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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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It is also likely that Ukraine benefited from Russia’s own complacency and overconfidence. Despite suffering a series of defeats in Ukraine since 2022, the Kremlin remains almost pathologically dismissive of Ukrainian capabilities and does not appear to have seriously entertained the possibility of a large-scale Ukrainian invasion of the Russian Federation. The modest defenses established throughout the border zone confirm that Moscow anticipated minor border raids but had no plans to repel a major Ukrainian incursion.

Russia’s sense of confidence doubtless owed much to Western restrictions imposed on Ukraine since the start of the war that have prohibited the use of Western weapons inside Russia. These restrictions were partially relaxed in May 2024 following Russia’s own cross-border offensive into Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, but the Kremlin clearly did not believe Kyiv would be bold enough to use this as the basis for offensive operations inside Russia. Vladimir Putin is now paying a steep price for underestimating his opponent.

It remains far too early to assess the impact of Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive. One of the most interesting questions will be whether Ukraine can force the Kremlin to divert military units from the fighting in eastern Ukraine in order to defend Russia itself. Much will depend on the amount of Russian land Ukraine is able to seize and hold. Putin must also decide whether his military should focus on merely stopping Ukraine’s advance or liberating occupied Russian territory.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible on the modern battlefield. This is a significant achievement that underlines the skill and competence of the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian invasion has also confirmed once again that Putin’s talk of Russian red lines and his frequent threats of nuclear escalation are a bluff designed to intimidate the West. Taken together, these factors should be enough to convince Kyiv’s partners that now is the time to increase military support and provide Ukraine with the tools for victory.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

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Long-range attack drones are a good fit for Ukraine’s limited offensive capabilities. Kyiv needs to be able to strike military targets inside Russia, but is prevented from doing do with Western-supplied missiles due to restrictions imposed by the country’s partners. While Ukraine has some capacity to produce its own missiles domestically, this is insufficient for a sustained bombing campaign.

Drones are enabling Ukraine to overcome these obstacles. Ukrainian drone production has expanded dramatically over the past two-and-a-half years. The low cost of manufacturing a long-range drone relative to the damage it can cause to Russian military and industrial facilities makes it in many ways the ideal weapon for a cash-strapped but innovative nation like Ukraine.

Ukraine’s drone industry is a diverse ecosystem featuring hundreds of participating companies producing different models. The Ukrainian military has used a variety of drones with different characteristics for attacks inside Russia, making the campaign even more challenging for Russia’s air defenses.

The decentralized nature of Ukraine’s drone manufacturing sector also makes it difficult for Russia to target. Even if the Kremlin is able to identify and hit individual production sites located across Ukraine, this is unlikely to have a major impact on the country’s overall output.

Since 2022, Ukraine has taken a number of steps to reduce bureaucracy and streamline cooperation between drone makers and the military. The result is a sector capable of adapting to changing battlefield conditions and able to implement innovations quickly and effectively. This includes efforts to create AI-enabled drones capable of functioning without an operator, making it far more difficult for Russia to jam.

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As it expands, Ukraine’s drone bombing campaign is exposing the weaknesses of Russia’s air defenses. Defending a territory as vast as Russia against air strikes would be problematic even in peacetime. With much of Russia’s existing air defense systems currently deployed along the front lines in Ukraine, there are now far fewer systems available to protect industrial and military targets inside Russia.

During the initial stages of the war, this shortage of air defense coverage was not a major issue. However, Ukraine’s broadening bombing offensive is now forcing Russia to make tough decisions regarding the distribution of its limited air defenses.

In addition to strategically important sites such as airbases, the Kremlin must also defend prestige targets from possible attack. In July, CNN reported that air defenses had been significantly strengthened around Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summer residence. Protecting Putin’s palace from attack is necessary to avoid embarrassment, but it means leaving other potential targets exposed.

Ukraine’s drone program is the biggest success story to emerge from the country’s vibrant defense tech sector, and is helping Ukraine to even out the odds against its far larger and wealthier adversary. The country’s partners clearly recognize the importance of drones for the Ukrainian military, and have formed a drone coalition to increase the supply of drones from abroad. This combination of international support and Ukrainian ingenuity spells trouble for Russia. It will likely lead to increasingly powerful and plentiful long-range strikes in the months ahead.

Marcel Plichta is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and former analyst at the US Department of Defense. He has written on the use of drones in the Russian invasion of Ukraine for the Atlantic Council, the Telegraph, and the Spectator.

US President Joe Biden finally gave the green light to supply Ukraine with F-16s in summer 2023. However, it would take another year before the the Ukrainian Air Force received the first batch of jets. Sadly, Pilschikov did not live to see this historic day. The pilot who did so much to secure F-16s for his country was killed in a mid-air collision during a training exercise in August 2023.

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Despite achieving a breakthrough in summer 2023, the process of preparing for the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine proved frustratingly slow. Ukrainian pilots spent many months training, with only a limited number of slots made available. As a result, Ukraine still has very few pilots able to fly F-16s. Identifying and upgrading Ukrainian airfields capable of accommodating F-16s also created challenges.

The planes that Ukraine has received from the country’s European partners are from the older generation, which is being phased out elsewhere as air forces transition to more modern models. This imposes some limitations on the functions Ukraine’s F-16 fleet can perform. Limited radar reach means that deployment of F-16s on the front lines of the war is seen as too risky, as they could be shot down by both Russian aircraft and Russian air defenses.

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With a combat role unlikely at this stage, Ukrainian F-16s will primarily be used to strengthen the country’s air defenses. The planes Kyiv has received are ideally suited to the task of shooting down the Russian missiles and drones that are regularly fired at Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure.

Their effectiveness in this role will depend on the kinds of missiles they are armed with. F-16s can carry a range of armaments that are more advanced that the types of weapons used by the majority of planes in service with the Russian Air Force. Initial indications are encouraging, with the first F-16s arriving in Ukraine complete with weapons ideally suited to air defense. It is now vital for Ukrainian officials and members of civil society to focus their advocacy efforts on securing sufficient numbers of missiles from partner countries.

Ukraine should also prioritize the supply of long-range radar detection aircraft, such as the planes recently promised by Sweden. In May 2024, the Swedes announced plans to deliver two surveillance aircraft as part of the Scandinavian nation’s largest support package to date. These “eyes in the sky” can monitor airspace for hundreds of kilometers. Together with Ukraine’s growing F-16 fleet, they will significantly enhance the country’s air defenses.

As Ukraine acquires more F-16s in the coming months, and as the country’s limited pool of pilots grows in size and experience, we will likely see these jets used in more adventurous ways. This may include targeting Russian planes and helicopters operating close to the front lines with long-range strikes. For now, though, the main task of Ukraine’s F-16s will be to improve the country’s air defenses and protect the civilian population from Russian bombardment.

Olena Tregub is Executive Director of the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), a member of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Russia’s Black Sea defeats get flushed down Vladimir Putin’s memory hole

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:51:05 +0000

There was much pomp and pageantry on display recently in former Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg as Vladimir Putin presided over the country’s annual Navy Day festivities. In truth, however, Putin and his assembled admirals had very little to celebrate. Over the past year, Russia’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet has been decimated by Ukrainian drones and missiles in what must rank as the most remarkable series of naval defeats in modern military history.

Despite barely having a navy of its own, Ukraine has managed to sink or severely damage approximately one-third of Putin’s fleet, forcing the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from occupied Crimea. The war at sea has gone so badly for Russia that by spring 2024, Britain’s Ministry of Defense was already declaring the Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive.”

The details of this year’s Russian Navy Day program provided some hints of the inglorious reality behind Moscow’s efforts to project naval strength. Tellingly, the traditional parade of Russian warships along the Neva River to the Kronstadt naval base, which usually serves as the centerpiece of the entire holiday, was canceled due to security concerns. In its place, a reduced flotilla took part in a significantly scaled down event that featured around half as many vessels as in previous years.

Despite being by far the smallest Russian Navy Day since the holiday was reinstated in 2017, this year’s event nevertheless represented an excellent opportunity for Putin to honor Russia’s fallen sailors and vow retribution for the country’s unprecedented losses in the Black Sea. In fact, he did nothing of the sort. Throughout his official address, Putin barely mentioned the casualties suffered or the sacrifices made by the Russian Navy during the invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin dictator preferred to flush Russia’s Black Sea defeats down the memory hole. He was aided by the loyal Russian media, which carefully avoided any awkward references to the disaster that has befallen the country’s Black Sea Fleet.

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All this brings to mind an old Soviet joke that begins with Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great looking down from heaven at a Red Army parade on Red Square. Caesar indicates the endless rows of Soviet troops and says, “with so many men, I could have held Germania.” Alexander points to the tanks and missiles and declares, “with such weapons of war, I could have conquered all India.” Napoleon, meanwhile, completely ignores the parade and is instead engrossed in a copy of Pravda. “If I had such a newspaper,” he proclaims, “nobody would have heard of Waterloo.”

Many Soviet jokes have not aged well, but this particular punchline remains as relevant as ever in modern Russia, where Putin has succeeded in creating a propaganda machine every bit as potent as its Soviet predecessor. Today’s Kremlin-controlled multimedia ecosystem is far more sophisticated than its Communist forerunner, but it serves the same basic function of bending reality to suit the whims of Russia’s ruling elite.

For the past decade, Putin has used this unrivaled information weapon to fuel the biggest European invasion since World War II. Kremlin propagandists have managed to convince millions of ordinary Russians that democratic Ukraine is actually a “Nazi state” whose very existence poses an intolerable threat to Russia. Ukrainians have been demonized and dehumanized to such an extent that genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now a routine feature on prime time Russian TV.

The success of these efforts is all too apparent, with a wide range of opinion polls, research, and anecdotal evidence pointing to consistently high levels of Russian public support for the invasion. Meanwhile, there is no meaningful anti-war movement in the country, despite widespread knowledge of the horrors taking place in neighboring Ukraine. This is not surprising. After all, as Voltaire once warned, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Putin’s ability to distort Russian reality is genuinely terrifying, but the sheer scale of his propaganda operation could also inadvertently offer hope for the future. Many commentators have argued that failure in Ukraine would lead to the fall of the Putin regime and quite possibly the breakup of Russia itself, but these concerns may be exaggerated. While a third Russian collapse in a little over a century cannot be ruled out, the experience of the past two-and-a-half years gives good cause to believe that Moscow’s disinformation industry is more than capable of rebranding any future retreat from Ukraine in a favorable light, or of burying it completely. In other words, if the Russian media can manufacture a major war, it can also fabricate a suitably plausible peace.

Anyone who still doubts the Kremlin’s capacity to whitewash military defeat in Ukraine hasn’t been paying attention. We have recently witnessed Putin hosting the biggest naval event of the year while studiously ignoring the historic humbling of his southern fleet. It was the same story in 2022, when he ceremoniously announced that Kherson had joined Russia “forever,” only to order his beaten troops to abandon the city just weeks later. Likewise, when Russia lost the Battle of Kyiv during the initial phase of the invasion, the Kremlin refused to acknowledge defeat and absurdly insisted that the retreat from northern Ukraine was a mere “goodwill gesture.” If Putin is eventually forced to end his invasion, it seems safe to assume he will downplay this humiliation in similar fashion.

Since February 2022, Western leaders have found numerous reasons to limit their support for Ukraine. Some are restricted by modest defense budgets and competing domestic priorities. Most are afraid of possible escalation and have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s talk of Russian red lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says many of his country’s Western partners are also reluctant to arm Ukraine because they fear the unpredictable geopolitical consequences of a Russian defeat. This Western alarm over a possible Russian collapse is exaggerated and fails to account for the power of Putin’s propaganda.

If Russia suffers a decisive defeat in Ukraine, past experience indicates that the Kremlin will almost certainly seek to move the goalposts, change the narrative, or devise some other way of rewriting history and claiming victory. Any embarrassing evidence of failure would simply be flushed down the memory hole, along with all the sunken Russian warships of the Black Sea Fleet.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Europe can do more to help Ukraine counter Russia’s energy attacks

Aura Sabadus — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 20:54:59 +0000

Russian bombing of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure has forced millions of Ukrainians to spend the summer months adjusting to rolling power blackouts, with record high temperatures adding to the practical challenges of living without electricity. The Ukrainian response to this latest episode of wartime adversity has been marked by typical grit, resourcefulness, and good humor. Nevertheless, there is now widespread awareness that the country is facing what may be the toughest winter in modern Ukrainian history.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has destroyed, damaged, or occupied approximately eighty percent of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure. The situation has deteriorated sharply since March 2024 following a wave of Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants that have devastated the country’s thermal capacity.

Ukrainian energy sector officials believe that during the coming winter season, peak demand could be above eighteen gigawatts, with average consumption likely to hover around fifteen gigawatts. However, remaining capacity is just over ten gigawatts. Unless significant new sources can be secured, Ukrainians will have to deal with extended blackouts amid subzero temperatures. This could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and create new waves of refugees fleeing to the EU.

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Looking ahead, there is no substitute for much needed air defenses to protect Ukraine’s remaining energy production capacity. However, additional steps from the Ukrainian authorities and Kyiv’s partners could help prepare the country for the coming winter season.

A July 2024 report funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research has identified a number of short-term measures that could be adopted swiftly to at least partially plug current shortfalls. Fast repairs of thermal and hydro plants together with the deployment of small-scale gas-fired turbines and solar panels could bring approximately 3.4GW of additional capacity online before temperatures start to drop. Donations of spare equipment are also absolutely vital, while Ukraine should intensify work with partners to establish stockpiles of components to rebuild generation capacity.

One of the most promising initiatives would involve increasing cross-border capacity with neighboring EU countries operating under the umbrella of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). Ukraine synchronized with the ENTSO-E grid in March 2022. Since then, Kyiv has increased cross-border capacity significantly, but there is still scope for a further expansion of interconnection capacity by approximately 0.3GW ahead of the coming winter season. This may be easier said than done, however.

Hungary and Slovakia are key exporters of electricity to Ukraine but are currently threatening to cut flows after Kyiv introduced a partial ban on the transit of Russian oil to refineries in the two EU countries. Budapest and Bratislava have long benefitted from cheap Russian energy imports and have faced accusations of acting in the Kremlin’s interests by blocking EU financial and military support to Ukraine. Both countries could now undermine efforts to boost energy exports to Ukraine.

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While there has not yet been any disruption to electricity flows from the EU into Ukraine, it is clearly in Kyiv’s interests to avoid disagreements where possible and to seek enhanced energy partnership with the country’s European neighbors. Closer cooperation with Slovakia and Romania in particular could pay major dividends. Indeed, recent research has found that transmission capacity could be more than doubled to five gigawatts. This could provide greater energy security, create jobs, and attract significant investments.

If completed, one existing power line project linking Slovakia and Ukraine could bring additional capacity of one gigawatt, enough to supply a million consumers. Work on this line began in 2013 and is seventy percent complete on the Ukrainian side, but nothing has yet been done on the Slovak side. Similarly, a proposed electricity power line linking Ukraine’s Pivdennoukrainska nuclear power plant to Romania would not only bring an additional one gigawatt of transfer capacity, but could also potentially end nearby Moldova’s dependence on electricity generated in the Kremlin-controlled Transnistria enclave.

Despite the numerous benefits offered by these projects, the Romanian and Slovakian governments remain unwilling to commit. This lack of political cooperation may contribute to a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine during the coming winter months that could spill over into neighboring countries. With the countdown to the cold season now already underway, there is no time to lose. Helping Ukraine to keep the lights on should be a priority for the whole of Europe.

Dr. Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist who writes about Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Ukraine for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. Her views are her own.

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Speaking in summer 2023, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov outlined the country’s drone strategy of bringing together drone manufacturers and military officials to address problems, approve designs, secure funding, and streamline collaboration. Thanks to this approach, he predicted a one hundred fold increase in output by the end of the year.

The Ukrainian drone production industry began as a volunteer project in the early days of the Russian invasion, and quickly became a nationwide movement. The initial goal was to provide the Ukrainian military with 10,000 FPV (first person view) drones along with ammunition. This was soon replaced by far more ambitious objectives. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more the one billion US dollars has been collected by Ukrainians via fundraising efforts for the purchase of drones. According to online polls, Ukrainians are more inclined to donate money for drones than any other cause.

Today, Ukrainian drone production has evolved from volunteer effort to national strategic priority. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the country will produce more than one million drones in 2024. This includes various types of drone models, not just small FPV drones for targeting personnel and armored vehicles on the battlefield. By early 2024, Ukraine had reportedly caught up with Russia in the production of kamikaze drones similar in characteristics to the large Iranian Shahed drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure. This progress owes much to cooperation between state bodies and private manufacturers.

Marine drones are a separate Ukrainian success story. Since February 2022, Ukraine has used domestically developed marine drones to damage or sink around one third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, forcing Putin to withdraw most of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea to the port of Novorossiysk in Russia. New Russian defensive measures are consistently met with upgraded Ukrainian marine drones.

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In May 2024, Ukraine became the first country in the world to create an entire branch of the armed forces dedicated to drone warfare. The commander of this new drone branch, Vadym Sukharevsky, has since identified the diversity of country’s drone production as a major asset. As end users, the Ukrainian military is interested in as wide a selection of manufacturers and products as possible. To date, contracts have been signed with more than 125 manufacturers.

The lessons learned from the successful development of Ukraine’s drone manufacturing ecosystem should now be applied to the country’s cybersecurity strategy. “Ukraine has the talent to develop cutting-edge cyber products, but lacks investment. Government support is crucial, as can be seen in the drone industry. Allocating budgets to buy local cybersecurity products will create a thriving market and attract investors. Importing technologies strengthens capabilities but this approach doesn’t build a robust national industry,” commented Oleh Derevianko, co-founder and chairman of Information Systems Security Partners.

The development of Ukraine’s domestic drone capabilities has been so striking because local manufacturers are able to test and refine their products in authentic combat conditions. This allows them to respond on a daily basis to new defensive measures employed by the Russians. The same principle is necessary in cybersecurity. Ukraine regularly faces fresh challenges from Russian cyber forces and hacker groups; the most effective approach would involve developing solutions on-site. Among other things, this would make it possible to conduct immediate tests in genuine wartime conditions, as is done with drones.

At present, Ukraine’s primary cybersecurity funding comes from the Ukrainian defense budget and international donors. These investments would be more effective if one of the conditions was the procurement of some solutions from local Ukrainian companies. Today, only a handful of Ukrainian IT companies supply the Ukrainian authorities with cybersecurity solutions. Increasing this number to at least dozens of companies would create a local industry capable of producing world-class products. As we have seen with the rapid growth of the Ukrainian drone industry, this strategy would likely strengthen Ukraine’s own cyber defenses while also boosting the cybersecurity of the wider Western world.

Anatoly Motkin is president of StrategEast, a non-profit organization with offices in the United States, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan dedicated to developing knowledge-driven economies in the Eurasian region.

Steven R. Rudder

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Indo-Pacific Maritime Security

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Russia’s retreat from Crimea makes a mockery of the West’s escalation fears

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 20:52:12 +0000

This week marked another milestone in the Battle of the Black Sea as the Russian Navy reportedly withdrew its last remaining patrol ship from occupied Crimea. The news was announced by Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk, who signaled the historic nature of the Russian retreat with the words: “Remember this day.”

The withdrawal of Russian warships from Crimea is the latest indication that against all odds, Ukraine is actually winning the war at sea. When Russia first began the blockade of Ukraine’s ports on the eve of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, few believed the ramshackle Ukrainian Navy could seriously challenge the dominance of the mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet. Once hostilities were underway, however, it soon became apparent that Ukraine had no intention of conceding control of the Black Sea to Putin without a fight.

Beginning with the April 2022 sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva, Ukraine has used a combination of domestically produced drones and missiles together with Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike a series of devastating blows against Putin’s fleet. Cruise missiles delivered by Kyiv’s British and French partners have played an important role in this campaign, but the most potent weapons of all have been Ukraine’s own rapidly evolving fleet of innovative marine drones.

The results speak for themselves. When the full-scale invasion began, the Russian Black Sea Fleet had seventy four warships, most of which were based at ports in Russian-occupied Crimea. In a little over two years, Ukraine managed to sink or damage around one third of these ships. In the second half of 2023, reports were already emerging of Russian warships being hurriedly moved across the Black Sea from Crimea to the relative safety of Novorossiysk in Russia. By March 2024, the Russian Black Sea Fleet had become “functionally inactive,” according to the British Ministry of Defense.

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Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea has had significant practical implications for the wider war. It has disrupted Russian logistics and hindered the resupply of Russian troops in southern Ukraine, while limiting Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian targets from warships armed with cruise missiles. Crucially, it has also enabled Ukraine to break the blockade the country’s Black Sea ports and resume commercial shipping via a new maritime corridor. As a result, Ukrainian agricultural exports are now close to prewar levels, providing Kyiv with a vital economic lifeline.

The Russian reaction to mounting setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea has also been extremely revealing, and offers valuable lessons for the future conduct of the war. It has often been suggested that a cornered and beaten Vladimir Putin could potentially resort to the most extreme measures, including the use of nuclear weapons. In fact, he has responded to the humiliating defeat of the Black Sea Fleet by quietly ordering his remaining warships to retreat.

This underwhelming response is all the more telling given the symbolic significance of Crimea to the Putin regime. The Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in spring 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, which occupies an almost mystical position in Russian national folklore as the home of the country’s Black Sea Fleet. Throughout the past decade, the occupied Ukrainian peninsula has featured heavily in Kremlin propaganda trumpeting Russia’s return to Great Power status, and has come to symbolize Putin’s personal claim to a place in Russian history.

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Crimea’s elevated status was initially enough to make some of Ukraine’s international partners wary of sanctioning strikes on the occupied peninsula. However, the Ukrainians themselves had no such concerns. Instead, they simply disregarded the Kremlin’s talk of dire consequences and began attacking Russian military targets across Crimea and throughout the Black Sea. More than two years later, these attacks have now become a routine feature of the war and are taken for granted by all sides. Indeed, the Kremlin media plays down attacks on Crimea and largely ignores the frequent sinking of Russian warships, no doubt to save Putin’s blushes.

The Russian Navy’s readiness to retreat from its supposedly sacred home ports in Crimea has made a mockery of Moscow’s so-called red lines and exposed the emptiness of Putin’s nuclear threats. Nevertheless, Kyiv’s international allies remain reluctant to draw the obvious conclusions. Instead, Western support for Ukraine continues to be defined by self-defeating fears of escalation.

For almost two and a half years, Ukraine’s partners have allowed themselves to be intimidated into denying Ukraine certain categories of weapons and restricting attacks inside Russia. This is usually done while piously citing the need to prevent the current conflict from spreading any further. Western policymakers apparently prefer to ignore the overwhelming evidence from the Battle of the Black Sea, which confirms that when confronted by resolute opposition, Putin is far more likely to back down than escalate.

The West’s fear of escalation is Putin’s most effective weapon. It allows him to limit the military aid reaching Kyiv, while also preventing Ukraine from striking back against Russia. This is slowly but surely setting the stage for inevitable Russian victory in a long war of attrition. Western leaders claim to be motivated by a desire to avoid provoking a wider war, but that is exactly what will happen if they continue to pursue misguided policies of escalation management and fail to stop Putin in Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Emerging and disruptive technologies, the future of war, and NATO

Breakthroughs in EDTs are essential for NATO’s future military strength. They will significantly impact defense economics and help shape NATO’s defense-technological and industrial priorities. These efforts involve not just state policies but also public-private partnerships and transatlantic cooperation for sustainable and comprehensive EDT initiatives.

NATO supports these projects through initiatives like the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic and the NATO-Private Sector Dialogues, which explore collaboration between NATO and private companies on technology and defense.

According to Greg Ulmer, currently president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, “the decisive edge in today and tomorrow’s missions will be determined by combining technologies to bring forward new capabilities.” This view is shared by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, demonstrating the importance of AI in Washington’s military modernization efforts to deter adversaries in a future confrontation. There seems to be a consensus in the Western policy community that integrating AI and machine learning into modern battle networks, perhaps the most critical contemporary EDT applications in defense, is essential to succeed in tomorrow’s wars. In an era of increasingly digital and transparent warfare, rapid technological adaptation is key to success.

Smart technologies are proliferating fast, and continuous innovation has become a strategic requirement in today’s geopolitical landscape. AI-augmented precision kill chains, hypersonic weapons within mixed-strike packages, and satellite internet-enabled command and control nodes are already changing warfare. The use of commercial satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence has revolutionized open-source intelligence. Facial recognition algorithms are now used in war crime investigations. Robotic warfare, drone-on-drone engagements, and manned-unmanned teaming are all changing the characteristics of war for better or worse.

Defense economics is also changing. Start-ups are becoming increasingly essential actors in military innovation. According to McKinsey & Company, the number of seed funding rounds in defense and dual-use technology (in the United States) almost doubled between 2011 and 2023, hinting at a rapid proliferation of start-ups in the high-tech defense industry. This trend is fostering new collaborations. NATO is leveraging the strengths of the start-up industry with a $1.1 billion Innovation Fund and is reportedly working with several European tech companies on robotic solutions, AI-driven systems, and semiconductors.

Keeping up with innovation is like boarding a fast-moving train, where getting a good seat ensures a strategic advantage over competitors. By investing in holistic, across-the-spectrum EDT-generation efforts, Turkish decision-makers seem to recognize this imperative.

Great expectations: Turkey in the high-technology battlespace

Turkey has faced challenges with industrial advancements, lagging behind in the Industrial Revolution. For instance, the country’s first main battle tank is still not in service. Despite ambitions to operate its fifth-generation combat aircraft, Kaan, within a decade, Turkey has not ever produced third- or fourth-generation tactical military aircraft. This situation is striking given that Turkey excels in producing and exporting state-of-the-art drones but has struggled with other key conventional military assets.

According to Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of the prominent Turkish unmanned aerial systems manufacturer Baykar, missing out on the Industrial Revolution has slowed Turkey’s military modernization. However, it also pushed the country to leverage digital age technologies, building new strengths in intelligent assets and EDTs.

In recent decades, Turkey’s military-industrial sector has focused heavily on innovation and increasing research and development, driven by a desire for self-sufficiency and operational sovereignty. The country’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2021-2025 outlines these ambitions. Forming the central pillar of the government’s AI policy, the document “focuses on generating value on a global scale with an agile and sustainable AI ecosystem.” The strategy also lays out the strategic pillars of the effort, including strengthening international collaboration, encouraging innovation, and increasing the number of experts working on AI.

Similarly, the 2023-2027 Sectoral Strategy Document of the Turkish Presidency of Defense Industries outlines several focus areas for Turkey’s future EDT efforts. These include quantum computing, nanotechnology, and directed energy weapons. The document also highlights the importance of establishing a sustainable, resilient production and testing infrastructure for advanced aerial platforms and increasing the competitiveness of Turkey’s high-tech defense exports.

Selected military programs

Kemankeş loitering munitions baseline

Turkey’s aerial drone warfare capabilities first gained attention with medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) and high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) platforms such as the Bayraktar TB-2 MALE drone, Akıncı HALE unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and TUSAS’ Anka MALE drone baseline. Recently, Turkey’s has advanced further in this field, developing smart aerial assets such as the Kemankeş family.

The Kemankeş, introduced by Baykar in 2023, is a “mini-intelligent cruise missile” that combines features of loitering munitions and cruise missiles. It can carry a 6-kilogram payload , and operates autonomously with an AI-supported autopilot system, one-hour endurance, and a jet engine. The Kemankeş is designed for both striking targets and conducting intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance missions. It can be integrated with other aerial drones, making it a versatile tool in modern warfare.

The Kemankeş system offers advanced datalinks and sensors, providing real-time battle updates while targeting adversaries. The upgraded version, Kemankeş-2, boasts a range of over 200 kilometers and an AI-supported autopilot system for precise, autonomous flight. Baykar announced that Kemankeş-2 passed its system verification tests in June 2024.

Kemankeş-2 can operate day and night, in various weather conditions, and in environments where GPS is jammed. Its AI-supported optical guidance system demonstrates Turkey’s rapid advancements in robotic aerial technology.

Naval and ground robotic warfare capabilities

Russia’s war on Ukraine and the ongoing turmoil in the Red Sea have highlighted the importance of kamikaze naval drones. In the Black Sea, Ukraine has used unmanned surface vehicles (USV) compensate for its lack of conventional naval capabilities. It has successfully eliminated about one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet with naval drones and other long-range capabilities such as the Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG air-launched cruise missiles and coastal defense missiles. Similarly, in the Red Sea, Iranian-backed Houthis have employed low-cost kamikaze USVs effective anti-access/area-denial assets, disrupting global maritime trade and limiting Western commercial activities in the region. Some assessments suggest that the United States should consider forming “hedge forces” consisting entirely of unmanned, low-cost systems to counter initial aggression from a peer opponent, such as in a scenario involving China invading Taiwan. This strategy would minimize harm to military personnel and the loss of valuable equipment.

Turkey has one of the largest USV programs within NATO, with about half a dozen ongoing projects. For example, Marlin, produced by the Turkish defense giant Aselsan and Sefine Shipyards, was the first Turkish naval drone to participate in NATO joint exercises, indicating potential for coalition warfare.

Turkey is also advancing its ground warfare capabilities, leveraging its expertise in robotics. Otokar’s Alpar is a recent example of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can map the battlefield in 2D and 3D, navigate without a global navigation satellite system, identify friend or foe, and has Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, low thermal and acoustic signature, and autonomous patrol capability. It can also serve as a “mother tank” for smaller UGVs, enhancing mission capability. Alpar has been showcased at major international defense exhibitions, including the Eurosatory 2024 event held in Paris in June.

In addition to developing new robotic systems, Turkey is focusing on innovative concepts like Havelsan’s “digital troops,” which integrate manned and unmanned teams to act as force multipliers on the battlefield. These efforts across multiple domains demonstrate Turkey’s vision of becoming a leading player in a “Mad Max”-like battlespace that combines conventional and smart assets.

Laser precision: Turkey’s drive in directed energy weapon projects

In Turkey’s expansion of EDTs, directed energy weapons and laser guns are gaining attention. The prominent Turkish arms maker Roketsan has introduced the Alka Directed Energy Weapon System, which has successfully completed live fire tests. The Alka system combines soft kill and hard kill capabilities, featuring both an electromagnetic jamming system and a laser destruction system.

Another key initiative is Aselsan’s Gökberk Mobile Laser Weapon System, first unveiled at the Turkish defense exhibition IDEF in 2023. Gökberk can search for, detect, and track UAVs using radar and electro-optical sensors, and then intercept these threats with an effective laser weapon. Additionally, Gökberk has soft kill capabilities, using its Kangal jammer subsystem to render UAVs dysfunctional. According to Aselsan, Gökberk can protect land and naval platforms, critical national infrastructure, and border outposts.

Turkish future soldier concepts

Turkey is also advancing future soldier technologies as part of its efforts in EDTs. The concept, pioneered by the United Kingdom within NATO, aims to create a modernized force by 2030. Shifting the focus of warfighting from close to deep battles, the British program seeks to transform the army into a resilient and versatile force that can find and attack enemy targets at a greater distance and with higher accuracy.

Ankara’s efforts in this segment are not new. A few years ago, BITES, a leading defense technology and intelligent systems manufacturer owned by Aselsan, developed the Military Tactical Operation Kit ATOK. Equipped with portable and wearable integrated technology, the solution in question was designed to enhance the situational awareness of Turkish troops in a rapidly changing battlefield and maximize personnel security. In line with the future soldier concept, BITES also produced several solutions based on virtual/augmented reality to provide realistic simulation environments.

Aselsan’s “Military Exoskeleton” is another visionary initiative designed to assist troops during demanding battlefield conditions. The exoskeleton provides over 400 watts of leg support. The support is adaptive and AI-supported, meaning that it understands and responds to the needs of the soldier wearing the smart suit. It has an 8-kilometer operation range on a single charge and transfers the soldier’s weight to the ground during long missions, reducing physical strain and improving combat performance.

The way forward: Opportunities and restraints

Keeping up with industrial trends in a competitive environment is challenging, and Turkey’s defense industry faces several obstacles that limit its full potential.

First, the Turkish defense industry is monopolized. There are structural gaps in the collaboration between the public and private sectors. Unlike other tech-driven nations like the United States, Turkey’s defense ecosystem is not very friendly to start-ups, with established companies dominating the field.

Second, Turkey has a shortage of skilled human capital, largely due to issues in higher education. According to 2022 OECD data, Turkey’s Program for International Student Assessment test scores fell below the OECD average in mathematics, science, and reading comprehension. In addition, evidence shows that in Turkey, the proportion of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral or equivalent graduates in the field of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is among the lowest among OECD and partner countries.

For sustainable and resilient defense innovation, R&D, business, and a well-educated workforce must go hand in hand. A good example is Baykar, whose chief technology lead was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the United States’ leading engineering universities.

Third, high-technology goods comprise a relatively low share of Turkish exports. Despite a focus on high-tech products, over half of the gross value generated in the Turkish defense industry comes from low- and medium-technology products. In 2022, Turkey’s high-tech exports were approximately $7.5 billion, and in 2023, this figure exceeded $9 billion.

While Turkey’s strategic plans and defense industrial goals are ambitious, the abovementioned challenges could jeopardize its position as a leading EDT producer in the medium and long term. Addressing these issues is crucial not only for enhancing Turkey’s EDT edge but also for meeting NATO’s strategic needs.

About the authors

Can Kasapoğlu is a nonresident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Follow him on X @ckasapoglu1.

Sine Özkaraşahin is a freelance defense analyst and consultant. Follow her on X @sineozkarasahin.

The Atlantic Council in Turkey, which is in charge of the Turkey program, aims to promote and strengthen transatlantic engagement with the region by providing a high-level forum and pursuing programming to address the most important issues on energy, economics, security, and defense.

Rudder featured in Intelligence Online on Taiwan’s military advancements

ylee — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 20:24:08 +0000

Original source

On July 5, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Steven Rudder was featured in Intelligence Online discussing Taiwan’s military advancements. The article highlighted his crucial role in facilitating Taiwan’s acquisition of American drones.

Fellow

Steven R. Rudder

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Indo-Pacific Maritime Security

The post Rudder featured in Intelligence Online on Taiwan’s military advancements appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Bombing Europe’s breadbasket: Russia targets Ukrainian farmers

Hanna Hopko — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 19:07:28 +0000

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has identified Ukraine’s vast and strategically vital agriculture industry as a priority target. This offensive against Ukrainian farmers has included everything from the blockade of the country’s seaports to the systematic destruction of agricultural produce and infrastructure.

On the eve of the invasion in February 2022, the Russian Navy began blocking Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, cutting off long-established trade routes taking Ukrainian grain and other agricultural goods to international markets. This represented a devastating blow to the Ukrainian economy, while also increasing the threat of famine in countries throughout the Global South dependent on Ukrainian food supplies.

For more than two years, this attack on the Ukrainian agricultural sector has continued to accelerate. From Odesa to the Danube Delta, the southern Ukrainian port facilities that are so crucial to the export of agricultural produce have been subjected to relentless bombardment. According to Odesa Military Administration head Oleh Kiper, this has made it impossible to accumulate large quantities of grain in warehouse facilities, and is forcing the country’s agricultural exporters to operate under constant threat of attack.

Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is also being systematically targeted across the country, with regular Russian attacks on equipment, storage facilities, and transport hubs. According to recent research, the total value of destroyed agricultural assets amounts to more than ten billion US dollars. Meanwhile, approximately two billion dollars worth of Ukrainian agricultural products have been destroyed or stolen and shipped to Kremlin allies such as Syria and Iran.

The scale of the damage done to Ukraine’s farmlands is staggering. More than one-third of the Ukrainian agricultural land dedicated to cereal production has been directly affected by the war, with about four million hectares currently unusable due to mining, munitions, or ongoing hostilities. A further eight million hectares of Ukrainian farmland is currently under Russian occupation. Beyond the front lines, Russia is also accused of deliberately setting fire to Ukrainian grain fields.

The Kremlin’s goal is clear: Russia aims to inflict irreparable damage on Ukraine’s agricultural industry, leading to economic collapse and depopulation. Ukraine has historically been known as Europe’s breadbasket, with the country’s agricultural sector serving as a key engine of the national economy. By blocking agricultural exports, destroying agricultural infrastructure, and preventing farmers from growing crops, Moscow hopes to undermine the economic foundations of Ukrainian statehood and pave the way for the country’s subjugation.

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Russia’s campaign against the Ukrainian agricultural industry also has a broader international dimension. The Kremlin is using food as a weapon to expand its influence throughout the Global South while employing a combination of blackmail and bribery. Moscow seeks to prevent Ukraine from exporting foodstuffs to countries in Africa and Asia, while at the same time looking to “replace Ukrainian grain” with Russian supplies.

In summer 2022, there were hopes of some relieve for the Ukrainian agricultural sector when Russia signed up to a UN-brokered grain deal. This apparent breakthrough sparked initial optimism, but ultimately highlighted the Kremlin’s readiness to exploit global food security concerns. The UN-backed grain agreement allowed for limited exports of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but it soon became apparent that Moscow saw the deal primarily as an opportunity to secure further concessions. The Kremlin consistently sabotaged implementation of the grain agreement, before unilaterally withdrawing one year later when its escalating demands were not met.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

Ukraine has achieved some notable successes in defense of the country’s farming industry. Beginning in August 2023, Ukraine has managed to partially unblock the country’s Black Sea ports and resume grain deliveries through the creation of a new corridor for merchant shipping. Maritime agricultural export volumes are now close to prewar levels, underlining the remarkable resilience of wartime Ukraine.

The resumption of agricultural exports via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports represents one of the country’s most significant victories since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. This was made possible by the innovative use of Ukrainian drone technologies and the effective deployment of missiles provided by the country’s international partners, allowing Ukraine to significantly reduce the Russian Navy’s effectiveness in the Black Sea.

Despite this progress, much more still needs to be done in order to safeguard shipping lanes and allow for the free passage of agricultural produce across the Black Sea to global markets. As the trade routes that Russia is targeting lie in international waters, this is not an issue for Ukraine alone. Instead, there are implications for the wider international community, especially for other Black Sea region countries. It is important to hold Russia accountable for jeopardizing the security of vital maritime trade routes and for engaging in conduct that could be classified as piracy.

