編採政策沒有改變，他們繼續做一直以來的工作。當張劍虹對於黎邀請美國退休軍官 Jack Keane 出席對談節目表達關注，質疑會否過於敏感，黎則回應：「我一定去到盡㗎，我冇得褪㗎。」就另一項串謀勾結外國勢力罪，從犯證人陳梓華供稱在2020年6月16日赴壹傳媒大樓會見黎智英，當時黎要求陳繼續國際線工作，形容《國安法》「雷聲大，雨點小」。控方指以上均顯示《國安法》之後黎決定繼續涉案行為。</p> - -<p>控方指，只要有足夠證據顯示犯罪協議持續，而且參與者遵守相關協議，便可以滿足「串謀」這項控罪元素。控方又指，不只可以透過外在行為（overt acts），案中亦有來自從犯證人的直接證據，證明協議的內容、如何達成協議，以及在國安法前後如何執行相關協議。</p> - -<h4 id="官押後至明早宣布決定">官押後至明早宣布決定</h4> - -<p>控辯雙方均陳詞完畢，法官杜麗冰押後至明日上午（25日）宣布決定。若然法庭裁定黎就控罪表證成立，黎需決定是否作供及傳召辯方證人；相反，若然法庭裁定表證不成立，黎則毋須答辯，可當庭釋放。</p> - -<p>首項「串謀勾結外國或者境外勢力危害國家安全罪」指，黎智英、蘋果日報有限公司、蘋果日報印刷有限公司及蘋果互聯網有限公司，於2020年7月1日至2021年6月24日（包括首尾兩日），在香港與其他人一同串謀，請求外國或者境外機構、組織、人員實施對香港特別行政區或者中華人民共和國進行制裁、封鎖或者採取其他敵對行動。</p> - -<p>另一項「串謀勾結外國或者境外勢力危害國家安全」罪，指黎智英於2020年7月1日至今年2月15日間，與 Mark Simon、陳梓華、李宇軒、劉祖廸及其他人串謀，請求外國或境外機構、組織、人員，實施對中國或香港進行制裁、封鎖或者採取其他敵對行動。</p> - -<p>「串謀刊印、發布、出售、要約出售、分發、展示或複製煽動刊物」罪指，黎智英、蘋果日報有限公司、蘋果日報印刷有限公司及蘋果互聯網有限公司於2019年4月1日至2021年6月24日（包括首尾兩日），在香港與其他人一同串謀刊印、發布、出售、要約出售、分發、展示及/或複製煽動刊物，具意圖：</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>a) 引起憎恨或藐視中央或香港特別行政區政府或激起對其離叛</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <p>b) 激起香港居民企圖不循合法途徑促致改變其他在香港的依法制定的事項</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <p>c) 引起對香港司法的憎恨、藐視或激起對其離叛</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <p>d) 引起香港居民間的不滿或離叛</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <p>e) 煽惑他人使用暴力</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <p>f) 慫使他人不守法或不服從合法命令。</p> -</blockquote> - -<hr /> - -<p>案件編號：HCCC51/2022</p>獨媒報導辯方指黎智英對談節目就如市民在茶餐廳評論政府 從沒籲外國制裁 官押明早裁表證成立與否 \ No newline at end of file +<p>案件編號：HCCC51/2022</p>獨媒報導官裁3控罪表證成立 黎智英選擇親自作供 押後至11.20續審 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/hkers/2024-08-27-uks-astute-fleet.html b/hkers/2024-08-27-uks-astute-fleet.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0d3107b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/hkers/2024-08-27-uks-astute-fleet.html @@ -0,0 +1,143 @@ + + + + + + + + + + UK’s Astute Fleet · The Republic of Agora + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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UK’s Astute Fleet

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Optimising the Readiness of the UK Astute Fleet

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Sidharth Kaushal | 2024.08.27

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With the growing threat posed by Russia’s Northern Fleet and increased demand in the Indo-Pacific, the Royal Navy must overcome its submarine challenges to remain relevant.

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The readiness of the UK’s fleet of nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) has been a source of enduring concern over the previous half decade. With five Astute-class SSNs currently in service (less than half of what the UK had at the end of the Cold War), the Royal Navy fields fewer submarines than has been the case at any given time in recent history. Moreover, challenges with respect to maintenance, compounded by the priority accorded to ensuring that the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent remains operational, have resulted in periods during which the UK did not have an attack submarine at sea. In light of the growing threat posed by Russia’s Northern Fleet, ensuring the readiness of a capability which remains a key UK offer to NATO as an alliance member will be critical.