Ukraine has proven that it can fight back effectively against Russia with even limited resources. The Ukrainian military has damaged or destroyed around one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and has forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea to Russia itself. Ukraine now urgently needs to receive fighter jets, long-range missiles, and air defenses from the country’s international partners. With the right tools, Ukraine will be able to protect its ports and agricultural infrastructure, enforce international law in the Black Sea, and safeguard the breadbasket of Europe from further Russian attack.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. She was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and served as head of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Ukraine’s innovative drone industry helps counter Putin’s war machine

David Kirichenko — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:02:03 +0000

Since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022, Ukraine’s domestic drone industry has emerged as an increasingly crucial element in the struggle to resist and outmaneuver the formidable Russian war machine. Ukraine’s innovative use of drones has allowed the country to counter Russia’s far greater resources and strike back at targets everywhere from the Black Sea to oil refineries deep inside Russia itself.

For more than two years, Ukrainian commanders have been adapting to rapidly evolving battlefield conditions shaped by the use of drones. In the initial weeks of the war, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones were instrumental in allowing Ukraine to strike over-stretched Russian lines as Putin’s invading army attempted to take Kyiv. A range of countermeasures, including increasingly sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities, have since created an environment where Russian and Ukrainian forces are constantly competing to gain an innovative edge over their adversaries. Many view this military tech contest as the decisive front of the war.

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As the front line stabilized during the first winter of Russia’s invasion, trench warfare became the defining feature of the conflict, with drones filling the skies and searching for targets. This has created unprecedented visibility on both sides of the front lines and made offensive operations increasingly challenging. A large proportion of the drones buzzing above the Ukrainian battlefield in winter 2022 were Chinese in origin, which placed Russia at a significant advantage due to Moscow’s close ties with Beijing.

Meanwhile, many of the Western drone models used in Ukraine have proved costly and ineffective, according to the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, delays in military aid have underlined the risks for Ukraine of relying too heavily on the country’s Western partners. These factors have helped convince policymakers in Kyiv to concentrate on the development of their own domestic drone industry. They have been able to call upon Ukraine’s vibrant tech sector to support these efforts.

With Ukraine typically losing thousands of drones per month, keeping production costs as low as possible is vital. Flexibility in drone operations is also essential, as drone units frequently use 3D printing to modify and adapt parts to meet specific needs. With this in mind, Ukraine has adopted a decentralized approach to drone development that allows for rapid testing and deployment.

Ukraine’s emphasis on agility contrasts with the more centralized military structure favored by the Kremlin. While Russia can produce vast quantities of military equipment, comparatively slower decision-making processes and bureaucratic inefficiencies often hinder the Kremlin’s ability to respond swiftly to new battlefield realities. Many analysts believe this was a factor behind the recent appointment of a technocrat economist as Russia’s new defense minister.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

The growth of Ukraine’s domestic drone industry over the past two years has been striking, with more than 200 drone-manufacturing companies created. The Ukrainian authorities have allocated $2 billion for the production of drones in 2024, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy setting an annual production target of one million FPV drones.

Ukraine’s leaders hope more drones will mean less reliance on traditional munitions and fewer casualties. “We don’t have as many human resources as Russia. They fight, they die, they send more people, they don’t care, but that’s not how we see war,” commented Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation.

A key element in Ukraine’s drone strategy is the BRAVE1 initiative, a government-led defense tech cluster established in spring 2023 to streamline cooperation between the public and private sectors. This cluster has helped numerous companies cut through red tape, speeding up the implementation of new technologies to support Ukraine’s defense.

The race to innovate is relentless, with Ukraine’s steadily improving drone capabilities mirrored by Russia’s own rapidly expanding electronic warfare arsenal. Ukrainian engineers are now attempting to overcome the Kremlin’s increasingly sophisticated jamming efforts by embedding artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into drones. This innovation has already played a part in Kyiv’s long-range drone strike campaign against Russia’s energy industry, with CNN reporting that Ukraine has employed AI-enabled drones to hit targets as far away as Russia’s Tatarstan region, well over one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine’s partners certainly seem to recognize the importance of drones and have set up an international drone coalition to aid deliveries. In a further example of institutional innovation, Ukraine has this year become the first nation to establish a separate branch of its military dedicated to drone warfare.

Looking ahead, Ukraine’s drone warfare strategy will continue to focus on flexibility, innovation, and the daily challenge of maintaining a technological advantage over Russia. Ukraine’s leaders know they cannot hope to defeat Russia in a traditional war of attrition, and must instead make the most of the agility and technological ingenuity that the country has demonstrated since February 2022. As Ukraine’s understanding of drone warfare continues to evolve, the outside world will be watching and learning.

David Kirichenko is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

A global strategy to secure UAS supply chains

Matthew Kroenig, Imran Bayoumi — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 21:09:37 +0000

Foreword: A US strategy for UAVs

The United States has long been one of the world’s leading innovators, allowing it to rapidly adopt emerging technology to strengthen US national defense. This has been especially true in the field of aviation. From the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk to twenty-first-century strategic competition, the United States has made the maintenance of air superiority a major priority.

Today, however, the People’s Republic of China has built a near-insurmountable lead in the development and use of small, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Benefiting from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) unfair trading practices, Chinese companies have come to dominate the global UAV market, which was valued at $31 billion in 2023.

Chinese dominance of the global UAV industry poses a number of national security challenges for the United States. On the battlefield, drones play a crucial role in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and in conducting strikes. Chinese leadership in UAVs provides the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with potential battlefield advantages.

At home, these devices provide critical support to law-enforcement agencies and a variety of government departments, in everything from undertaking infrastructure inspections to fulfilling vital roles in scientific research. Chinese commercial drones operating in the United States and allied countries, therefore, provide the PLA with a potential source of intelligence about personal data and critical infrastructure that can be used to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in US and allied homelands.

Finally, Chinese UAVs raise human rights concerns, as Chinese drone companies surveil Chinese citizens and assist the CCP in its mistreatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority.

Washington has begun to wake up to the challenges presented by China’s dominance of the global UAV market. Federal agencies and some states have banned the use of Chinese drones. The federal government has enacted tariffs. Recognizing UAVs’ potential benefit to defense and deterrence, the Department of Defense created the Replicator initiative, a flagship effort to promote the development and fielding of autonomous systems. Congress has also introduced legislation with new measures to protect the US market from Chinese drones and to promote the production of US-made drones.

These are good initial steps, but, to date, they have been piecemeal in nature and lack an overarching strategic framework.

This issue brief proposes a comprehensive three-part “protect-promote-align” strategy for the United States and its allies to secure their national security interests in the global UAV market. It argues that the United States and its allies should introduce new restrictions on the use of Chinese drones in their markets. They should promote the development of alternative drone manufacturers in the United States and trusted allies. Finally, they should align their policies to advance a whole-of-free-world approach to the global drone competition.

If adopted, the strategy proposed here will go a long way toward ensuring that the United States and its allies can remain secure at home, deter their adversaries, and benefit from an emerging technology that is likely to play a critical role in twenty-first-century defense.

Deborah Lee James
Atlantic Council Board Director
Former Secretary of the Air Force

Executive summary

The United States has been the world’s innovation leader since the time of Thomas Edison, and this innovation edge has provided the United States and its allies with enormous economic, military, and geopolitical benefits. China, however, aims to usurp the US position as the world’s leader in the most important technologies of the twenty-first century, including artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS), commonly known as drones. Using a variety of unfair trade practices, including massive intellectual-property theft, China has closed the gap, and even maintains the lead, in some of these critical technologies, including UAS.

While the United States has preserved its edge in large military drones, China dominates the market for smaller and commercially available drones with dual-use civilian and military applications. China controls 90 percent of the drone market in the United States and 80 percent globally.

China’s supremacy in the commercial UAS market creates a number of national security threats for the United States and its allies. First, Chinese drones operating in the United States and its democratic allies create an intelligence vulnerability, as these drones scoop up sensitive data that can be transferred back to Beijing for a variety of national security purposes, including aiding the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in targeting critical infrastructure for cyber and kinetic military attacks.

Second, China’s drone-manufacturing prowess provides a military edge. Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrates that inexpensive commercial drones will be critical to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike in twenty-first-century warfare.

Third, and related, the free world has a supply-chain vulnerability problem, as it is dependent on an autocratic adversary for access to UAS for both civilian and military purposes, creating dangerous dependencies that China could exploit in crisis or peacetime. States increasingly utilize “drone diplomacy” to gain influence abroad. The act of selling a drone can be used to “extract concessions, exert influence, counter rivals, and strengthen military ties.” China’s artificially low prices for UAS, achieved through state subsidies, crowd out the development of a homegrown domestic drone industry in the United States and among US allies.

Fourth, Chinese-built drones threaten democratic values and human rights, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other autocracies employ Chinese drones for surveilling their populations, including in the CCP’s genocide of the Uyghur minority.

To address these challenges, the United States and its allies need a new strategy to protect against the threats posed by Chinese drones, strengthen their position in the international UAS market, and assert global leadership in this key twenty-first-century technology. To help the United States and its allies win the new tech race, the Scowcroft Center previously published a three-part “promote, protect, and coordinate” strategy. This paper updates that framework, and applies it to the issue of dual-use drones.

First, the United States and its allies should protect their countries from the national security threat posed by Chinese-made drones by prohibiting their use in sensitive areas, such as by the government and in critical infrastructure.

Specific recommendations include the following.

The US Congress should pass the Countering CCP Drones Act and the Drone Infrastructure Inspection Grant (DIIG) Act.
The US Congress should pass legislation to make US state-level bans effective and actionable by offering federal-government support for their implementation, including through targeted grant programs accelerating the transition to secure and capable systems.
The US State Department should, in light of increasing global restrictions on People’s Republic of China (PRC)-made drones, launch an initiative to educate allies and partners on the risks associated with those systems, and support secure and capable alternatives.
The US State Department should encourage allies and partners to enact tariffs and sanctions on PRC-made UAS to counter China’s unfair trade practices.

Second, the United States and its allies should promote domestic drone manufacturing to provide a secure alternative to PRC-made drones.

Specific recommendations include the following.

The US federal government should provide targeted grants to accelerate the transition to secure drones in the government and critical-infrastructure sectors, and should consider funding to expand domestic drone manufacturing.
The US State Department should encourage allied governments to do the same, providing reasonable funding measures to accelerate the transition to secure US and allied solutions.
The US Congress and the Department of Defense (DOD) should ensure that the Replicator initiative has the proper funding and support to achieve the ambitious goals laid out in the program.
The US Departments of State and Defense should encourage key allies to adopt their own versions of the Replicator initiative to ensure the free world has UAS in mass necessary to deter and defeat aggression.
The US Congress should pass legislation, using a public-private partnership framework, to stimulate investment in research and development of autonomous drones, and scale existing UAS-manufacturing capabilities in the United States.

Third, and finally, the United States should align with its allies and partners to forge a coherent free-world approach to the setting of policies, regulations, and norms regarding commercial UAS.

Specific recommendations include the following.

The US State Department should elevate drones in technology and commercial diplomacy, starting by designating an individual to lead allied cooperation on drone policies, manufacturing, and supply-chain security.
The United States and its allies should work with existing multilateral frameworks including the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), Group of Seven (G7), Group of Twenty (G20), Quad, Department of Commerce, and World Trade Organization (WTO) to develop regulations and norms for the responsible use of drones and autonomous systems.
The United States should leverage NATO and AUKUS Pillar II to improve defense coordination related to UAS.

Pursuing this strategy now will help the United States and its allies maintain their innovation edge and prevail in a new era of strategic competition against revisionist autocracies.

The threat posed by China’s dominance of the global unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry

In 2023, the global UAS market was worth more than $30 billion, a number projected to increase to more than $55 billion by 2030. The market is dominated by firms based in China, with DJI controlling 80 percent of the commercial market within the United States and as much as 70 percent of the global market, and Autel, another PRC manufacturer, controlling 7 percent globally. As of 2021, estimates put Autel’s US market share at 15 percent. In comparison, Skydio, perhaps the most prominent US-based company, had only a 3 percent share of the global market, the same as Parrot, a French-based entity.

DroneAnalyst’s 2021 Drone Market Sector Report includes data from a survey of drone industry stakeholders in over 100 countries on the percentage of all new commercial drone purchases. The graph examines the percentage each company has of the global market share and sorts by the headquarter location of each company. DroneAnalyst

In 2020, 90 percent of UAS operated by US public-safety agencies were manufactured by DJI, though this number has since fallen due to a series of state and local bans. In Florida, before a recent ban was enacted, more than 1,800 of 3,000 UAS registered by the government and police departments were manufactured by DJI and Autel. However, in some states, DJI and Autel still hold a disproportionate market share among public-sector entities. In New Jersey, more than 500 of the 550 UAS registered by the state and local police departments were made by DJI or Autel.

US allies continue to rely heavily on PRC-made drones. In the United Kingdom (UK), for example, 230 out of the 337 drones operated by police forces across the country are DJI products. In Australia, a report revealed that federal agencies owned several thousand DJI drones, although the Australian military had grounded its systems and other agencies had begun to move away from them as well.

The global-market dominance of DJI and Autel has been supported by two national CCP policies, Made in China 2025 and Military-Civil Fusion, which are supported in part by industrial and corporate theft of foreign technology. The PRC has never been a market economy. Instead, it relies on a noncompetitive system of trade, bolstered by subsidies and other unfair practices.

Made in China 2025 was announced in 2015 and seeks to boost China’s manufacturing competitiveness across a variety of industries. The plan focuses on ten different sectors, including the development of UAS. Across each sector, the PRC aims to increase China’s domestic manufacturing capacity to have 70 percent of the core components and materials produced in China by 2025. To achieve this goal, the PRC uses a variety of tactics, such as creating financial and tax incentives to convince foreign-based firms to shift manufacturing and research and development (R&D) operations to China, intellectual-property theft, predatory procurement policies, and financing state-owned enterprises in their acquisitions of overseas companies.

Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) is central to Xi Jinping’s plan to allow China to modernize its military by 2035 and ensure that the PLA becomes “world-class” by 2049. At its core, MCF is a strategy that aims to break down barriers between commercial R&D and military products, allowing the PLA to rapidly identify, adopt, scale up, and leverage commercial technologies that also have a military application, such as UAS. The MCF system also encourages linkages between the state and dozens of private companies that can contribute to military projects and help meet procurement needs, including companies that develop unmanned systems. To achieve the goals of MCF, the PRC uses both licit and illicit means, including exploiting global academic exchanges, investment in foreign companies, forced military transfer, and, in some cases, blatant theft.

As a result of these strategies, DJI and Autel can sell their UAS at below-market cost to the United States and allied countries, a process known as dumping. A 2017 investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security found that, in 2015, DJI slashed its prices by 70 percent, leading to a problem highlighted in 2019 by then Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord, who said, “We don’t have much of a UAS industrial base because DJI dumped so many low-price quadcopters on the market, and we then became dependent on them.” DJI has even clearer linkages to the CCP than just state support for illegal trade practices. A 2022 Washington Post investigation found four different CCP-owned or operated investment vehicles invested in DJI.

The US government recognizes the threat posed by PRC-made drones. In 2021, the Department of Defense released a statement indicating that DJI systems pose potential threats to national security. In 2022, the department identified DJI as a Chinese military company operating in the United States. Similarly, the Treasury Department added DJI to the Chinese Military-Industrial Complex (CMIC) companies list, which prevents US citizens from investing in or trading their stock, should DJI attempt to build a public company.

PRC-made UAS pose four direct national security concerns. The first concern relates to Chinese intelligence collection in the United States. In early 2024, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released an alert that stated, “The use of Chinese-manufactured UAS in critical infrastructure operations risks exposing sensitive information to PRC authorities, jeopardizing U.S. national security, economic security, and public health and safety.” These concerns represented by the joint CISA-FBI alert are compounded by China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which mandates that private companies work with the PRC’s intelligence services. Article 14 of the law states, “State intelligence work organs, when legally carrying forth intelligence work, may demand that concerned organs, organizations, or citizens provide needed support, assistance, and cooperation.” In practice, this may include Chinese drone companies sharing sensitive flight data, the personal information of users, geolocation data, images, and video collected in the United States with the CCP. The transfer of such information to the CCP would allow Beijing to identify and exploit US vulnerabilities and facilitate the sabotage, disruption, or destruction of US critical infrastructure in times of crisis or conflict. Indeed, in 2017, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined that DJI was likely providing information about critical US infrastructure sites to the PRC, which the PRC then used to target specific assets. At the strategic level, FBI Director Christopher Wray warns that the Chinese security services present a “broad and unrelenting threat” to US critical infrastructure and are prepared to “wreak havoc.” PRC-made UAS have also been located in restricted airspace, including over Washington, DC. This is despite DJI claiming to have geofencing restrictions, which, in theory, limit where its UAS can operate.

The second concern relates to military effectiveness. The war in Ukraine is a testbed for new military technologies, and small commercial UAS have been a game changer in the conflict. They allow troops on the ground to conduct more accurate, real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) of adversary positions and troop movements, and to facilitate more effective fires. They have also proven to be an effective and economical strike option, as UAS can destroy much more expensive platforms by crashing into them or dropping inexpensive bombs. Indeed, Chinese drones are making Vladimir Putin’s war machine more lethal. As of March 2023, the PRC had sold more than $12 million in UAS and parts to Russia. The consistent supply of UAS has allowed Russia access to a cheap and plentiful way to carry out ISR and targeted attacks. DJI and Autel are the number one and two brands, respectively, that China exports to Russia. To maintain deterrence in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the United States and its allies will need the ability to develop trusted drones, at scale, for military purposes and to counter adversaries’ drones. Recent news from China makes that reality more important. Last year, China enacted export controls on small commercial drones for the first time. Those controls threaten to choke Ukraine’s primary source of drones without affecting supplies to Russia. That development highlights the criticality of the United States and its allies developing alternative sources of supply.

An Autel Robotics Dragonfish Pro drone, with an 18-mile range, is displayed during CES 2022 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. January 5, 2022. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

A third concern relates to secure supply chains. In recent years, the United States and its allies have recognized they are economically vulnerable due to dependence on autocratic rivals—China and Russia—for critical supplies, including semiconductors, critical minerals, energy, and much else. As demonstrated by the recent Chinese efforts to strangle Ukraine’s source of supply, the PRC has the ability to restrict US and allied access to UAS, potentially limiting their access in wartime. Similarly, drone customers not subject to federal or state prohibitions on Chinese drones, such as commercial entities, remain vulnerable to the PRC’s ability to restrict their access to UAS for civil purposes in peacetime.

The fourth and final concern relates to human rights. China commits gross human rights violations, including genocide against its Uyghur minority population. Under the Uyghur Human Rights Act of 2020, Washington committed to sanctioning companies that participate in atrocities against the Uyghurs. The US Treasury Department stated, “SZ DJI has provided drones to the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, which are used to surveil Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The Xinjiang Public Security Bureau was previously designated in July 2020, pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for connection to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.” DJI has already been added to the Commerce Department’s entity list, which restricts the ability of US companies to sell technology and component parts to DJI. DJI’s complicity in the human rights violations against the Uyghurs is indicative of the CCP’s support of authoritarianism globally. China and its authoritarian partners increasingly use UAS to suppress democracy and human rights globally. Countering DJI and other PRC UAS companies is critical to limiting the reach of autocrats and supporting democracy globally.

Ongoing efforts to counter PRC-made drones

The United States and its allies have already undertaken some efforts to challenge the dominance of Chinese UAS. At the federal level, the Donald Trump administration banned the sale of US technology to DJI without a license. The Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of the Interior stopped using Chinese drones in 2018, 2019, and 2020, respectively. Congress codified the Pentagon’s ban in 2019. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) expanded those restrictions to prohibit DOD from buying UAS or components from Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This law was further expanded to ban defense contractors from using UAS and components manufactured in the PRC, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in execution of their DOD contracts starting in 2023. The American Security Drone Act, passed in the 2024 NDAA, bans federal government entities from buying and operating UAS from designated adversarial nations, including China, and prohibits the use of federal funds to purchase or operate these drones starting in December 2025.

At the state level, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas, Tennessee, and Utah have restricted the use of PRC-made UAS by state agencies, local agencies, or both. Those restrictions generally mirror federal laws, protecting government agencies from insecure products connected to adversarial nations. This first phase of state action focused on government end-user restrictions, but a second phase—focused on providing grants to accelerate the transition away from insecure drones—is under way. In 2023 Florida enacted a $25-million grant program to help local agencies reduce their dependency on insecure drones. In 2024, legislators in several states proposed similar grant programs.

There are additional efforts under way in the US Congress. Representatives Elise Stefanik and Mike Gallagher introduced the Countering CCP Drones Act to amend the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019. Their bill would add DJI to the list of equipment banned from operating on US telecommunications infrastructure, potentially impacting DJI’s ability to place new products on the market. The bill would not affect existing DJI drones.

In an effort to better equip the United States with UAS for military purposes, the DOD recently announced the Replicator initiative, which aims to directly counter PRC dominance in the domain of attritable autonomous systems. Replicator was motivated, in part, by the recognition that the PRC has a scale advantage, which allows Beijing to rapidly manufacture and field weapons systems, including attritable autonomous systems. With Replicator, DOD aims to deploy thousands of autonomous systems. Open questions remain as to what systems will be selected for Replicator, how the initiative will be funded, and how many systems will be procured. To be decisive in a near-peer conflict, Replicator will likely need to purchase tens of thousands of various systems to be used across all domains. For example, the UK-based Royal United Services Institute estimates that Ukraine is losing ten thousand drones per month in its fight against Russia, providing insight into the scale of the total number of UAS. To complement Replicator and make all-domain attritable autonomous systems decisive in near-peer conflict, the DOD should consider stockpiling drones. The stockpiling of these systems would be a hedge against supply-chain interruptions in times of conflict, and would allow for the quick delivery of drones to theaters of conflict as these systems are rapidly expended on the battlefield.

US allies have also started to act. In 2022, Lithuania banned the purchase of technology from countries deemed “untrustworthy” for applications in defense and security, including PRC-made UAS. India has gone further, banning both Chinese-made drones and their component parts. Australia’s military services and border force have grounded DJI drones, and other agencies appear to be transitioning to secure systems. In Japan, the coast guard stopped using DJI drones in 2020 due to cybersecurity concerns.

While the above actions are a good start, the United States and its allies need a whole-of-free-world strategic framework to mitigate the threat posed by PRC-made drones.

A free-world strategy for securing UAV supply chains

The United States and its allies should adopt a comprehensive strategy to address the threat posed by Chinese-made drones. The goal should be to reduce or eliminate the national security threats that come from an overreliance on PRC-made drones, and to develop an alternative drone market in trusted countries. To achieve these goals, the United States and its allies should pursue a three-part “protect, promote, and align” strategy.

1. Protect the United States and its allies from the national security threat posed by PRC-made drones.

The first element of a strategy for securing UAV supply chains is to protect US and allied markets from PRC-made drones that threaten national security or that violate international trade laws and norms. This begins by pursuing a hard decoupling from Chinese-made drones in areas of sensitive national security concern. The regulation of UAS can be modeled after the “small yard, high fence” approach that the United States is taking to the regulation of other critical technologies, such as semiconductors.

In the United States, the American Security Drone Act is a good first step, but it is insufficient to fully address the problem. In addition, Congress should pass the Countering CCP Drones Act to prohibit Chinese drones from operating on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) infrastructure, just as the United States did for Chinese telecommunication companies Huawei and ZTE. As identified by CISA and the FBI, the continued operation of Chinese UAS on US infrastructure raises the risk that the PRC will gain access to sensitive information and could use that information to conduct espionage on vulnerabilities in US critical infrastructure and public-safety response footprint, and to stage potential cyberattacks. Volt Typhoon, a recently disclosed Chinese threat activity discovered penetrating US critical infrastructure to prepare for future attacks, illustrates the stark nature of the threat. Currently, the American Security Drone Act would only ban DJI, but this should be amended to include all PRC-made drones, including those made by Autel.

Reasonable restrictions on PRC-made drones should be extended to state and local governments. Currently, the diverse range of legislation at the state and local levels has created a piecemeal approach that is confusing and leaves loopholes. Furthermore, the ban on Chinese drones operating in the United States should include the US private sector operating in sensitive national security areas, such as inspecting critical-infrastructure sites.

Next, the State Department should work with US allies and partners and encourage them to pass similar legislation restricting Chinese drones in sensitive sectors and to cooperate on common drone policies going forward. US global defense readiness and ability to project power in key regions could be compromised if China is able to gather sensitive intelligence and targeting information through drones operating in key allied countries. The United States and its allies already discuss critical and emerging technology cooperation through various forums, such as the US-EU Trade and Technology Council. The State Department should elevate drone cooperation as a key agenda item for discussion and cooperation in these forums. Additionally, the State Department should designate an individual who has the mandate to lead diplomatic efforts on drone cooperation.

In addition, the United States and its allies should seek coordinated tariffs and other countervailing measures to offset China’s unfair trade practices and level the playing field. The United States should maintain, if not increase, its 25-percent tariff on Chinese-made drones. There will, of course, be a cost to these measures, but they can be partially offset by the recommendations in the following “promote” element of the strategy. Should the United States increase tariffs on Chinese-made drones, the corresponding increased tariff revenue could be used to fund various grant programs to help existing Chinese drone customers—such as law-enforcement agencies—transition to US or allied drones.

When considering tariffs, it is critical to counter tariff evasion. In March 2024, bipartisan members of Congress wrote to the Joe Biden administration raising serious concerns that Chinese drone makers are evading the 25-percent tariffs by transshipping drones through Malaysia. The letter said, “[A]fter exporting virtually zero drones to the United States and being home to no major domestic drone manufacturers prior to 2022, Malaysia’s drone exports to the United States jumped inexplicably to 242,000 units that year.” In “the first eleven months of 2023 the United States imported more than 565,000 drones from Malaysia.” It is critically important to tackle transshipment, and to apply equivalent tariffs to—or categorical bans on—companies and products found to be complicit.

As part of this strategy to secure drone supply chains, the United States must be wary of efforts by DJI and other Chinese drone companies to avoid US sanctions. The New York Times reported earlier this year, for example, about a Texas-based company that licenses its drone designs from DJI and sources much of its parts from China. Legislative initiatives by Congress and other efforts by federal regulators to curb dependence on Chinese drones need to eliminate loopholes that would enable Chinese companies to evade punitive measures by distributing their products through US-based companies.

In preparation for a possible crisis or conflict with China, Washington and its allies should also be prepared to enact wide-reaching sanctions against Chinese companies critical for China’s military and intelligence activities, including DJI and Autel.¹ Washington must also be prepared to sanction companies involved in the overall procurement process for UAS, something that the Treasury Department has done in targeting companies that support Iran’s UAV industry. A response to the PRC in a time of crisis would also include enacting retaliatory export restrictions of US technology to China. To best prepare for these potential impacts, the Sanctions Economic Analysis Unit, established within the Department of the Treasury, should undertake research to understand the possible “collateral damage of sanctions before they’re imposed, and after they’ve been put in place to see if they should be adjusted.” A quick and easy win in this space would be adding Autel to the Department of Defense’s 1260H list, the Commerce Department’s entity list, and the Treasury Department’s Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, joining DJI. Additionally, the United States must work to develop robust and durable secure supply chains for all components of UAS, including through the development of a domestic industrial base.

To guide engagement with its allies, the United States should leverage the recently established Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology (S/TECH). The S/TECH should make secure supply chains for drones a priority, along with other measures such as coordinating restrictions and safeguards against Chinese drones. Additionally, the DOD should elevate UAS as a priority agenda item for all bilateral and multilateral technology engagements carried out by US diplomats with allies and partners.

Taken together, these steps will offer significant protection for the United States and its allies from the threat of Chinese-made UAS.

U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Mary Beth Leonard, walks past a Zipline drone while touring an Innovation Exhibition at Innov8 Hub in Abuja, Nigeria November 19, 2021. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS

2. Promote the development of a robust drone-manufacturing capability in the United States and allied countries to provide a secure alternative to PRC-made drones.

The second major element of the strategy is to promote the development of a robust drone-manufacturing capability in the United States and allied countries. As outlined above, drones are critical for many purposes, and Chinese-made systems dominate all drone markets. As the United States and allied countries successfully de-risk from Chinese-made drones, they will need to replace this supply with drones produced by trusted sources.

Some of the steps identified in the “protect” element of the strategy will also stimulate domestic US and allied production. A selective ban on Chinese drones will naturally increase demand for drones produced elsewhere. Stiffer tariffs on Chinese-made drones will help to level the playing field and make non-PRC-made drones more competitive in the market.

To ensure these bans can be effectively enacted while being minimally disruptive, the federal government should provide funding incentives to facilitate the transition away from PRC-made UAS. As noted earlier, Florida’s ban on PRC-made UAS left local bodies, including fire departments and law-enforcement agencies, scrambling to find funding for alternatives. The provision of federal funds can help overcome the financial burden of buying alternatives to PRC UAS. The DIIG Act, for example, promises to provide funding for state and local agencies to purchase UAS for infrastructure inspections. Federal funding should be conditional, and only available to states that fully ban PRC-made UAS. For example, states that only ban DJI and not Autel, or that fail to ban the use of PRC-made UAS by contractors, would not be eligible for this funding.

The State Department should share these efforts, such as the DIIG Act, with allied countries and encourage the adoption of similar measures by allied governments. Its network of allies is the cornerstone of US national security. Therefore, the United States must encourage its allies to adopt similar policies that promote their own security as well.

In addition, the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative should be harnessed to stimulate a major leap forward in the development and deployment of US autonomous systems. In the short timeframe of 18–24 months, Replicator can help modernize the DOD’s warfighting capabilities and produce thousands of new drones. The US Congress and the DOD should prioritize significant, enduring funding for the Replicator initiative.

The efforts initially achieved through Replicator can be boosted by utilizing the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). Established in 2022, OSC identifies critical technologies for the DOD and partners with private capital and other agencies to create investment vehicles. Given Replicator’s priority status for the department, the development of the autonomous UAS industry should be a prioritized area for OSC. However, OSC funding is designed to target small companies that would not be able to produce systems at scale in order to contribute to Replicator. Instead, OSC should consider boosting small, innovative companies that are in the UAS supply chain and help enable the critical domestic industrial base of advanced components for current and future UAS systems. By designating UAS as a priority area for OSC, the Department of Defense can help create a strong domestic manufacturing base for this technology.

There is potential for OSC funding to play an important role in strengthening the domestic UAS industry, with the White House requesting $144 million for the office in 2025. In addition to fully meeting the White House’s request for OSC funding, Congress should continue funding other accelerators and offices that strengthen the development of companies across the DOD’s fourteen critical technology areas.

In order to meet any potential funding gaps, the DOD should be prepared to provide additional funding for investment in small UAV systems outside of OSC, including by increasing related funding to the relevant task forces working inside of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Furthermore, Congress should authorize additional funding for the Defense Production Act that will allow the Department of Defense to further invest in the defense industrial base, including the development of asymmetric capabilities such as the small drones that have played a critical role in Ukraine’s battlefield success.

The US Departments of State and Defense can encourage key allies to adopt their own versions of the Replicator program to ensure the free world has UAS in mass that will be necessary to deter and defeat aggression in the twenty-first century. Additionally, the Department of Defense should consider the potential to invite other allies and partners into the Replicator program, or establish a multinational, allied Replicator initiative. In doing so, the department would scale the allied drone industry, create interoperability among combined allied forces, and strengthen allied deterrence against great-power adversaries.

DOD is already working to integrate UAS and autonomous systems more broadly into its operations. The US Navy’s Task Force 59 aims to better integrate emerging technologies into warfighting, and is currently focused on robotics and autonomous systems. Task Force 59 operates a variety of uncrewed vehicles, including submersible and surface-level ships, alongside UAS.

The Air Force operates Task Force 99.² Based in Qatar, it has developed a 3D-printed UAV, dubbed the “kestrel,” which can be produced for $2,500 and can carry a payload of up to three kilograms.

The efforts of Task Forces 59 and 99 are a solid start, but they have been challenged by institutional hurdles and a lack of funding. Similar concerns have been raised about the ability of the private sector to meet the government’s demand for Replicator. Any successful long-term strategy in this area will require close coordination between the private and public sectors. Replicator offers a good starting point, allowing the DOD to establish trust with the defense-technology industry, break free from the antiquated Cold War procurement process, and establish the new defense industrial base required for twenty-first-century security.

Beyond Replicator, Congress should pass legislation modeled on the CHIPS and Science Act to produce autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles. Recognizing a similar challenge related to domestic semiconductor manufacturing, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022. The act provides billions of dollars in incentives for the research, development, and manufacturing of semiconductors. It has already stimulated the construction of new semiconductor-fabrication facilities in the United States. Similarly, the United States should provide a variety of incentives, including tax credits and investments, for the research, development, and manufacturing of autonomous vehicles. Stimulating US manufacture of autonomous vehicles will make drones available for DOD procurement, while also allowing US-made UAS to be sold globally for commercial applications.

Creating an equivalent piece of legislation for the manufacturing of UAS would have one major difference compared to the CHIPS Act—the price would be significantly lower. A manufacturing facility for the production of semiconductor chips costs a minimum of $10 billion while taking at least five years to build. Compare that to the US drone manufacturer Skydio, which raised $230 million in additional funding in 2023, part of which paid for the construction of a new UAV-manufacturing facility within the United States that expanded its production capacity ten times. For a fraction of the $54-billion CHIPS Act, the United States can successfully develop and support a variety of domestic UAV-manufacturing operations.

US allies and partners have taken note of the CHIPS Act and passed their own legislation to advance in this space. For example, the European Union enacted the European Chips Act into law in September 2023. As the US encouraged allies to invest in CHIPS, it can encourage key allies to stimulate domestic drone manufacturing in their countries.

Coordinating these actions will require a whole-of-free-world approach, among the White House, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, and US allies and partners. To achieve these ambitious goals, the president should consider designating an individual within the State Department’s S/TECH office. This individual would be responsible for coordinating this slate of policy proposals, similar to how the White House coordinator for CHIPS implementation operates. The special envoy should set a date for achieving the above benchmarks to ensure accountability.

Taken together, these actions can help create an industrial base in the United States and allied countries to provide a secure supply for UAS.

3. Align with allies and partners to forge a coherent free-world approach to the setting of policies, regulations, and norms regarding commercial UAS.

The third major element of the strategy is to forge a coherent free-world approach to the setting of policies, regulations, and norms regarding commercial UAS. Among the United States’ greatest strengths in its competition with China is its network of allies and partners. Combined, the United States and its allies possess nearly 60 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and, when they work together, they retain a preponderance of power to shape global outcomes.

The G7, the G20, and the Quad are all multilateral groupings in which the United States has galvanized allies and partners alike to develop a series of secure supply chains for semiconductors. It should do the same with UAS.

The Scowcroft Center has previously argued that the United States and its allies should establish a new Democratic Technology Alliance to coordinate the free world’s approach on emerging technology, including UAS. Short of this, the United States and its allies should work through existing bilateral and multilateral channels.

The United States should continue to work with its allies to develop regulations and norms for the responsible use of new technology, including UAS, through bodies such as the US-EU TTC, NATO, G7, G20, and WTO. The United States would be well served to develop polices in coordination with its allies and partners through these forums. Doing so will help ensure a coordinated approach going forward. The United States should also raise concerns in these bodies about China’s unfair and illegal behavior. Though the WTO lacks teeth when coming after China, raising concerns about its behavior and trade disputes at the WTO can help build evidence of a pattern of unfair actions. The development of clear norms would help to demonstrate that the free world is not taking punitive measures against China or seeking to hold China down. Rather, it is taking prudent actions to protect itself from China’s unfair and threatening practices. If China were to reform its practices and its economic system, it could be welcomed back into US and allied markets.

Concurrently, the Department of Commerce and its International Trade Administration should play a central role in developing a trusted ecosystem—both in the United States and with its allies and partners—to secure critical components to strengthen domestic UAS manufacturing while promoting US-made drones around the world.

In addition, the United States should leverage the new trilateral defense pact, AUKUS. AUKUS Pillar II brings together Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to improve defense coordination across critical-technology areas, including artificial intelligence and autonomy, innovation, and information sharing. The Pentagon should work with AUKUS partners to prioritize the development of advanced UAS.

Moreover, Washington should work with allies and partners to develop a secure supply chain for UAV components and manufacturing. DOD has already cleared two drones produced by Parrot, a French UAV manufacturer, as secure and reliable through its Blue UAS program. This will allow for the manufacturing of component parts through final assembly to take place in trusted countries.

NATO offers other opportunities for Washington to coordinate with allies on emerging technologies. The NATO Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) is a venue for Alliance members to coordinate on the development of emerging technologies, bringing together researchers, industry, and government. In 2023, DIANA announced the first three areas in which it aims to encourage the development of dual-use technologies. One of these domains, sensing and surveillance, is a logical avenue for the allied development of UAS. Indeed, DIANA has already accepted a Czech UAV manufacturer into the program. Here, the United States should utilize DIANA as a means to further cooperation on UAS and enable reciprocal development and manufacturing relationships across Europe, creating the basis of a dual-use drone industry.

In addition, the United States should work with its allies to secure the key UAS component supply chain, including batteries and battery cells. Part of the solution concerns mineral access. Amid a global transition to low-carbon energy sources, China’s strong position in the global lithium market and Russia’s robust nickel-mining capacity present challenges to US efforts to secure access to minerals needed for batteries. As several colleagues in the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center have argued, one option to address these challenges is supporting research, development, and capacity building for alternative battery chemistries. This includes leveraging public capital from US and allied governments and using tax incentives to encourage diversification of battery inputs. In 2021, the Department of Energy announced that innovations related to advanced batteries, which were developed via taxpayer dollars through Department of Energy (DOE) funding, would need to be “substantially” manufactured in the United States. In 2023, as a result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, DOE announced $3.5 billion “to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and battery materials nationwide.” At the same time, the federal government, as well state and local governments, will need to muster the political will to allow domestic mining and refining of these minerals to ensure truly secure access to batteries. Once regulatory red tape is reduced, private capital necessary for the development of this domestic capability will enter the battery market. This sort of public-private engagement is an important part of shoring up the US battery supply chain and mitigating vulnerabilities vis-à-vis China.

Taken together, these steps will help to ensure a successful and coordinated free-world approach to UAS.

Conclusion

This paper recommended a protect-promote-align strategy to help the United States and its allies secure a trusted UAS industry to compete against China. China’s dominance of the dual-use UAS sector presents an unacceptable national security risk to the United States and its allies. Following this strategy will allow the United States and its allies to counter the unfair CCP practices that have led to China’s ill-begotten dominance of the global UAS market. A dedicated strategy, one that limits the use of PRC-made UAS, creates incentives for domestic UAS production, aligns the United States and its likeminded allies, and will allow the free world to retain its innovation edge over the CCP and better position itself for victory in a new era of strategic competition.

About the authors

Matthew Kroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In these roles, he manages the Scowcroft Center’s nonpartisan team of more than thirty resident staff and oversees the Council’s extensive network of nonresident fellows. His own research focuses on US national security strategy, strategic competition with China and Russia, and strategic deterrence and weapons nonproliferation.

Imran Bayoumi is an associate director with the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He supports the Center’s work on foresight and strategy development, focusing on emerging technologies, conflict, and climate security. In addition, Bayoumi contributes to the development of the Center’s annual “Global Foresight” publication.

Small, smart, many and cheaper: Competitive adaptation in modern warfare

Atlantic Council Turkey Programs — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Defense Journal’s Rich Outzen spoke with T. X. Hammes, a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a distinguished research fellow in the Center for Strategic Research at the Institute of National Security Studies of the US National Defense University, on January 26, 2024. The conversation is lightly edited for style.

Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY (DJ): Dr. Hammes, you’ve been tracking and predicting developments in drones, unmanned systems, and the changing nature of combined arms warfare for over a decade now. Looking back, what has surprised you and what has confirmed your early surmises in recent years?

T. X. Hammes: From the beginning I expected that “small, smart, and many” could overcome “few and exquisite” by sheer numbers. The general trend has held, but what has surprised me—especially in Ukraine—has been how quickly users have adapted. For instance, Ukraine has employed carpenters to build drones made out of wood powered by outboard motors. It was undeterred by its lack of manufacturing facilities for advanced synthetic materials. These drones launch from a simple wheeled carriage but can achieve a range of 750 kilometers, and carry a fairly substantial payload. These very cheap systems are being used to attack oil facilities deep in Russia.

I suggested in 2016 that, in many cases, an unmanned aerial system (UAS) doesn’t necessarily have to deliver the explosive; it is enough to bring the detonator. Modern societies provide their own explosives and combustibles. Very small drones can do great damage by impacting with enough of a detonating charge to induce fuel, ammunition, or energy sources to explode. Large warheads are not required.

In 2016, the idea had little traction with senior [officers], but younger, field grade officers got it. Unfortunately, developing a concept and bending the procurement system are two very different things. We have the “iron triangle” of vested interests in procurement—defense contractors, the Pentagon, and Congress. Each is vested in keeping current systems and approaches for as long as possible. This is very difficult to change. Congressional reversal of the US Navy’s attempt to not refuel an aircraft carrier (the Harry S. Truman) in favor of devoting more resources to advanced strike capabilities is an example of this. There are thousands of jobs in congressional districts engaged in military production: the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) involves production in forty-five of the fifty states. Couple these economic incentives with the fact that military officers are inherently conservative as a group, and you see resistance to real or rapid change.

As always, warfare will include the adaption, counteradaption and counter-counteradaption cycle. The Turkish Bayraktar drones were a shock early in the war in Ukraine, but the Russians gradually got an air defense system together and effectively neutralized the Bayraktar. Today, the Turks are developing jet stealth systems like the US Valkyrie XQ58A. I don’t know what the Turkish model will cost, but the Valkyrie is roughly $4 million apiece. The F-35 costs nearly $140 million each. With an expected operational lifespan of 8,000 hours, at $30,000 per flight hour, the lifetime operations and maintenance (O&M) cost can exceed $360 million per F-35. This gets to be real money over time. Further, with the current fleet-wide mission capable rate of just over 50 percent, you effectively need two aircraft (for $720 million) to ensure one mission-capable aircraft. Current full-mission capable rates on the F-35 are 28 percent, so we’re close to needing four to ensure one fully mission-capable aircraft. In essence you are spending $1.4 billion for each full mission-capable F-35. You can have hundreds of XQ58As at that price. And the world will know where the F-35s are (few in number, operating in a world with pervasive surveillance). Keep in mind, these figures cover only O&M costs for F-35s. They do not cover the cost of pilot or maintenance personnel and training pipelines. Nor do they cover the cost of large fixed air bases and air defense for the facilities required to operate F-35s. The Turks will likely develop an export version of their aircraft, and so we can see a world in which small, high-speed, deep-penetrating drones with a variety of onboard armaments and sensors will be available to almost anyone. Drones like these can operate up to 1,500 miles beyond launch points. And they do about the same as some of the advanced munitions fired by F-35s, such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, at $3 million a missile.

DJ: Some observers think that Russia is winning the drone war against Ukraine, including Eric Schmidt, whose recent Foreign Affairs article, “Ukraine Is Losing the Drone War,” cited the effective pairing of drones for observation and strike (Orlans and Lancets). Do you agree?

Hammes: Schmidt is right about Russia outproducing Ukraine in drones. But this does not translate directly to winning the conflict. I find it bizarre that some commentators essentially take the Russian side without critical comparison. This goes for commentators and in some cases political leaders. If you look at both Russian and Ukrainian sources, Ukraine continues to inflict three or four times as many casualties on attacking Russian forces: this is typically the case, an advantage to the defender.

With regards to UAS, both sides are training a lot of drone pilots. But as the war drags on, both Ukrainians and Russians are finding difficulty in recruiting for traditional combat arms. For instance, recent warehouse fires in Saint Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia reportedly stem from resistance to the forced roundup of conscripts for the war.

In the case of the Foreign Affairs article, title notwithstanding, the piece was not really about the drone competition—it was about industrial competition and the race to mass produce. The article was right: it’s an industrial competition. Ukraine can win and compete if the United States leans into it. But the Biden administration has been too reticent in providing advanced and long-range strike systems. The Kerch Strait Bridge should be down. And why are we demilitarizing MLRS [multiple launch rocket system] ammunition rather than allowing the Ukrainians to fire it in defense of their country? Domestic politics on both sides of the aisle has been working against us fully leaning into the defense industrial competition. The Russian production goal is two million UAS per year; they are not there yet. The Ukrainian goal is 100,000 per month. They are producing enough to pose a substantial long-range strike capability deep into Russia. Russia has already had to pull air defense systems back from Ukraine into its own territory to defend key sites. In the Ukraine war, we are seeing early forms of largely autonomous UAS and swarm usage. After launch, some of these systems can be fully autonomous. If you launch tens of thousands per month, the requirement for autonomous guidance grows. It is far more complex than UAS usage in counterinsurgency or small wars.

DJ: Turning to the US military, have we adapted doctrine, organization, and employment to shift from drones as a counterterror platform to drones as an integral part of maneuver warfare?

Hammes: The services are trying. The US Navy fielded Task Force 59 in the Persian Gulf as a way to deploy experimental unmanned technologies and designs. The US Fourth Fleet stood up an experimental task force. The Navy also deployed a four-ship squadron of unmanned systems in the Pacific—primarily as a sensor package. Following the Marine Corps FD2030 lead [Force Design 2030], the US Army has a Strategic Mid-range Fires program that includes small-signature trucks launching Tomahawks and other missiles up to and beyond 1,500 miles. In a major war against a near-peer competitor—say China—airfields and fixed installations will be heavily targeted, so distributed fires of this sort will be important. We can conceivably go to country X and buy native-style trucks, which will be very survivable due to blending in, and put these systems on them. The US Air Force is investing in unmanned combat vehicles as wingmen for F-35s or advanced bombers. But again, everyone will know where the advanced bombers live and stay. Containerized missiles based on commercial ships can saturate bomber airfields and kill low-density, high-cost assets on the ground. In sum, we are seeing adaptation beginning across the forces, but procurement and advanced planning remain the big problems. Instead of $360 million for one aircraft we should consider buying 360 $1 million missiles in containers. These systems need a high level of autonomy and small crews. In the current environment, we need to focus resources on the weapons, not the delivery platforms. Low cost and expendable, primarily unmanned weapons will overwhelm the large, exquisite but few platforms of our current forces.

DJ: Defense Journal examines issues of common interest to the United States, Turkey, and NATO. Can I get your views on the Turkish experience with UAS, and how they’ve become a major player in production, export, and operational use of UAS?

Hammes: Unmanned systems allow a country at very low cost to influence a conflict. With automated systems you can intervene regionally with lower human cost, and little risk of blowback. Turkey has done this successfully. What will be interesting is when the other side starts countering with their own UASs. As these systems proliferate, what is to keep cheap launch trucks and boats from approaching striking range of Turkey? When everyone has long-range precision strike capability, and every modern society has highly combustible, energy-dense targets embedded in their society, security concepts have to adapt. Not just medium powers, but insurgent groups have the ability increasingly to conduct this type of operation. The Houthis proved this with the attack on Saudi oil facilities. There are massive geopolitical implications when everyone can strike at long range.

DJ: In most military technological fields there is a sort of dialectic or cat-and-mouse game between developers of offensive and defensive systems. Why the great lag in counter-UAS systems vis-à-vis the platforms themselves?

Hammes: There is a lag. UASs present a very tough challenge. Many are very small and made of polymers, plastics, and wood, so they are very difficult to track and engage. That said, the electronic warfare (EW) systems of Russia and Ukraine have been very effective. But the counter-countermeasure has been more autonomy for the attack systems. We are seeing autonomous drones that carry EW jammers, and rely more on visual/optical IR [i.e., infrared] sensors. In the war in Karabagh, 70 percent of vehicle kills were achieved by drones or drone-fired munitions—and the Armenian side was not prepared. If you look at Reddit and other social media feeds covering the fighting in Ukraine, you can see absolutely terrifying videos of how UASs dominate the battlespace. UASs are hunting individual vehicles and soldiers. They can fly into buildings and turn corners in pursuit.

The game of competitive adaption has been a mixed bag. At one level, UAS have greatly strengthened tactical defense. Yet with increased methods of long-range strike, at the operational level, offensive capabilities are strengthened. Perhaps also strategically, as we see Ukraine going hard against the Russian oil industry.

We are starting to see the advent of counterdrone drones: drones that fly into other drones. It will be interesting to see how this further develops; we are likely to see a cheap version of the identify friend or foe (IFF) sensors carried on manned aircraft to protect drones operating over friendly forces, so you don’t have your own killing your own. The innovation cycle in Ukraine is very short, with each side adapting rapidly, sometimes in a few days, to innovations by the other side. In fact, Ukrainian innovation with naval drones has pushed the Russian Black Sea fleet back significantly. In less than a year, starting from scratch, Ukraine developed unmanned surface vessels that hit several Russia ships and restored export shipping lanes for Ukrainian products.

There is a need now for better command and control nodes to consolidate information from pervasive drone sensors and get it to commanders. We have entered the era of pervasive intelligence for targeting; everyone will be visible and targetable, so everyone will have to keep moving.

My key advice for the United States and its friends is to get away from focusing on platforms and focus on weapons.

T. X. Hammes is a nonresident senior fellow at the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Hammes is also a distinguished research fellow in the Center for Strategic Research at the Institute of National Security Studies of the US National Defense University.

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US-Turkey relations in an era of geopolitical conflict

Atlantic Council Turkey Programs — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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Foreword

The first half of 2024 has brought new energy and dynamics to US-Turkish bilateral strategic ties, much—though not all—positive. The successful sequential approval of Swedish accession into NATO and Turkish acquisition of upgraded F16V air warfare deterrent restored a level of trust, albeit rooted in transactionalism, after nearly a decade of unarrested divergence and increasing mistrust. New hope in defense industrial cooperation has been embodied by new investments in the field including a significant new munitions collaboration in Texas. Turkish diplomatic reconciliations with a number of US regional allies—Egypt, Greece, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—have removed an additional source of friction while the war in Gaza has led to new tensions, and very divergent policies. This issue of Defense Journal provides a snapshot of several current dynamics in the strategic relationship at a critical time, approaching the NATO Summit in Washington. Enjoy!

Dr. Rich Outzen & Dr. Can Kasapoglu, Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY Co-managing editors

Articles

Sweden’s NATO accession: A twenty-month square dance

By Rich Outzen

Drones and more: Turkish defense cooperation trends in the air

By Can Kasapoglu

Türkiye and the Russian military threat to NATO

By Gen. (ret.) Yavuz Türkgenci

The F-16 deal is as good for NATO as it is for Turkey

By Andrew Bernard

Small, smart, many and cheaper: Competitive adaptation in modern warfare

Interview with Thomas X. Hammes

Defense Journal by Atlantic Council in Turkey interview with Gregory Bloom

Interview with Gregory Bloom

Honorary advisory board

The Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY‘s honorary advisory board provides vision and direction for the journal. We are honored to have Atlantic Council board directors Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former commander of US European Command; Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Gen. James L. Jones, former national security advisor to the President of the United States; Franklin D. Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, former US Ambassador to NATO; and Dov S. Zakheim, former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark

Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates & Board Director, Atlantic Council

Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow at Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs; former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001-2009)

Gen. James L. Jones

President, Jones Group International; Former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States; Executive Chairman Emeritus, Atlantic Council

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow & Board Director, Atlantic Council

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute

CEO, Cambridge Global Advisors & Board Director, Atlantic Council; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

Dov S. Zakheim

Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Senior Fellow, CNA Corporation; & Board Director, Atlantic Council

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Drones and more: Turkish defense cooperation trends in the air

Can Kasapoglu — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Turkish defense technological and industrial base has reached a critical mass across certain segments. The successful trajectory of the unfolding projects manifests a new reality in the realm of air power. While the Bayraktar TB-2, aka the “flying Kalashnikov” by Baykar, has made most of the headlines, the Turkish drone program is not merely about that. Turkey has built a reputable edge in designing wide range of high-value assets.

In the drone warfare segment, Baykar’s unmanned combat aircraft Kizilelma and the company’s high-altitude drone equipped with high-end weapons, Akinci, as well as Turkish Aerospace Industries’ flying wing, stealthy unmanned combat aircraft Anka-3 loom large as some examples. Even more importantly, the Anka-3 and Kizilelma are designed to fly within the loyal wingman concept alongside manned aircraft, which is technically a sixth-generation tactical military aviation feature, presaging the future horizons of Turkish defense planning.

In the manned fighter jet segment, Kaan, formerly known as the Milli Muharip Uçak, presents interesting takeaways to grasp the Turkish defense industry’s international dynamics. In February 2024, Turkey’s indigenous, stealth combat aircraft, Kaan, conducted its maiden flight. Besides painting a shiny picture of the future of Turkish air power, Kaan also sheds light on some of the ongoing capability limitations of the nation’s defense technological and industrial base (DTIB). The first problem pertains to the jet’s power configuration. The initial batches, and the prototype of the aircraft, fly with the F-110 engines that power the F-16 fighter jet, illustrating a clear dependency.

With the rising trajectory and still-in-place limitations of the Turkish DTIB’s air power generation capacity, one has to answer two political-military questions pertaining to the nature of defense business: First, what kind of an arms exporter is Turkey to become considering its aerial assets? Will it follow a more reserved model, such as Germany? Or a more business-friendly one like France? Or, will it pursue more of a market disrupter role like China? Second, how will the nation’s foreign collaboration network take shape?

Turkey’s defense cooperation outlook

From a geopolitical standpoint, Turkey’s success in unmanned aerial technologies has positioned it as a burgeoning drone-exporting nation within the transatlantic Alliance.

Indeed, Turkey’s drone warfare success, at least in the headlines, started with the Bayraktar TB-2’s combat record in Syria and Libya. Still, to grasp the Turkish drone warfare’s defense diplomacy dimension, one has to know more about other operators of the drone.

Both in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 has helped the operating countries, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, in the hard turning points of their respective quests. Having proven its combat performance, the TB-2 paved the way for a fruitful strategic collaboration with these nations. A series of cooperative production deals between the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar, and Ukraine and Azerbaijan, respectively, stand out as important examples of such defense industry collaborations. More importantly, having capitalized on the TB-2’s combat performance, Baykar established defense companies in Kyiv and Baku. But these are not one-way journeys. The engine collaboration for the Kizilelma drone with Kyiv, for example, has opened a new chapter in Ukrainian-Turkish military ties. At present, Ukraine also eyes engine deals for Turkey’s manned combat aircraft segment.

In the manned aircraft segment, a careful assessment of Kaan’s export portfolio would explain Turkey’s defense diplomacy outlook for its advanced solutions. To keep the unit costs at manageable levels, Turkey needs to find lucrative deals to market the aircraft. Yet Kaan will enter an international market characterized by fierce competition. Therefore, transforming the Kaan into an attractive platform for clients seeking either enhanced fourth- or the more advanced fifth-generation fighter jets will be a critical priority, especially at a time when the F-35 dominates the Euro-Atlantic market and when other alternatives, such as the Rafale by Dassault Aviation of France and soon the South Korean KF-21 Boramae by Korea Aerospace Industries, are seeking to capture the remainder of the pie globally. SAAB’s Gripen, on the other hand, is losing its market share. All in all, Paris and Seoul are aiming to increase their market share in critical arms industries, indicating that Turkey will also face heavy competition. The Kaan could function as a geopolitical ledger that opens the path for new international partnerships. The combat aircraft will likely offer an effective solution to countries that cannot procure F-35s such as Pakistan or the Gulf Arab nations, due to a series of sensitive political impediments; though the latter may impinge on Seoul’s interest in selling its new Boramae. Another natural target for Turkey’s multirole combat solution would be militaries that want to replace their Soviet era-remnant arsenals with a defense ecosystem that is in line with NATO standards, such as the non-NATO former Soviet space, which has traditionally been Russia’s markets. In this regard, Azerbaijan and Ukraine loom large as two particularly interesting potential operator nations as Kaan’s export market slowly takes shape in the coming years.

The geopolitical showdown ahead

From a defense economics standpoint, Turkey’s serious air power projects, such as high-end drones and advanced manned aircraft, will also help the West to counterbalance its great power competitors in the international arms market. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Moscow and Beijing constituted around 16 percent and 5.2 percent of the global arms exports between 2018 and 2022, respectively, although the former’s share decreased following its stumbling invasion in Ukraine. Yet China continues to pose a real risk to the NATO members’ overall weapons market presence in several regions.

China has already snatched up the Middle Eastern drone market amid a long absence of American solutions due to restrictions. Turkey’s drone sales to the Gulf, and recently Egypt, offered a critical comeback to tackle the Chinese share in the unmanned aerial systems segment. In the coming years, China’s potential presence in the Middle Eastern manned aircraft market will be among the highest priorities to track. The Kaan can offer some help in this respect.

Therefore, it is important to note that, unlike popular speculations in the Turkish press, the Kaan will not compete with the F-35 head-on. Instead, it will introduce an alternative, NATO-grade solution in the manned aircraft segment that can be delivered to the nations that cannot purchase the F-35. While it will directly compete with the combat aircraft of Russia and China, both Korea and France will join the contest. The million-dollar question, for now, is about who will dominate the Gulf manned aircraft market in the absence of F-35.

Extending technology transfers in the drone warfare realm

Along with market opportunities, Turkey’s limits in arms transfers and coproduction deals remain key to understanding how the nation’s defense business will play out in the near term.

The Akinci is an interesting example, as it illustrates how the Turkish DTIB is evolving around high-end platforms. Akinci’s weapon systems configuration, featuring Turkey’s first aeroballistic missile, TRG-230-İHA, and a stand-off missile (SOM) baseline of cruise missiles, transforms the platform into a deep strike asset. The high-altitude long endurance (HALE) drone can also fly up to 40,000 feet (out of the engagement envelope of short-to-medium air defense systems). Looming large as one of the most capable platforms in the Turkish export portfolio, Akinci has started to leave a footprint in the international weapons market. In the summer of 2023, Baykar signed a historic export and coproduction deal with the state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries for local production and technology transfer. Roketsan and Aselsan, the primary manufacturers of the platform’s critical weapon systems configuration and sensors, were also included in the deals.

Baykar’s deal with the United Arab Emirates’ Edge Group to arm the Bayraktar TB-2 with Emirati payloads in early 2024 is another notable example. The procurement package marked the first instance of a Turkish drone maker certifying foreign munitions to be integrated into its platforms.

Last, having monitored the Ukrainian military’s successful TB-2 employment at the outset of the conflict, the TB-2 is also expanding its footprint in NATO markets. Following Poland, Romania has purchased the drone in a lucrative deal.

Next up

During the Cold War, Turkey—a NATO nation standing up to more than twenty Soviet Red Army divisions—remained a decades-long net arms importer. Thus, perhaps the country’s transformation into a key arms exporter, especially in advanced technologies such as drone warfare assets, has marked one of the most important developments in the Euro-Atlantic security affairs in the twenty-first century.

The Turkish model comes with successes and limitations. Turkey’s shipyards are now capable of designing principal surface combatants, frigates, and corvettes. In the submarine segment, however, especially in air-independent propulsion systems, Turkey’s needs foreign collaboration. Likewise, the Turkish defense industry can produce most of the land warfare solutions, albeit, the national tank program, Altay, still awaits its entry into the army’s arsenal. The aerial systems segment in not a different one compared to the naval and land warfare segments. In the air, the Turkish aerial drone design and production prowess is one of the best in the international weapons market. The manned aircraft segment, nonetheless, is lagging behind. As to high-end systems, manned or unmanned, engine configuration will continue to be troublesome for years to come. Turkey’s calculus goes well beyond merely becoming an off-the-shelf arms supplier. Ankara aims to establish deep-rooted ties in the market nations while paving the way to bring those nations’ capabilities to Turkey’s DTIB when possible, as is the case with the Ukrainian industries. Drones are still pioneering the Turkish defense outreach in the air. The path of Kaan, as well as the unmanned combat aircraft/loyal wingman projects, Kizilelma and Anka-3, will determine the final trajectory of the nation’s defense business outlook in the air.

Can Kasapoglu is a non-resident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Follow him on Twitter @ckasapoglu1.

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FPV drones in Ukraine are changing modern warfare

Tomas Milasauskas, Liudvikas Jaškūnas — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 20:27:42 +0000

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is often referred to as the world’s first large-scale drone war. But what exactly does “drone war” mean in practical terms, and how is this war being waged?

Media coverage of the drone war often focuses on particular models such as the Shahed drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, or the Bayraktar drones that played an eye-catching role in Ukraine’s fight back during the initial stages of the invasion. However, behind these brands lies a much more complex and rapidly expanding drone ecosystem.

By far the most prevalent type of drone on the Ukrainian battlefield is the First Person View (FPV) drone—a type that our company sells in Ukraine and elsewhere. Despite their relatively low cost compared to other aerial platforms, FPV drones possess a number of capabilities that have resulted in a dramatic shift in our understanding of modern warfare. Given their navigation capabilities, these drones have become the preferred platform for mounting explosives and executing targeted strikes.

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Originally emerging from the realm of civilian hobby drone racing, FPV drones have robust motors and frames that are built to withstand the rigors of high-speed races and multiple crashes.

Relative to their fixed-wing cousins, copter-type drones have greater maneuvering capabilities, which, in the hands of skilled pilots, convert into precision targeting unique to FPV drones. It is not uncommon for pilots to fly their drones through the window of a building or into the open hatch of an armored vehicle, unleashing an explosion on exposed personnel inside. FPV drones are also well-suited for targeting specific equipment like optics, radars, and antennas mounted on the exteriors of armored vehicles.

FPV pilots in Ukraine do not normally operate from front-line trenches. Instead, they typically serve in specialized teams located around two to five kilometers away from the front line. This distance provides them with relative security from small arms and larger systems mounted on armored vehicles as well as from the indirect fire of mortars.

The nature of drone piloting equipment offers an additional layer of protection. Since everything is controlled remotely, only the antenna transmitting between the drone and operator needs to be exposed. The remaining equipment and the team can conduct their operations from the safety of a bunker or basement.

While hubs of drone operators are now recognized as high-value targets, in practice most attention is focused on blocking or destroying the drones themselves. This shift of lethal danger from personnel in forward positions to drones has accelerated the proliferation of FPV drone usage. It appeals to soldiers, who naturally seek to minimize the dangers of combat, and also appeals to Ukrainian and Russian commanders as they wage a war of attrition amid growing manpower shortages.

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The main feature that has made FPV drones such a key weapon in the Russian war on Ukraine is their relatively low cost, with prices for a single unit sometimes lower than five hundred US dollars. This affordability, coupled with performance and tactical versatility, helps to explain the ubiquity of FPV drones on the front lines of the war. For Ukraine, which has not always had access to predictable weapons supplies from its Western partners, the affordability of FPV drones has helped its military stay in the fight, despite being outgunned by Russia.

In technological terms, FPV drones are currently in the early stages of their development. Most components are still sourced from the civilian market, while many models offer only a relatively limited range of frequencies. This is significant, as jamming is considered the Achilles’ heel of FPV drones. Many skeptics argue that it won’t be long until jammers are employed everywhere, rendering radio controls useless. However, jammers have their own hardware limitations that can be difficult to overcome.

Creating signal interference relies on sending a stronger signal than the one it is aiming to jam. In other words, effective jamming capabilities require considerable electrical power and bulky hardware. This is why most infantry units can only operate with small jamming devices that create a limited protection bubble for short periods of time. Stronger jamming systems can be employed on armored vehicles, but the prevalence of tank “cope cages” and the recent appearance of “turtle tanks” hints that physical armor is still the go-to protection against FPV drone attacks.

Despite efforts to counter them with jamming technology, FPV drones have proven resilient and have managed to adapt effectively to electronic warfare measures. Ongoing innovations in areas such as customized frequencies, frequency-hopping, and automated flight patterns promise to further enhance their effectiveness.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought FPV drones to prominence as a component of modern militaries and it appears that they are here to stay. This can be seen in the way the Ukrainian and Russian armies are both incorporating this technology into existing military structures. Indeed, in early 2024, Ukraine launched a new branch of the country’s armed forces dedicated exclusively to drones.

There are few reasons to believe the role of FPV drones will diminish in the coming years. On the contrary, as technologies advance and military tactics evolve, FPV drones are likely to become even more prominent in the wars of the future. This new reality is already being digested by military planners and commanders around the world. As they look to assess how best to incorporate FPV drones into their own defense doctrines, they will be studying the significant shifts currently taking place on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Tomas Milasauskas is CEO of RSI Europe, a Lithuania-based remotely controlled systems manufacturer for the defense sector. Liudvikas Jaškūnas is head of marketing and communications at RSI Europe.

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

Olivia Yanchik — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:17:53 +0000

A combination of Ukrainian ingenuity and Western-supplied long-range missiles is making the Russian occupation of Crimea increasingly untenable. The continued weakening of Russia’s position on the Crimean peninsula is a major blow to Kremlin prestige that also has potentially serious practical implications for the future of the war.

In recent weeks, long-awaited supplies of US missiles have allowed Ukraine to step up a campaign of air strikes against Russian air defense assets and other military targets throughout the occupied peninsula. This follows on from an earlier series of drone and missile attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which forced the bulk of Putin’s warships to retreat from Crimea to the relative safety of Novorossiysk in Russia (and the Caribbean).

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Reports of fresh Ukrainian air strikes on Russian military assets in Crimea are now an almost daily occurrence. On June 10, for example, Ukraine claimed to have struck three advanced Russian air defense systems. Additional high value targets have included Russian airfields, radars, command posts, and communications centers. The majority of recent attacks have been possible thanks to the delivery of ATACMS missiles from the US as part of the military aid bill that was finally passed by Congress in April following months of delays.

In addition to steadily depleting Russia’s defensive capacities, Ukraine also appears intent on isolating Crimea by targeting the Kremlin’s logistical connections to the occupied peninsula. According to Britain’s Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian air strikes in late May damaged two rail ferries on the Crimean side of the Kerch Strait, putting them temporarily out of service. This represented a significant blow as Moscow has grown reliant on these ferry services to resupply its army in Crimea following a series of Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Bridge connecting the peninsula to Russia.

Ukraine’s recent ferry service attack has reportedly forced Russia to resume the transportation of military supplies and fuel over the vulnerable Crimean Bridge. Moscow has sought to protect the bridge from possible attack by deploying a series of barges in addition to extensive existing defenses. However, the apparent ease with which Ukraine has been able to hit Russian air defenses and logistical hubs throughout Crimea has led some to suggest that the destruction of the Crimean Bridge may now only be a matter of time.

The Kremlin appears to be well aware of this vulnerability. For the past year, Russian engineers have been constructing a series of railway lines running from Russia itself through occupied regions of mainland Ukraine along the coast of the Sea of Azov to Crimea. This should help Moscow maintain connection with the peninsula and supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine, but the new railway routes will also serve as key targets for Ukrainian missiles and saboteurs.

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It is now evident that Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are placing Russian occupation forces in Crimea in a precarious position. By utilizing Western-provided cruise missiles and domestically produced naval drones, Ukraine has already succeeded in forcing most of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to withdraw from its home port of Sevastopol in Crimea. This has also restricted the ability of Russian warships to operate in the western Black Sea.

The next stage of this effort is now underway, with Ukraine methodically depleting Russian air defenses and exposing the entire peninsula to further attack. Ukraine is expected to receive the first F-16 fighter jets in the coming months, setting the stage for what is likely to be a broader air campaign against Russia’s extensive surviving military infrastructure throughout Crimea. With its air defenses decimated and supply lines under threat, the Russian army in Crimea may soon face the realization that its position is no longer sustainable.

Russia’s declining fortunes in Crimea represent a very personal humiliation for Vladimir Putin. The 2014 seizure of the peninsula marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion and is still widely regarded as the greatest single achievement of Putin’s entire reign. With this in mind, he is likely to resist calls to reduce the Russian military presence in Crimea unless absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is already clear that Crimea is no longer the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” it once was. Instead, it is becoming a weak link in Russia’s invasion that Ukraine will continue to exploit.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Atlantic Council — Fri, 31 May 2024 01:22:53 +0000

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Panikoff quoted in The Independent on Russia using Iranian drones to bomb Ukranian civilians

Atlantic Council — Fri, 31 May 2024 01:20:23 +0000

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‘The time has come’: Calls grow to allow Ukrainian strikes inside Russia

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 28 May 2024 21:04:23 +0000

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, most of Ukraine’s international allies have insisted that any weapons they provide be used exclusively within Ukrainian territory. These restrictions were initially imposed to prevent a broadening of the conflict, but a growing chorus of critics now say this approach is preventing Ukraine from defending itself and risks enabling Russian victory.

The debate over the use of Western weapons to attack targets inside Russia has rumbled on throughout the war, and has recently been thrust to the top of the agenda by the Russian army’s latest offensive. In early May, Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s northern border and began advancing toward the country’s second city, Kharkiv. This attack was no surprise; on the contrary, Ukrainian military officials had been monitoring preparations on the other side of the border for weeks, but were powerless to act.

Russia’s Kharkiv offensive has highlighted the military absurdity of current restrictions on the use of the Western weapons supplied to Ukraine. Russian commanders are well aware of Ukraine’s inability to strike back, and are actively exploiting the border zone as a safe haven to concentrate forces and launch bombardments. Understandably, this is fueling calls among Ukraine’s allies for a major rethink.

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The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is the latest international organization to voice its support for an end to restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons. Lawmakers from all 32 NATO states adopted a declaration on May 27 urging alliance members to allow strikes on military targets inside Russia. “Ukraine can only defend itself if it can attack Russia’s supply lines and Russian bases of operation. It is time to recognize this reality and let Ukraine do what it must,” stated NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Michal Szczerba.

This declaration echoed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenburg’s May 24 interview with Britain’s The Economist calling on NATO allies to end their prohibition on the use of Western weapons against Russian targets. “The time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,” commented Stoltenberg. “Especially now when a lot of the fighting is going on in Kharkiv, close to the border, to deny Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend themselves.”

A number of senior Western officials have also recently backed an end to restrictions. During an early May visit to Kyiv, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced that Ukraine had the “right” to use British-supplied weapons for attacks inside Russia. Speaking in Germany on May 27, French President Emmanuel Macron noted that Ukraine was being attacked from Russia. “We must allow them to take out the military sites the missiles are fired from,” he commented. The following day, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said the present ban was forcing Ukraine to fight “with one hand tied behind its back” and argued that lifting restrictions “should not be subject to debate.”

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Not everyone is convinced. For now, the Biden administration remains unwilling to revise its position limiting the use of US weapons. Meanwhile, a number of European countries including Germany and Italy have also called for caution. This reluctance to escalate the existing confrontation with Russia was on display in Brussels on Tuesday, when Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced plans to provide Ukraine with thirty F-16 fighter jets, but informed visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the planes were not to be used inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to mounting talk of an end to Western restrictions on attacks inside Russia by warning of “serious consequences” and hinting at a possible nuclear response. “If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons,” he commented in Tashkent this week. “Do they want a global conflict?”

Putin’s nuclear threats are nothing new, of course. Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, he has made numerous thinly-veiled references to nuclear escalation as part of efforts to intimidate the West and reduce the flow of weapons to Ukraine. These nuclear blackmail tactics have proved highly effective, encouraging Western leaders to embrace policies of escalation management that have significantly undermined the international response to Russia’s invasion.

The Kremlin dictator is now clearly hoping the same approach can deter the US and other key allies from giving Ukraine the green light to strike Russia using Western weapons. If he succeeds in this latest act of nuclear intimidation, it will bring Russian victory in Ukraine closer and set a dangerous precedent for the future of international security.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Russia’s new offensive did not come as a complete surprise, of course. On the contrary, the build-up of Russian troops across the border had been common knowledge for weeks. Kharkiv Regional Council member and political sciences professor Halyna Kuts says she has been preparing for some time, and has a bag of emergency items packed and ready.

Kuts is one of many people in Kharkiv to express anger at restrictions preventing Ukraine from using Western weapons to strike targets inside Russia. Due to fears of possible Russian retaliation, most of Kyiv’s partners insist the military aid they supply only be used within Ukraine’s borders. These restrictions prevented Ukraine from attacking concentrations of Russian troops as they prepared for the current offensive. “We could have destroyed them, but we were not allowed to,” says Kuts.

With Russian troops now gradually moving toward the city, Kuts believes the only option is to “dig in” and prepare to defend Kharkiv. “This is no longer a center of culture and science; this is a military fortress. Everyone should be carrying a gas mask, bandages, and water with them at all times,” she says.

In recent days, it has become much rarer to encounter children on the streets of the city. Some families have now left Kharkiv due to the deteriorating security situation, heading west for the relative safety of Poltava, Kyiv, or beyond. Youngsters who remain are obliged to attend classes underground or online.

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Olha Kashyrina, the co-founder of a Kharkiv publishing house specializing in children’s books, has spent recent evenings watching the glow of artillery fire on the horizon as fighting edges closer and closer to her home in Kharkiv’s Saltivka residential district. She estimates that there is now less than twenty kilometers separating her from the Russian army. For the time being, Kashyrina continues working in her publishing business and volunteering to help evacuees find temporary accommodation. However, if Russian troops advance further and the city comes within artillery range, she plans to leave.

Others insist they will not leave Kharkiv under any circumstances. Kashyrina’s publishing house colleague Svitlana Feldman has spent recent days stockpiling power banks, generators, and headlights for employees. “Adaptability is the key skill now,” she explains. One of the most dangerous aspects of daily life in Kharkiv is commuting to the office, so the company now encourages working from home.

Some Kharkiv residents have already fled from the Russian invasion once and do not intend to do so again. Liudmila, who came to Kharkiv from Donetsk when it was first occupied by Russia ten years ago, says she will not evacuate and is instead placing her faith in the Ukrainian army to defend the city, much as it did in 2022. This is a common refrain in today’s Kharkiv. While almost everyone is watching anxiously for signs of an escalation in the current offensive, there is also a mood of defiance and plenty of confidence in the city’s ability to defend itself.

Defiance can be expressed in different ways. For Halyna Kuts, this means proceeding with Kharkiv’s annual Vyshyvanka Day parade on May 16 in one of the city’s underground metro stations. This colorful annual event, which features people sporting Ukraine’s traditional embroidered shirts, is widely seen as a celebration of Ukrainian patriotism and national identity. With Russian troops advancing toward the city, Kuts says it is now more important than ever to host this year’s parade as planned.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

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Many in the Ukrainian media and beyond have been quick to publicize the numerous improvised and ingenious measures adopted by Ukraine to counter Russia’s drone attacks. These steps have included the establishment of mobile teams using older anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to shoot down drones at a fraction of the cost of more sophisticated air defense systems. In spring 2024, US General James Hecker, head of US Air Forces in Europe, described how Ukrainians had set up a detection network using cheap cell phones on poles to warn of incoming drones. German-supplied Gepard systems have also proved extremely cost-effective drone destroyers, as have newer systems such as the US-made VAMPIRE.

While Ukraine’s high interception rates are impressive, the threat posed by this form of aerial warfare remains grave and continues to evolve. Even when the majority of drones are shot down, those that do reach their targets often cause significant damage and loss of life. Indeed, when it comes to air defenses, even a 99 percent success rate is not good enough. While it is better to shoot down drones than allow them to hit their targets, interceptions can also be costly, with debris from falling drones frequently causing death and destruction in a terrifyingly random manner.

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Russia’s fleet of kamikaze drones is growing. During the first year of the invasion, the Kremlin organized regular deliveries of Shahed kamikadze drones from Iran. Moscow has since set up domestic production facilities and is now far less dependent on Tehran. This is allowing Russia to scale up its own output, making it possible to increase the frequency of attacks. As production continues to expand, more and more drones will be launched against targets across Ukraine. These increasing quantities of drones will deplete Ukraine’s anti-drone ammunition and could potentially overwhelm the country’s limited defenses.