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The Balance of Forces

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The competition to maintain a commanding position in the undersea operating environment played a crucial role in the Cold War. During the early years of the Cold War, tracking Soviet SSNs as they attempted to break through the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap was vital to Allied efforts to ensure that US reinforcements could cross the Atlantic. In the 1980s, NATO’s approach shifted. In the context of a forward maritime strategy, the ability of NATO to menace Soviet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in their bastions was a key component of deterrence against the USSR, which was presumed to enjoy considerable advantages in Central Europe. The success of this approach was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that by the end of the Cold War, the commander of the Soviet Northern Fleet was compelled to request a trebling of his budget if the maritime component of Russia’s nuclear triad was to be adequately protected.

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Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a rough symmetry in how Allied and Russian forces have evolved, with both sides undergoing quantitative reductions but qualitative improvements. The Russian Northern Fleet fields 13 active SSNs and guided missile submarines (SSGNs), a far cry from its heyday, but vessels such as the Yasen and improved Akula II and III are considerably quieter than their predecessors. Allied submarine fleets including the Royal Navy’s submarine flotilla have endured a comparable drop in capacity, with the Royal Navy fielding fewer than half as many submarines as it did in 1990, although the Astute is also considerably quieter and more capable than the Trafalgar class.

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The major shift, however, is that the US SSN fleet will increasingly be focused on demands in the Indo-Pacific, where robust Chinese anti-access/area denial capabilities will put surface vessels at ever greater risk, but where US submarines still enjoy considerable advantages over the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s noisy SSNs and immature anti-submarine warfare assets. As the size of the US submarine fleet (which is already well short of the 66 boats the US navy requires to meet its commitments) shrinks during the late 2020s and reaches a low of 46 boats by 2030, it is not unlikely that the Pacific, where 60% of US submarines are typically deployed, will receive an ever larger portion of a temporarily smaller SSN fleet. Past 2026, the US navy expects to increase its build rate to three attack submarines per year, which should see it return to and then exceed its current strength by 2035, although the real effects of this regeneration of capability (if achieved) will be somewhat attenuated by the fact that the Chinese threat will not stand still.

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In Europe, this raises the possibility of short-term capability gaps emerging. In this context, the readiness of the Royal Navy’s submarines – which are, among other things, the only non-US Allied nuclear submarines that regularly perform under-ice operations – is both a national and an Alliance-level concern.

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With five Astute-class SSNs currently in service, the Royal Navy fields fewer submarines than has been the case at any given time in recent history

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It would be a mistake to assume that the Russian submarine fleet is ten feet tall. Of the 13 SSNs and SSGNs currently fielded by Russia’s Northern Fleet, only a handful can be described as truly modern. While the Russian Yasen and Yasen-M are competitive against Western submarines, four of the Northern Fleet’s SSNs are aged Sierra II and Victor III-class boats, and the fleet also fields two older (though still credible) Oscar-class SSGNs. The fleet’s Project 971M/I Akula-class submarines are slowly returning to readiness after a trough in capability during the last decade, with SSNs such as the K-328 Leopard and K-154 Tigr completing refits in the early 2020s. Even so, the number of project-improved Akulas at the fleet’s disposal in the next several years should hover around six, meaning that the fleet currently fields eight SSNs/SSGNs (six Akulas and two Yasen/Yasen-M) that are credible in a modern context. Although Russian practice has historically prioritised surge capacity over presence at sea (which is why the Soviet Navy only deployed 25% of its SSNs at any given time during the Cold War as opposed to the 66% which the US navy maintained), a very high readiness rate of 80% would imply six or so modern SSNs being available in Russia’s Northern Fleet in a crisis (though submarines could be moved to the north from the Pacific Fleet).

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Russia will field more Yasen-class SSGNs by the end of this decade. While the lead boat of the class, the Severodvinsk, took 15 years to build, its successor the Kazan was constructed in eight years and accepted into service after 12, while the third and fourth submarines in the class (both allocated to the Pacific fleet) reached full operational capability in eight and nine years respectively. Two more boats were ordered in the first tranche of Yasen-class submarines to be built, and will likely enter service in 2024–25. In this period, the Northern Fleet’s complement of Yasen-class boats will increase from two to three (with three Yasen-class boats in the Northern and Pacific Fleets respectively). The Russian navy has commissioned a further six boats in the class which will likely enter service in the 2030s, assuming a comparable build rate. At present, there is some indication that the Yasen fleet appears to have been committed to the maintenance of a near year-round presence off the coast of the continental US – something which will likely require all four of the boats currently in service to maintain, and which will leave the fleet with limited surge capacity. One reason for this might be that the Russians are replicating the Soviet policy of delivering an “analogous response” to US missile deployments in Europe (which will occur from 2026 onwards) through the deployment of missile-equipped submarines to the Western Hemisphere. If this is the case, the ability of the Yasen fleet to surge multiple SSNs into the Atlantic will be limited until the early 2030s.

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The first part of the 2030s, then, will represent a point of particular concern as a nadir in US capability coincides with the growth of the Yasen SSGN fleet as a consequence of investments being made now. Past the mid-2030s, both a recovery in US numbers and progress on SSN (R)/SSN AUKUS will (in the absence of delays) result in the rectification of this imbalance. While the situation in the Atlantic is not presently critical, it is vital that steps are taken to ensure that a window of vulnerability does not open in the 2030s.