In addition to producing a domestic version of Iran’s Shahed drone, Russia is also experimenting with a range of modifications. These efforts have included spraying drones to reduce detection and adding cameras to stream video footage of drone flights back to Russian operators. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly continues to receive new drone models from the country’s Iranian partners.

While these upgraded models and modifications have so far failed to make a big difference to Russia’s air offensive, they do serve as a reminder that this is a war of innovation and underline the need for Ukraine to maintain the highest degree of vigilance. Throughout the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has demonstrated its ability to learn from earlier mistakes and incorporate new technologies. Ukrainians cannot afford to assume that today’s defenses will necessarily be sufficient to stop tomorrow’s drones.

An additional drone-related headache for Ukrainian military planners is the need to spread air defenses across as wide an area as possible. While mobile anti-drone teams have proved relatively effective, they are only one part of a much wider network of air defenses centered around Ukraine’s major cities and key infrastructure sites. Given that air defenses are desperately needed to support military operations on the battlefield, guarding against frequent kamikaze drone attacks far away from the front lines weakens the Ukrainian war effort.

As long as Russia continues to build and deploy kamikaze drones, they will remain a significant problem for Ukraine. The country’s partners can help address this problem in two ways. They can supply more air defense systems, especially models that are designed to intercept slow-moving but plentiful drones rather than far faster missiles. They can also support Ukraine’s efforts to strike targets such as air bases, production facilities, and drone storage sites inside Russia. Destroying Russian drones before they are launched is the most effective way to protect Ukraine from further bombardment.

Putin appoints economist as defense minister as Russia plans for long war

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 14 May 2024 14:54:02 +0000

Vladimir Putin has appointed technocrat economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s new defense minister in a shake-up that underlines his determination to wage a long war of attrition against Ukraine.

The relatively unknown Belousov replaces long-serving Sergei Shoigu, who will now take up a new post as Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council. Shoigu had led the Defense Ministry since 2012. Known as both a Putin loyalist and a personal friend of the Russian dictator who accompanied him on hunting holidays, he is the most senior figure to be dismissed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

While Shoigu’s tenure in office coincided with Russian military success stories such as the 2014 occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the 2015 Russian intervention in Syria, his reputation had been severely tarnished in recent years by the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine. The many battlefield setbacks suffered in Ukraine have been particularly embarrassing for Putin, who has long pointed to the revival of Russia’s military strength as one his greatest achievements.

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Shoigu’s removal took many by surprise but was not entirely unexpected. The announcement came just weeks after his deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on corruption charges. At the time of Ivanov’s removal in late April, many speculated that Shoigu’s days as defense minister may also be numbered.

Shoigu’s replacement, Andrei Belousov, is a former deputy prime minister and minister of economic development who also served for a number of years as an economic advisor to Putin. The appointment of a civilian technocrat suggests that Putin aims to control military spending and improve efficiency at the ministry of defense as he looks to outproduce Ukraine and the country’s Western partners in a protracted confrontation.

Unlike his predecessor, Belousov has played no significant role in the invasion of Ukraine and is not tainted by the military defeats of the past two years. His long record of government service and relative anonymity make him in many ways a typical pick for Putin, who is notoriously reluctant to raise ambitious new faces to senior positions within the Kremlin leadership.

Speculation over Shoigu’s future has been mounting ever since the failure of Russia’s blitzkrieg offensive in the spring of 2022 during the initial stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has frequently been singled out for criticism by Russia’s military blogger community, and was repeatedly accused of corruption by former Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a series of explosive video addresses on the eve of the short-lived June 2023 Wagner mutiny.

Unsurprisingly, Shoigu’s departure was widely cheered within Russia’s so-called “Z-patriot” pro-war community. Media tycoon and prominent Russian nationalist Konstantin Malofeyev toasted the news, while suggesting Belousov’s appointment would now make defense “the absolute priority” of Russian state policy. “We’ll have both guns and butter,” he commented.

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Putin’s decision to finally remove Shoigu and replace him with a veteran economist comes as he begins a fifth presidential term while bogged down in the largest European invasion since World War II. His new defense minister is now expected to focus on boosting domestic Russian arms production while channeling resources toward the development of the country’s defense tech sector. “Today on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation,” commented Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on the recent ministerial changes in Moscow.

Belousov appears well qualified to meet the twin challenges of improving armament output and aiding Russia’s efforts to regain the technological advantage in the war against Ukraine. His long career in government gives him detailed knowledge of the Russian economy and the intricacies of state budgets, while he has a record of supporting the development of Russia’s drone capabilities. Belousov will now join a number of other senior government officials with similarly strong defense tech credentials including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, and Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev.

Despite being removed from his defense post, Shoigu has not been kicked to the curb. His appointment as Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, replacing longtime Putin confidant Nikolai Patrushev, should allow him to retain significant influence within the Kremlin. At the same time, it is not clear whether Shoigu will be able to exercise the same kind of power as his predecessor, who now takes on a new role as an aide to Putin. While this has the appearance of a slight demotion for Patrushev, the parallel promotion of his son Dmitry to the position of deputy prime minister would suggest that he will remain an influential figure.

The recent changes in the leadership of Russia’s Defense Ministry do not signal any fundamental shift in Putin’s war aims. On the contrary, this week’s appointment confirms Putin’s continued commitment to the invasion of Ukraine and his readiness to prioritize the war effort over all other considerations. Putin clearly intends to place Russia on an indefinite wartime footing, and hopes Belousov is capable of managing the process with maximum efficiency.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Putin expands invasion as outgunned Ukraine waits for Western weapons

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 14 May 2024 13:08:20 +0000

Russia launched a cross-border offensive into northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on May 10, opening a new front in its ongoing invasion. The attack had been widely anticipated, but the apparent ease with which Russian forces were able to penetrate the Ukrainian border sparked considerable alarm and allegations of security blunders.

The debate over Ukraine’s apparent failure to secure the border overlooks the fact that fortifications are typically located some 15 to 20 kilometers behind forward positions. Nevertheless, the renewed presence of Russian troops in northern Ukraine marks a significant escalation in the war.

During the first five days of the offensive, Russia has been able to establish two separate bridgeheads on Ukrainian territory and advance between five and seven kilometers into the country. These modest gains reflect the relatively small numbers of Russian troops involved in the initial incursion. However, that may change in the coming days as the Kremlin has concentrated approximately 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers across the border and continues to reinforce the ongoing offensive.

Ukrainian officials had earlier predicted the start of Russian offensive operations in the Kharkiv region toward the end of May or in early June. The recent US decision to grant Ukraine a major new aid package may have convinced the Kremlin to attack earlier than planned in order to exploit the remaining window of opportunity before fresh deliveries of US weapons reach the front lines.

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At this point, Russia’s immediate military goals look to be rather limited, as can be seen from the numbers of troops involved. The initial objective may be the establishment of a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border in the Kharkiv region. This is something Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin leaders have spoken about repeatedly in recent months. If Russian forces do manage to advance further and establish a foothold around 15 kilometers inside northern Ukraine, this would place Kharkiv itself within range of Russian artillery.

Ukraine’s former capital and second-largest city with a prewar population of more than one and a half million, Kharkiv has been subjected to intensive Russian bombing since the beginning of 2024. The city’s power plants were destroyed in March, while residential districts are frequently subjected to missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks. There are now fears that Russian artillery could take this campaign of destruction to the next level. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov has repeatedly warned that his city risks becoming a “second Aleppo,” a reference to the Syrian city reduced to rubble almost a decade ago following relentless bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces.

Russia’s end goal appears to be the depopulation of Kharkiv. Moscow aims to make the city unlivable and force the vast majority of its over one million residents to flee. By emptying Kharkiv of its civilian population, the Kremlin hopes to create the conditions for the city’s capture. However, this would require far more troops than Russia currently has available in the region.

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While many observers assume Kharkiv remains Russia’s primary objective, the new offensive may actually be an attempt to destabilize Ukraine’s broader defenses. By opening up a new front in the north of the country, Russia creates dilemmas for Ukrainian commanders and forces them to divert key units that are currently holding the front line in the east of the country.

The present military situation is rapidly evolving and extremely challenging for Ukraine, but it is not yet critical. Indeed, given the clear battlefield advantages enjoyed by defensive forces since the start of the war more than two years ago, the Ukrainian military theoretically has every chance of preventing any major breakthroughs and should also be able to inflict significant losses on advancing Russian forces. However, Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself are currently being severely hampered by an inability to strike Russian targets across the border.

Throughout the war, most of Ukraine’s international partners have insisted that the weapons they provide only be used on Ukrainian territory. These restrictions contradict all military logic and have created uniquely favorable conditions for Russia, which is able to concentrate troops close to the Ukrainian border and prepare to attack without fear of being targeted. Unless Ukraine is granted the right to hit military targets inside Russia, it will be extremely difficult to defeat the current offensive or prevent more cross-border attacks similar the recently opened front in the Kharkiv region.

Russia’s new Kharkiv offensive is an attempt by the Kremlin to capitalize on considerable advantages in both manpower and firepower. Despite suffering staggering losses over the past two years, Putin has succeeded in creating a force far larger than the army that first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been seriously weakened by more than half a year without major arms deliveries, and is unable to strike back effectively due to restrictions imposed by the country’s Western partners. None of this means Russia is guaranteed to succeed, but it does make it far more difficult for Ukraine to prevail.

Putin’s one tank victory parade is a timely reminder Russia can be beaten

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 09 May 2024 20:35:44 +0000

For the second year running, Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9 featured just one solitary tank. Throughout his twenty-four year reign, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin has used the annual Victory Day holiday to showcase his country’s resurgence as a military superpower. However, the underwhelming spectacle of a single World War II-era T-34 tank pootling across Red Square has now become a embarrassing tradition and a painful reminder of the catastrophic losses suffered by the Russian military in Ukraine.

Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Victory Day parades had typically featured dozens of tanks as the Kremlin sought to demonstrate its vast arsenal and trumpet Russia’s leading role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The difference this year did not go unnoticed, with many commentators poking fun at Putin. “This T-34, the legendary Soviet tank from World War II, was the only Russian tank on display at the Victory Day parade in Red Square today. The others must all be busy somewhere!” quipped Financial Times Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon.

Putin’s parade came just one day after analysts at open source conflict monitoring site Oryx announced that visually confirmed Russian tank losses in Ukraine had passed the 3000 mark. Oryx researchers document military losses based on video or photographic evidence, while recognizing that overall figures are likely to be “significantly higher” than those verified by publicly available open source materials. Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Ukrainian military indicate Russia has lost as many as 7429 tanks since February 2022. While Ukraine’s claims regarding Russian battlefield losses are generally treated with a degree of skepticism, even the visually confirmed baseline figure of 3000 tanks underlines the devastating toll of Putin’s invasion on the Russian military.

In addition to exposing the Kremlin’s dwindling supply of tanks, this year’s strikingly modest Victory Day festivities have also drawn attention to other negative consequences of Russia’s ongoing Ukraine invasion. During the buildup to the holiday, a number of major Russian cities including Pskov, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod announced they would not be staging traditional Victory Day parades this year. These cancellations were justified on security grounds, highlighting the growing threat posed by Ukraine to targets inside Russia.

Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has brought the war home to Russia with a highly successful long-range drone campaign against the country’s oil and gas industry, including air strikes against refineries located more than one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. While Kyiv has largely refrained from attacks on civilian targets, Ukraine’s proven ability to strike deep inside Russia is a major blow to the Kremlin, which has vowed to shield the Russian public from the war and prevent any disruption to everyday life.

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The downgrading of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations is a personal blow for Putin, who has sought to place the holiday at the heart of efforts to revive Russian nationalism following the loss of status and perceived humiliations of the early post-Soviet period. This approach marked a departure from the Soviet years, when Victory Day was overshadowed by a number of more ideologically driven holidays such as May Day and the annual anniversary of the October Revolution. Indeed, during the 46-year period between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, the Soviet authorities held just three Victory Day military parades in Moscow.

It was Putin who masterminded the rise of Victory Day to its current position as Russia’s most important public holiday. Since the early 2000s, he has transformed Victory Day into the propaganda centerpiece of a pseudo-religious cult, complete with its own sacred symbols, feast days, saints, and dogmas. Anyone who dares question the Kremlin’s heavily distorted and highly sanitized version of the Soviet role in World War II is treated with the kind of ruthless severity once reserved for medieval heretics. Meanwhile, in a further nod to the continued potency of the World War II narrative in Putin’s Russia, opponents of the Kremlin are routinely branded as “fascists” and “Nazis.”

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The mythology surrounding Putin’s Victory Day cult is not just a matter of repairing battered Russian national pride. It has also helped strengthen perceptions of the Russian army as unbeatable. Both inside Russia and among international audiences, the pomp and propaganda surrounding the holiday have encouraged people to view the Russian army as simply too big and powerful to be defeated. This is complete nonsense. The past few centuries of Russian history are littered with resounding military defeats including the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Russia even managed to lose World War I, despite starting the war on the winning side.

The historically unjustified but widespread belief that Russian victory is somehow inevitable has helped shape the West’s weak response to the invasion of Ukraine. When the war began, most Western observers were convinced Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. Even after the Ukrainian military shocked the world by winning battle after battle and liberating half the land occupied by Russia, many have clung to the assumption that eventual Russian victory remains assured. This defeatist thinking has been an important factor hampering efforts to arm Ukraine adequately. It may yet become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The sight of a lone tank on Red Square this week is a timely reminder that behind the facade of overwhelming strength, Putin’s Russia is far from invincible. For years, the Kremlin has sought to intimidate the outside world with carefully choreographed displays of military muscle-flexing. However, the invasion of Ukraine has revealed a very different reality. Since February 2022, Putin’s once vaunted army has seen its reputation plummet and has suffered a series of stinging battlefield defeats while failing to achieve a decisive breakthrough against its much smaller neighbor. The Russian military remains a formidable force and should not be underestimated, but the events of the past two years have demonstrated that it is also very much beatable. If Ukraine is finally given the necessary tools by the country’s partners, it will finish the job.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Bombings are now a daily occurrence. Russia employs a mix of weapons including everything from ballistic missiles and drones to vast quantities of long-range glide bombs that are steadily destroying the city from a safe distance. These attacks target residential neighborhoods and critical civilian infrastructure in what appears to be a calculated campaign to make the entire city unlivable.

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Amid the constant threat of bombing, Kharkiv residents continue to display the kind of remarkable resilience that is now synonymous with Ukraine. The city’s Makers coffee chain is a good example of this dogged determination. The chain has actually expanded since the start of the war, doubling its presence in Kharkiv from two outlets to four, while also opening a new branch in the front line city of Kupyansk. Dmytro Kabanets, the twenty nine year old owner of the chain, believes it is vital for local residents to have a sense of community. “The feeling of not being alone is invaluable. People need to know there are others ready to lend a hand, both emotionally and practically,” he says.

Despite this upbeat attitude, he admits staying in business in today’s Kharkiv is becoming more and more difficult. The windows of the chain’s flagship coffee shop are boarded up as a precaution against further bomb damage. Due to Russian attacks on the city’s energy infrastructure, electricity supplies are a major challenge for all local businesses. After both of Kharkiv’s biggest power plants were destroyed in March, the city has experienced rolling blackouts. The rumble of generators has become a background feature of everyday life, with restaurants offering “generator-friendly’ menu items that require minimal power to prepare.

Many analysts believe Russia’s objective is to depopulate Kharkiv ahead of a summer offensive that will aim to seize the city and deliver a decisive blow to Ukrainian resistance. Rumors of looming encirclement and evacuations swirl around on social media, often fueled by Russian disinformation. For now, there is no indication of a mass exodus from Kharkiv, but the strain and trauma of recent months are forcing residents to make hard decisions.

Yevhen Streltsov, who runs the city’s Radio Nakypilo, says everyone approaches the issue of whether to stay or go in a highly personal manner. Some residents are bracing themselves for a repeat of the artillery barrages that rocked Kharkiv in the first months of the war. Others say they will only leave if the city is under direct threat of Russian occupation. “The situation is tense, but there is no panic,” he says, noting that he and his team are determined to continue their mission of broadcasting to the local population.

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For some Kharkiv residents, the stress has already become too much. Exhausted and emotionally drained by months of Russian bombardment, they are heading westward to Kyiv or beyond. Many are leaving their homes for the second time, having returned to Kharkiv after initially fleeing the city in the first days of the invasion.

Inevitably, the outflow of people is having an impact on the local economy. Revenues at the Makers coffee chain have dropped by up to 40 percent in recent weeks. Across Kharkiv, companies are reluctantly shutting down as people move their families to safety, with some businesses being put up for sale. Many of the city’s public spaces now feel eerily empty, especially once evening arrives.

It is still far too early to write Kharkiv off. While more and more residents are understandably seeking to escape the horrors of daily bombing, many remain determined to stay put. The population is clearly declining, but it remains nowhere near the lows witnessed during the early months of the invasion, when only around 300,000 people remained in the city.

If Russia does launch a serious campaign to capture or encircle Kharkiv in the coming months, this would represent by far the Kremlin’s most ambitious undertaking since losing the Battle of Kyiv in early 2022. The Ukrainian army will fight hard to defend the country’s second city, and they will be supported by a still sizable local population. Given the considerable difficulties Russia has encountered in seizing much smaller towns such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka, it is far from certain that Putin’s invading army currently has the offensive capabilities to take Kharkiv.

As the summer campaigning season approaches, the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe in eastern Ukraine is rising and requires urgent international attention. Kharkiv is now the focal point of Russia’s entire invasion and is in desperate need of increased air defenses. This is the only way to prevent it from becoming the largest in a long line of Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble by the Russian military.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

UK gives Ukraine green light to use British weapons inside Russia

Peter Dickinson — Fri, 03 May 2024 21:23:35 +0000

Ukraine can use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated during a May 2 visit to Kyiv. “Ukraine has that right,” Cameron told Reuters. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself.”

The British Foreign Secretary’s comments represent a departure from the cautious position adopted by most of Ukraine’s Western partners over the past two years. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the majority of countries backing Ukraine have insisted that Western weapons can only be used within Ukraine’s international borders and must not be deployed against targets inside the Russian Federation.

These restrictions reflect widespread concerns in Western capitals over a possible escalation of the current war into a far broader European conflict. Moscow has skillfully exploited the West’s fear of escalation, with Kremlin officials regularly warning of Russian red lines and Vladimir Putin making frequent thinly-veiled nuclear threats.

So far, Russia’s intimidation tactics have proved highly effective. By threatening to escalate the war, Moscow has been able to slow down the flow of military aid to Ukraine, while also deterring the delivery of certain weapons categories and limiting Kyiv’s ability to strike back against otherwise legitimate targets inside Russia.

This has placed Ukraine at a significant military disadvantage. Already massively outgunned and outnumbered by its much larger and wealthier Russian adversary, Ukraine has had to defend itself without the ability to deploy Western weapons against Russia’s military infrastructure. Critics of this approach claim the West is effectively making Ukraine fight against a far larger opponent with one hand tied behind its back.

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With the existence of their country under threat, Ukrainians have bristled at Western restrictions and are using their own limited range of weapons to strike back. These attacks include a recent campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries that have hurt the Russian energy sector and divided opinion among Ukraine’s partners. While US officials have voiced their disapproval and urged Kyiv to focus on military targets, France has indicated its support.

The situation regarding the use of Western weapons on Russian territory has been further complicated by the Kremlin’s territorial claims inside Ukraine. In September 2022, Moscow declared the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and officially incorporated them into the Russian Constitution. Fighting has continued in all four of these partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, with the Ukrainian military free to deploy Western weapons despite the Kremlin’s insistence that these regions are now part of Russia.

In contrast to the caution displayed by Western leaders, Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff and exposed the emptiness of Russia’s nuclear blackmail. Weeks after the Kremlin dictator ceremoniously announced the entry of Kherson into the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops liberated the city. Rather than retaliating by deploying the might of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, Putin simply accepted this humiliating defeat and withdrew his beleaguered army across the Dnipro River.

The Kremlin’s reaction to mounting Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula has been similarly underwhelming. Since first occupying Crimea in 2014, Putin has portrayed the peninsula in almost mystical terms as a symbol of Russia’s return to Great Power status. However, when Ukraine used a combination of locally developed naval drones and Western-supplied cruise missiles to sink or damage around one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Putin quietly ordered the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from Crimea and head for Russian ports. Despite the crucial role played by Western weapons in this Ukrainian success, there has been no sign of any escalation from Russia.

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With the Russian invasion now in its third year, there are indications that Western leaders may now finally be overcoming their self-defeating fear of escalation. In addition to David Cameron’s landmark comments regarding the use of British weapons inside Russia, the US has recently begun providing Ukraine with large quantities of long-range ATACMS missile systems capable of striking targets throughout occupied Ukrainian territory. Moscow had consistently warned against such deliveries, but has yet to provide any meaningful response to this highly conspicuous crossing of yet another Russian red line.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is actively attempting to reclaim the escalation initiative from Moscow by refusing to rule out the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine. This development has clearly riled the Kremlin. Putin has reacted to Macron’s newfound boldness by engaging in more nuclear blackmail, while the nuclear saber-rattling continued last weekend on Russia’s flagship current affairs TV show. None of this seems to have put Macron off. On the contrary, he remains adamant that direct Western military involvement in the defense of Ukraine must remain on the table.

This apparent strengthening of Western resolve comes at a pivotal moment in the war. With Ukrainian forces suffering from shortages in both ammunition and manpower, Russia has recently been able to regain the battlefield initiative and make significant advances for the first time in two years. Preparations are now underway for a major Russian summer offensive that could potentially break through Ukraine’s weakened front lines and deliver a knockout blow to the war weary country.

Removing restrictions on attacks inside Russia would enable Ukraine to disrupt preparations for the coming offensive. It would also limit Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian cities and destroy the country’s civilian infrastructure with impunity. This will not be enough to transform the course of the war, but it will go some way to evening out the odds.

By giving Kyiv the green light to use Western weapons in Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has established an important new precedent. This is in many ways fitting. After all, Britain has consistently set the tone for international aid since the eve of the Russian invasion, providing Ukrainians with anti-tank weapons, tanks, and cruise missiles in advance of other allies. Ukrainians will now be hoping the country’s other partners follow suit soon.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Officials in Kyiv hope this new wave of weapons deliveries will arrive in time to help stabilize the front lines of the war and prevent further Russian advances. In recent months, Russia has taken advantage of the Ukrainian military’s mounting supply problems to edge forward at various points along the one thousand kilometer front line, often overwhelming Ukrainian defenses with sheer numbers and relentless bombardments.

During Stoltenberg’s Kyiv visit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO partners to send additional military aid as quickly as possible. The Ukrainian leader said the battlefield situation “directly depended” on the timely delivery of ammunition supplies to Ukraine. “Today, I don’t see any positive developments on this point yet. Some supplies have begun to arrive, but this process needs to speed up.”

The sense of urgency in Kyiv reflects widespread expectations that Vladimir Putin will launch a major summer offensive in late May or early June. Having already succeeded in regaining the battlefield initiative, Russian commanders now hope to smash through Ukraine’s weakened defensive lines and achieve major territorial gains for the first time since the initial stages of the invasion in spring 2022. Ukraine’s international partners currently find themselves in a race against the clock to strengthen the country’s defensive capabilities before Russia’s anticipated offensive can get fully underway.

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Ukraine’s recent supply issues and battlefield setbacks have highlighted the need for a more reliable long-term approach to arming the country against Russia. At present, Ukraine’s ability to defend itself depends heavily on the changing political winds in a number of Western capitals. This makes it difficult for Ukraine’s military and political leaders to plan future campaigns, while also encouraging the Kremlin to believe it can ultimately outlast the West in Ukraine.

In order to address this problem, Stoltenberg has proposed the creation of a $100 billion, five-year fund backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 32 members. While in the Ukrainian capital, he reiterated his support for this initiative. “I believe we need a major, multi-year financial commitment to sustain our support. To demonstrate that our support to Ukraine is not short term and ad hoc, but long-term and predictable.”

Crucially, Stoltenberg believes a five-year fund would help convince the Kremlin that Ukraine’s NATO partners have the requisite resolve to maintain their support until Russia’s invasion is defeated. “Moscow must understand: They cannot win. And they cannot wait us out,” the NATO chief commented in Kyiv.

Stoltenberg’s message has never been more relevant. With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Putin is widely believed to be counting on a decline in Western support for Ukraine. Following the failure of his initial blitzkrieg attack in 2022, the Russian dictator has changed tactics and is now attempting to break Ukraine’s resistance in a long war of attrition. Given Russia’s vastly superior human and material resources, this approach has a good chance of succeeding, unless Ukraine’s Western partners remain committed to arming the country.

The issue of a long term military fund for Ukraine will likely be high on the agenda at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington DC in July. With little hope of any meaningful progress on Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations, a commitment to provide reliable long-term support may be the most realistic summit outcome for Kyiv. This would not solve the existential challenges posed by resurgent Russian imperialism, but it would bolster the Ukrainian war effort and dent morale in Moscow while sending a message to Putin that time is not on his side.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Kharkiv has been on the front lines of the war ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Situated approximately half an hour by car from the Russian border, the city was one of the initial targets of the invading Russian army and witnessed heavy fighting in spring 2022. Following Ukraine’s successful September 2022 counteroffensive, which liberated most of Kharkiv Oblast and pushed Russian troops further away from the city itself, the Kharkiv population rose from a wartime low of around 300,000 to well over a million.

With delays in US military aid creating growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, Russia has intensified the bombardment of Kharkiv since early 2024. A series of strikes in March destroyed the city’s main power plants, creating an energy crisis that has led to widespread blackouts. In mid April, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov warned that the city was now at risk of becoming a “second Aleppo,” a grim reference to the Syrian city partially destroyed almost a decade ago following heavy bombing by Russian and Syrian government forces.

The extensive use of highly destructive glide bombs has further exacerbated the situation and added to the psychological strain on the Kharkiv population, with many attacks on residential districts taking place in broad daylight. One of the most recent blows was the destruction of Kharkiv’s iconic television tower, a city landmark and also an important element of local communications infrastructure.

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Russia’s escalating bombing campaign has been accompanied by a major information offensive. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is one of numerous senior Kremlin officials to encourage a mood of mounting insecurity among Kharkiv residents by publicly speaking of a coming campaign to seize the city. In April, Lavrov noted Kharkiv’s “important role” in Vladimir Putin’s plans to create a demilitarized “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine.

This message has been reinforced throughout Russia’s tightly-controlled mainstream media space. During a revealing recent lecture to Russian students, prominent Kremlin propagandist Olga Skabeyeva argued that patriotic journalists should portray the bombing of Kharkiv region not as evidence of Russian aggression, but as part of efforts to establish a “sanitary zone” along the Ukrainian border with Russia.

Statements from Russian establishment figures on the need to destroy and depopulate Kharkiv have been accompanied by a steady stream of similar chatter on social media. Since January 2024, there have been growing signs of a coordinated campaign to flood the online information space with intimidating and alarmist posts pushing the idea that Kharkiv will soon become an uninhabitable grey zone.

The role of social media in Russia’s information offensive against Kharkiv cannot be overstated. Platforms like Telegram, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter) have become battlegrounds for competing narratives and serve as platforms for carefully choreographed Russian propaganda. Groups of pro-Kremlin accounts frequently engage in the intensive promotion of key propaganda messages. These include the alleged hopelessness of Ukraine’s military position, the inability of the Ukrainian state to protect its citizens, and the likelihood of Kharkiv suffering the same fate as Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city with a prewar population of around half a million that was largely destroyed by the invading Russian army during the first months of the war.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Russia’s information offensive features a strong disinformation component. This includes the distribution of fake statements supposedly released by the Ukrainian authorities. On one occasion, Kremlin accounts spread disinformation that the Ukrainian government was calling on residents to leave Kharkiv urgently in order to avoid imminent Russian encirclement. In a separate incident, Russian sources pushed fake Ukrainian government reports stating that Kharkiv was on the brink of a humanitarian collapse.

These elaborate fakes are typically presented in a convincing manner and closely resemble official Ukrainian government communications. They have even been accompanied by detailed information about “safe evacuation routes.” Inevitably, many Kharkiv residents are fooled by this disinformation and become unwitting accomplices in the dissemination of weaponized Russian fakes.

Russian accounts have also taken genuine news reports and distorted them in ways designed to mislead the public and maximize panic. For example, a series of planned evacuations from specific front line settlements was repackaged by Kremlin trolls as a complete evacuation of entire Kharkiv region districts.

In addition to fake government announcements and deliberate distortions, Kremlin-linked social media accounts are also actively spreading misleading video footage. One widely shared recent video purported to show long lines of cars evacuating Kharkiv while proclaiming that an “exodus” of the “ruined” city was underway. However, this video was later debunked as archive footage shot during the early days of the invasion in spring 2022.

Russia’s disinformation campaign seeks to sow fear and confusion among the Kharkiv population, says local resident Nataliya Zubar, who heads the Maidan Monitoring Information Service. “Disinformation clouds people’s judgment, leading to emotional reactions and stress,” she notes. “This fuels instability and places additional strains on the limited resources that are needed for the city’s defense and to address the growing humanitarian crisis Russia is creating.”

Kharkiv officials and civil society organizations are well aware of Russia’s ongoing information offensive. Work is currently underway to debunk false information and reduce the city’s vulnerability to information attack. These efforts include methodically exposing false claims, while also informing city residents of Russian information warfare tactics and educating them on ways to detect and counter disinformation. The stresses and strains of the emotionally charged wartime environment in today’s Kharkiv make this is a particularly complex task.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities are developing a draft law to target the spread of deliberate disinformation via social media. This initiative mirrors similar undertakings in a number of other countries, but skeptics question whether legislative measures will prove effective against sophisticated state-backed information operations conducted across multiple media platforms.

Russia failed to take Kharkiv in the early weeks of the invasion more than two years ago. As the city braces for the possibility of a new Russian offensive in the coming summer months, local residents are equally determined to defy the Kremlin once again. In order to do so, they must withstand unprecedented aerial bombardment, while also guarding against the demoralizing impact of relentless Russian disinformation.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

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Since late 2023, the negative impact of delaying military aid to Ukraine has been all too apparent. With Ukrainian troops often at a ten-to-one disadvantage in terms of artillery firepower, Russia has been able to advance at various points along the approximately 1000 kilometer front line of the war, capturing the town of Avdiivka in February and pushing further forward in recent weeks. Russian commanders have also taken advantage of growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses to launch a new bombing campaign targeting the country’s cities and civilian energy infrastructure. This has led to the destruction of multiple power plants, sparking fears of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

As soon as it begins to arrive in the coming days, US aid will go some way to addressing the most immediate challenges facing Ukraine. The package approved this week in Washington DC includes air defense systems and interceptor ammunition that will help protect residential areas and vital infrastructure from further Russian bombardment. Likewise, the delivery of artillery shells and long-range missiles should make it far more difficult for the Russian army to advance and occupy additional Ukrainian territory. Russian dominance of the skies above the battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine will also soon become increasingly contested.

At the same time, this new US military aid package will not provide Ukraine with anything like the quantities it needs to defeat Russia. This has been a problem ever since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. While the West has provided significant amounts of military aid, weapons have consistently been delivered to Ukraine after extended delays and in insufficient quantities. The first meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which brings together more than 50 countries in support of Ukraine, did not take place until more than two months after the onset of Russia’s invasion. It would be almost a year before NATO member countries agreed to supply Ukraine with a modest number of modern tanks. With the invasion now in its third year, Ukraine is still waiting for the arrival of the first F-16 fighter jets.

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The underwhelming international response to Russia’s invasion has led to accusations that Ukraine’s partners seek to provide Kyiv with sufficient weapons to avoid defeat but not enough to actually win. This cautious approach is primarily due to the West’s well-documented fear of escalation. It also reflects widespread concerns over the potentially destabilizing geopolitical consequences of a Ukrainian victory.

Many in the West seem to sincerely believe that if confronted by the prospect of imminent battlefield defeat, a desperate Vladimir Putin may be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Putin himself has skillfully exploited these fears, intimidating Western leaders into self-deterrence with his frequent and thinly-veiled nuclear threats. Meanwhile, if Russia does lose the war, there is considerable anxiety that this could lead to the collapse of the Putin regime and the breakup of the Russian Federation into a series of smaller successor states. Faced with these nightmare scenarios, Kyiv’s Western backers have repeatedly shied away from bold decisions that could have turned the tide of the war decisively in Ukraine’s favor.

Russia’s war effort suffers from no such uncertainty or indecision. On the contrary, Putin has succeeded in mobilizing the entire country in support of his invasion. He has moved the Russian economy onto a war footing, and is now comfortably outproducing the far wealthier West in key categories such as artillery shells. The Kremlin-controlled Russian media and the Russian Orthodox Church have led efforts to consolidate popular backing for the invasion of Ukraine, which has been presented to the Russian public as a “holy war” and an existential struggle against the West. With no sign of domestic opposition and ample supplies of both men and equipment, Russia is clearly preparing for a long war.

There are growing indications that Europe now recognizes the scale of the threat posed by Russia. This week, Britain confirmed its largest Ukrainian military aid package to date. In recent months, French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged that Ukrainian victory is vital for European security, and has refused to rule out sending French troops. Across Europe, initiatives to boost armament manufacturing are gradually gaining momentum and will lead to far greater production volumes by the end of the current year. This is encouraging but it is not enough.

The recent scare over US aid has underlined the fragility of the current Western approach to arming Ukraine. With the future of US support for Ukraine still uncertain, European leaders must accept a far greater share of the burden. This means taking the necessary steps to move toward a wartime economy capable of supplying the Ukrainian military for years to come. Such a shift is likely to prove politically unpopular with domestic European audiences, but the alternative is even more unpalatable. Unless Putin is stopped in Ukraine, he will go further. Europe can either support Ukraine today or face a resurgent Russia tomorrow, with all the additional costs this would involve.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Konaev cited in Taipei Times about drone warfare, deterring China, and global conflict

gmatchett — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 15:08:38 +0000

Former Nonresident Senior Fellow

On April 20, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Margarita Konaev was quoted in the Taipei Times about drone warfare as a deterrent against China and its implications on increasing global conflict.

Former fellow

Margarita Konaev

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Technologies

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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Hammes referenced in a Georgetown Security Studies Review article about autonomous military systems

gmatchett — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:01:32 +0000

On April 18, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Thomas X. Hammes was referenced in a Georgetown Security Studies Review piece titled “From Sling and Stone to Autonomous Drone? Key Questions for Determining Whether Autonomy Favors Davids or Goliaths,” about autonomous military systems (AMS) favoring conventionally “weaker” or poorer actors.

Fellow

Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Industry

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Western fear of escalation will hand Putin an historic victory in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:07:03 +0000

Millions of Ukrainians watched with mixed emotions over the weekend as a coalition of countries came together to protect Israeli airspace from Iranian bombardment. Ukraine’s reaction was hardly surprising. After all, this impressive display of international air defense efficiency was exactly what the Ukrainians themselves have been pleading for ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country began in February 2022.

In the aftermath of the operation to defend Israel, Western officials moved quickly to reject any direct comparisons with Ukraine. “Different conflicts, different airspace, different threat picture,” commented US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron was even more explicit, stating that the use of British jets to shoot down Russian drones in Ukraine would lead to a “dangerous escalation” in the war.

For Ukrainian audiences, Cameron’s anti-escalation argument was all too familiar. For the past two years, Ukraine’s Western partners have sought to strike a delicate balance between aiding the country’s self-defense and avoiding anything that could lead to a wider European war. This overriding fear of escalation has shaped the Western response to Russia’s invasion, and has been masterfully exploited by Putin to restrict military support for Ukraine.

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On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion, fear of escalation was already deterring Western leaders from delivering weapons to Ukraine. Once the attack had begun, it took precious months for the Biden administration to send artillery and HIMARS missile systems. Almost an entire year had passed before Western partners finally agreed on plans to deliver a relatively small number of modern tanks.

This pattern of delays and half-measures shows no signs of changing. With the Russian invasion now well into its third year, Ukraine is still waiting to receive the first batch of F16 fighter jets. Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv are desperately calling on partners to provide them with long-range missiles and air defense systems.

The West’s preoccupation with avoiding escalation at all costs goes against basic military doctrine and has been instrumental in preventing greater Ukrainian battlefield success. When Putin’s invasion force was at its weakest in 2022, Ukraine was denied the support it needed to break through Russia’s vulnerable defensive lines in the south. By the time Kyiv’s partners had agreed to create the necessary offensive force, it was too late; Moscow had mobilized an additional 300,000 troops and fortified the front lines of the war.

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Throughout the invasion, Russia has consistently fed Western fears of escalation through a mixture of bellicose statements, back channel signalling, and clever influence operations. The Kremlin’s most effective intimidation tactic has been nuclear blackmail. In late 2022, for example, US intercepts began picking up vague but alarming “chatter” about Russian preparations for the use of nuclear weapons.

Many believe this was a deliberate ploy to boost the credibility of Putin’s public nuclear saber-rattling. It appears to have worked. The intel led to heated debate in the White House and nuclear wargaming in the Pentagon, with Biden administration officials engaging in renewed diplomatic outreach to Moscow. Crucially, concerns over a possible Russian nuclear response dampened Western enthusiasm to press home Ukraine’s advantage at a time when Putin’s army was retreating in disarray.

In addition to blunting Ukraine’s offensive capabilities, the West’s desire to avoid escalation is undermining Kyiv’s ability to defend itself. For the past two years, Ukraine has been blocked from using Western weapons against targets inside Russia. In recent weeks, US officials have even objected to Ukraine using its own weapons to attack Russian refineries.

These artificial restrictions have created an unprecedented situation that aggravates the existing imbalance of forces between Russia and Ukraine. While Russia is able to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure at will, Ukrainian commanders are severely limited in their ability to target the air bases, production facilities, and logistical hubs inside Russia that are being used to attack Ukraine.