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Getting More Out of Astute

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It should be assumed that some of the issues plaguing the Royal Navy’s submarine readiness right now can be resolved at the speed of relevance if the threat is likely to become most acute at the end of the decade. To use one example, the lack of available docks at Devonport (which has forced a prioritisation of SSBN maintenance) should be resolved in the coming years, as 10 Dock at Devonport becomes available and 15 Dock is converted to service the Astute class. Furthermore, the floating docks being procured under the Additional Fleet Time Docking Capability (AFTDC) programme should help with the issue of readiness, although this programme is nascent and no date has been set yet for the tender. Finally, the Astute fleet will grow by two SSNs during the next few years. While still considerably smaller than the Russian Northern Fleet in numerical terms, the Royal Navy can, in conjunction with other European SSN operators such as the Marine Nationale, offset the effects of a relative reduction in US capacity and match a notional Russian force of 10–11 modern attack submarines which may be operated by the Northern Fleet in the early 2030s.

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This is by no means a certainty, however, and the fate of programmes such as the AFTDC remains to be seen. Moreover, infrastructure investments will not entirely resolve some of the challenges highlighted by Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff Lieutenant General Rob Magowan, which include supply chain management and the availability of engineers.

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Furthermore, the question of availability will only be exacerbated by the rotational deployment of an Astute-class submarine to Perth beginning in 2027. To be sure, AUKUS is not necessarily a drag on capacity – investments in the UK’s submarine industrial base by Australia may be an important part of the solution to certain issues such as supply chain management. However, the timing of the rotational deployment bears considering, since this could coincide with the point at which the Russian submarine threat peaks. There may be competitive advantages to be gained in Europe from the deployment of submarines to the Pacific. To the extent that Russia (incorrectly) assesses AUKUS to be a full-fledged military alliance, it is likely to view any steps to delivering on it as a threat to the Russian Far East where, notably, half of the incoming batch of Yasen-class SSGNs will be based. As such, the strategic ambiguity of a rotational presence could play a role in fixing Russian assets away from Europe.

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These opportunities notwithstanding, a more salient question for the Royal Navy may be the timing and form that its rotational commitment to Submarine Rotational Force West takes. One approach to how the rotational deployment might be conducted by partner states could conform to the logic of dynamic force employment articulated by former Secretary of Defence James Mattis, in which forces were expected to make short, irregular deployments geared towards an emphasis on readiness and operational uncertainty. If the deployment schedule of British and US SSNs was made shorter and larger in scale (with multiple SSNs on any deployment but for a shorter period), this could impose a degree of operational uncertainty on Russia while maintaining a regular drumbeat of visits to Australia for functions such as training and political signalling.

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Alternatively, if a likely multi-year rotational forward presence is deemed politically vital to the success of AUKUS, the UK would do well to deliver its part of the commitment before 2030, which is when the threat in Europe will peak.

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The period from 2025–35 will likely be one of maximal concern as the demand from the Indo-Pacific and a qualitative increase in the Russian threat converge

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In addition to thinking about how longer-term commitments are managed and sequenced, the tasking of the Astute fleet could become more focused. For example, the role of SSNs as Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM) launchers in support of expeditionary activity might reasonably be sacrificed given that this entails the use of a highly specialised platform for functions that can eventually be played by surface vessels, and draws on capacity in support of relatively peripheral missions. Until the Type 26 enters service, readiness for the contingent employment of limited stocks of TLAM outside Europe might be treated as a task to be effectively gapped.

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In a similar vein, a greater emphasis might be placed on committing more resources to key activities such as ASW and exercises such as Ice Exercise, in which the Royal Navy and US Navy practice under-ice SSN operations (something no European partner other than the UK provide the US), even if this comes at the expense of other standing commitments (beyond nondiscretionary missions like protecting the deterrent). A more narrowly focused pattern of activity could help optimise a limited fleet for its core functions, which during the latter part of this decade and the first part of the next could in turn set the conditions for a more balanced pattern of activity towards the middle of the next decade and beyond.

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Third, the relative balance between the submarines of the Russian Northern Fleet and Allied capabilities can be influenced in certain ways. As mentioned, the rotational deployment of Yasen-class submarines in what appears to be an analogous response posture will rob Russia of surge capacity. Similar long-distance deployments as part of an analogous response approach might be incentivised by forward operations in the Barents Sea (which former commander of the Russian Navy Admiral Yevmenov discussed with some concern in the journal Morskoi Sbornik), or through live exercises simulating the firing of submarine-launched cruise missiles from forward positions (something which is viewed as a matter of concern since British missiles are viewed as a component of a much larger US prompt strike capability). These represent notional examples rather than concrete solutions, but the broader point is that the pattern of activity the submarine service should aim for is one in which short bursts of Allied activity stimulate much longer Russian deployments. While the number of hulls in the Russian Northern Fleet cannot be impacted, the number available to Russia at any time can be.