The West’s emphasis on escalation management has prolonged the war in Ukraine, allowing Russia to overcome initial setbacks and regain the initiative. It has prevented the Ukrainian military from building on the momentum of late 2022, and has turned a dynamic war of movement into an attritional fight that heavily favors Russia. By allowing themselves to be intimidated by the threat of Russian escalation, Western leaders have granted Putin an effective veto over various categories of military aid for Ukraine. This lack of Western resolve has inevitably emboldened the Russian dictator.

Policymakers in Europe and the US must now decide whether they wish to continue with this losing strategy or finally commit to a Ukrainian victory. It is still not too late to adopt a more sensible military strategy, but the clock is ticking. Unless Ukraine is given the tools to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Putin will secure an historic victory that will transform the international security climate. If that happens, today’s emphasis on avoiding escalation will come to be seen as the biggest geopolitical blunder since the appeasement policies of the 1930s.

Konaev cited in the Washington Post about drone swarms escalating global conflict

gmatchett — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:43:50 +0000

Former Nonresident Senior Fellow

On April 12, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Margarita Konaev was quoted in a Washington Post article titled “US-China competition to field military drone swarms could fuel global arms race,” about the risks of increasing the deployment of drone swarms.

Former fellow

Margarita Konaev

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Technologies

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Ukraine pleads for Patriot air defense systems as Russia destroys power grid

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:10:50 +0000

Ukraine’s top diplomat is becoming increasingly undiplomatic in his quest to bolster the fraying air defenses of his beleaguered country. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says he is no longer holding back as he desperately tries to secure additional Patriot air defense systems to protect Ukraine’s cities and civilian infrastructure from Russian bombardment. “Give us the damn Patriots,” he told Politico in late March.

Speaking to the Washington Post this week, Kuleba explained that his tough new tone reflects the growing sense of exasperation felt by many in Kyiv at the apparent lack of urgency among Ukraine’s partners amid growing shortages of vital military aid. “We’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to work,” he commented. “The feeling that extraordinary decisions are needed on a regular basis to end this war with a victory for Ukraine is gone.”

Kuleba says his team has identified more the one hundred available Patriot systems that could potentially be handed over to Ukraine. Officials in Kyiv say they need 26 systems in order to provide comprehensive cover for the entire country. The immediate objective is to acquire seven Patriot systems to guard key targets against Russian airstrikes. EU partners including Germany have vowed to assist in the search for Patriot systems, but there have yet to be any breakthroughs.

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Ukraine’s hunt for Patriot air defense systems is taking place against the backdrop of an escalating Russian air offensive that is capitalizing on months declining Western military support and prolonged deadlock in the US Congress over a major Ukrainian aid package. With gaps now growing in Ukraine’s air defense network and individual air defense units increasingly obliged to ration their dwindling resources, Russia has launched a series of overnight attacks in recent weeks that have decimated much of Ukraine’s power grid.

Ukraine’s second-largest city and former capital, Kharkiv, has been particularly hard hit. Located just a few dozen miles from the border with Russia in eastern Ukraine, the city has been subjected to an intensive bombing campaign since mid-March that has caused extensive damage to residential districts and civilian infrastructure. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands have been left without power for extended periods.

The destruction in Kharkiv has been so severe that some analysts now believe Russia’s objective is to empty the city of its more than one million residents ahead of an anticipated summer offensive. “The Kremlin wants to make Ukraine’s second city unlivable,” reported Britain’s The Economist in early April.

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The latest wave of Russian missiles and drones struck targets across Ukraine early on April 11. In an indication of Ukraine’s increasingly ineffective air defenses and mounting vulnerability to Russian bombardment, all of the Kremlin’s hard-to-intercept hypersonic and ballistic missiles reportedly reached their objectives, according to the Kyiv Post.

A major power plant close to Kyiv was among those destroyed in the overnight attack, dealing a further significant blow to Ukraine’s energy resilience. The Trypilska Thermal Power Plant, the largest supplier of electricity to central Ukraine’s Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr regions, suffered a series of direct hits and was left in ruins.

“The scale of destruction is terrifying,” commented Andriy Hota, the chairman of Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo. Speaking to the BBC, Hota said the Kyiv region plant can be rebuilt with the help of spare parts from elsewhere in Europe, but warned that the facility will remain vulnerable to Russian attack unless Ukraine’s partners provide powerful air defenses. “We can repair. We can do the impossible. But we need protection.”

With each new Russian bombardment destroying more of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, there is a growing sense that time is now running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the country. Unless Ukraine urgently receives additional air defense systems and ammunition, entire regions could soon face rapidly deteriorating conditions without access to electricity and other basic services. This could fuel a new refugee crisis, with millions of Ukrainians entering the EU.

The collapse of the country’s power grid would also cause economic mayhem and dramatically undermine the Ukrainian war effort. This would set the stage for a Russian military victory that would have disastrous consequences for Ukraine itself and for the future of international security. Russia has so far been unable to break Ukraine on the battlefield, but there is now a very real chance that a lack of air defenses will allow the Kremlin to achieve its goals by targeting Ukraine’s increasingly undefended civilian infrastructure.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Western weakness in Ukraine could provoke a far bigger war with Russia

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 01:15:19 +0000

Does the West actually want Ukraine to defeat Russia? That is the question many in Kyiv are now asking amid continued signs of Western indecision as the biggest European invasion since World War II approaches its third summer with no end in sight.

The mounting sense of frustration among Ukrainians is easy to understand. Encouraged by delays in military aid for Ukraine, Russia has intensified the bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure over the past month, plunging entire cities into darkness and leaving millions without access to electricity, heating, water, or internet. Despite the looming prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe, the Western response has been notably lacking in urgency.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has begun striking back with drone attacks on Russian refineries, and has succeeded in disrupting more than ten percent of Russian refining capacity. Rather than supporting this seemingly effective campaign to weaken Putin’s war machine, The US has reportedly called on Kyiv to end its drone strikes due to concerns over global oil prices and possible retaliation. Viewed from Ukraine, these do not look like the actions of partners who are fully committed to Ukrainian victory.

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Over the past two years, Ukrainians have grown accustomed to excessive Western caution and insufficient Western support. While the democratic world deserves considerable credit for delivering the weapons that have allowed Ukraine to survive, the military aid provided since February 2022 has been subject to frequent delays, and has consistently fallen far short of the quantities required to defeat a military superpower like Russia.

The West’s inadequate response to Russia’s invasion is primarily due to a crippling fear of escalation. Putin sees this indecisiveness and acts accordingly. He easily intimidates Western leaders with nuclear blackmail, while escalating his own attacks on Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

In March 2024 alone, Russia attacked Ukraine with 264 missiles and 515 drones, according to Ukrainian Air Force data. Some were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, but ammunition is rapidly running out. With no clear idea of when the next batches of interceptor missiles may arrive, Ukrainian troops must ration supplies, leaving millions vulnerable to the horrors of Russian bombardment.

The situation on the front lines of the war is equally critical. With half of promised weapons deliveries arriving late and vital US military aid held up in Congress for the past eight months, Ukrainian troops are running short of crucial ammunition and are currently in danger of being overwhelmed by Russian firepower. In late March, President Zelenskyy admitted that if US aid is not forthcoming, Ukraine will be forced to retreat. If that happens, he warned, Russia could break through Ukraine’s defensive lines and attempt to seize the country’s biggest cities.

Despite this deteriorating picture, there is currently a surreal sense of business as usual in much of the West. The political classes are increasingly preoccupied with upcoming elections and appear largely unaware of the geopolitical disaster unfolding on Europe’s eastern frontier. Many seem to think Ukrainian courage alone will be enough to hold Russia back until the invasion runs out of steam. This is wishful thinking. In reality, if Ukraine does not urgently receive increased support, there is a very real chance that Putin will win. And if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will go further.

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At present, the West appears content to wage of a slow war of attrition while drip-feeding Ukraine minimal supplies. This is a recipe for defeat. Russia enjoys huge advantages in terms of manpower and weapons, while the Kremlin has successfully shifted the entire Russian economy onto a war footing. Putin clearly believes he can outlast the West in Ukraine, and is confident time is on his side.

This does not mean a Ukrainian victory is unachievable, but Ukraine’s partners need to demonstrate far more resolve if they genuinely hope to secure Putin’s defeat. Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries have exposed the vulnerability of Russia’s economically crucial energy industry, but the Western response has so far been predictably cautious. This needs to change. Ukraine cannot win a war against such a powerful enemy with one hand tied behind its back.

Likewise, Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea debunks notions of Russian red lines and offers a road map toward victory over the Kremlin. Despite not having a conventional navy of its own, Ukraine has used drones and missile strikes to sink around a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This has forced Putin to quietly withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from Crimea.

Similar success is possible on land if Ukraine’s Western partners give the country the tools it needs. Ukraine’s requirements are already well known; the Ukrainian military needs vast quantities of artillery shells and drones along with increased deliveries of armored vehicles, combat aircraft, air defense systems, electronic warfare technologies, and long-range missiles.

Without this military aid, Ukraine’s prospects look grim. Nor would the consequences of a Russian victory be confined to Ukraine alone. On the contrary, the shock waves would be felt around the world as Putin and his fellow autocrats sought to capitalize on Western weakness.

A triumphant Putin would almost certainly look to build on the considerable geopolitical momentum created by success in Ukraine. In practical terms, this would mean expanding his quest to reverse the verdict of 1991 and reclaim “historically Russian lands.” Putin’s revisionist agenda would place more than a dozen independent states that formerly belonged to the Russian Empire at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine. The most probable initial targets would include Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, but his ambitions would likely expand further.

The fall of Ukraine would leave NATO demoralized and discredited, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Russian dictator to achieve his ultimate goal and instigate the break-up of the alliance. NATO leaders have already demonstrated that they are afraid of escalation and inclined to back down when confronted by the Kremlin. In a post-Ukraine environment, Putin may look to exploit this lack of resolve by testing NATO’s own red lines while stopping short of full-scale hostilities. If the alliance failed to rise to this challenge, it would risk losing all credibility overnight. While NATO could technically survive such a crisis, the alliance would struggle to maintain any legitimacy without its cast-iron commitment to collective security.

Fellow authoritarian powers like China and Iran are also watching the West’s weakness in Ukraine and are drawing the obvious conclusions. This is already helping to fuel insecurity in the Middle East and increasing the threat to Taiwan. The global security architecture established over the past eighty years is clearly crumbling, and Ukraine is the front line in the fight to shape the future of international relations.

The West’s fear of escalation is Vladimir Putin’s secret weapon. It has deterred Western leaders from arming Ukraine, and has prolonged the war by preventing the Ukrainian army from building on its early battlefield successes. Unless the West can overcome this self-defeating fear, it may ultimately lead to Russian victory.

Russian success in Ukraine would almost certainly set the stage for a far bigger military confrontation between the Kremlin and the democratic world. Since February 2022, Putin has placed his entire country on a war footing and has positioned Russia as the leader of an anti-Western coalition of authoritarian states aiming to transform the world order. As the invasion of Ukraine has escalated, he has become increasingly open about his own imperial ambitions. It is dangerously delusional to suggest Putin will simply stop if he wins in Ukraine. Instead, Western leaders must decide whether they would rather arm Ukraine for victory today, or find themselves confronted with a resurgent and emboldened Russia tomorrow.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

The French position was welcomed by Ukrainians, who view the war with Russia as existential for their country and believe they should have the freedom to fight without artificial constraints. This means leveraging Russian vulnerabilities and capitalizing on emerging opportunities, both within occupied Ukrainian territory and inside Russia itself.

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Ukraine has bombed more than a dozen Russian oil refineries since the air offensive began in early January 2024, including some of the biggest plants in the country. Many of the attacks have taken place far from the Ukrainian border, highlighting the increasingly long-range capabilities of Ukraine’s drone fleet.

Since Ukraine is restricted from employing Western-provided weapons against targets inside Russia, the production of long-range drones has become a top priority for Kyiv. This has led to a surge in investment and a spike in output. Drones are significantly cheaper to produce in large quantities than long-range missiles and require less infrastructure.

Ukraine’s partners have also backed Kyiv’s focus on drone warfare. In January 2024, the United Kingdom pledged to spend at least $250 million to rapidly procure, produce, and deliver 1000 one-way attack drones to Ukraine. Although precise details regarding Ukraine’s drone stockpile remain undisclosed, the rhetoric of Ukrainian senior officials and the ongoing strikes suggest the current bombing campaign inside Russia is likely to continue gaining momentum.

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Ukraine has defended its attacks on Russian refineries by noting that oil revenues are at the heart of the Russian war economy, making oil facilities legitimate targets. Ukrainian military planners expect their expanding drone offensive to have military, economic, and political repercussions for the Kremlin.

In the military sphere, the past three months of attacks have confirmed that Russia’s oil facilities are inadequately defended. Russian demand for air defense systems already appears to be growing in response, with indications including delays in delivering promised systems to India. Further Ukrainian drone attacks might compel Moscow to redeploy existing air defense systems to safeguard refineries. This could potentially create opportunities for Ukraine to strike other high-value targets inside Russia and in occupied Ukrainian regions.

Ukrainian commanders hope drone strikes can undermine Putin’s ability to wage war. The Russian military relies heavily on refined oil products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Reducing Russian oil refining capacity might have implications for military fuel supplies in the long run, creating logistical challenges for the Russian army in Ukraine and hampering preparations for a major new offensive in summer 2024.

Ukraine’s strategy is also economic and aims to reduce Russian oil revenues. Drone strikes have already disrupted at least 10% of Russian oil refinery capacity, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defense. The process of repairing damage from drone strikes is further complicated by the fact that Russian refineries are heavily reliant of Western technologies. With sanctions limiting Russian access to critical parts and equipment, resuming operations at targeted refineries is likely to be a costly and time-consuming process.

There are already some signs Ukraine’s drone strikes are impacting Russia’s energy industry. On March 1, the Kremlin imposed a six-month ban on gasoline exports in an effort to avoid shortages and prevent price spikes on the domestic market. Nevertheless, gasoline prices have gone up in Russia.

Rising fuel prices could lead to mounting discontent within Russian society. Since the onset of the full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has maintained an unspoken agreement with the Russian public to keep any war-related disruption to an absolute minimum. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons why the invasion was officially termed a “Special Military Operation” rather than a war. The impact of higher fuel prices would be felt throughout Russia, particularly in regions with struggling economies, potentially creating instability.

The economic consequences of Ukraine’s drone strikes are also evident beyond Russia, with Brent crude up nearly 13% this year. With the US currently in election mode, this appears to have alarmed many in Washington DC. For now, Ukraine’s leaders are unmoved by such concerns. On the contrary, they are unwilling to rule out anything that might help secure national survival and believe attacks on Russia’s oil and gas industry are fully justified.

Giorgi Revishvili is a Fulbright Scholar at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and a former senior advisor to the Georgian National Security Council.

The mood in wartime Ukraine: Weariness, resolve, and exasperation

Steven Pifer, John Herbst — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 21:17:11 +0000

We had the opportunity to visit Kyiv last week and met many Ukrainians, both inside and outside of government. We found them understandably war-weary but resolved to continue the fight, believing they can prevail and drive out the Russian aggressors. We also heard growing exasperation with their most important partner, the United States.

In February 2022, Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, transforming the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War into Europe’s largest and bloodiest since World War II. It should surprise no one that Ukrainians are tiring of sending their husbands, sons, wives, and daughters to spend months at a time on the front lines of the war.

Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone attacks bring the war to civilians in cities across the country. The March 20-21 overnight attack on Kyiv was the heaviest in months. We spent much of that night in a bomb shelter, getting a taste of an experience that is all-too-common for millions of Ukrainians.

At the same time, nothing suggested resolve is flagging. Ukrainians want to win and believe they can. Indeed, they see no alternative in a fight that they regard as existential; if they lose, Ukraine as they know it is gone. Most want full victory, meaning the complete recovery of their territory up to the border agreed when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. That includes the return of Crimea.

We asked about proposals suggested by some in the West who say the United States should press for a negotiation to “save” Ukraine by ceding parts of the country to Russia in exchange for peace. Few Ukrainians expressed interest. They pointed to the war crimes Ukrainians have suffered under Russian occupation and asked how they could abandon anyone to such a fate. Most also felt it would only lead to a short respite, after which a rejuvenated Russian military would resume hostilities.

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Ukrainian military officers understand they face a difficult year in 2024. They described Russian pressure along much of the front line, with a particular focus on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. In September 2022, Putin claimed to annex these regions, even though the Russian military does not control all their territory.

The slowing of assistance, particularly from the United States, has hurt Ukrainian military operations. Ukrainian officers described situations in which their units can only fire one artillery shell for every ten the Russians fire. They lack the means to defend against devastating glide bomb attacks launched by Russian fighter aircraft, and worry that continuing Russian missile and drone attacks will exhaust their air defense capabilities.

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense officials are tracking Russian plans for new combat formations and monitoring a likely mobilization of manpower now that Putin has secured a further term in office. They believe the Kremlin retains broader ambitions in Ukraine including taking Kharkiv, Odesa, and Kyiv.

Despite this, Ukrainian officials are showing no signs of despair. They are fortifying their defensive positions and rushing to put innovative technologies such as advanced drones into action in the field. They question whether the Russians currently have the capacity to make a major breakthrough on the ground. Given enough weapons and ammunition, many Ukrainians remain confident they can reverse Russia’s gains of the past two years.

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While expressing gratitude for US assistance, Ukrainian officials and others in Kyiv made clear their exasperation on three points.

First, with NATO scheduled to hold a summit in Washington in July 2024, Ukrainians want a definite message on their acceptance into the Alliance, and ideally an invitation. They are looking in particular to the United States, which has the most important voice within NATO. To be sure, Ukrainians are fighting for their country’s survival, but they see that fight as also defending NATO and Europe against a Russian threat that extends beyond Ukraine.

Second, Congress’s failure to pass a supplemental assistance bill for Ukraine has caused a gap in the flow of American assistance that has had an impact on the battlefield. This is reflected, among other things, in higher Ukrainian casualties. Ukrainians have become knowledgeable about how the House works, including the role of the speaker and discharge petitions, but their frustration is palpable.

Third, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv last week and left Ukrainians clearly unhappy with his request that Ukraine stop targeting oil refineries in Russia. Ukrainians accept, with some annoyance, restrictions limiting the use of US-provided weapons to targets within Ukraine. However, Ukraine uses domestically produced drones to attack Russian refineries, which are legitimate military targets. Thus far, they have struck facilities that produce seven to eight percent of Russia’s refined oil products, and many more are within range of Ukrainian drones.

There are questions about the rationale for the request to stop refinery attacks, which reportedly had to do with the price of oil. Russia mainly exports crude oil, not refined oil products; it is therefore unclear how reducing Russia’s refinery capacity would affect crude exports. As one senior Ukrainian official put it, “stop telling us not to hit targets in Russia.”

We left Kyiv inspired by Ukrainian resilience, courage, and their continued conviction that they can defeat one of the largest military powers on the planet. The United States has a vital national interest in Ukraine’s success. Were Putin and the Kremlin to become emboldened by a win in Ukraine, they would pose a far greater threat to the rest of Europe. The Biden administration and Congress should act without delay to help the Ukrainians prevail.

Steven Pifer and John Herbst served as the third and fifth US ambassadors to Ukraine.

With no warships of its own, Ukraine initially appeared to have little hope of challenging Russia’s naval dominance. However, it soon became clear that the outgunned Ukrainian military had no intention of conceding control of the Black Sea to the Kremlin. Instead, Ukraine has used a combination of innovative drone technologies and foreign firepower to even out the odds and inflict a string of defeats on Putin’s fleet.

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Ukraine scored its first major success at sea in April 2022, sinking the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, with a brace of domestically produced Neptune missiles. This forced Russian warships to pull back from the Ukrainian coastline, relieving the immediate threat of an amphibious landing close to Odesa.

Ukraine maintained this momentum into summer 2022, forcing Russian troops to retreat from the strategically important Snake Island and launching the first drone strikes against Russian naval targets in occupied Crimea.

The Battle of the Black Sea escalated significantly in 2023 when Britain and France began supplying Ukraine with cruise missiles. This enhanced strike capability enabled Ukraine to deliver a series of punishing blows to Russia’s fleet that severely damaged or destroyed multiple warships and a submarine. In one particularly symbolic strike, Ukraine bombed the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol.

The remarkable sequence of Ukrainian victories at sea has continued into 2024, with the reported sinking of a further three Russian warships since the start of the year. These most recent attacks have been carried out by Ukraine’s rapidly evolving fleet of domestically produced marine drones. By early March, Ukraine was claiming to have sunk or disabled around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet.

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Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea will not prove militarily decisive in a land war, but it has provided a significant boost to the country’s war effort. The sinking of so many Russian warships has forced Putin to move the bulk of his fleet away from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports, making it more difficult for the Russian Navy to play a logistical role in the invasion or engage in missile attacks on Ukrainian targets.

Crucially, Ukraine’s progress at sea has made it possible to break the blockade of the country’s southern seaports and resume maritime commerce. By early 2024, export volumes were once again approaching prewar levels, providing Ukraine with a vital economic lifeline.

The steady stream of positive news coming from the Black Sea front has also helped boost morale among war-weary Ukrainians. This trend began on the very first day of the invasion, when a Russian warship approached the tiny Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island with an ultimatum to surrender, only to be told: “Russian warship, go f*ck yourself.”

This instantly iconic reply was soon embraced by Ukrainians as a symbol of national defiance and an unofficial slogan for the country’s entire war effort. Within days, it was appearing on billboards and bumper stickers, and even inspired an award-winning postage stamp.

Throughout the past two years, sunken Russian warships have remained a popular theme for Ukrainian meme-makers, with each new success sparking a flurry of online creativity. The Ukrainian military has joined in, publishing video footage of fresh drone attacks on Russian warships together with dramatic musical accompaniment.

For the Ukrainian public, the humbling of Putin’s navy is a source of hope in their country’s David-and-Goliath struggle against the might of the Russian military. This optimism is currently on display outside Kyiv City Hall in the heart of the Ukrainian capital, where a large poster board recently appeared bearing a mocked up image of Russian warships languishing at the bottom of the Black Sea. Amid the carnage and terror of Russia’s ongoing invasion, the sinking of Russian warships has given Ukrainians something meaningful to cheer.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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The air strike campaign against Odesa first began to intensify last summer following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered agreement that had allowed shipments of Ukrainian grain to sail from the city’s port to global markets. Since July 2023, Russia has attacked Odesa region with over 880 drones and more than 170 missiles, according to Ukrainian Navy officials. The mood in Odesa has darkened significantly in recent weeks as Russian attacks have become more frequent and deadlier. At least 17 people, including five children, have died so far in March.

This is fueling renewed discussion among local residents and international officials over whether to stay or go. The question is no longer rhetorical: French President Emmanuel Macron recently told opposition party leaders he had sketched out a possible Russian military advance toward Odesa or Kyiv that “could lead to an intervention.” In response to the recent surge in air attacks, at least one foreign mission is pro-actively thinning its presence in Odesa for the time being.

In one of the most brazen attacks on Odesa since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin sent a missile on March 6 to within a few hundred meters of where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was meeting Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “It is a very intense experience. It’s really different to read about the war in newspapers, and to hear it with your own ears, see it with your own eyes,” Mitsotakis commented after the attack.

Russian air strikes on Odesa are not only acts of aggression against Ukraine. The Kremlin’s bombing campaign also poses a direct threat to global food security. In this context, recent developments have been encouraging. Since Ukraine broke the Russian naval blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports last summer, cargo volumes of agricultural products have reached about two-thirds of their prewar levels, leading to a stabilization of grain prices on world markets.

This begs the question: Why has the international community not responded to the Russian maritime threat with the same robustness seen when protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea? Do deliveries of consumer goods really matter more than grain shipments to world markets, especially to countries on the brink of starvation such as Sudan, to which Ukraine recently donated 7,000 tons of wheat?

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Increasingly, friends in Ukraine ask how long I think the war will last and whether the country can expect to be abandoned by weak-kneed Western allies afraid of provoking Putin. Military cemeteries such as the one at Lychakiv in Lviv are now full as war dead are carried to their final resting place, underlining the sense that not one Ukrainian family has been untouched by this war.

If anyone doubts Russia’s resolve to seize more Ukrainian land, they should carefully study former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s recent remarks to a forum in Sochi. Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of Russia’s influential Security Council, outlined his vision for the near complete destruction of the Ukrainian state, with Ukraine reduced to a landlocked rump around Kyiv and most of the country incorporated into the Russian Federation. “One of Ukraine’s former leaders once said that Ukraine is not Russia. That concept needs to disappear forever,” he commented. “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

The darkening mood in today’s Ukraine is not limited to Odesa. As the full-scale invasion passed the two-year mark recently, increasing doubts about Western pledges to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” could be heard from politicians and civil society members. Several panelists at a high-profile forum in Kyiv on February 24 called out Western partners for failing to deliver on promises ranging from ammunition and longer-range missiles to tougher sanctions. Since then, worries have increased even further as US legislators kick the ball further down the road on the $60 billion supplemental bill for Ukraine that has yet to pass the US Congress.

There is now a growing feeling in Odesa and across Ukraine that time is running out. Unless new US aid is confirmed and the West arms Ukraine to the teeth, there may soon be nothing to prevent Russia from advancing all the way to Odesa and on to the border with Moldova. If that happens, the verdict of history, which can be extremely unkind to cowards, will be harsh for all those who failed to provide Ukraine with the support it so desperately needs.

Michael Bociurkiw is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The Ukraine-Turkey defense partnership with the potential to transform Black Sea and Euro-Atlantic security

Pınar Dost — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 18:49:21 +0000

The burgeoning defense partnership between Ukraine and Turkey has helped Kyiv in its fight to fend off Russia and shored up Ankara’s security while bolstering the two partners’ economies. But now, there’s an opportunity to expand that partnership—and in so doing, secure the Black Sea and Europe at large.

The benefits of that partnership have been made clearer over the past two years, with Bayraktar TB2 drones—manufactured by Turkish defense company Baykar—grabbing headlines for helping Ukraine by bolstering Kyiv’s air-strike capabilities in the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Just weeks before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—during a visit to Kyiv—struck a deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow Ukrainian factories to produce Turkish drones. That deal is now bearing fruit, with Baykar breaking ground on a drone factory near Kyiv in February. The factory, which will take twelve months to build, is expected to create five hundred jobs and produce 120 units a year. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pointed to the project, calling it an example of how NATO allies are supporting Ukraine not only “with direct deliveries of weapons and ammunition but also by investing in and ramping up their capacity to produce their own weapons.”

Turkey and Ukraine’s strategic partnership stretches further. For example, Baykar’s Akıncı combat drone (introduced in 2021) and its Kızılelma combat drone (expected to be introduced this year) use Ukrainian-made Ivchenko-Progress engines. The Kızılelma has even been called a “Turkish bird with a Ukrainian heart.” Kyiv and Ankara also cooperate in the maritime domain; since 2021, Turkey has been building two Ada-class anti-submarine corvettes for Ukraine’s naval forces, expected to be completed and delivered this year. The Ukrainian Armed Forces received Cobra II tactical vehicles—developed by Turkish company Otokar—and were seen deploying them last year. Also in 2023: Ukraine sent two engines to the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) for the company’s T929 ATAK-II attack helicopter; Ukraine has committed to send twelve more by 2025.

While the flow of Turkish defense equipment northward to Ukraine has been strong, it has experienced headwinds. For example, European countries have been unable to come to a consensus on topping up the European Peace Facility, the mechanism with which the European Union (EU) funds weapons supplies for Ukraine. France, Greece, and Cyprus have blocked additional financing out of a desire to ensure that funds are spent on weapons, technologies, and ammunition from the EU. Greece said that it did not want the money to go to Turkish defense companies. The countries should let up on this demand—France recently has, for the procurement of artillery. Supplying Ukraine is not just about Kyiv’s security; it is also about Black Sea security and Euro-Atlantic security.

Nevertheless, the Ukraine-Turkey bilateral defense partnership has room to expand. On February 21, TAI announced that its KAAN fighter jet conducted its first flight. The jet was conceptualized and developed initially to replace the Turkish Air Force’s aging F-16 fleet and to bolster Turkey’s self-sufficiency—before the United States decided to sell Turkey forty new F-16s and equipment to upgrade dozens more. While the KAAN jet prototype is currently powered by General Electric F-110 engines (the engine that powers F-16s), Turkey is aiming to start using domestically produced engines produced by TAI Engine Industries by 2028. However, there may be a role for Ukraine in the project, as Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar recently stated that not only is Ukraine looking to buy and use the KAAN jet, but “Ukrainian teams continue to work on the engine” and are “competing” to be a partner on the project.

A Ukraine-Turkey partnership on joint engine production for the KAAN jet would contribute to Ukraine’s economy and also provide Turkey a trustworthy and steady partner in bolstering its self-defense—political divides between Ankara and the West could potentially erupt into measures such as export license bans as was the case in 2019 with some European Union governments’ limiting arms exports following Turkey’s operation in northeast Syria and in 2020 with the United States imposing sanctions on Turkey following Ankara’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system.

NATO countries have acknowledged the important role that fighter jets play in the region’s security. Ukraine has been offered sixty second-hand F-16 fighter jets by the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Last year, Denmark, the United States, and the United Kingdom began training Ukrainian pilots. In November last year, Romania received three of the thirty-two F-16s it bought from Norway. By 2025, Romania is expected to own forty-nine F-16s. Bulgaria is also gearing up to receive the sixteen F-16 Block 70 fighter jets it bought from the United States; the first eight are expected to arrive by 2025.

Turkey plans to export some KAAN jets, which could offer countries an alternative to fighter aircraft manufactured and sold by Russia and China. And, once Turkey has more KAAN jets off the ground and more F-16 upgraded in its fleet, it could support Ukraine with second-hand F-16s or by serving as a repair and upgrade hub for the F-16s that Ukraine and other Black Sea countries own.

Benefits that ripple across the sea

An expanded Ukraine-Turkey security partnership would compound upon the beneficial effects of previous efforts to secure the region undertaken by NATO countries.

In both its 2022 Strategic Concept and its 2023 Vilnius Summit communiqué, NATO called Russia “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” In both documents, the Alliance also reiterated the “strategic importance” of the Black Sea. The United States—the NATO member with the largest military—echoed this in its 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, where it emphasized the need to bolster defenses in the region and increase cooperation on Black Sea security, not only bilaterally with regional partners—specifically Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Georgia—but also with NATO and the EU to minimize the risk of duplicating efforts and to improve interoperability.

Strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defense in the Black Sea region is even more important as the US presidential election looms. Former US President Donald Trump, a candidate again this year, has repeatedly argued that the United States is unfairly carrying the burden of financing NATO. Recently, he added that he would encourage Russia to do whatever it wants to any NATO country that doesn’t meet the Alliance’s defense spending guidelines. This kind of announcement unfortunately encourages an imperialist president such as Putin.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began and threats to the Black Sea region increased, NATO and its members have worked to bolster the region’s defense and deterrence capabilities. NATO increased its forward presence in the region by establishing four new battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The United States has developed close security cooperation with Romania and Bulgaria, providing them with important defense technology and weapons as well as Foreign Military Financing to support their military modernization efforts and regional defense capabilities. The United States is also leading a Black Sea Maritime Domain Awareness project, in which Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Georgia are participants.

Ukraine has disabled one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. With Turkey being the guardian of the straits under the Montreux Convention, Russia will not easily be able to replace these losses. NATO allies should take advantage of the opportunity they now have to get the upper hand in the maritime domain against Russia. Montreux limits the passage of non-Black Sea countries’ naval forces through the straits and the amount of time these forces can spend in the Black Sea; but the United States and non-littoral European countries, seeking to bolster Black Sea allies’ defense capabilities, can lean more on Turkey. The erosion of Russia’s capabilities has shifted the balance of power in the Black Sea to Turkey’s advantage. Turkey could lead naval operations in the international waters in the Black Sea, further out from its coastline, with its TCG Anadolu assault ship without a NATO mandate. While there is no specific mention of Turkey in the US Black Sea strategy, the outline for which is reflected in the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, the existing structure of the law is enough for the US to support—alone or in cooperation with other NATO allies—the Black Sea countries with additional capabilities and efforts to improve interoperability.

A Ukraine-Turkey partnership on the KAAN jet would add to these efforts and bolster security in the region.

What’s at stake

Gridlock in the US Congress over approving additional financial support to Ukraine and debate over whether the war is at a stalemate—in addition to Ukraine’s losses on the battleground and its ammunition shortage—have alarmed many European capitals.

After weeks of resistance from Hungary, the EU agreed to $54 billion in long-term aid to Ukraine. European countries, for their part, are also pitching in to shore up Ukraine’s and the Euro-Atlantic community’s security. Germany, which ranks second in military assistance committed to Ukraine, is—among other initiatives—building a new ammunition factory in response to Germany’s and Europe’s needs. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also called on Europe to “move… towards large-scale production of defense equipment.” Good news also came out of Denmark, as the prime minister announced that she would pledge all of the country’s artillery arsenal to Ukraine. France has also recently concluded a security pact with Ukraine, pledging up to three billion euros in military aid—including cooperation on artillery—and the Netherlands has committed to providing 2.2 billion euros in military aid this year.

Turkey has also looked to boost Euro-Atlantic security. Turkey and the United States are already cooperating to replenish the United States’ munitions stockpiles, critical considering Washington’s role in supplying ammunition to Ukraine. According to the US ambassador to Turkey, by next year, 30 percent of all 155 mm rounds made in the United States will be manufactured by factories that are part of a partnership between the US Department of Defense and a Turkish defense company. Turkey, as well as Greece, recently joined the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative, which offers participating countries a platform through which they can jointly procure air defense capabilities, an important contribution to European security. All these efforts and initiatives are important, as the United States, NATO, and EU will need to prepare over the next eleven months for a potential Trump presidency.

Leaders in the West are putting into words how important it is for Ukraine to win. As French President Emmanuel Macron said, Russian defeat in Ukraine is vital for security in Europe; Scholz stressed that what happens in Ukraine will decide “if our [peaceful] order, our rules-based world has a future.” Ukraine’s defense-industrial know-how and Turkey’s experience in manufacturing combine into a win-win security partnership that can pay dividends for Black Sea security, Euro-Atlantic security, and—ultimately—the international rules-based order.

Pınar Dost is a nonresident fellow at Atlantic Council IN TURKEY and a historian of international relations. She is also the former deputy director of Atlantic Council IN TURKEY. She is an associated researcher with the French Institute for Anatolian Studies. Follow her on LinkedIn.

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Ukraine needs enhanced air defenses as Russia expands missile arsenal

Olivia Yanchik — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 19:13:02 +0000

With efforts to pass new US military aid to Ukraine still stuck in Congress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently singled out reinforcing the country’s air defenses as one of Kyiv’s most pressing priorities. “The most important thing is to unblock the sky,” Zelenskyy commented during a press event in Kyiv to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 25.

Recent reports indicate that unless Congress is able to break the current deadlock, Ukraine will face potentially catastrophic shortages of ammunition and air defenses within weeks. Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly bolstering its own growing stockpiles with deliveries of ballistic missiles from Iran.

Ukraine’s Western partners have provided significant air defense capabilities over the past two years since the onset of Russia’s invasion. This proved particularly crucial during the first winter of the war, when Russia launched a sustained air offensive against Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure in an apparent bid to freeze the country into submission and force Kyiv to surrender.

Despite improvements in Ukraine’s air defenses, the country remains highly vulnerable to Russian missile and drone attacks. While Kyiv now has relatively strong air defense coverage, other major cities such as Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia are far less protected and regularly experience deadly bombardments.

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The most prized assets within Ukraine’s patchwork air defenses are the Patriot systems the country has received from international partners. The US military’s most advanced air defense system, Patriot batteries are capable of shooting down nearly all of the missile types currently being used by Russia to strike targets across Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has also reportedly deployed Patriots in an innovative offensive capacity to shoot down Russian war planes close to the front lines of the conflict.

So far, Ukraine has only received a handful of Patriot systems. Given their effectiveness, Kyiv is understandably eager for more. Speaking in late February, Zelenskyy said the delivery of ten Patriot systems would be enough to have a significant impact on the course of the war. He argued that this would allow Ukraine to shield big cities and vital infrastructure while also defending the skies above the battlefield and potentially enabling Ukrainian troops to break through fortified Russian defensive lines.

At the same time, there is recognition in Kyiv and among the country’s partners that Ukraine’s air defense challenges cannot be solved by more Patriot systems alone. With individual missiles costing millions of dollars, the Patriot system is not a cost-effective option, especially when targets include waves of relatively cheap kamikaze drones that Russia is receiving from Iran and also producing domestically in increasingly large quantities.

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In order to counter Russia’s growing aerial threat, Ukraine’s partners must continue helping the Ukrainian military establish a multi-layered air defense network covering the entire country. This network should be designed with economic factors and supply sustainability in mind. It should also reflect the expanding variety of drones and missiles being deployed by the Russians.

Russia’s most dangerous missiles, such as the Kinzhal, are often deployed within larger bombardments that include a range of ballistic and cruise missiles alongside drones. These complex attacks are particularly challenging for Ukrainian air defense units. “The most difficult is an attack by various types of aerial targets,” confirmed one Kyiv air defense commander in summer 2023.

Ukraine’s international partners need to provide a range of additional air defense tools such as laser-guided weapons that can help counter Russia’s use of drones. US-made Hawk systems, which predate the Patriot system, have also proven a valuable addition to Ukraine’s air defense arsenal, as have gun trucks. A more diverse array of systems will enable Ukrainian air defense units to target large numbers of incoming drones without depleting their own limited supplies of expensive interceptor missiles.

Providing Ukraine with enhanced air defenses is essential for the country’s war effort. This will allow Ukraine to defend its civilian population and vital infrastructure from Russian attack, while also strengthening the country’s resilience and making it possible for business and everyday life to continue. This is critical if Ukraine is to withstand the Kremlin’s attrition tactics. With Russia now reportedly receiving missiles from both Iran and North Korea, it is time for Ukraine’s partners to step up their own deliveries of air defense systems and ammunition.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Ukrainian long-range drones target Putin’s war machine inside Russia

Victoria Vdovychenko, Alexander Khara — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:29:53 +0000

For the past two years, international support for Ukraine has been hampered by widespread fear of escalation among the country’s Western partners. This has prevented Ukraine from receiving the kind of long-range weapons that would have allowed the Ukrainian military to strike back against strategic targets inside Russia. Ukraine has responded to the West’s escalation paralysis by developing its own fleet of domestically produced deep strike drones, and is now deploying these long-range weapons against Russian targets with growing frequency.

In the first two months of 2024, Ukraine has launched a new campaign of air strikes inside Russia. Key targets have included the Ust-Luga fuel export terminal on the Baltic Sea close to St. Petersburg, and major oil refineries in Yaroslavl and Volgograd. These attacks against Russia’s energy industry infrastructure mark a new stage in the conflict, with Ukraine aiming to bring the war home to Russia and weaken Putin’s war machine from within.

As the full-scale invasion enters a third year, Russia has largely managed to circumvent sanctions imposed on the country’s oil and gas industry. Despite the loss of European markets and the imposition of price caps, Russia has been able to identify new customers while also finding creative ways of bypassing restrictions.

With Western sanctions failing to have the desired impact, Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes represent a far more direct approach that Kyiv hopes will create greater challenges for the Kremlin. If drone attacks succeed in causing significant disruption to Russia’s economically vital energy sector, this could negatively impact military operations in Ukraine and domestic stability in Russia.

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The Ukrainian air strike campaign targeting high-value energy assets inside Russia is likely to expand in the coming months. In addition to undermining the economic foundations of the Putin regime, Ukraine’s attacks aim to damage or destroy the Western equipment that is widely used throughout the Russian oil and gas industry. Much of this equipment is already subject to sanctions, making it problematic for Russia to import replacements.

Ukraine’s drone raids are creating dilemmas for Russian military planners and forcing them to make tough choices regarding the deployment of scarce air defense, anti-drone, and electronic warfare capabilities. Much of this is currently concentrated along the front lines in Ukraine, but attacks inside Russia are now fueling calls to transfer units to the deep rear. Given Russia’s vast size and extensive energy infrastructure, it will be extremely difficult to provide comprehensive coverage.

Ukraine’s drone strikes also have an informational aspect as they are difficult to conceal. As a result, they are making the Russian public more aware of the ongoing war in Ukraine and forcing them to acknowledge that it has now reached the home front. This is potentially important as the Kremlin has worked hard for the past two years to insulate Russian society from the invasion of Ukraine, and has sought to keep any negative impact from the war to an absolute minimum.

Another focus of long-range Ukrainian attacks is Russia’s military industrial complex. Over the past year, Ukrainian drones have targeted at least four missile and air defense production facilities in Smolensk, Bryansk, Tula, and Kolomna. There are some indications that these attacks are hampering Russia’s ability to supply its invading army. For example, Ukrainian military officials noted a substantial reduction in the number of lancet drones deployed on the front lines following an attack on a Russian production facility.

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Determining the overall impact of Ukraine’s deep strike campaign on the Russian economy is difficult due to the Kremlin’s efforts to conceal evidence of any resulting damage. Nevertheless, international news reports indicate that the initial wave of drone attacks in early 2024 did manage to disrupt energy sector operations and force temporary stoppages at targeted facilities. This achievement underlines the potential of Ukraine’s strategy.

Future long-range operations inside Russia will be shaped by Ukraine’s recently formed Unmanned Systems Force, a new branch of the Ukrainian military dedicated to drone warfare established by President Zelenskyy in early February. While attacks are expected to continue, it will likely take some time for Ukraine to produce enough long-range drones to pose a more serious threat to Russia’s energy sector and military production facilities. Ukrainian officials are committed to producing one million drones in 2024, but this total includes large quantities needed for the front lines as well as additional marine drones to build on Ukraine’s success in the Black Sea.

While there are no wonder weapons or silver bullets in this war, correctly deployed drones in sufficient numbers are capable of making a meaningful difference, both on the battlefield and far beyond the front lines inside Russia. Ukraine’s strategy of targeting high-value energy assets using low-cost drones looks to be both effective and sustainable. It is also a sensible response to mounting concerns over the future of US military aid.

Ukraine’s new generation of long-range drones are comparatively easy to produce. They have also proven surprisingly difficult to intercept. Looking ahead, the key issue is likely to be quantity. If Ukraine can manufacture enough long-range drones, it may be possible to seriously degrade Russia’s essential military capabilities and impact the course of the war.

Victoria Vdovychenko is Program Director of the Security Studies Program at the Centre for Defence Strategies. Alexander Khara is a fellow at the Centre for Defence Strategies.

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Over the past two years, the Ukrainian military has managed to incorporate drones with considerable success. This has often been done on a somewhat improvised basis, with separate UAV teams independently established as part of different units. Ukraine’s expanding drone capabilities have owed much to public fundraising efforts and contributions from diverse grassroots groups including volunteer networks. Meanwhile, a startup-style drone manufacturing and modification industry has emerged from within Ukraine’s vibrant tech industry.

The results have been impressive. During a single week in early 2024, Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov reported that the country’s drone units had destroyed 73 Russian tanks along with air defense systems, fuel storage depots, and multiple other high-value targets. Longer range drones are now being used to strike strategic targets deep inside Russia including military production sites and energy industry infrastructure. At sea, marine drones have helped break the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and have forced the bulk of Putin’s fleet to retreat from Crimea.

Much of this has been possible thanks to expanding domestic production. According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, by early 2024 there were approximately 200 companies producing drones in Ukraine, with domestic output around one hundred times higher in 2023 than during the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion. As manufacturing potential continues to expand, Ukrainian officials have set a target of more than one million domestically produced drones in 2024.

Ukraine’s international partners are also focusing their efforts on helping the country stay one step ahead of Russia in the drone war. A coalition of around ten countries recently vowed to deliver one million drones to Ukraine by February 2025, while France is reportedly preparing to provide the Ukrainian military with the latest strike drone models in the coming weeks.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Ukraine’s newly established Unmanned Systems Force must now manage this highly dynamic drone supply situation while making sure the country’s expanding UAV fleets are deployed effectively in what is a rapidly changing battlefield environment.

The creation of a separate branch of the armed forces dedicated to drones should allow Ukraine to assess developments in a systematic manner and gain an accurate overview of the most effective tactics, making it possible to create something approaching a drone warfare doctrine. This would represent a considerable improvement on today’s somewhat chaotic approach to sharing experience, which often relies on direct communication between individual drone pilots and unit commanders.

The Unmanned Systems Force could take the lead in developing a more coordinated approach to training. At present, many of Ukraine’s UAV training programs are private initiatives that typically offer valuable insights but lack any centrally established standards. Additionally, the new branch can contribute to more effective cooperation with the military industrial complex to make sure Ukrainian manufacturers are focused on producing the kinds of drones the military needs.

Zelenskyy’s decision to establish a specific drone branch of the army also creates a number of potential challenges. Ukraine’s drone warfare evolution over the past two years has often been organic in nature. On many occasions, creative solutions have been implemented with a high degree of operational flexibility by people on the front lines of the conflict. Ukrainian commanders must now make sure efforts to coordinate the country’s drone operations do not blunt this creativity or slow down reaction times by introducing new layers of bureaucracy.

There is also a danger that efforts to fill leadership and training positions within the Unmanned Systems Force could lead to the withdrawal of experienced pilots from the combat zone. One solution might be to prioritize the recruitment of wounded drone operators who are not currently able to serve in front line conditions but have valuable knowledge to share.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has turned the country into a giant war lab and confirmed the status of drones as the weapons of the future. With Ukraine no longer assured of further military aid from the US and increasingly obliged to ration ammunition, drones are a cost-effective solution that plays to the country’s tech sector strengths. President Zelenskyy and his military leaders clearly recognize this, and will be hoping the new Unmanned Systems Force can help Ukraine maximize its drone potential without becoming a bureaucratic burden.

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The Battle of the Black Sea began on the eve of the full-scale invasion, with Vladimir Putin ordering his navy to impose a blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports more than a week before Russian tanks rolled across the border on February 24, 2022. On paper, at least, the war at sea appeared to be a foregone conclusion, with the Ukrainian Navy’s handful of small vessels hopelessly outmatched by the might of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. However, it would not be long before Ukraine was challenging such assumptions.

Ukraine’s first naval triumph was the April 2022 sinking of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva, which was struck by a brace of Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. Two months later, Ukraine succeeded in liberating Snake Island, a small by strategically important Black Sea island which had been occupied by Russia on the first day of the invasion. By late summer 2022, Ukraine had begun drone strikes on the Russian fleet and related naval facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea.

These attacks gained significant momentum in 2023, thanks to developments in Ukraine’s marine drone fleet along with the appearance of British and French-supplied cruise missiles in the Ukrainian arsenal. Landmark achievements included a successful long-range marine drone attack on a warship close to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in the eastern Black Sea, and the destruction of a Russian submarine and warship undergoing maintenance in Crimea’s Sevastopol, the traditional home port of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

This week’s attack on the Caesar Kunikov is the second successful naval operation in February 2024 alone, and comes following the reported destruction of Russian warship the Ivanovets at the start of the month. As is now customary, news of this latest sinking inspired a flood of memes on social media as Ukrainians toasted the further weakening of the Russian navy. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called it a “great victory for Ukrainians,” and noted that the country has been able to “inflict heavy losses on the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”

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The sinking of Russian warships will not prove decisive in a land war, of course. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea is no mere morale boost and is already shaping the course of the wider war. Ukrainian attacks have made it difficult for the Russian navy to maintain a presence in the northwestern Black Sea and have forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his fleet from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports. This is hampering Russia’s ability to bomb Ukraine using the Black Sea Fleet’s missile-carrying warships, while also disrupting the logistics of the Russian army in Crimea and southern Ukraine.

Crucially, sinking so many Russian warships has enabled Ukraine to break the blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports and resume maritime exports to global markets. The reopening of merchant shipping lanes for the country’s vast agricultural industry represents a financial lifeline for Ukraine, which is struggling to keep its battered economy afloat and fund the war effort. Many were skeptical that Ukraine could defy the Russian blockade, but the results speak for themselves. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy, exports in January 2024 reached 12 million metric tons, the highest monthly total since the start of the invasion and just two million tons below prewar levels.

In addition to restricting the role of the Russian navy and boosting the domestic economy, Ukraine’s victories at sea are also providing important lessons for the future conduct of the war. The effective use of British and French cruise missiles has underlined Ukraine’s ability to deploy sophisticated Western weapons systems, while also highlighting Russia’s vulnerability. The success achieved over the past year in Crimea and the Black Sea with relatively limited supplies of cruise missiles offers a glimpse of what could be possible if Ukraine’s partners finally agree to deliver long-range missiles in anything like the quantities Kyiv is asking for.

Perhaps the single most important lesson to take from the Battle of the Black Sea is the need for the West to overcome its crippling fear of escalation. For the past two years, risk-averse Western leaders have consistently demonstrated excessive caution in their response to the Russian invasion, while warning against anything that might potentially provoke Putin. The Russian dictator has skillfully exploited these concerns, hinting at dire consequences if Western support for Ukraine passes certain thresholds. President Zelenskyy has long complained that this preoccupation with avoiding escalation plays directly into Russia’s hands while leaving Ukraine at a massive disadvantage.

Ukraine’s Black Sea success has now made a mockery of the West’s self-deterrence and exposed the emptiness of Russian threats. During the first year of the invasion, Putin and other senior Russian officials repeatedly indicated that attacks on Crimea represented a red line for the Kremlin. However, when Ukraine ignored these threats and proceeded with its campaign against the Russian navy, Putin’s promised retribution failed to materialize. Confronted with unfavorable new military realities, the Kremlin strongman simply ordered his fleet to retreat.

If Putin is prepared to quietly withdraw the bulk of his navy from Crimea, which is the jewel in the crown of his new Russian Empire, there is every reason to believe he will be similarly pragmatic when faced with the prospect of military disaster in mainland Ukraine. In other words, Putin can be defeated if Ukraine’s partners conquer their fear of escalation and refuse to be intimidated by the Kremlin.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Industry

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Ukraine opens new front with drone strikes on Russia’s energy sector

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 21:43:21 +0000

Amid worsening ammunition shortages and mounting concerns over the future of Western military aid, the Ukrainian army has largely switched to active defense in recent months. Nevertheless, as the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches the two-year mark, talk of a stalemate remains premature.

While heavy fighting continues at various hot spots along the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian commanders have begun 2024 by attempting to bring the war home to Russia with a new air strike campaign against the Russian oil and gas industry. By targeting Putin’s economically important energy sector, Ukraine hopes to weaken Russia’s war machine and create a range of dilemmas for the Kremlin.

The recent long-range Ukrainian drone strikes against energy sector targets deep inside Russia are not entirely unprecedented. Indeed, during 2023, Ukraine managed to carry out a number of successful strikes against Russian military targets.

But unlike these earlier attacks, the major feature of Ukraine’s latest drone strike campaign is the emphasis on Russia’s oil and gas processing, storage, and export facilities. Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has bombed a series of facilities located hundreds of kilometers from the border, with targets ranging from Volgograd in the south to Saint Petersburg and the Baltic Sea in the north.

These Ukrainian attacks strike at the heart of the economic engine that fuels Putin’s war machine. Oil and gas exports remain a major source of Russian GDP and have so far proved surprisingly resistant to Western sanctions, with new clients emerging to compensate for the loss of European customers. As many commentators have quipped in Kyiv, Ukraine has now decided to impose its own informal and far more direct sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.

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Ukrainian commanders believe their new long-range drone strike campaign can eventually create major disruption to the Russian economy that will translate into leverage over the Kremlin. For now, however, the scale of the drone strikes remains limited.

One key obstacle is the size of Ukraine’s delivery systems. While Ukraine is constantly upgrading its drone fleet, the country’s existing long-range UAVs are unable to carry warheads weighing more than around 50 kilograms. This means most of the damage done at Russian energy facilities is relatively easy to localize and neutralize. Ukraine also faces significant challenges navigating past Russia’s traditional air defenses and electronic warfare systems.

Despite these limitations, there are already signs that Ukraine’s long-range air strike campaign is having an impact. A February 5 report by Bloomberg indicated Russia’s weekly oil-processing rates had dropped to the lowest level in almost two months after two major refineries were forced to halt operations following Ukrainian drone strikes.

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Ukraine’s military planners are now hoping long-range drone strikes can force their Russian counterparts to make some difficult decisions. At present, the vast majority of Russia’s air defense assets are concentrated along the front lines of the war. These systems play a crucial role providing protection against the Ukrainian Air Force and Ukraine’s increasingly deadly drone forces. As Ukraine intensifies attacks on Russia’s energy sector, Kremlin chiefs will have to choose whether to keep their country’s limited air defense systems close to the battlefield in Ukraine or redistribute them to protect oil and gas facilities inside Russia itself.

Both scenarios could potentially lead to major risks. If Russia fails to protect critical oil and gas infrastructure, there is always a danger that the sheer quantity of Ukrainian attacks may cause serious harm to the Russian economy and compromise the Kremlin’s ability to wage war. At the same time, attempts to reinforce the defense of Russian energy facilities would leave Putin’s army in Ukraine exposed and vulnerable.

Moscow faces additional dilemmas due to Russia’s vast size, which makes it extremely challenging to provide comprehensive air defense coverage. Russian officials have recently indicated that the country lacks sufficient air defense systems to fully protect major cities like Saint Petersburg against Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone threat.

The situation is further complicated by the Russian energy industry’s reliance on Western technologies. While Ukraine is currently unable to inflict major harm due to the country’s relatively modest air strike capabilities, sanctions restrictions will likely make it difficult for Russia to replace any Western equipment damaged or destroyed by Ukrainian drones.

At present, Ukraine’s new long-range drone strike campaign is too limited in scope to derail the Russian war effort of seriously disrupt the Russian economy. However, these attacks are clearly capable of inflicting economic pain, while also increasing the pressure on Russian commanders to reduce air defense protection for their army in Ukraine. This is the same dilemma Ukrainian army chiefs have faced for much of the past two years in response to Russia’s own air strikes far beyond the front lines against civilian targets including essential infrastructure.

By attacking Russia’s energy sector, Ukrainian commanders are seeking to open a new front in the war and reshape the battlefield in Ukraine itself. The recent flurry of air strikes on Putin’s oil and gas industry underlines Ukraine’s commitment to bring the war home to Russia, even while adopting a strategy of active defense along the front lines of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Dean interviewed by Sky News on Australian killer drones

kyusko — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:25:38 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On January 30, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean spoke on Sky News, where he suggested that Australia should take a “calibrated approach” to acquiring killer drones.

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Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Putin’s Achilles Heel: Ukraine targets Russia’s vital but vulnerable energy industry

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 21:55:54 +0000

Ukrainian drones struck a major oil refinery in southern Russia early on January 25, sparking a blaze that highlighted an emerging new front in the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin almost two years ago. The incident was the latest in a series of recent attacks on Russian energy infrastructure as Ukraine seeks to bring the war home to Russia by targeting the country’s vital but vulnerable oil and gas industry.

Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has launched a number of drone strikes on energy facilities across Russia. These have included the first successful attacks on targets close to St. Petersburg, almost one thousand kilometers away from the Ukrainian border. Officials at Russian energy company Novatek confirmed on January 20 that they had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations at the huge Ust-Luga fuel export terminal on the Gulf of Finland due to a fire started by Ukrainian drones.

This unfolding drone campaign aims to hamper the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, while also dealing a painful economic blow to the Putin regime. By using long-range drones to strike energy facilities across Russia, Ukraine seeks to disrupt the logistical networks supplying Putin’s invasion force and reduce the mobility of the Russian army in Ukraine.

Many in Kyiv believe the potential to cause economic mayhem is even greater. The Russian economy is heavily reliant on the energy sector, making it an obvious and attractive target for Ukrainian military planners. Russia’s oil and gas industry has so far proven remarkably resistant to Western sanctions, with clients from the Global South stepping in to replace exiting European customers. Ukrainians hope their far more direct approach will now succeed where sanctions have failed and impose crippling costs on the Kremlin.

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Kyiv’s recent attempts to expand attacks on energy targets inside Russia are in part a reflection of unfavorable battlefield realities. The failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive in the second half of 2023 forced the country’s commanders to acknowledge that the war had reached a stalemate. Meanwhile, the future of international military aid to Ukraine is now in doubt amid mounting political obstacles, leaving front line troops increasingly outgunned and forced to ration limited ammunition. With little choice but to adopt a strategy of active defense, long-range drone strikes against strategic targets inside Russia offer Ukraine an opportunity to break the deadlock and undermine Putin’s war machine.

This kind of asymmetrical warfare plays to Ukraine’s strengths while exploiting Russia’s weaknesses. The long-neglected Ukrainian arms industry has been unable to keep pace with the unprecedented demands of Russia’s full-scale invasion, but the country has managed to develop impressive domestic drone production capabilities. Government initiatives like the BRAVE1 hub are helping to support private sector efforts and harnessing the huge potential of Ukraine’s vibrant tech sector.

This emphasis on defense tech is enabling Ukraine to keep pace with its far wealthier adversary in what is widely seen as the world’s first drone war. Innovations are a daily feature of the contest between Russian and Ukrainian drone warriors, with both sides struggling to counter the latest enemy developments while implementing their own upgrades. For Ukraine, range has been a key factor. Recent drone attacks demonstrate that Kyiv now has the ability to hit targets throughout European Russia, where the vast majority of the country’s energy assets are located.

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Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure are creating serious headaches for the Kremlin. Russia’s vastness and the sheer size of the country’s energy industry make it virtually impossible to provide all possible targets with adequate air defenses. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the bulk of Russia’s air defense systems have already been deployed to occupied Crimea and the front lines in Ukraine. If Ukraine’s current bombing campaign continues to gather momentum, Russian military chiefs will have to decide whether to reduce protection for the army in Ukraine or leave critical infrastructure on the home front exposed to potential attack.

The Kremlin is also likely to encounter significant challenges repairing any damage done to the country’s oil and gas facilities. The Russian energy sector is highly reliant on equipment imported from the West. While sanctions measures imposed since February 2022 have so far failed to seriously impede the Russian economy, import restrictions should make it difficult for Russian energy companies to replace sophisticated equipment following Ukrainian drone attacks.

Crucially, the use of domestically produced drones enables Ukraine to minimize any potential protests from the country’s international partners, who have consistently sought to prevent Kyiv from using Western weapons inside Russia due to escalation fears. While Ukrainian leaders remain sensitive to these concerns, they have long expressed frustration over what many regard as excessive caution among Ukraine’s Western allies. Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, President Zelenskyy complained that the West’s emphasis on avoiding escalation at all costs had resulted in countless missed opportunities while emboldening the Kremlin. “Every ‘don’t escalate’ addressed to us, sounded like ‘you will prevail’ to Putin,” he commented.

Ukraine’s decision to target Russia’s energy infrastructure is one of the boldest moves of the entire war. For almost two years, hostilities have been largely confined to Ukraine itself. That now appears to be changing. So far, Ukraine’s drone strikes are too small in scale to seriously damage the Russian war effort. Nevertheless, the recent flurry of attacks inside Russia crosses a major red line and marks a new phase in the conflict. The oil and gas industry has long fueled Russia’s resurgence on the international stage; Ukrainians are now hoping it will become Putin’s Achilles Heel.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukraine’s Black Sea success exposes folly of West’s “don’t escalate” mantra

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:43:06 +0000

There is no disguising the disquiet in today’s Ukraine as the country braces itself for what promises to be an exceptionally difficult year. The optimism of early 2023 has been replaced by a far gloomier outlook that reflects the failure of Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive and mounting alarm over delays in vital military aid from the country’s international partners.

This is fueling fresh calls for a negotiated settlement, with advocates arguing that the war with Russia has now reached a stalemate. However, talk of an impasse may be premature. Although the 1000 kilometer front line of the conflict has barely moved for the past twelve months, events elsewhere indicate a military breakthrough could still be a realistic possibility.

While the international media has spent much of the past year firmly focused on the bloody but largely static battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine, the most dynamic developments of the war in 2023 actually took place at sea. Despite having no warships of its own, Ukraine managed to force Putin’s fleet to retreat from Crimea and succeeded in breaking the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. This remarkable Ukrainian progress may now offer a blueprint for a more general victory over Russia.

Ukraine has been able to transform the balance of power in the Black Sea thanks to the skill, boldness, and ingenuity of the country’s military, together with ample supplies of Western weapons and the ability to use them without being hampered by restrictions based on misguided fears of a possible escalation. If applied to the wider Ukrainian war effort, this winning combination could pave the way for Russia’s eventual defeat.

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On the eve of the full-scale invasion two years ago, Russian mastery of the Black Sea seemed all but assured. Ukraine was even more hopelessly outgunned at sea than on land, and appeared no match for the might of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Putin was so confident that he began the blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports under the guise of naval exercises almost two weeks before the start of the land invasion.

The first significant naval engagement came in the initial hours of the invasion when the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s powerful flagship, the Moskva, approached Ukraine’s Snake Island and ordered the tiny garrison to surrender, only to be told: “Russian warship, go f*ck yourself.” This instantly iconic reply was rapidly embraced by Ukrainians as a symbol of national defiance and an unofficial slogan for the country’s entire war effort. It was soon appearing on billboards and bumper stickers, and even inspired an award-winning postage stamp.

During the early weeks of the invasion, residents of southern Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast were on high alert over possible amphibious landings, with Russian warships cruising menacingly along the horizon. However, these landings would never take place. Instead, in April 2022, Ukraine scored its first major success in the Battle of the Black Sea by sinking Russia’s flagship with domestically produced cruise missiles.

Two months later, Ukraine used a mix of artillery, air power, and drones to force a Russian withdrawal from the small but strategically important Snake Island. This was followed by the first Ukrainian drone attacks on port facilities and naval infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea.

As 2022 drew to a close, it was clear that the tide was beginning to turn at sea, with Russian naval dominance no longer a foregone conclusion. Even so, the scale of Ukraine’s subsequent achievements on the Black Sea front would surpass all expectations.

Britain’s May 2023 decision to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles set the stage for the spectacular progress that was to follow. In July, France followed suit with deliveries of its own SCALP cruise missiles. This dramatically enhanced Ukraine’s ability to strike targets in Crimea.

During the second half of the year, Ukraine bombed an array of Russian warships, logistics hubs, air defense systems, and command centers throughout the occupied peninsula. Highlights included a series of attacks in September that seriously damaged a Russian warship and submarine along with the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet itself.

At sea, Ukraine deployed domestically produced naval drones to great effect, striking Russian shipping in Crimea and across the northern Black Sea. In August 2023, Ukraine signaled the range of its naval drone fleet with successful attacks on a Russian warship and oil tanker close to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, which serves as a major hub for Russian energy exports.

This campaign of missile and drone attacks eventually forced Russia’s Black Sea Fleet commanders to acknowledge that their position was no longer tenable. By early October, Russia had reportedly withdrawn the bulk of its remaining warships and submarines from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

Russia’s naval retreat allowed Ukraine to end the blockade of the country’s seaports and resume merchant shipping. An earlier grain agreement brokered by the UN in July 2022 had made it possible for Ukraine to export some agricultural produce, but these shipments were on unfavorable terms and subject to Russian interference. When Putin announced Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative in summer 2023 and threatened to target any ships sailing for Ukrainian ports, Ukraine felt confident enough to defy the Kremlin and declare a new “humanitarian corridor” for cargo vessels.

This new corridor has thrived, with food exports in December 2023 already surpassing the maximum monthly volume achieved during the UN-backed grain deal. The renewal of maritime trade has provided Ukraine with a vital economic lifeline and contributed to last year’s impressive GDP growth of approximately five percent.

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Ukraine’s remarkable gains in the Black Sea arena highlight what can be achieved when the country’s partners overcome their escalation phobia and provide Ukrainian commanders with sufficient weapons without imposing artificial restrictions on their use.

Ever since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion, Western leaders have withheld key categories of weapons while limiting Ukraine’s ability to strike back at Russia due to concerns over Moscow’s possible response. This self-defeating approach was also initially applied to Crimea, even though the Russian-occupied peninsula is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently highlighted the damage done by the West’s obvious fear of escalation. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskyy recounted how Ukrainian officials constantly heard the same “don’t escalate” mantra from the country’s allies. “Every “don’t escalate” to us, sounded like “you will prevail” to Putin,” he noted. “Nothing has harmed our coalition more than this concept.”

There is no question that Putin has sought to exploit the West’s evident timidity. Throughout the invasion, he has employed threats and bluster to decrease the flow of weapons to Ukraine and determine where Ukraine can and cannot attack. Putin’s most powerful tool in this regard has been nuclear blackmail. On numerous occasions, he has hinted at a nuclear response if territory he regards as Russian is targeted. “I’m not bluffing,” he warned in September 2022.

While Western leaders have proven highly susceptible to Russian saber-rattling, Ukrainians have had no such qualms about calling Putin’s bluff and have done so repeatedly. On each occasion, it has soon become clear that the Russian dictator’s threats are about as credible as his promises.

Despite increasingly bold Ukrainian attacks on Crimean targets, Putin has failed to escalate in any meaningful way. Instead, when confronted by unfavorable new military realities in the Black Sea, the Russian fleet quietly withdrew. This makes a complete mockery of the crippling hesitancy displayed by much of the democratic world.

Ukraine’s strategic success in the Black Sea offers a number of important lessons for the future conduct of the war. It underlines the Ukrainian military’s ability to seamlessly integrate the latest Western weapons systems into their own offensive operations, while also confirming Russia’s inability to defend itself against this enhanced Ukrainian firepower.

By combining a limited number of cruise missiles provided by Britain and France with its own expanding drone capabilities, Ukraine has been able to destroy around 20 percent of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and force the remaining warships to retreat. Additional weapons supplies could have a similarly profound impact on the battlefields of mainland Ukraine.

Perhaps most of all, Ukraine’s progress at sea confirms the emptiness of Russian threats and the utter folly of the West’s emphasis on avoiding escalation at all costs. Kremlin officials employ threatening language because they believe the West lacks resolve. So far, they have been proved correct.

For almost two years, Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Russia. They have denied Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war for fear of provoking Putin. This disastrous approach has merely served to prolong hostilities and embolden the Kremlin. It should now be painfully clear that nothing is more likely to provoke Russian aggression than continued Western weakness.

In 2024, Ukraine’s partners must draw the logical conclusions from developments in the Black Sea and apply them to create a war-winning strategy. This means abandoning their own self-imposed red lines and finally providing Ukraine with the tools to finish the job. Western fear of Russian escalation is Putin’s secret weapon. It is high time he was disarmed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Co-chairs: The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD,
& The Hon. Deborah Lee James

Commission staff: Kathryn Levantovscaia, Mark J. Massa, Delharty M. Manson II, and Jacob Mezey

Commissioners

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 27th Secretary of Defense; Co-Chair, Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption
The Hon. Deborah Lee James, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 23rd Secretary of the Air Force; Co-Chair, Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption
Ambassador Barbara Barrett, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 25th Secretary of the Air Force
General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.), Board Director, Atlantic Council; 8th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Frank A. Finelli, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
The Hon. Michèle Flournoy, Co-founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors; Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, US Department of Defense
Scott Frederick, Managing Partner, Sands Capital
The Hon. James “Hondo” Geurts, Distinguished Fellow, Business Executives for National Security; Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, US Department of Defense
Peter Levine, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Defense Analyses; Former Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, US Department of Defense
The Hon. Ellen M. Lord, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, US Department of Defense
Major General Arnold L. Punaro, USMC (ret.), CEO, The Punaro Group; Member, Advisory Council, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Nick Sinai, Senior Advisor, Insight Partners; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Josh Wolfe, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Lux Capital
The Hon. Robert O. Work, Senior Counselor for Defense and Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security, Center for a New American Security; 32nd US Deputy Secretary of Defense

Industry commissioners

Steven Escaravage, Executive Vice President and AI Lead, Booz Allen Hamilton
Wendy R. Anderson, Senior Vice President, Palantir Technologies
Prashant Bhuyan, Founder and CEO, Accrete AI
Mark Brunner, President, Primer Federal, Primer AI
Adam Hammer, Counselor, Schmidt Futures
Chris Lynch, CEO, Rebellion Defense
Michael Niggel, CEO, ACT1 Federal
Doug Philippone, Co-founder, Snowpoint Ventures

Former Industry commissioners

Caitlin Dohrman, Former President, US Defense and National Security, Improbable
Jim Gill, Former Chief Operating Officer, Accrete AI
Sean Gourley, Founder and Former Chief Executive Officer, Primer AI
Ahmed Humayun, Former Head of Federal Growth, Applied Intuition
Mara Motherway, Former Senior Vice President, Peraton; former chief growth officer, Epirus

Introduction

Foreword

Overview

Recommendations:

Introduce a new capability portfolio model
Consolidate program elements
Reset reprogramming authorities
Modernize DoD to align with the 21st century industrial base
Strengthen alignment of capital markets to defense outcomes
Incentivize tech companies to do business with DoD
Modernize budget documents
Establish bridge fund for successfully demonstrated technologies
Scale the Space Development Agency model
Modernize DoD’s requirements system

Vignettes:

Leveraging operational innovation and experimentation to demonstrate the value of commercial capabilities to meet operational needs
Purposeful experimentation and scaling SBIRs for more rapid and well aligned tech adoption
Tying experimentation to acquisition outcomes and leveraging DIU commercial landscape monitoring
Pivoting to modern IT capability portfolio management
Modernizing capability requirements
Communicating demand signal to leverage commercial sector innovation and adopt private sector best practices
Leveraging warfighting insights and commercial product vision to develop new innovative products
Incorporating robust user feedback with government and private seed funding to deliver unique commercial capability

* Eric Lofgren served as a project author until February 2023, when he transitioned to a position in government service. All of his contributions were made before his transition to that role.

Introduction

As the United States addresses the rise of competing powers on the global stage, it must confront the acute threat posed by Russia and the longer-term one presented by China. With its military modernization progress, advanced offensive cyber capabilities, hybrid-warfare strategies, and aggressive territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe, Russia poses a considerable threat to democratic institutions and Western norms. Meanwhile, China has built the world’s largest military and grown into an economic powerhouse, igniting tension in disputed regional territories and expanding its geopolitical influence far beyond the Indo-Pacific. For the first time in history, the United States is faced with two revisionist powers armed with nuclear capabilities and detrimental territorial ambitions. This new age has amplified the need for enhanced deterrence and defensive measures, particularly in the case of Taiwan. Unfortunately, the United States’ defense acquisition process is plagued with lengthy timelines and inefficiencies, underscoring the urgent need for a fundamental shift in how the Department of Defense (DoD) approaches the adoption and integration of new technology.

Historically, US advancements in defense technology have been spurred by international conflict or heavy government research and development (R&D). Outpacing adversaries was not as much an ambition as it was critical for the nation’s security. The Cold War served as a catalyst for one of the most innovative periods in US history, a time when US defense capabilities were driven by the military, federally funded research organizations, and traditional defense and aerospace industries. Today, much of that innovation is found in commercial dual-use technology and advancements made by smaller nontraditional companies in the private sector. Often, these advancements include software-driven solutions that are smaller in scale, yet highly attritable. Nontraditional companies have become key players in the defense market due to their ability to adapt quickly to evolving technological and threat landscapes. While US companies continue to demonstrate technological prowess, this rate of innovation serves little use in deterring conflict unless the DoD is able to procure and get new technology into the hands of warfighters at a faster pace.

The current US defense acquisition system was not designed to keep pace with today’s rapid rate of innovation. Despite the DoD’s recognition of these emergent dual-use technologies, lengthy budget timelines, inflexible procurement options, and outdated internal procedures create unnecessary barriers between the DoD and nontraditional companies seeking collaboration. Such limitations disincentivize smaller firms from engaging with military projects due to survival concerns in commercial markets; the resulting frustration often compels those that engage to drop out.

In an attempt to reconcile the disconnect between evolving operational needs and limitations posed by dated acquisition processes, the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense Program established its Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption. Launched in 2022, the primary objective behind this commission was to take the DoD’s acquisition process, and Congress’ role in that system, out of the Cold War era. The commission sought actionable recommendations that would advance DoD’s adoption of innovative technologies and ability to rapidly field dual-use capabilities.

The commissioners and authors highlighted a number of challenges that the DoD faces. They identified an outdated R&D model that struggles to adopt and apply leading commercial innovations to weapon systems as one of these challenges. They also brought the long timeline and inflexible execution into focus, emphasizing their impact on the DoD’s ability to respond to dynamic threats and harness the latest technology. Addressing the critical role of gatekeeping state-of-the-art technology from the warfighter, the commission tackled issues such as a shrinking US defense industrial base, a limited number of prototypes advancing from research to production contracts, and a bureaucracy seemingly designed to stifle speed and innovation. Additionally, the commission assessed the impact of an insufficient understanding of emerging technology by those generating requirements, in addition to program-centric acquisition and cumbersome reporting processes.

The commission interviewed more than sixty key stakeholders across the DoD, industry, and Congress to support extensive research and deliberations. This effort produced ten recommendations to overcome key challenges, which are summarized below.

(1) Empower and resource five program executive offices (PEOs) through a new capability portfolio model, authorized by Congress and implemented by the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment USD (A&S). This approach would break down barriers between the DoD and nontraditional companies seeking collaboration, allowing for faster procurement and integration of innovative technologies into military operations.

(2) Consolidate program elements and budget line items to simplify budget submissions and allow for greater flexibility in responding to changing warfighter needs, which would encourage smaller firms to engage with DoD without jeopardizing their commercial viability.

(3) Congressional appropriations committees should modify reprogramming authorities in their fiscal year (FY) 2024 joint explanatory statements to reflect historical norms, which entails maintaining the existing reprogramming thresholds, but shift from the requirement of prior approval to congressional notification with a thirty-day timeframe for briefing or rejection.

(4) Congress should elevate the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to report directly to the deputy secretary of defense and provide it with adequate resources within six months of enactment. This recommendation offers myriad suggested actions and authorities the DIU should be empowered to take, including engaging start-ups, nontraditional vendors, and capital market players to align capability requirements with the twenty-first-century industrial base, and modernize guidance and training for commercial acquisition.

(5) Strengthen existing capital market programs and create new pathways for mission-critical technologies by broadening programs for capital market-backed companies, leveraging capital market funding for defense innovation, and enhancing the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants program to increase competition and widen the aperture of firms competing for SBIR grants.

(6) Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and service acquisition executives (SAEs) should increase incentives and reduce barriers for leading technology companies to do business with the DoD by September 2024 by rebalancing defense budgets, modernizing access to capital markets, raising cost-accounting standards thresholds, improving online contract opportunities platforms, streamlining security-clearances processes, assigning visible leaders for various programs to champion adoption and simplify processes, mapping and improving acquisition processes for successful research and prototypes, and establishing a working group with primes to incentivize leveraging technology start-up companies.

(7) The under secretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer of the DoD (USD (C)/CFO) should propose a streamlined budget-justification format for the president’s FY 2026 budget request, focusing on concise program overviews.

(8) Allocate $250 million of the DoD’s FY 2024 budget to programs that address challenges in scaling and accelerating successful demonstrations of operationally relevant technologies. Shortening the lag time for successful vendors to receive funding would incentivize new companies to work with the DoD, ultimately increasing the number of technologies transitioned at scale to the warfighter.

(9) Existing organizations should adopt the Space Development Agency (SDA) model, which provides a framework for preemptive disruption within the Space Force, focusing on rapidly fielding and scaling modern technologies.

(10) The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS) and services should establish a team by September 2024 to modernize the DoD’s requirements processes, which includes designing a new framework, enabling dynamic requirements systems, streamlining documents, integrating threat and technology assessments, collaborating with industry experts, improving training for requirements managers, and publishing new policies online.