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Conclusion

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Ultimately, there are no simple fixes to the challenges that shortfalls in SSN numbers will pose. These shortfalls will not be acute until later in this decade, by which time the UK should have overcome some of its own short-term challenges. The period from 2025–35 will likely be one of maximal concern as the demand from the Indo-Pacific and a qualitative increase in the Russian threat converge. In this window, it will likely be vital to narrow the number of tasks performed by the Astute fleet as much as possible. Beyond this point, there will be greater room for the fleet to support longer-term goals, including those entailed under AUKUS.

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Sidharth Kaushal is Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research at RUSI covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.

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After Wagner

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Non-State Groups Fighting in Ukraine

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Anna Kruglova | 2024.08.29

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Although the Wagner Group’s presence in Ukraine may have ended, a range of other non-state actors have stepped up to take its place, many of which display extreme right-wing beliefs.

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With the Wagner Group ceasing to exist last year after the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, it may seem that the threat from non-state actors on the battlefield in Ukraine has disappeared. However, while the most well-known group might have stopped its activities, Ukraine continues to attract various paramilitary groups, most of which hold far-right views.

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One of the most notorious groups that is known for its involvement in Ukraine is Rusich, which has been actively involved in the conflict in Ukraine since 2014 and holds extreme right-wing, neo-Nazi beliefs. One of its leaders, Alexei Milchakov, became infamous not only for publicly and proudly calling himself a Nazi, but also for his penchant for sadistic violence after he made a video of himself killing and eating a puppy. It must be noted, however, that Rusich does not seem to be particularly popular among the Russian far right. Thus, Sergei Korotkih, one of the creators of the Russian National Socialist movement and an ally of Russia’s most infamous neo-Nazi, Maxim Martsinkevich (nicknamed Tesak), was quoted as saying that people like Milchakov are considered “losers” in the movement and see the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to gain traction on social media. This may be true, as the group’s social channels contain very little ideological content and the small amount that is available is mostly dedicated to the thrill of killing Ukrainian soldiers who, it appears, Rusich considers a second-class race.

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Another far-right group is the Russian Imperial Movement (or specifically its military wing, the Imperial Legion) and its smaller affiliates, which consider themselves “nationalists”. They believe that Ukraine as a state should not exist and it is simply part of Russia; hence, they see their participation in the war as contributing to the unification of Russian territories, with the final goal of creating new Russian Empire with a monarch ruling it. The group’s social media is full of posts dedicated to explaining its views and justifying its involvement in Ukraine. It should be noted that despite its enthusiastic welcome of the war and active involvement, the group presents itself as an opposition to the Russian government. In its rhetoric, it appears to hope that its involvement will eventually help it achieve its strategic goal of changing the regime in Russia and seizing political power.

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In the last year, the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) has also gained a certain amount of fame as a Russian group fighting on Ukraine’s side. This group was founded in August 2022 by Denis Kapustin (now Nikitin), a Russian national from Germany. It is believed that Kapustin holds neo-Nazi views, and he has even been labelled as a “key figure in European extreme far-right circles” and “one of the most dangerous neo-Nazis in the region”. Another member of the movement, Alexei Levkin, used to be the head of neo-Nazi group Wotanjugend, and called Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik a hero. Several other members also have a history of expressing public support for extreme right-wing groups and terrorists.

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Nikitin himself, in an interview with PBS, said: “Islamisation, cultural Marxism, multiculturalism, I think all those – all those things are harmful. European culture is definitely endangered. I believe in things like the Great Replacement”. These and other comments made by Nikitin resonate with far-right ideology, which leaves no doubt as to his and his movement’s political views. It appears, however, from interviews with other members that the degree of acceptance of these views varies – some members say that they hold traditionalist views but do not agree with more extreme far-right ideas, and others have even argued that the image of RVC as being an extreme right group was created and promoted by their adversaries in Russia (the group is designated as a terrorist organisation in Russia). While this might be true, Russian neo-Nazis have expressed support for RVC on their social media (such as the Telegram channel “National Socialist”) and have even called for donations to help wounded RVC fighters receive medical care.

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It appears that despite the disappearance of the Wagner Group, Ukraine still remains an attractive target for various non-state actors

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In addition to these, there are also two more groups supporting Ukraine – “Freedom of Russia Legion” and “Sibir Batalion” – however, there is not enough credible information to make firm conclusions about their ideological orientations.

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In any case, it appears that despite the disappearance of the Wagner Group, Ukraine still remains an attractive target for various non-state actors, many of which hold extreme right-wing beliefs and are active on social media reporting about their activities and recruiting new members, as well as committing acts of violence. Their presence in the region is a reason for concern, as not only does it further aggravate the situation on the battlefield, but it also poses a security threat for Europe as these groups may attempt (as some already have) to move their activities beyond the borders of Ukraine.

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Anna Kruglova is a lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of Salford. Her research focuses on radicalisation, propaganda and disinformation.

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Realise Service Integration

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First Steps Towards Realising Integration as a Service

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Sidharth Kaushal | 2024.08.30

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This conference report is based on the discussions at a one-day workshop held in September 2023 to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force.

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Introduction

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This conference report is based on the discussions which occurred during a one-day workshop held in September 2023 at RUSI’s headquarters in London, attended by a range of representatives from defence companies and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). The purpose of the workshop was to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force. The workshop examined where and how the MoD, the armed services and, especially, UK Strategic Command (StratCom) and its new Integration Design Authority (IDA) can achieve immediate results to galvanise the broader effort to deliver the stated aspiration of providing “integration as a service”.

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The workshop focused on the questions of how different actors, both past and present, have approached the challenge of data integration, and sought to examine which transferable lessons might be drawn from precedents from both the world of defence and beyond it, in areas such as the financial sector. This report, based on the workshop and subsequent secondary literature review, examines the immediate steps that the MoD can take to set the conditions for a broader effort to achieve multi-domain integration.

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A key deduction from the day’s discussions was that if, as is likely to be the case, software-driven evolution will play an important role in determining how the joint force fights, perhaps to an even greater degree than hardware adaptation, then it will be of considerable importance that frontline commands (FLCs) are able to cohere capability at all stages, even as the software is continually adapted.

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It was noted that traces of this change are already visible in operational theatres such as Ukraine, where software can and must be adapted on a six-weekly basis to stay ahead of adversary cyber- and electronic-warfare capabilities; this rate far exceeds that of hardware replacement or adaptation.

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If the joint force is to operate across domains, FLCs must pursue iterative change in a coordinated manner. Consequently, the specific focus of the workshop was on achieving common data standards within defence. The workshop and subsequent research relied on historical case studies from both the UK and other nations to identify the drivers of success and failure in integration efforts.

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The day’s discussions also examined the development of civilian networks, which have succeeded through the existence of standards sufficiently broad to enable change but well defined enough to allow for interoperability. The lessons derived are applicable to other areas where integration and standardisation of capabilities across all services is a priority.

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Key Findings

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Key findings surfaced from the day’s discussions, and reinforced by a review of secondary literature, are as follows:

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    There is limited precedent for successful integration on a top-down basis. Moreover, success has often involved procedures which – by virtue of their secrecy – existed outside normal procedures.

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    In several areas there are strong service- and defence-level incentives to collaborate, but no individual service owns responsibility for an outcome. This separates operational from financial risk. Helping resolve these “tragedy of the commons” areas would allow the IDA to work with, rather than against, the grain of service imperatives.

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    A common set of foundational standards which FLCs can use to drive the process of integration could serve as a starting point. Data standards are a key part of the foundations. Achieving standards in one area can create functional spill-overs (where integration in one area makes it difficult to function without integration in other areas, leading to a cascading process that eventually requires no top-down supervision).

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The Challenge of Integration

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As was discussed at the workshop, a number of factors can pose challenges to the effective integration of capabilities across the joint force. Among them are:

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    A tendency towards feature creep – the expansion of an integration effort to include more tasks than can reasonably be accomplished, thereby increasing complexity.

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    An over-emphasis on technical capabilities, as opposed to specifying the operational requirements that justify the costs and complexities inherent to integration.

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    Non-adoption or partial adoption of standards once they are created.

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    Standards that act as barriers to entry for new capabilities because of their complexity.

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During the workshop, it was noted that these challenges have been prominent features of previous UK efforts at joint force integration, particularly the Network Enabled Capability (NEC) programme, which began in the 2000s. The challenges that the UK has faced with the adoption of the NEC are in certain respects emblematic of the issues one may expect to encounter. As pointed out by one of the participants, the NEC was a victim of the fact that FLCs were not involved in articulating operational use cases. Moreover, the programme was not closely aligned at the enterprise level. Ideally, it would have encompassed both the relationships between different acquisition lines and areas such as operator education. It was noted that because NEC-related programmes were not situated within an operational use case, the costs were harder to justify within individual services where the benefit was not as great as for others. As a result, when services had to make trade-offs between individual NEC capabilities (such as a cooperative engagement) and other lines of effort, NEC capabilities were often sacrificed, scaled back or only partially adopted.

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Case studies discussed at the workshop, such as the US Air Force’s Airborne Battle Management System (ABMS) programme, illustrate another major risk that integration efforts face: feature creep. The programme, which began as a replacement for the E-8 JSTARS, morphed into a wider effort to deliver an internet of things. While this development was not problematic in itself, the fact that use cases were driven by programme executive offices led to uncoordinated feature creep and cost increases.