If implemented in their entirety, these recommendations would go a long way toward allowing the United States to swiftly deploy cutting-edge technology at scale and have the potential to resolve near-term deterrence threats. Embracing the private sector’s rapid innovation, modernizing acquisition and budgeting processes, and fostering greater collaboration with nontraditional companies would allow the United States to swiftly adopt and deploy cutting-edge technology. As a result, the United States would amplify its leadership in defense innovation, thereby addressing immediate deterrence gaps and ensuring a robust posture against evolving threats in today’s era of strategic competition. As of November 2023, six of the commission’s ten recommendations have been implemented fully or in part by the DoD or Congress.

Foreword

The US Department of Defense (DoD) needs to accelerate the adoption of cutting-edge technology from the leading edge of the commercial and defense sectors. Doing so will enable the Pentagon to deliver high-impact operational solutions to the Warfighter in a much timelier manner. That is why we are co-chairing the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, which has released this interim report.

In our time serving in the Defense Department, we have found that the United States does not have an innovation problem, but rather an innovation adoption problem. That is to say, our Nation leads in many emerging technologies relevant to defense and security—from artificial intelligence and directed energy to quantum information technology and beyond. But the DoD struggles to identify, adopt, integrate, and field these technologies into military applications.

The persistence of this challenge is not for lack of trying. The Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office has cut through bureaucratic constraints to accelerate even the most complicated major acquisitions. The Defense Innovation Unit stands out for expanding the range of firms involved in innovation for national security purposes. Army Futures Command has accelerated modernization in ground forces through its cross-functional team model. The new Office of Strategic Capital has a promising new approach to engaging capital markets in support of national security goals.

But the growing national security challenges facing our country and the threat they pose to the rules-based international order require actionable reform across the DoD. We and a group of distinguished Commissioners, with decades of service between us in government, the private sector, and capital markets, believe that time is running out to do so. The United States faces simultaneous competition with two nuclear-armed, autocratic great-power rivals. Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and China’s revanchism not only spur urgent geopolitical considerations, but also cast into sharp relief the US industrial base’s ability to produce and field innovative technologies at scale.

To address the DoD’s innovation adoption challenge in light of the urgency of the geopolitical environment we face, this interim report advances ten policy recommendations for Congress and the Pentagon, focusing on the three key areas of reforming acquisition; overcoming barriers to innovation; and revising specific Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution structures.

To that end, the DoD should adapt the way it conducts its acquisition programs to provide additional flexibility in the year of execution, and Congress can authorize that flexibility. We recommend that five DoD program executive offices be empowered to operate in a portfolio model so that they can more easily shift funding among possible products that meet their mission needs. Congress should appropriate money to DoD with fewer but larger discrete budget line items and reset reprogramming authorities so that acquisition professionals have greater flexibility.

To better leverage innovation in the commercial sector, Congress should restore at least the traditional ratio of procurement funding to other defense spending, and the DoD should more intentionally engage a much broader innovation base. Allocating a higher percentage of the DoD’s budget to procurement will clearly signal a larger market to nontraditional defense firms.

Additionally, the deputy secretary of defense, with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as a direct report, should take a leadership role in aligning and harnessing stakeholders within the Pentagon and the existing defense industrial base for the twenty-first century. The DIU should be resourced and empowered to broaden the defense ecosystem by robustly engaging start-ups, nontraditional vendors, and capital market players.

The DoD must develop approaches to more rapidly validate its needs for commercial capabilities, rather than waiting years after identifying a key capability to write a requirement and submit a budget request. The DoD should both reform the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) to operate more swiftly and develop a military need validation system outside of JCIDS for mature commercial capabilities. Congress and the DoD should expand both eligibility for, and the award size of, Small Business Innovation Research grants. To provide additional mechanisms for rapidly matching key capabilities with funding, they should also provide funds to procure capabilities successfully demonstrated in exercises.

As the 2022 National Security Strategy states, we are living through a “decisive decade,” a sentiment shared by the previous administration as well. Congress and the DoD must seize this opportunity to enact near-term changes that will help get our service members the capabilities they need to defend our country and its interests.

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD

27th US Secretary of Defense

The Hon. Deborah Lee James

23rd US Secretary of the Air Force

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Overview

Mission statement

Accelerate the DoD’s ability to adopt cutting-edge technology from commercial and defense sectors and deliver high-impact operational solutions to the Warfighters.

Enterprise challenges

The DoD faces the following enterprise challenges in adopting defense innovations:

1. Outdated R&D model

The DoD’s requirements and acquisition processes were designed for a time when the DoD was the largest funder of global research and development (R&D). By 2020, however, the federal government’s share of national R&D had fallen below 20 percent, and yet its processes have not adapted to this new leader-to-follower reality. Today, while the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), national and service laboratories, and universities continue to innovate, many of the most critical technologies are driven by the commercial sector. The DoD struggles to adopt commercial technology at a relevant speed. Innovations from noncommercial R&D organizations are infrequently tied to a commercialization and adoption pipeline. Traditional prime contractors orient their independent R&D (IRAD) toward near-term defense requirements that are prescriptive relative to solutions rather than broadly defining warfighter gaps that allow applications of advanced technologies. As a result, the DoD is unable to effectively apply leading technologies to its weapon systems.

2. Long timelines and inflexible execution

Too often, the DoD delivers systems to meet requirements defined more than a decade earlier. It is difficult to insert new technology to effectively respond to dynamic adversary threats, technological opportunities, advances in warfighting concepts, or macroeconomic and supply-chain disruptions, especially within fiscal years. Hardware-centric models ineffectively integrate rapid software updates.

3. Fewer companies providing defense solutions

The DoD’s industrial base has shrunk by 40 percent over the past decade, due to both consolidation and exit. This decline stems from multiple causes, including a pivot to fewer more-complex major systems, long timelines, complex regulations, and the high compliance cost of doing business with the DoD. Many start-up, commercial, and international businesses are unable or unwilling to enter the DoD ecosystem. As a result, reduced competitive pressure has increased costs and decreased adoption of innovation.

4. Valleys of death

The DoD spends billions annually on research and prototypes, yet only a small percentage transitions to production contracts with revenue to sustain operations and scale output. Consequently, one must question why the DoD continues to fund so many defense research organizations when most technology innovation comes from the commercial sector. Long timelines for contracts and funding, program constraints, and a disconnected ecosystem are among the transition challenges for companies that have developed viable products or services.

5. Hamstrung workforce

The DoD acquisition workforce is subject to a bureaucratic culture of excessive compliance and oversight, a challenging environment for innovation. Creative problem-solving and measured risk-taking are not often rewarded, and too few individuals with an industry background agree to take senior leadership roles at the DoD.

6. Program-centric acquisition

Defining requirements, securing budgets, and acquiring capabilities are done for hundreds of individual programs. The DoD invests a significant percentage of its funds in complex major systems for which prime contractors offer closed, propriety solutions. This impedes interoperability and responsiveness to changes in operations, threats, and technologies. Open-system architectures with well-defined interface control documents are rarely adopted, which constrains the ability to insert innovative technology.

7. Cumbersome reporting from DoD to Congress

Budget justification documents run dozens of volumes and tens of thousands of pages. Document format, detail, and supporting information is inconsistent among military services and agencies. This impedes Congress’s ability to understand program objectives in a timely manner. In turn, Congress does not trust that delegated decisions will consistently result in more rapid technology adoption.

8. Limited understanding of emerging technology

The DoD struggles to effectively leverage critical emerging technologies (like biotechnology and quantum information technology) due to a lack of understanding of their state-of-the-art applications among those who generate requirements and draft requests for proposals. As these technologies mature, the DoD is challenged to have meaningful conversations about how to adopt, leverage, and defend against these technologies.

Top recommendations

To address these challenges, the Commission recommends that DoD leaders, congressional defense committees, and other executive branch agencies take the following ten high-priority actions to accelerate DoD innovation adoption:

Introduce a new capability portfolio model
Consolidate program elements
Reset reprogramming authorities
Modernize the DoD to align with the twenty-first century industrial base
Strengthen alignment of capital markets to defense outcomes
Incentivize tech companies to do business with the DoD
Modernize budget documents
Establish bridge fund for successfully demonstrated technologies
Scale the Space Development Agency model
Modernize the DoD’s requirements system

Recommendation 1: The DoD and Congress empower and resource five Program Executive Officers (PEOs) to operate via a new capability portfolio model in 2024

Addresses challenges 2, 4, and 6.

Congress authorizes in the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and/or the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)) implements via a memo empowering five PEO portfolios to operate via a new capability portfolio model. Component acquisition executives from the Departments of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and a defense agency will each select a PEO portfolio.
Service requirements organizations capture portfolio requirements in a concise, high-level document that provides overarching, joint, enduring capability needs and key mission impact measures that focus on warfighter-informed needs and mission outcomes. The Joint Staff validates the portfolio requirements within thirty days. The portfolio requirements document enables leaner program requirements and shapes future research and prototypes.
Selected PEOs negotiate with congressional defense appropriations staff the consolidation of at least 20 percent of the smallest budget line items within their portfolios. This enables reprogramming flexibility to meet evolving, warfighter-informed requirements. These merged budget accounts must provide Congress with sufficient visibility of major elements within each.
Selected PEOs develop a set of portfolio strategies, processes, road maps, contracts, infrastructure, and architectures to enable programs to leverage for greater speed and success. Portfolio contracting strategies will look beyond individual contracts or programs to promote a robust industrial base by enabling continuous competition, iterative development, supply chain risk mitigation, greater participation of nontraditional companies, commercial service acquisition, and economies of scale.
Selected PEOs may lay out plans to decompose large programs into modular acquisitions; leverage common platforms, components, and services; and maximize use of commercial solutions and DoD research. Portfolios will scale and align prototyping, experimentation, and testing infrastructure. They will invest in a common suite of engineering tools, platforms, and strategies to enable interoperability, cybersecurity, and resiliency.
PEOs require portfolio leaders to actively engage the DoD’s R&D community, industry, and academia to communicate joint-warfighter portfolio needs and business opportunities, scout technologies, engage companies, and drive novel solutions to address portfolio needs.
Congress appropriates at least $20 million to each portfolio per year for three years to enable PEOs to implement the new model with appropriate staff, analytic tools, and strategies. The five PEOs work out the details for others to adopt. In time, the department will realize savings and return on investment through greater program efficiencies and mission impact.
PEOs provide the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and Congress a short annual report to share insight into the new portfolio model progress, including issues, successes, and inputs to scale adoption.
Success measure: By the end of 2023, five PEO portfolios are identified to operate via the new portfolio model. By the end of 2024, these portfolios begin operating with clear direction, leadership support, and initial implementation plans.
Notional example: A command-and-control PEO shapes a portfolio strategy that invests in a software factory and enterprise services as a common infrastructure, with smaller programs tapping a diverse vendor base to regularly and iteratively deliver a suite of applications that work together seamlessly.

Recommendation 2: Acquisition executives propose consolidated program elements to congressional staff and negotiate what can be included in the FY 2024 Appropriations Act joint explanatory statement

Addresses challenges 2, 6, and 7.

The deputy secretary of defense (DepSecDef) directs acquisition executives to propose a list of program elements (PEs) and budget line items (BLIs) to consolidate. This will simplify budget submissions and enable greater flexibility within the year of execution to respond to rapid changes in warfighter needs and technology advancement within capability or mission portfolios.
- Determine criteria for consolidation, such as BLIs and PEs under $20 million, software-defined technologies, and supply chain-affected efforts.
- Determine constructs for consolidation, such as capability areas, mission areas, and organizational alignment.
Reduce BLI and PE count from more than 1,700 today in the investment accounts by at least 200 BLI and PEs each year, starting with the FY 2024 markup, for three years to enable cost-schedule-performance trade-offs, including the prototyping and fielding of novel systems that meet defined capability or mission areas.
Allow PEOs, warfighters, and other DoD stakeholders to provide input to acquisition executives. Senior leadership in the resourcing process should propose the items to be consolidated and negotiate with congressional staff in advance of FY 2024 appropriations.
Identify line items that enable opportunistic efforts to insert technologies into existing weapons programs without requiring a new start. Identify best practices for broadly justifying activities within a capability set.

Success measure: The number of BLIs in the investment accounts is reduced by at least 200 in time for the passage of regular appropriations in FY 2024.

Notional example: A PEO identifies a novel technology from DARPA or industry to integrate into one of its programs to improve performance and accelerate capability delivery. With investment funds spread across fewer budget accounts, the PEO is able to reprogram funds from a lower-priority development within the year of execution.

Recommendation 3: Congressional appropriations committees reset reprogramming authorities to historical norms in their FY 2024 joint explanatory statements

Addresses challenges 2 and 7.

Appropriations committees write into FY 2024 joint explanatory statements the following changes:
- Current reprogramming thresholds will be maintained, but above-threshold actions will revert from congressional prior approval to the historical norm of congressional notification with a thirty-day window for briefing or rejection. This streamlines the process and enables greater reprogramming while still providing Congress “veto authority” to block reprogramming actions they oppose. Prior approval will remain in place for items omitted, deleted, or specifically reduced; general transfer authorities; or above threshold new starts.
An alternative approach: Raise reprogramming thresholds from the lesser of $10 million or 20 percent to at least $40 million for Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $100 million for procurement appropriation titles. Historical norms for reprogramming thresholds were $15 million for RDT&E and $40 million for procurement yet were progressively lowered to this historically low threshold. This change would revert thresholds to account for decades of inflation.
- Letter notifications for new starts will be “for the fiscal year,” not “for the entire effort.” This enables programs greater flexibility to start small programs while Congress retains the right to veto any new starts it opposes.

Success measure: Recommended language is included in the FY 2024 Appropriations Act joint explanatory statement by the time regular appropriations are passed.

Notional example: An acquisition program is “early to need” for procurement funds due to delays in finalizing development. Another program desperately seeks additional funds to accelerate and scale production of its weapon system. Service leadership decides to reprogram $50M in procurement funds between the programs to optimize investments.

Recommendation 4: Congress directs the DoD to elevate the DIU to a direct report to DepSecDef and resource it effectively to align and harness the nontraditional defense industrial base for the twenty-first century no later than six months of the enactment of this act

Addresses challenges 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8.

Re-align DIU as a direct report to DepSecDef with the necessary staffing and resources to engage start-ups, nontraditional vendors, and capital market players in aligning capability requirements to harness solutions from the twenty-first-century industrial base per the 2022 National Defense Strategy.
- DIU’s expanded role should complement existing efforts in USD(R&E) and USD(A&S) in terms of traditional industrial policy and technology scouting, respectively, by better connecting the nontraditional industry and its resources, intelligence, and technologies to the needs of the warfighter.
  - DIU, USD(R&E), USD(A&S), and service partners should regularly integrate their efforts, in communicating to the industrial base the department’s needs, planned investments, and business opportunities. In addition, they should share among themselves what is being discovered in industry that aligns with the department’s missions.
  - In its expanded role, DIU should be resourced to regularly engage with acquisition organizations (PEOs, program offices), science and technology (S&T) organizations (labs, DARPA), and combatant commands to share the insights it gets from nontraditional industry players throughout the DoD. Additionally, DIU will communicate back to industry where it can align its technologies to the needs of the warfighter as communicated by acquisition organizations and combatant commands.
  - Prioritization for expanded staffing for DIU should be for new billets from the services over funding for contractors. The billets would be priority assignments, selected from relevant PEOs and service acquisition executives (SAEs).
  - DIU should track the intelligence, insights, and inputs it receives from industry trade associations, venture capitalists (VCs), private equity firms, primes, nontraditional defense companies (NDCs), Other Transaction (OT) Consortia, and innovation hubs. This information should be interoperable with USD(R&E)’s existing repository of research and intelligence for the department’s needs.
- DIU, USD(A&S), and SAEs charter a team, including joint warfighter perspectives, to streamline processes, reviews, and documents for acquiring commercial solutions. The team will reinforce “buy before build” commercial practices in the early phases of programs by baking it into acquisition strategy templates and program reviews. It will also collaborate with defense industry, capital markets, and Congress to develop a broader set of rapid funding tools and approaches to demand signals consistent with the speed of commercial innovation cycles. It will publish an initial commercial pathway or guide by December 2023, with a comprehensive version in 2024.
  - Joint Staff and service requirements organizations develop a rapid “military need validation” process, involving feedback from the warfighter, for commercial solutions in lieu of traditional Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) requirements documents. This new process will enable hundreds or even thousands of commercial solutions to be validated by empowered, distributed officials, and not subject to the JCIDS process managed by the Joint Staff and the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC).
  - The Defense Acquisition University and related organizations should modernize guidance and training for commercial acquisition, to include:
    - Collaborating with industry, traditional and otherwise, in the early phases of an acquisition program to inform concepts, alternatives, and designs. The focus should be on feeding into mission objectives, not market research for system specifications.
      - Contracting strategies focused on commercial solutions (e.g., Commercial Solutions Openings, Other Transactions, Federal Acquisition Regulation Parts 12 and 13).
      - Testing, experimentation, exercises, rapid deliveries, and iteration.
      - Scaling programs like DIU’s Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program.

Success measures: Higher number of DIU projects that transition to a program of record; increased number of vendors entering the federal market and competing for contracts; better alignment of capital market investment and lending to DoD missions; alignment of DoD R&D and prime IRAD funds to help a wider number of entrants across the Valley of Death; increased transparency with the industrial base on DoD’s priorities; a commercial pathway, guidance, and training enabling workforce to rapidly and successfully acquire commercial solutions; increased transparency and collaboration within the department on tech-related initiatives and intelligence; resources saved and efficiencies gained from central repository information from traditional and nontraditional industrial base like market intelligence, technology landscape analysis and due diligence on vendors.

Notional example: Expanded engagement with nontraditional industrial base helps DIU identify the commercial sector’s leader in autonomous software for ground vehicles and through the streamlined, well-defined process for rapid acquisition, the Army begins adopting it across its fleet of logistics vehicles on CONUS bases.

In their quarterly engagement, the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) talks to DIU about its desire to procure better mission planning tools at the edge. DIU identifies and provides three viable commercial options for demonstrations. Before presenting them to MCWL, DIU leverages VC firm relationships to get existing due diligence on the potential vendors and discovers one of them draws components of its chips from China. DIU finds an alternative.

In its engagements with capital market players, DIU discovers there are several critical bottlenecks in the quantum computing supply chain due to either a severe lack of redundancy or routing through adversary nations. DIU flags this to R&E, the Office of Strategic Capital, and A&S Industrial Policy to determine how to address this. As part of this, DIU and OSC engage with capital market players to inform them this is now a department priority, helping to direct capital market funding toward these enabling technologies critical to the US broader tech competition vis-à-vis China.

Recommendation 5: Strengthen existing capital market programs and create new pathways for mission-critical technologies

Addresses challenges 1, 3, 4, and 8.

US capital markets represent a critical yet underutilized strategic advantage for the DoD. To better leverage vast capital market resources for defense innovation and mission outcomes, the DoD should broaden programs through which capital market-backed companies can participate and create new pathways for DoD program offices to leverage capital market funding for mission-critical technologies.

Congress directs in legislation the Small Business Agency (SBA), in coordination with the General Services Administration (GSA), to enhance the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants program no later than six months after enactment.

To better scale SBIRs, the SBA should:

Generate direct to Phase III SBIR grants in which early successful performers in Phase I can be fast-tracked to more-flexible contract vehicles, for which performers have exemptions from SBA size standards for procurement; no limits on dollar size of procurement; the right to receive sole-source funding agreements; and the ability to pursue flexible ways to add value to an end user, whether that be research, R&D, services, products, production, or any combination thereof.
Direct the SBIR offices of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to pilot a Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) program to help bridge the Valley of Death between Phase II and Phase III SBIR grants, no later than twelve months after designated. Service pilots would replicate the STRATFI program in that SBIR funding ($15 million) would receive matched funding from customers ($15 million) and private funding (up to $30 million).

To increase competition and widen the aperture of firms competing for SBIR grants, the SBA should:

Remove the barrier preventing companies with more than 50 percent backing by VCs or other capital market players to compete for SBIR grants. Small businesses often rely on VC funding to cover the costs of operating as they work to commercialize their products and generate sufficient revenue to sustain their business. This is particularly true in the case of software development, where highly skilled software engineers are the single most expensive operating cost. Placing strict limitations on the ability of these small businesses to compete for SBIR grants is contrary to the SBIR program goal of supporting scientific excellence and technological innovation.
Remove the barrier preventing companies that meet the requirements of being a small business, but are publicly traded, to compete for SBIR grants. Small, high-tech R&D firms go public to continue their ability to raise funds for their capital-intensive technologies. By disallowing them from competing for SBIR grants, the DoD is limiting technology competition among some of the most technology-proficient corners of the industrial base.

To drive deep tech adoption, OSC should develop tools for leveraging external capital market funding for pilot projects to service R&D organizations in FY 2024, with a formalization plan in conjunction with the president’s FY 2025 budget request.

OSC to be given expanded authorities to access capital markets to develop revenue, investment, and credit approaches for defense programs contracting with small-, mid-, and large-cap companies. As an initial step, direct $15 million of external capital market funding to the R&D organization of each military branch to pilot projects that identify two
novel use cases in one or more of R&E’s deep-tech priority areas of quantum technology, biotechnology, or advanced materials that could be leveraged to achieve service-specific missions. The period of performance would be eighteen months. Service end users would provide matched funding of up to 25 percent of total outside funding to pilot these projects.
This would assist in directing capital market funding to the DoD’s mission, providing additional R&D funding and incentives for deep-tech companies to commercialize their technologies, and creating optimization loops that connect technology to warfighter use cases that can help turn basic research into relevant products and services. Lastly, exposure to deep-tech applications would allow service end users to better understand emerging technologies’ applications to future defense requirements. This will help accelerate the well-aligned adoption of these capabilities to meet services’ unique missions at the speed of relevance.
R&D leads will report to DIU’s director and USD(R&E) no more than 180 days past the period of performance on the pilot’s utility, lessons learned, and challenges DoD would face if technology were to be adopted at scale.

Success measures: Meaningful increase in capital market funding for defense-related companies; increased number of companies crossing Valley of Death and program offices integrating commercially developed technology to speed innovation milestones; increased number of production contracts from nontraditional vendors, with more vendors competing for each contract; increased touchpoints between cutting-edge tech and the warfighter/end users; and the identification of specific tech adoption challenges that can be addressed ahead of requirements process for more-seamless tech adoption and integration.

Notional examples: 1) A majority VC-backed company demonstrates a novel capability that provides an advantage over a near-peer adversary and is fast-tracked to SBIR Phase III, through which the firm begins production at scale and crosses the Valley of Death. 2) A publicly traded deep-tech company that qualifies as a small business, now allowed to compete for SBIR grants, begins to develop the foundation of a quantum network for the US military. 3) The army discovers through a biotech pilot project that an advanced material it hoped to put into a program of record does not provide meaningful benefit for the cost and pursues another alternative. 4) The navy uses its OSC pilot to buy hours of time on a quantum computer provided over the cloud, through which the navy discovers the quantum computer’s utility in improving logistics and maintenance. However, the navy does not know how to manage the data being generated and needs an extra data scientist to oversee the process. The navy begins to generate a data governance process, forms a new billet to manage it, and begins determining the best acquisition pathway in anticipation of purchasing quantum computing as a service.

Recommendation 6: Congress, OSD, and SAEs increase incentives and reduce barriers for leading technology companies to do business with the DoD by September 2024

Addresses challenges 1 and 3.

Increase incentives

Production Contracts. The DoD and Congress in future defense budgets rebalance the ratio of RDT&E and Procurement funding to historical norms over the past thirty years. From 1990 to 2019, the ratio was 39 percent to 61 percent, respectively. This would provide more than $20 billion in additional procurement funds to acquire production quantities faster, leverage commercial R&D, and fuel a broader market for leading technology firms. Increasing production and lowering barriers to entry will attract venture capital firms and bring private research and development funding to the defense market. As most of USD(R&E)’s fourteen critical technologies are commercially driven, this rebalance would enable faster fielding of warfighter priorities.
Set Precedent. USD(A&S) and SAEs report the number of large contracts (i.e., more than $50 million) awarded to start-ups and NDCs annually to measure and convey the trends of the DoD investing in these companies beyond small SBIR awards.
Innovation Funds. USD(R&E) and services include start-ups and NDCs as part of selection criteria for congressionally directed innovation funds.
Show Support. USD(A&S) and SAEs scale the direction, goals, and guidance for working with small and disadvantaged businesses to include technology start-ups and NDCs. Include NDCs as part of the small-business integration working group being established for FY23 NDAA Section 874.
Broaden Access to Capital Markets. Congress and USD(A&S) modernize the use of Defense Production Act Title III and credit loan authorities available to other agencies and departments to dynamically access capital, embrace commercial terms, and strengthen the domestic industrial base capabilities, based on lessons learned from COVID and the war in Ukraine. This use could include purchase commitments and loan guarantees, similar to how the Export-Import Bank works with US companies overseas, to increase incentives and reduce risk for companies seeking to scale production of critical technologies.

Decrease barriers

Congress should raise the cost accounting standards (CAS) threshold to at least $100 million; revise the commercial item exemption in 48 CFR 9903.201-1(b)(6); and make related CAS reforms as recommended by the Section 809 Panel to reduce compliance costs, which are the biggest barrier to entry in defense.
DoD, GSA, and Office of Management and Budget invest in modernizing SAM.gov and related DoD websites that publish contract opportunities to improve user design, alerts, DoD-industry collaboration, processes, and status. Many find SAM.gov onerous to use.

Fully resource and drive the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to streamline processes, increase staffing, and pursue novel approaches to reduce the large backlog of individual and facility security clearances that impose long delays on contractors to begin work or scale.
USD(A&S) and SAEs assign visible leaders for SBIR, OT (including OT Consortia), Middle Tier of Acquisitions, and Commercial Solutions Openings to champion adoption; set vision; simplify processes; curate leading strategies; and improve guidance, training, structures, and direction to continuously improve adoption. Update policies and guidelines to ensure efforts conducted under OTs count for past performance and small disadvantaged business goals to incentivize industry and government use.
USD(A&S), USD(R&E), and services establish a team to map and improve processes to scale successful research and prototypes into new or existing acquisition programs. This includes requirements, acquisition, budget, contracting, engineering, and testing, among others.
USD(A&S) and SAEs establish a working group, to include primes and NDCs, to explore how to incentivize primes to better leverage technology start-up companies. The objective is to fuel disruptive defense innovation from novel tech companies and leverage the primes to scale integration and production of weapon systems to create an enduring battlefield advantage.
Success measure: USD(A&S) reports an increase in the number of new companies in the industrial base by 5 percent, offsetting the recent trend of 5 percent decrease annually. At least ten NDCs are awarded contracts of more than $50 million that address validated defense requirements. Defense primes significantly increase partnerships, subcontracts, and acquisitions of start-ups and NDCs to integrate their technologies into weapon systems.
Notional example: A leading technology company with viable solutions for defense that historically avoided defense contracts is now receptive (with board support) to pursue contracts given the higher CAS thresholds, reduced unique compliance requirements, and improved clearance processes.

Recommendation 7: USD comptroller proposes streamlined budget justification and chief digital and artificial intelligence officer (CDAO) modernizes supporting details in congressionally accessible information system for the president’s FY 2026 budget request

Addresses challenge 7.

USD comptroller proposes a format for streamlining budget justification documents in the investment accounts, focusing on cogent six-page program overviews at the BLI/PE level (R-1 and P-1) with hyperlinks to supporting details.
- Seek implementation for the president’s FY 2026 budget request.
CDAO leads the effort to create a query tool and dashboard tied to Advana’s backend data that delivers insight down to the existing level of justification material, allowing for more frequent updates.
- This tool should be capable of replicating Financial Management Regulation Volume 2B, Chapters 4 and 5 presentations.
- Prototype early access to congressional staff with the president’s FY 2025 budget request, in addition to the traditional format.
- This tool should seek to incorporate budget execution data such as quarterly DD1416s and contract obligations as data integration improves.

Success measure: Congressional staff use the new information system for their budgetary and program analysis; staff desires expansion into other accounts, including Operations and Maintenance and Military Personnel.

Notional example: Congressional staff can find up-to-date information on DoD program activities without having DoD officials provide the information directly to a committee.

Recommendation 8: Tying experimentation to acquisition outcomes: Scaling and accelerating successful demonstrations

Addresses challenges 1, 4, and 8.

The DoD and industry invest significant time, funding, and resources to conduct operational exercises that experiment and demonstrate emerging capabilities and technologies in an operationally relevant environment. Even after a major exercise in which senior commanders agree on the success of demonstrated capabilities and demand to acquire these at scale, there is often a two- to four-year lag time for DoD to formally define requirements, secure funding, and shape acquisition and contract strategies. For example, even successful capabilities selected by USD(R&E)’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) still must go through the Program Objective Memorandum and Deputy Secretary’s Management Action Group processes to begin scaling.

Congress to pilot providing $250 million to scale operationally relevant technologies demonstrated at operational exercises that address the preeminent challenge of deterring the People’s Republic of China, such as RDER. The funds will facilitate the acceleration and scaling of novel capabilities into the hands of the warfighter at the speed of relevance, help vendors cross the Valley of Death, and incentivize new nontraditional companies to work with the DoD. This will significantly shorten the traditionally long lag times for successful vendors to receive funding while the DoD finalizes requirements, funding, and contracts. The associated funds would be particularly useful for the technology needed to integrate military forces that will revolve around digital tools and other foundational “middleware” technologies that sometimes fall in the seams of traditional major hardware-centric acquisition.

The fund should:

Be allocated in FY 2024 spending bill to specific programs or initiatives no later than 180 days from completion of the exercise on discovered solutions.
Be limited to five or fewer high-potential capabilities to ensure they are properly resourced to meaningfully scale.
Be directly allocated to an acquisition organization, such as a program executive office, to rapidly acquire capabilities that have demonstrated success in order to address priority operational risks or opportunities.
Use Defense Production Act Title III or adapt authorities available to other agencies and departments to provide credit guarantees or other funding approaches in support of technology and capability providers.
Success measures: Increased number of technologies and capabilities demonstrated successfully that are transitioned at scale to the warfighter; increased number of vendors incentivized to demonstrate at exercises.
Notional example: A company demonstrates a swarm of small undersea intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drones at the Rim of the Pacific 2024 exercise. The firm is awarded a low-rate initial production contract within sixty days and deploys its capability with the navy in 2025.

Recommendation 9: USD(A&S) and acquisition executives propose realigning existing organizations to adopt the Space Development Agency (SDA) model, and Congress grants additional enabling authorities to those organizations in FY25 NDAA

Addresses challenges 2 and 4.

USD(A&S) and SAEs charter a small team to build out a model, structure, key elements, and a framework replicating the SDA and lessons learned from rapid acquisition.
- SDA provides an early model for preemptive disruption within the Space Force. The disruptive units should focus on current technologies from the labs and industry that can be quickly fielded and scaled within existing rapid acquisition authorities. Mature defense and commercial capabilities, along with broader portfolio requirements, can shape a streamlined process. This model builds upon successful organizations like the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Big Safari, and Special Operations Command’s acquisition and SOFWERX organizations.
Service leadership identifies priority capability areas that are ripe for disruption—ones where the current operational model is outmoded for the digital age and/or where novel technologies offer radically different operational capabilities at greater speed and scale to achieve mission priorities.
Each identified service and defense agency employs an SDA model to a priority capability area and repurposes organizations, funding, and resources to implement.
- Identify the right charismatic leader who embodies these characteristics: high technical acumen, proven product manager, well-defined vision, extensive personal network in warfighting and industry communities, commitment to a five-year tenure, and an intangible “wild card” quality. Provide statutory protections to extend top cover beyond the length of time of political appointees for the new organizations to disrupt entrenched mindsets on major systems, operations, and force structures employed for decades.
DoD leaders continually discuss and iterate on the new model with key stakeholder organizations across the DoD and congressional defense committees.
Success measure: Congressional buy-in, with a small set of targeted projects identified for each organization and underway in FY 2024 to prepare for rapid scaling in FY 2025 with capabilities initially fielded by FY 2027.
Notional example: Navy leadership, in its commitment to autonomous systems, bundles PEO Unmanned and Small Combatants, Task Force 59, Unmanned Task Force, and the director of unmanned systems into a new naval autonomy organization with authorities and flexibilities similar to SDA and related rapid-innovation organizations.

Recommendation 10: Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS) and services establish a team to collaboratively modernize JCIDS and service requirements processes by September 2024

Addresses challenges 2, 4, and 5.

The DoD’s JCIDS is a complex, disjointed bureaucracy across Joint Staff and the services. The DoD requires a streamlined, tailored requirements framework and processes that iterate operational needs and threats with technology solutions, while also aligning requirements, acquisition, and budget systems.

VCJCS and services charter a team or multiple teams to modernize DoD’s requirements enterprise to include:

Design a requirements framework that better incorporates bottom-up capability requirements from the warfighter and addresses joint strategic capability concerns. It must align service/agency and JROC core processes while allowing some tailoring and flexibility.
Enable a requirements system that breaks from the mindset of locking down all requirements up front to a dynamic model that enables software-intensive commercial solutions and emerging technologies that meet changing or evolving warfighting needs to iteratively shape capability developments.
Overhaul, streamline, and tailor requirements documents based on capability size, urgency, product vs. service, and hardware vs. software. Develop new process to rapidly validate the military utility of a commercial solution instead of the traditional JCIDS.
Aggressively streamline capability requirement development, coordination, and approval timelines from operational commands, through component commands, and Joint Staff. Impose tripwires for exceeding six months for software and twelve months for hardware to get senior leader involvement.
Develop enduring overarching requirements for capability portfolios. Include a set of mission impact measures to focus investments and acquisitions to continuously improve.
Retire the outmoded DoD Architecture Framework and focus on application programming interfaces per DepSecDef’s data decree, architectures, and standards to enable interoperability. Strike the right balance between enterprise, service, and portfolio orchestration with flexibility for program and industry solutions.
Modernize the analysis of alternatives processes to enable a more streamlined and iterative approach that values prototypes, experiments, minimum viable products, and commercial solutions with warfighter and other user feedback over lengthy headquarters staff analysis.
Better integrate threat and technology assessments early and throughout the process.
The team must include external change management experts and collaborate with industry (traditional and nontraditional) and the DoD S&T community to get their input and feedback on providing options to inform DoD requirements.
Develop a career path, structure, and improved training for DoD requirements managers.
Publish new policies, guidance, and templates in dynamic online formats instead of five-hundred-page PDFs.
Congress directs the Government Accountability Office to assess the DoD’s requirements management processes, policies, and practices to include timelines; alignment to the DoD
budget and acquisition processes, mission outcomes, portfolio management; and harnessing commercial technologies.
The Senate Armed Services Committee and/or House Armed Services Committee hold hearings with the VCJCS and the service chiefs on modernizing DoD requirements processes to enable greater speed, agility, and innovation.

Success measure: Joint Staff and service stakeholder organizations collaboratively develop a modern approach to managing defense requirements. The new requirements system integrates the key elements outlined above by September 2024.

Notional example: The Air Force establishes an uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) portfolio requirements document that aggressively streamlines all future UAS requirements, bakes in interoperability standards, and enables many novel commercial solutions.

Vignettes: What success looks like

The commission’s recommendations offer bold, actionable reforms to transform the enterprise to enable greater innovation adoption. They include scaling the great work of many dedicated professionals who explored novel practices to accelerate deliveries and increase mission impact. Furthermore, some recommendations require Congress to drive statutory changes or new language to enable greater innovation adoption.

To ensure the recommendations put forth in our interim report were clear, impactful, and achievable, the commission included metrics for how it would measure the implementation of the recommendations, in addition to offering examples of what successful execution would look like. In our final report, we sought to leverage real examples of recent successes of DoD and industry pursuing novel approaches and pathways for technology transition and scaling to ultimately improve mission outcomes for the end user. These real-world vignettes are not only meant to underscore what success looks like, but also highlight the excellent work of select DoD officials, organizations, and industry vendors who work tirelessly in pursuit of innovation adoption for a more resilient and adaptable force.

The following vignettes outline key challenges the department has faced, the solutions and processes it followed to address them, and the outcome of its efforts. Furthermore, they outline how these examples align with the commission’s recommendations and reinforce the key themes and objectives to modernize the department and its broader ecosystem to strengthen national security. All of the commission’s recommendations are reflected, with the exception of Recommendation 3, which suggests modernizing budget documents, because the DoD has yet to do so. However, the deputy secretary of defense directed the department to adopt any suggestions made in the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform’s Interim Report that can be implemented now, which reiterates our third recommendation

Vignette 1: Leveraging operational innovation and experimentation to demonstrate the value of commercial capabilities to meet operational needs

Challenge: The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, overseeing key chokepoints like the Suez Canal and Strait of Hormuz, was facing key capability gaps due to shrinking allied defense budgets and growing operational commitments, including daily weapons smuggling, shipping harassment, drone attacks, speedboat interdictions, and military threats. Facing constrained bandwidth, the fleet needed novel approaches to conduct maritime domain awareness.

Solution and process: NATO’s experience with the Maritime Unmanned Systems Initiative underscored the role that maritime robotics could play when combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in achieving more precise deployments of limited-crewed assets for enhanced maritime domain awareness, a concept previously untested in real-world conditions. A design sprint in Bahrain, leveraging the Chief of Naval Operations’ Unmanned Task Force, sought to integrate robotics and AI into fleet operations to meet mission demands and laid the groundwork for what would become Task Force 59 (TF-59).

Innovation occurred continuously in the live “lab” of the operational environment, with a focus not on technology adoption in a vacuum, but creatively leveraging and empowering people and dynamic leaders and partnerships, transforming processes and rethinking tempo to ultimately achieve operational problem solving and operational innovation.

This rapid innovation was driven by two pivotal process changes: capability as a service and the capability sprint model. When traditional government funding to procure capabilities was denied, the task force pivoted to the “capability as a service” model, which delivered instant access to cutting-edge technology, software updates, and maintenance. This cost-effective approach saved millions in operational expenses compared to traditional methods, and also enabled strong partnerships with a large number of industry partners. When the acquisition process did not accommodate purchasing or renting drones, TF-59 transitioned to a data-as-a-service model and collaborated with the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic to establish a comprehensive data lake—a centralized repository that securely stores and processes large amounts of data. These adaptations illustrate the dividends of process innovation and highlight that a focus on iterative improvement can deliver execution in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.