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In those instances where effective top-down integration was achieved, notably the US Navy’s NIFC-CA programme, it was enabled by two things. First, a clear single service chain of command within a well-defined mission set allowed the US Navy to control requirements and enforce them. Second, as observed by a workshop participant who was involved in the rollout of the programme, the heavy classification of the programme meant that decision-making was restricted to a small number of individuals who had the authority to make and enforce systems engineering trade-offs (even though, in many cases, the reasons for specific requirements were not communicated to those charged with implementing them). Narrowing the group responsible for making decisions made it possible to avoid feature creep. Once established, requirements were imposed on engineers with little room for consultation, given the classifications involved, while the decision-makers’ authority could not be challenged. It was noted at the workshop that the ability to develop stringent requirements and ensure their adoption without pushback was only possible because many existing procedures for procuring and integrating capability were circumvented in a programme which was subject to highly centralised (and specific) processes.

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Participants discussed the fact that that these criteria will be difficult to achieve outside very specific contexts. So instead of integrating specific platforms, a different approach to integration might be taken – one that uses the authorities of bodies such as StratCom to solve emerging tragedies of the commons, over which no individual service has effective control or responsibility. Participants agreed that where StratCom can add value as the “strategic integrator” is not by solving specific integration challenges as an external part of the programme, but rather by creating toolkits that allow integration to be driven by MoD Finance and Military Capability (FMC) using existing management systems.

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The following sections describe working use cases which might become a basis for focused support to cross-service integration by StratCom.

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Opportunities to Enable Cross-Service Integration

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Several solutions emerged from the day’s discussions. First, the IDA could provide a mechanism to cohere capability if it more systematically informed the Defence Capability Risk Assessment Register (DCAR) process. Although the IDA does not have budgetary authority, it can provide FMC with information about which capability gaps can be closed through integrating existing or likely capabilities and which require additional capacity rather than integration. Through the IDA and leveraging its responsibilities for Defence Digital, StratCom can generate an information base regarding data standards, which FMC can then use to insert requirements into specific programmes. This might be analogised to the way in which consultancy firms are used by governments to fill gaps in both expertise and capacity. With a staff drawn from across the services and the capacity (through the Permanent Joint Headquarters) to assess the operational use cases for individual service capabilities, StratCom can provide FMC with the information needed to inform decisions regarding data standards.

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As was discussed at the workshop, the importance of a feedback loop between StratCom and FMC will become greater in the medium term, as the demands of integration will increasingly affect hardware. Most concepts for distributed operations, such as DARPA’s “STITCHES” Initiative, introduce considerable requirements for processing power to enable network integration and the translation of data at the tactical edge. This will in turn introduce size and cost requirements on platforms which StratCom and FMC can only drive in tandem. A model which is initially applied to data- and software-led development can then serve as a microcosm for a more ambitious system which will be needed in a 10-year timeframe. The model can enable StratCom and FMC to develop the procedures needed to coordinate with each other and the FLCs, and can introduce the services to new practices.

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Creating a Market of Standards

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During the workshop, it was noted that delivering the integration identified above could be facilitated immediately by creating a market of common standards which services can opt into for specific functions. In this way, StratCom could set the stage for future integration.

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Notably, if software-led integration is a priority, flexible standards will be essential. This has been observed in civilian networks, which are able to maximize their effectiveness through a combination of relatively specific bearer standards and much more flexible standards for transport and middleware layers of a system.

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Participants also observed that there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that backwards integration with open source software is possible, with examples from the world of integrated air and missile defence particularly prominent. It is possible to define broad parameters within which messages must fit and to then rely on middleware to translate data across the different formats.

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Participants noted that not all tasks will require comparable levels of data standardisation. For tasks such as electronic warfare, for example, the requirements for rapid updating and the stringency of security requirements impose a need for well-defined standards, which limit the amount of time needed to translate data across formats. Similarly, a particularly stringent set of standards could be adopted by the FLCs to share F-35 data while they might select different standards for other functions. Conversely, in other cases, such as joint logistics, a more flexible set of standards might be applied.

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One key determinant of the degree to which standards are necessarily stringent will likely be the degree to which network compromise can be expected, as pointed out during discussions regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine. Where network compromise is highly likely (for example, because platforms will operate within reach of adversary electronic warfare capabilities), it will probably be the case that data will need to be packaged in ways that enable encryption while balancing the trade-offs involved between encryption and latency. As was discussed at the workshop, this will be of particular importance when a decision is made to exploit civilian bandwidth for certain functions – the relative lack of security of the network layer makes the security of the messaging layer all the more important. In other instances, compromise may be likely but accepted as the cost of scalability – for example, when commercial off-the-shelf UAVs are being incorporated into force structures. Finally, there are some instances where the security of a network against different modes of compromise is sufficiently robust that risk can be accepted at the level of data. One example is communications using millimetric wave frequencies.

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Both discussions during the workshop and existing research suggest that the experience of organisations such as the International Organization for Standardization lends itself to the argument that a diverse set of voluntary standards can be effective in allowing agents to select standards that are best suited to enabling their operations. Rather than driving the process, StratCom and the IDA could generate multiple options which can be relevant to specific multi-domain tasks, from which FLCs can jointly select based on cross-service consultation. By resolving the informational challenge of generating options, Stratcom can narrow the set of options from which services can choose and provide them with an incentive to choose from the options it provides by removing the requirement to generate standards by themselves.

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A conclusion reached by participants was that where StratCom might add value is through the provision of a typology of trade-offs. Data standards could be categorised on whether they are designed to allow access to multiple network types, reduce latency or increase security – mindful of the fact that one can typically only achieve at most two of these three ideals. FLCs could then justify trading off one priority against others based on the demands of a specific operational requirement. For example, if forward reconnaissance elements of the force are expected to operate in communications-denied or -disrupted environments, they might opt to trade latency for the ability to securely use multiple modes of communication. Levels of encryption sufficient to pass data along multiple types of networks with different levels of vulnerability to compromise necessarily impose demands in terms of the TTPs and the size of data packages, meaning a cost in latency which precludes certain things such as the frequent use of full video links.

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Case Study: Distributed Tactical Ledgers

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The final part of the workshop was based on group discussions of potential use cases. One area where participants identified the potential to achieve “quick wins” was the development of a system comparable to those based around distributed ledgers that have emerged in the world of finance. The key points that emerged from discussions around this use case are outlined below.

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Any system that requires coordinated collective action requires agents to have information about each other’s whereabouts, capabilities and obligations. For example, if an air defence interception is to be performed on a collaborative basis that might involve an Army-operated GBAD system, an RAF combat aircraft and a ship, it will be necessary to know what capabilities are held on each platform, how well suited they are to the task of an interception and how valuable it would be for each platform to perform the interception as opposed to another function. In other words, ledgers of both capabilities and the value of using a given capability in a specific way would be needed.

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As was discussed in the breakout sessions, awareness currently existing at the theatre level includes the Recognised Air Picture (RAP) at a Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC). However, if envisioned concepts of distributed operations are to be achieved, this awareness and capacity for collaboration must be pushed to the edge. One prerequisite for this is a shared set of standards by which information about available cross-domain blue forces and tasking orders can be shared locally.

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Participants in the breakout sessions agreed that the ability to task capabilities in a decentralised manner would require, at a minimum, both the ability of units to communicate their availability to nearby units from across the force, and a basis on which tasking requests might be either accepted or rejected. In the civilian world, applications such as Uber accomplish this through the broadcasting of data by taxis and the use of a price mechanism. However, this model is not directly transferrable to a military context. The constant broadcasting of data represents a security risk, while decisions about what a platform is tasked to do typically reflect the allocation of resources to a task by a higher authority through, for example, an air tasking order. However, many emerging concepts of operations, such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Mosaic Warfare, presume a comparable dynamic recombination of assets, with systems sometimes being tasked to a zone rather than a specific function. In a military context, communications would likely need to be local rather than broadcasted, because broadcasting availability creates risk and would rely on directional transmissions which, in turn, create a requirement for blue force tracking which would be difficult to assure in GPS denied environments. The requirement for accurate blue force tracking stems from the fact that to share data safely, as F-35s have done with US Marine Corps HIMARS batteries in tests, systems need to use Link 16 on directional antennae rather than relying on omni-directional broadcasts, which would reveal their positions. Directional transmissions require an accurate understanding of the location of a receiving antenna, which has been achieved in tests but which would be difficult to deliver in conflict. The need for blue force tracking incentivises an effort to leverage multiple networks, but this must be balanced against the requirement for security. In effect, there is something of a trade-off between the flexibility of a system in terms of the network it uses and the data used. The more flexible a system is at the network level, the more stringent data standards must be.

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Such a system would necessitate a shift from mission command to mission definition at the edge, as operators would exercise control over not only how they executed preset missions but also which tasks they opted to support. For example, an aircraft over a part of the battlefield for the purpose of SEAD may face a choice between engaging a SAM or broadcasting data to enable another system such as a GMLRS to engage another target. This requires the pilot to know how valuable the alternative target is regarding the ground forces mission set as opposed to the SAM, which could be otherwise engaged as part of the SEAD mission. In effect, a military analogue to a pricing mechanism is necessary for multi-domain operations, but it must be secure.

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The coordination of capabilities will require network standards that are sufficiently flexible to enable the use of multiple pathways, as well as data standards that are stringent enough to allow for tasking requests to be communicated securely, since multiple networks of varying reliability are being used in the face of adversary compromise. Also, a mechanism for assessing whether the application of a system to a task is appropriate given the system’s availability would be necessary.

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While this task is both complex and a multi-level system engineering task, the full extent of which should be the basis for subsequent discussions a first step towards such a system might involve delivering:

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    A distributed cross-domain system for tracking blue forces and delivering tasking orders without communications to higher echelon.

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    A distributed system for assigning value to tasks.

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This system of distributed ledgers would at a minimum require shared standards for indexing data about locations, capabilities and values, as well as voting protocols to enable changes to locations and target values without systemic risk. There are multiple network types which can support such a system. Area-wide communications networks, including civilian systems such as Starlink, might represent one mode. Alternatively, each platform in an area can communicate locally to update peers on its position, enabling them to pass this data further on to platforms adjacent to them. This could enable data to be “daisy chained” between adjacent systems to allow for broad situational awareness to be achieved without the constant broadcasting of data. Local communication with adjacent nodes can be achieved with low wavelength communications frequencies that are less susceptible to compromise.

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In certain instances and use cases, particularly where situational awareness is desirable over a broad area (for example, in the context of distributed operations in the maritime domain), it may be desirable to accept stringent standards of encryption as a means of utilising multiple network types. In other instances, for example within the land operating environment, the relative proximity of multiple units may allow for the use of mobile ad-hoc networks to enable the daisy chaining of data using less easily compromised modes of communication such as millimetre wave radios or tropospheric scatter – in turn allowing for more flexible data standards that allow lower latency and a lower requirement for operators to generate encryption keys. Security in this context is delivered by the network and not the data, and the relative simplicity of the data being transmitted (which allows for low latency) does not need to be lost due to a requirement for padding.

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Insofar as such a system does not exist, it can be directly shaped by central bodies in a way that creates a common good around which service-level lines of effort would adapt. Generating a set of differentiated data standards that might underpin such a system would be likely to secure service-level buy-in for several reasons. First, it simplifies the task of selecting standards for individual services. Second, such a system would not necessarily require services to immediately grapple with the intricacies of networking platforms to generate complete situational awareness. Rather, it would require the ability to receive and transmit simple data regarding the presence of friendly platforms and the value of any given adversary target across a shared indexing system. Third, a broad market of standards could allow different trade-offs to be weighed by services based on the tactical imperatives of one or more services in a specific context. Generally, the acceptance of standards tends to depend on the number of impositions that standards create. The more intricate a set of standards, the less likely it is that buy-in will be achieved. A flexible set of standards which is only restrictive on issues that directly pertain to security can circumvent this issue and, importantly, allow tasks to determine approaches. Because services can agree standards based on their appropriateness to a shared cross-service task, this can secure support, because the need for a given standard is rooted in an operational requirement rather than a top-down diktat. This bottom-up approach has characterised previous successful efforts at cross-service coordination, such as the 31 initiatives between the US Army and US Air Force which led to the emergence of AirLand Battle.

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Conclusions

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Several deductions emerged from the discussions held as part of the workshop. Of greatest salience was the suggestion made throughout the day that, as it approaches the task of integrating the force, StratCom will benefit from an approach that builds from relatively modest goals, but with a clear sense of where it is heading. It must eventually achieve the following aims:

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    Establish organisational procedures which allow it to determine integration requirements in light of operational demands.

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    Establish a shared set of routines for coordinating with FMC.

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An effort to establish shared data standards could serve as a starting point. Standards need not immediately impinge on service-level prerogatives regarding platform-level decisions and can be approached in a flexible way, as illustrated by voluntary standards markets. The tasks for which standards are sought might initially involve less stringent capabilities, such as a shared indexing system.

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The creation of a range of options can be of greater utility than the imposition of standards, not least because standards imposed by fiat are often opposed, and moreover tend to create perverse incentive structures. By contrast, the creation of an option set allows one or more services to explicitly weigh trade-offs and justify choices made in light of the trade-offs acceptable in the specific operational contexts in which the assets of more than one FLC interact. On the basis of the system and precedents set, StratCom and FMC could begin to articulate a more coherent system and division of labour, which could then be applied to more complex systems engineering challenges.

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Tackling the relatively modest task of creating a flexible set of data standards and solving broad tragedies of the commons could, then, create the conditions for a more ambitious future approach to integration.

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Sidharth Kaushal is Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research at RUSI covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.

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Realise Service Integration

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Sidharth Kaushal | 2024.08.30
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This conference report is based on the discussions at a one-day workshop held in September 2023 to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force.

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Although the Wagner Group’s presence in Ukraine may have ended, a range of other non-state actors have stepped up to take its place, many of which display extreme right-wing beliefs.

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Kari A. Bingen and Makena Young | 2024.08.23
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This report identifies actions that policymakers could take to strengthen the U.S.-Japan space security relationship to lead to material improvements in capabilities, more fielded systems, and a more highly trained and proficient workforce.

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Bonny Lin, et al. | 2024.08.22
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