From an organizational perspective, four principal innovations are notable.

Problem holder inclusion: By integrating those facing challenges directly into technological-development discussions, operations drove innovation.
Ideas over rank: A genuine meritocracy was implemented, in which the best ideas prevailed, regardless of the rank of those who proposed them.
Problem-centric organization: TF-59 adopted a start-up structure oriented around the problems at hand. This focus created a dynamic environment in which solutions were devised with a clear understanding of the actual challenges faced.
Team of teams execution: Recognizing the vast scope of the mission, TF-59 cultivated a wide network of collaboration with partners across government, academia, and industry.

Outcome: In January 2023, Fifth Fleet Commander Admiral Brad Cooper declared TF-59 had achieved initial operational capability after logging more than thirty-five thousand hours of maritime robotics operations, executing more than twenty multinational exercises, deploying more than twenty disruptive technologies, and creating a data lake of more than twenty million data points, all of which made a strong future hybrid fleet. The culmination of this work was demonstrated at the International Maritime Exercise—the largest-ever maritime unmanned-systems exercise. This exercise demonstrated the viability of what has been termed a “digital ocean”—a domain of sensors collecting new data from “ships, unmanned systems, subsea sensors, satellites, buoys…[with an] intelligent synthesis of around-the-clock inputs” that provides unprecedented maritime domain awareness. ¹

Aligns with Atlantic Council recommendations 1, 4, and 10: This anecdote highlights the importance of adopting a portfolio approach that allows the pursuit of multiple technical solutions. This was critical for TF-59 to be able to experiment and prototype with multiple vendors with differing solutions to help solve enduring operational challenges. DIU connected TF-59 with vendors that could provide a viable solution and business arrangements that could be suitable for nontraditional vendors. This vignette also shows that detailed requirements approved and validated years ago do not add value when it comes to rapidly advancing commercial technology and how it can solve operational needs using solutions that operators would not have envisioned.

Vignette 2: Purposeful experimentation and scaling SBIRs for more rapid and well-aligned tech adoption

Challenge: The Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) identified the integration of AI for Small Unit Maneuver (AISUM) as a key mission priority to enhance warfighters’ situational awareness by providing a comprehensive 360-degree view, expediting threat identification and removal, and ultimately ensuring operator safety. In pursuit of that, AFSOC seeks to create teams of multi-agent unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that can operate and collaborate autonomously in complex, unstructured environments.

Solution and process: AFWERX Autonomy, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Sensors Directorate, selected vendors to conduct multiple flight demonstrations and evaluations to provide a baseline of current autonomous capabilities. A five-day flight event took place at Camp Roberts in California, during which autonomous UAS employed onboard autonomous software to circumvent obstacles and communicate elements of the surrounding environment while executing missions.

Outcome: As a result of successful performance, a start-up specializing in defense-focused autonomous drones won a $60-million contract through the Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) program to provide the AI technologies it used and unmanned systems to AFSOC. STRATFI is designed to identify companies that consistently meet the requirements of the Department of Defense and are well positioned to win multiple programs of record. The program aims to keep start-ups funded while they navigate the DoD’s acquisition cycles, enabling contracts to be issued more quickly compared to the traditional two-year budget cycle.

Companies that demonstrate potential for meaningful contributions to the DoD can receive up to $60 million over a span of three years. This funding structure provides $15 million each year for the first two years, and an additional $30 million in the third year, from either government or private-capital investment sources. The start-up, for its part, attracted funds from venture firms for its STRATFI award. Due to this expanded contract vehicle, not only are the start-up’s drones deployed alongside AFSOC operators, but it is also working with AFWERX and AFRL Sensors Directorate to deploy V-BATs team capabilities to conduct detect, identify, locate, and report operations in Global Positioning System- and communications-denied environments next year.

Aligns with recommendations 5, 6, and 8: This anecdote is a successful example of finding novel pathways to scale successfully demonstrated technologies that are aligned to mission outcomes and getting them across the valley of death between Phase II and Phase III SBIRs.

By utilizing STRATFI to expand SBIRs, more funding is made available for vendors to effectively demonstrate their capabilities. This approach also enables both the department and vendors to benefit from capital market investments in critical defense technologies. In turn, capital market investors receive a strong demand signal and have the potential for a return on investment by backing technology companies supporting the department. This positive cycle should help funnel more capital market dollars into defense technologies and encourage nontraditional entrants to do business with the DoD.

Vignette 3: Tying experimentation to acquisition outcomes and leveraging DIU commercial-landscape monitoring

Challenge: During operations in Syria and Afghanistan, US Army units acknowledged the significant role of small drones in offering intelligence and surveillance at the unit level. As a result, these units frequently procured commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) systems from Chinese companies prior to these units’ deployments. After the department grounded Chinese-made COTS drones due to security risks in 2019, the Army needed an accelerated acquisition process to rapidly identify and field secure, capable solutions.

Solution and process: The Army short-range reconnaissance program sought a rucksack-portable system capable of providing real-time situational awareness to infantry platoons. Recognizing the advances in the commercial drone market, the Army bypassed its traditional industry partners and leveraged the DIU to build partnerships with more than thirty nontraditional drone providers to submit solutions. Five finalists were chosen for rigorous testing at the Small UAS Master Trainer Schoolhouse in Fort Benning, Georgia, before the winner was selected.

Outcome: This initiative, spearheaded in late 2019, not only generated the Army’s first program of record for a much-needed capability, but also represented a prototype for the delivery of more than one thousand systems in less than three years. Although the DIU led the Army-sponsored prototype competition, additional services and US government agencies benefited from the pipeline by being able to rapidly procure Blue UAS platforms to meet their small UAS program needs.

Aligns with recommendations 4 and 8: This anecdote showcases technology companies demonstrating capabilities in operationally relevant environments. It also demonstrates success generating an acquisition outcome that procures and scales mission-aligned technologies to be transitioned to the warfighter. This assessment highlights how the commission envisions the US military services utilizing the DIU’s commercial scanning capability to not only source leap-ahead, dual-use tech capabilities, but to find appropriate alternatives when existing vendors are no longer trusted nor the most efficient or cost-effective option. This process not only brings the best of what the private sector has to offer for US soldiers, but also allows the department to benefit from capital market dollars being spent on technology development and maturation.

Vignette 4: Pivoting to modern information-technology capability portfolio management

Challenge: In the 2010s, the US Navy was acquiring a series of disparate information-technology (IT) products in a manner that was cost-inefficient, performance ineffective, and put the burden on its customers to integrate solutions.

Solution and process: The Navy’s PEO Digital leaned forward over the last few years to adopt modern portfolio-management practices. In 2021, PEO Digital reorganized from traditional program management offices into eight portfolios, with five focused on delivering modern IT enterprise services and three oriented to other purposes. Portfolio support and control were provided through governance, common tools, staffing, and coordination.

PEO Digital modernized to be more service based, customer-centric, innovative, and agile. The PEO empowered employees and teams, while holding them accountable to a new set of mission-performance measures. A primary objective of the new structure was to foster greater collaboration across their programs and functional areas to reduce redundancy and increase agility.

PEO Digital published its “Technical Vision and Modern Service Delivery” report to convey how it will implement interoperable modern technologies to free warfighters’ time to focus on warfighting tasks.² Five of the eight IT service portfolios provide capabilities that align with the Modern Service Delivery Design Concepts and function as the proving ground for enhanced customer-centric solutions. PEO Digital’s customers are not simply users of individual acquisition programs. They are a diverse community of warfighters, dependents, civilians, and contractors who consume technologies across the Cyber and Operations, Digital Workplace Services, Infrastructure Services, Platform Application Services, and End-User Services portfolios. PEO Digital is also adopting modern architectures and industry frameworks. To remain at the forefront of modern service delivery, it coordinates acquisition, service delivery, and contract administration to maximize the Navy’s purchasing power and return on investment. The remaining portfolios focus on specific areas that demand tailored acquisition support.

Outcome: The Modern Service Delivery portfolios provide maximum flexibility to shift investments to address priorities, risks, and opportunities for maximum mission impact. The modern structure supports legacy-technology divestments through a rationalized portfolio of services instead of portfolios of programs, illuminates organizations that provide new services, and delivers shared services across the US Department of the Navy.

Aligns with recommendations 1 and 3: This anecdote is a successful example of acquiring an integrated suite of capabilities instead of stovepiped programs. By consolidating budget accounts, the PEO was able to structure the acquisition and technology underpinnings to increase mission impact. This also exemplifies the commission’s vision of continuous improvement through user-centric designs and feedback. Instead of imposing mandated IT solutions, PEO Digital sought to understand perspectives and proposed solutions.

Vignette 5: Modernizing capability requirements

Challenge: Defining, staffing, and approving enterprise IT system requirements is often a lengthy, cumbersome process that predates modern technologies and operations.

Solution and process: PEO Digital partnered with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, the largest requirements sponsor, to pilot top-level requirements and modernize a set of decade-old enterprise IT and network requirements. The team employed high-level areas, outcome-oriented metrics, agile development and integration trains, and horizon pipelines. It fully embraced contemporary IT development practices like Agile that prioritize user needs, flexibility, and iterative processes.

Outcome: A ten-page requirements document replaced the outdated and overly prescriptive five-hundred-page legacy document. This new requirements document is a model for others across the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare to hold their acquisition agents accountable for continuously improving mission outcomes.

Aligns with recommendations 1 and 10: This anecdote is a successful example of shifting from a program-centric to a customer-centric requirements document for portfolios to enhance mission outcomes. Instead of detailed system requirements, such a document provides a strategic perspective that compels value delivery to the customer. This anecdote demonstrates a collaborative agreement between the acquisition and user community that aligns technology investment decisions with enhanced mission outcomes. It shifts the focus of acquisition management from the minimum acceptable support levels and system specifications that fail to optimize the benefit to the warfighter to a focus on operational capability needs and outcomes.

Vignette 6: Communicating demand signal to leverage commercial-sector innovation and adopt private-sector best practices

Challenge: Many programs across the department develop and execute acquisition strategies and make investment decisions without fully appreciating the leading technology solutions. These programs focus primarily on cost, schedule, and performance against a predefined baseline, failing to consider technology’s value to the mission. Adoption of new technologies is stretched across multiple years due to duplicative development work and technical assessments, delaying warfighter capabilities, atrophying the tech value, and increasing development costs. The disconnect between acquisitions and the user community is a detriment to lethality.

Solution and process: PEO Digital partnered with the DIU, National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), Office of Naval Research, DARPA, other Department of the Navy PEOs, and NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, to improve tech scouting. The organizations provided access to a diverse talent network across government, vendors, and academics. They collaborated with venture-capital firms to share their vision and mission needs, learn about emerging technologies, and generate opportunities for industry to innovate to advance the Department of the Navy’s Information Superiority Vision.³ The coordination across government and industry reduced capability deployment time and costs. Using early development work and empirical evidence of technology impacts on mission outcomes in similar contexts informed investment decisions.

PEO Digital implemented the World-Class Alignment Metrics framework to establish a centralized, data-driven investment-prioritization model to align technology outcomes and mission outcomes. ⁴ This approach increases mission context and simplifies the impacts of technology investments for rapid business decisions. The framework reduces reporting burdens to the metrics demonstrating the most significant relationship between technology and mission outcomes. A study by technology analysis firm Gartner reinforced the framework’s validity and benchmarked the organization against industry giants of similar size and complexity, such as large defense contractors, FedEx, and McDonalds. The five mission outcomes that technology investments must improve are: user time lost, operational resilience, customer satisfaction, cost per user, and adaptability/mobility. Each mission outcome has subordinate technical outcomes generated by the PEO.

Outcome: PEO Digital improved the efficacy of investment decisions while accelerating decision timelines from months to minutes. The approach significantly enhanced customer outcomes and diversified vendor and procurement mechanisms using the PEO’s R&D budget. The pilots achieved acquisition lead times as low as thirty days, reducing award times by eight months. They diversified vendor access and strengthened negotiating power. The organization delivers enhanced value faster and at a lower cost. Their collaboration with the NSIN also attracted new talent for the defense sector.

Aligns with recommendations 1 and 4: This anecdote exemplifies the successful implementation of capability portfolio management to realign acquisition, contracting, engineering, and other elements to achieve portfolio outcomes. This example also demonstrates the commission’s vision of leveraging commercial solutions, including the latest technologies from allies and partners, as well as adopting business practices used by leading commercial companies to strategically allocate investments, design solutions, and allocate resources.

Vignette 7: Leveraging warfighting insights and commercial product vision to develop new innovative products

Challenge: The commander of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) knew that his operational staff did not have the tools to integrate, process, and display all available intelligence that could help inform different courses of action rapidly and accurately. He worried that his ability to proactively identify threats and provide national leadership with decision space was becoming severely limited in an age of increasing threats. Service efforts to improve North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command and USNORTHCOM systems, as part of large formal programs of record, had resulted in some improvements but still failed to meet combatant-commander needs.

Solution and process: In 2017, USNORTHCOM engaged the DIU to assist in finding a vendor that could not only support USNORTHCOM in developing tools to address these challenges, but also use its own corporate R&D funds, as well as funds awarded as part of the Air Force SBIR program. The DIU used its processes to identify commercial companies with the appropriate expertise, conducted a streamlined down-select process, and eventually awarded a contract to a vendor using DIU’s Other Transaction (OT) vehicle. Specifically, the DIU adopted evaluation criteria that enabled the vendor to focus on integrating live mission tracks to demonstrate their value rather than developing extensive proposals or detailed slide decks. This vendor’s product became known as the Joint Effects for Real-time Integrated Command and Control Operations (JERIC2O).

This steady stream of direct user feedback from USNORTHCOM personnel resulted in continuing success, as each release delivered more capability that addressed specific operator pain points. The application eventually grew to the point that it needed to be rolled into the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) portfolio to address broader challenges. This also resulted in the effort to move from the DIU contract to a more enduring ABMS Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract vehicle. This success was instrumental in USNORTHCOM collaborating with Joint Staff to issue a Joint Requirements Oversight Council Memorandum (JROCM) directing that the legacy system (which had never met user needs) be retired by the ABMS program, providing an opportunity for the vendor’s products to be scaled more broadly.

The vendor’s willingness to invest its own funds and staff its organization with military and technical experts who inherently understood USNORTCOM’s detailed operational needs and how to solve them provided it with a significant advantage in being able to achieve desired outcomes. The vendor’s financial posture, in which leadership was willing to accept a lower growth trajectory, provided the firm the ability to more effectively compete against the major defense primes in later awards.

Outcome: In July 2023, the vendor was awarded a three-year, $61-million contract to continue the development of this critical capability as part of the now formal program, Cloud Based Command and Control (CBC2), under the ABMS umbrella. The JERIC2O capabilities now reside in the vendor’s Command Center product, which provides a world-class geospatial data-visualization and actions platform, ingests large amounts of data, applies real-time threat analysis, makes AI-generated recommendations, and delivers intelligent insights and actions across all domains for customers beyond USNORTHCOM.

The month following the CBC2 award, a Dallas-based private-equity firm announced the acquisition of the vendor, thanks in no small part to its work with USNORTHCOM that demonstrated its ability to rapidly deliver actionable insights to warfighter using AI innovations. The vendor now has active contracts with multiple government customers, including the US Space Force, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Army, and the National Reconnaissance Office. It plans on growing its two-hundred-person team and expanding its customer base to include working with the US European Command, the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), and the US Central Command—as the firm successfully did with USNORTHCOM.

Aligns with recommendations 1, 5, 6, and 10: This anecdote demonstrates the value of a capability portfolio model, in which smaller vendors can bring outsized capabilities to solve specific user problems that would likely have been impossible under the standard program-centric model, in which all requirements would be consolidated into one massive program. A portfolio approach also provides more options for deprecating a larger legacy system rather than moving from one behemoth system to another.

This example also illustrates the importance of using government tools that incentivize tech companies to do business with the DoD by using alternative contracting vehicles, like Other Transactions, that are better aligned with commercial business models; evaluation techniques such as oral and video demonstrations; or hyperlinked proposals that reduce the burden on small companies and are more suitable for those vendors with limited expertise working with the government. If DIU had used the standard procurement process, it is unlikely that this vendor would have been able to participate. This success story also illustrates how current requirement processes need to be more influenced by available commercial technology. Rather than having users articulate every need in advance, the DoD should establish mechanisms (as USNORTHCOM did) in which users are more directly tied in with the developers to enable delivery of capability that iteratively addresses users’ biggest pain points. Finally, this instance demonstrates the importance of funding flexibility, given how crucial it was for ABMS to be able to reallocate funds from other activities to support the continued development of this critical capability.

Vignette 8: Incorporating robust user feedback with government and private seed funding to deliver unique commercial capability

Challenge: After years of relying on the M4 carbine for executing infantry and special-operation missions, the US Army concluded that it needed a more cost-effective and powerful weapon to deal with emerging threats on the battlefield. In 2020, it initiated the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program to meet a broad set of requirements, including the use of a certain type of fire-control system, weight, accuracy, and caliber. There were also requirements for integrating digital technology that would improve the ability to provide soldiers with real-time information about the weapons status (like round counts), as well as provide more detailed situational-awareness information.

Solution and process: The Army carried out a sequence of prototype experimentation events and evaluations, which led to the identification of seven vendors and the selection of one to finalize development and enter into initial production for the NGSW. A prime contractor competitor for the NGSW contract partnered with a research company as a key subcontractor.

The research company’s journey to fill this subcontractor role started as a beneficiary of an SBIR Phase I award, which provided modest funding but, more importantly, provided entry into the federal market. The awarding agency also offered an opportunity for accelerated achievement of SBIR Phase III awards. This was influenced by the Army’s Vista Initiative, which urged program offices to incorporate small-business partnerships as evaluation criteria with larger prime contractors. The larger companies were motivated by the prospect of receiving higher technical ratings during the selection process. This arrangement benefited the Army, as it allowed the service access to innovative technology that might otherwise be unavailable as a system subcomponent.

Despite receiving limited support from US government sponsors after the initial SBIR award, the subcontractor utilized its network to establish connections with relevant users that could offer feedback on its initial product. This involved creating use cases and conducting customer discovery with various stakeholders, such as the Army’s PEO Soldier, home of the NGSW program office.

Outcome: The user feedback was overwhelmingly positive, instilling confidence that the subcontractor’s product was suitable for a government contract. This feedback justified internal investments in further developing and enhancing the product. Shortly after securing $1 million in seed funding from venture-capital investors, the subcontractor embarked on a six-month R&D pivot. This strategic shift sought to enhance its data-analytic capabilities to improve round-count detection and weapon stress detection. These advancements were crucial for making informed decisions regarding condition-based maintenance. The successful implementation of this feature update proved beneficial for the company as it entered the NGSW competition.

Following its partnership with the prime, the subcontractor also announced the award of a five-year, $60-million SBIR Phase III contract with the DoD and General Services Administration as part of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control project portfolio. These projects focus on fusing data from AI-enabled edge computing sensors with other battlefield data sources to transmit decision-quality information to tactical forces through mobile and mixed-reality platforms. This capability is expected to greatly improve ground teams’ abilities to conceptualize line-of-fire dynamics and threat movements.

In April 2022, the US Army awarded a $4.5-billion production contract for the NGSW program to Sig Sauer, the configuration of which included the subcontractor’s round-count and inventory-management system. This system translates to all future orders of the XM5 rifle (replacing the M4/M4A1 carbine) and the XM250 automatic rifle (replacing the M249 squad automatic weapon) including the ARC system, which provides a long-term revenue path for the company, given the number of soldiers expected to require those new weapons.

Aligns with recommendations 5, 6, and 8: This anecdote highlights the significance of enhancing the government’s approach to conducting business with the tech industry. The utilization of evaluation criteria, which encompass nontraditional small businesses as innovation partners for significant contracts, proved to be a potent tool available to the government. This example also demonstrates the significance of utilizing private capital, which enabled ARC to adapt its product design while also using connections made through the SBIR award to obtain user feedback, which played a crucial role in informing the pivot. The acceleration into a SBIR Phase III instilled confidence in investors, as it demonstrated the government’s serious commitment to this technology. Despite the private-capital injection, ARC was left with a two-year gap between having a viable contract and awaiting the award of the NGSW contract to affirm its position as the subcontractor. This emphasizes the need for more bridge-fund opportunities to ensure promising subcontractors are able to stay viable through long source-selection periods and remain a viable part of the defense supply chain.

Implementation actions to date

Following publication of the commission’s interim report and engagement with key stakeholders, Congress and the DoD took the following actions (as of November 2023) consistent with the commission’s recommendations. These actions indicate the resonance of the report findings with key stakeholders in implementing reforms to ensure defense resources are maximized to meet challenges. At this time, Congress has not conferenced on the final FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or defense appropriation bills.

1. Introduce a new capability portfolio model. The assistant secretary of the Navy (research, development, and acquisition), citing this commission, designated PEO Integrated Warfare System (IWS) as the Department of Navy’s pilot PEO for portfolio management, effective immediately (September 2023). Other PEOs have moved, or plan to move, out on some portfolio-management practices with promising progress, to include Navy PEO Digital as noted in the vignettes in this report. William LaPlante, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and a public champion of capability portfolios, hosted a PEO Summit in July to discuss common challenges and solutions for delivering capability at speed and scale. He also updated DoD Directive 7045.20 on Capability Portfolio Management to reflect related practices at the Office of Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff levels.
2. Consolidate program elements. In its interim report, the congressionally directed Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Commission recommended a systematic review and consolidation of budget line items among the “actions that can be implemented now.” The deputy secretary of defense directed the department to adopt all actions (PPBE Commission recommendations) that can be implemented now. The Senate version of the defense appropriations bill noted that the Army should consolidate Other Procurement Army funding lines.
3. Reset reprogramming authorities. The PPBE Commission’s interim report considered several alternatives to modify reprogramming authorities and policies. It seeks further inputs from congressional and DoD stakeholders on this potential recommendation. Its interim report has 215 mentions of reprogramming, a hot topic of discussion for challenges and reform opportunities. The deputy secretary of defense directed the department to adopt all actions from the PPBE Commission interim report that can be implemented now.
4. Modernize the DoD to align with the twenty-first-century industrial base. The secretary of defense elevated the DIU to be a direct report, and required a plan of actions, milestones, and resource requests. INDOPACOM established a Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate (JMAD) to help connect with the commercial sector. A DIU leader serves as the JMAD deputy director and chief technology officer. The Defense Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Appropriation Committee (HAC-D) recommends $1 billion funding in the FY 2024 defense appropriations bill for a hedge portfolio fund run by the DIU for smart, affordable, modular, and sustainable systems—$600 million of that is allocated for agile research, development, test and evaluation, procurement, production, modification, operations, and maintenance. The House Armed Services Committee NDAA is supportive of DIU’s success and directs the DIU to identify a consolidation plan for DoD innovation organizations to engage nontraditional technology partners more effectively. The Senate NDAA Section 806 calls for reduction of barriers for commercial products and services. The House NDAA bill directs the Government Accountability Office to study reforming requirements, including processes to rapidly validate the military utility of commercial solutions to meet capability needs or opportunities. The Senate NDAA Section 212 supports the DoD’s providing up to $15 million per year to participate in NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic. The House NDAA Section 853 establishes a public-private partnership pilot program to accelerate scaling, production, and acquisition of advanced capabilities for national security. This measure is intended to bolster the defense industrial base and domestic supply-chain resilience.
5. Strengthen alignment of capital markets to defense outcomes. The House NDAA Section 883 directs the services’ SBIR offices to conduct a study on expanding STRATFI programs beyond the Air Force to help small businesses seek Phase III awards. The Senate NDAA Section 845 extended Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs to transfer to production. Senate NDAA Section 831 generated a Defense Industrial Base Advanced Capabilities Pilot Program that focuses on public-private partnerships with equity. Additionally, DARPA, Army, Navy, and Air Force have allowed majority VC-owned companies to participate in SBIR/STTR. Senate NDAA Section 845 extended the pilot program for streamlined technology transition from the SBIR/STTR programs by five years. Senate NDAA Section 834 generated a Program on Capital Assistance to Support Investment in the Defense Industrial Base. The Senate NDAA Section 901 amends Title X to establish the Office of Strategic Capital in statute. The House defense appropriations bill directed a report on opportunities for additional strategic capital tools, and other needed resources or authorities that could allow the Office of Strategic Capital to achieve greater impact.
6. Incentivize tech companies to do business with the DoD. The Senate NDAA, page 284, directs USD(A&S) to ensure that contracting officers are aware of Nontraditional Defense Contractor (NDC) statutes and practices and brief plans for a streamlined process for contractors to attest their status as an NDC. The office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering tasked the Defense Innovation Board to deliver a study on lowering the barriers to innovation. The Senate NDAA Section 805 requires the DoD to create at least three new commercial solutions openings (CSOs) each year. CSOs were made a permanent authority in the FY 2022 NDAA.
7. Modernize budget documents. The House defense appropriations bill recommends the Chief Data and AI Office (CDAO) submit a report on a web interface that can provide access to data described for DIU project reporting to Congress and recommends $50 million to support this effort. The congressionally directed PPBE Commission, in its interim report, recommended among the “actions that can be implemented now” to establish classified and unclassified enclaves for DoD-congressional information sharing, to include electronic transmission of budget-justification books. It further recommended restructuring the justification books to provide the needed content in a common format. The deputy secretary of defense directed the department to adopt all actions (PPBE Commission recommendations) that can be implemented now.
8. Establish a bridge fund for successfully demonstrated technologies. The House defense appropriations bill includes a hedge portfolio that allocates $220 million for helping the DIU field capabilities with combatant commands (COCOMs). HAC-D also recommended adding $200 million to the department’s $100-million request for the Accelerated Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program. The House NDAA Section 851 establishes a pilot program for recurring awards for production, investment, and deployment through competitions. These are intended to solve urgent operational needs of attritable systems.
9. Scale the space development agency model. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced a Replicator initiative to field thousands of attritable, autonomous systems at scale and in multiple domains within the next 18–24 months. The House Armed Services Committee Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation subcommittee held a hearing on “Outside Perspectives on DoD’s Replicator Program.” The Silicon Valley Defense Group led an industry letter supporting a DIU and Service Non-Traditional Innovation Fielding Enterprise-led Hedge portfolio. Navy leaders established the Disruptive Capabilities Office to rapidly field technologies to the fleet. This office would integrate and expand upon the Unmanned Task Force and related naval autonomy organizations and initiatives. The House Defense Appropriations bill includes a $1-billion hedge portfolio fund, which would empower the DIU and new Non-Traditional Innovation Fielding Enterprise to rapidly acquire many smaller capabilities harnessing commercial solutions. Space Acquisition Executive Frank Calvelli continues to praise the SDA and views its approach as a model for the broader space acquisition enterprise.
10. Modernize the DoD’s requirements system. The Senate NDAA, Section 802, requires the secretary of defense, through the VCJCS, and in cooperation with the military departments and combatant commands, to modernize DoD’s requirements process, consistent with the commission’s interim report, with reform elements and a report to Congress by October 2025. The House NDAA report page 269 expressed concern with the lack of modernization in the DoD’s requirements process, calling for a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and recommendations.

Conclusion

This commission’s final report reiterated the actionable recommendations offered to elected officials and senior DoD leaders in the interim report, and showcased timely and replicable examples of successful adoption of dual-use technologies. The commission is pleased to witness considerable progress on many of the challenges identified in its interim report, reflected under “Implementation Actions to Date,” but acknowledges that broader, strategic matters will take time to reach full implementation. While that may be true, failure to adopt emerging technology at an effective pace would impede the DoD’s ability to deter China, a primary objective of the United States’ current National Defense Strategy.

Biographies

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD

Board Director and Co-Chair of the Commission, Atlantic Council; 27th US Secretary of Defense

The Honorable Mark T. Esper is a partner and board member of the venture capital firm Red Cell Partners and a board director at the Atlantic Council. He was sworn in as the 27th Secretary of Defense on July 23, 2019, and served in that capacity until November 9, 2020. He previously served as acting secretary of defense from June 24, 2019, to July 15, 2019. Esper was confirmed as the 23rd secretary of the US Army in November 2017.

In the private sector, Esper was vice president for government relations at the Raytheon Company.

He earlier served concurrently as executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center and as vice president for European and Eurasian affairs from 2008 to 2010. From 2006 to 2007, He was chief operating officer and executive vice president of defense and international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association.

In addition to his work in the private sector, Esper served in a range of positions on Capitol Hill and in the Defense Department. He served as legislative director and senior policy advisor to former Senator Chuck Hagel. He was a senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Governmental Affairs committees, policy director for the House Armed Services Committee, and national security advisor for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. During the President George W. Bush administration, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy at the Pentagon. He was national policy director to the late Senator Fred Thompson for his 2008 presidential campaign and was a Senate-appointed commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. 

Esper began his career in the US Army. He is a 1986 graduate of the United States Military Academy and received his commission in the infantry. Upon completion of Ranger and Pathfinder training, he served in the 101st Airborne Division and participated in the 1990-91 Gulf War with the “Screaming Eagles.” He later commanded a rifle company in the 3-325 Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. He retired from the army in 2007 after spending ten years on active duty and eleven years in the National Guard and Army Reserve. After leaving active duty, he served as chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation think tank.

He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Among his many military awards and decorations are the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star Medal, the Kuwait Liberation Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal-Saudi Arabia, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Esper holds a PhD from the George Washington University.

The Hon. Deborah Lee James

Board Director and Co-Chair of the Commission, Atlantic Council; 23rd US Secretary of the Air Force

The Honorable Deborah Lee James is chair of the Defense Business Board and board director at the Atlantic Council. Previously, she served as the twenty-third secretary of the US Air Force and was responsible for the affairs of the Department of the Air Force, including the organizing, training, equipping, and providing for the welfare of its nearly 660,000 active-duty, National Guard, Reserve, and civilian airmen and their families. She also oversaw the Air Force’s annual budget of more than $139 billion. James has thirty years of senior homeland and national security experience in the federal government and the private sector.

Prior to her Air Force position, James served as president of Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC’s) technical and engineering sector, where she was responsible for 8,700 employees and more than $2 billion in revenue.

For twelve years, James held a variety of positions with SAIC, including senior vice president and director of homeland security. From 2000 to 2001, she was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Business Executives for National Security, and from 1998 to 2000 she was vice president of international operations and marketing at United Technologies. During the Bill Clinton administration, from 1993 to 1998, James served in the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. In that position, she was senior advisor to the secretary of defense on all matters pertaining to the 1.8 million National Guard and Reserve personnel worldwide. In addition to working extensively with Congress, state governors, the business community, military associations, and international officials on National Guard and Reserve component issues, James oversaw a $10 billion budget and supervised a one-hundred-plus-person staff. Prior to her Senate confirmation in 1993, she served as an assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs.

From 1983 to 1993, James worked as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, where she served as a senior advisor to the Military Personnel and Compensation Subcommittee, the NATO Burden Sharing Panel, and the chairman’s Member Services team.

James earned a BA in comparative area studies from Duke University and an MA in international affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Whitney M. McNamara

Vice President, Beacon Global Strategies; Author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Whitney McNamara is a vice president at Beacon Global Strategies. Prior to that, McNamara worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where she served as the S&T portfolio lead at the Defense Innovation Board, whose mission is to provide the secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, and other senior leaders with recommendations on emerging technologies and innovative approaches that DoD should adopt to ensure US technological and military dominance.

Before that, McNamara was an emerging technologies policy subject matter expert supporting the Department of Defense’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). Prior to that, she was a senior analyst at national security think tank the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, focusing on emerging technologies, future operating concepts, and informationized warfare in the context of long-term technological and military competition with great powers.

Peter Modigliani

Defense Acquisition Lead, MITRE Corporation; Author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Peter Modigliani is a defense acquisition leader within the MITRE Corporation enabling the DoD and intelligence community to deliver innovative solutions with greater speed and agility. He works with acquisition and CIO executives, program managers, the Section 809 Panel, congressional staffs, industry, and academia to shape acquisition reforms, strategic initiatives, and major program strategies.

Modigliani champions digitally transforming the acquisition enterprise to modernize and accelerate operations. He launched MITRE’s digital acquisition platform, AiDA. Prior to MITRE, Modigliani was an Air Force program manager for C4ISR programs and an assistant vice president with Alion Science and Technology, supporting the Air Force Acquisition Executive’s Information Dominance division.

Matthew MacGregor

Acquisition subject-matter expert (SME), Center for Acquisition and Management Sciences, MITRE; author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Matt MacGregor is an acquisition SME at MITRE’s Center for Acquisition and Management Sciences. Matt spent twenty-two years as a military and civil-service program manager (PM) across the space, command and control, weather, and aircraft portfolios. His last PM assignment was as the F-35 deputy program manager. His last five years in government before joining MITRE were at the Pentagon, where he served as a division chief in multiple headquarters acquisition roles. His work at MITRE has spanned multiple OSD-level organizations and program offices with specific emphasis on accelerating the fielding of digital capabilities to the warfighter.

Stephen Rodriguez

Senior Advisor and Study Director of the Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Stephen Rodriguez is a senior advisor with the Forward Defense program at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and founding partner of One Defense, a next-generation strategic advisory firm that leverages machine learning to identify advanced software and hardware commercial capabilities and accelerate their transition into the defense industrial base. He is also a venture partner at Refinery Ventures, an early-scale fund investing in dual-use technologies across the country. Rodriguez began his career at Booz Allen Hamilton supporting its national security practice.

In his capacity as an expert on game-theoretic applications, he supported the US intelligence community, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security as a lead architect for wargames. He subsequently was a vice president at Sentia Group, an artificial intelligence company, and served as chief marketing officer for NCL Holdings, an international defense corporation. Rodriguez serves as a board director or board advisor of ten venture-backed companies—Duco, Edgybees, Hatch Apps, HighSide, Omelas, Uniken, Ursa Major Technologies, Vantage Robotics, War on the Rocks, and Zignal Labs—as well as the nonprofit organizations Public Spend Forum and Training Leaders International. He is also senior innovation advisor at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Clementine G. Starling

Director, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Clementine G. Starling is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and a resident fellow within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In her role, she shapes the Center’s US defense research agenda, leads Forward Defense’s team of nine staff and forty fellows, and produces thought leadership on US security strategies and the evolving character of warfare. Her research focuses on long-term US thinking on issues like China’s and Russia’s defense strategies, space security, defense industry, and emerging technology. Prior to launching Forward Defense, Starling served as deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security team, specializing in European security policy and NATO.

From 2016, she supported NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division at two NATO summits (Brussels and London) and organized and managed three senior Atlantic Council task forces on US force posture in Europe, military mobility, and US defense innovation adoption. During her time at the Atlantic Council, Starling has written numerous reports and commentary on US space strategy, deterrence, operational concepts, coalition warfare, and US-Europe relations. She regularly serves as a panelist and moderator at public conferences. Among the outlets that have featured her analysis and commentary are Defense One, Defense News, RealClearDefense, the National Interest, SpaceNews, NATO’s Joint Air and Space Power Conference, the BBC, National Public Radio, ABC News, and Government Matters, among others. Starling was named the 2022 Herbert Roback scholar by the US National Academy of Public Administration. She also served as the 2020 Security and Defense fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. Originally from the United Kingdom, Starling previously worked in the UK Parliament focusing on technology, defense, Middle East security, and Ukraine. She also supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, championing for the United Kingdom to remain within the European Union. She graduated with honors from the London School of Economics with a BS in international relations and history and is an MA candidate in security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Kathryn Levantovscaia

Deputy director, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Kathryn Levantovscaia is a deputy director in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Levantovscaia served the US Chamber of Commerce as director for defense, aerospace, and acquisition policy. In this capacity, she executed advocacy campaigns on the Hill, delivered dedicated business-development support, and led global and multilateral strategic initiatives. Before working for the US Chamber of Commerce, she supported Booz Allen Hamilton’s Defense and Intelligence Group. Her areas of expertise include international development and cooperation, US defense export policy and export controls, federal contracting, defense/federal acquisition regulation, and multilateralism.

Mark J. Massa is a deputy director in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on nuclear deterrence strategy and policy. He holds an MA in security studies and a BSFS in science, technology, and international affairs from Georgetown University.

Delharty M. Manson II is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on defense innovation and operational concepts. He holds a BA in public policy from the College of William & Mary.

Jacob Mezey is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on nuclear security, space security, and defense innovation. He holds a BA in history from Yale University.

Acknowledgments

This report was written and prepared with the support and input of its authors, commissioners on the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, and the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

This effort was conducted under the supervision of Commission Director Stephen Rodriguez, Forward Defense Director Clementine Starling, and Forward Defense Deputy Directors Kathryn Levantovscaia and Mark J. Massa. Thank you to Julia Siegel and Christian Trotti for earlier contributions. Special thanks to Atlantic Council CEO Fred Kempe, Matthew Kroenig, and Barry Pavel for their support of this effort.

This effort has been made possible through the generous support of Booz Allen Hamilton as the foundational sponsor, as well as sponsorship from Accrete AI, ACT1 Federal, Applied Intuition, Palantir, Peraton, Primer AI, Rebellion Defense, Schmidt Futures, and Snowpoint Ventures.

Foundational sponsor

List of acronyms

ABMS: Advanced Battle Management System

AFRL: Air Force Research Laboratory

AFSOC: Air Force Special Operations Command

ATR: Above threshold reprogramming

BLI: Budget line item

CAS: Cost accounting Standards

CBC2: Cloud Based Command and Control

CDAO: Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer

COCOM: Combatant command

COTS: Commercially available off the shelf CSO: Commercial Solutions Opening

DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DepSecDef: Deputy secretary of defense

DIU: Defense Innovation Unit

DoD: US Department of Defense

FFRDC: Federally Funded Research and Development Center

GSA: General Services Administration

HAC-D: Defense Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Appropriation Committee

IRAD: Independent research and development

JCIDS: Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System

JERIC2O: Joint Effects for Real-time Integrated Command and Control Operations

JMAD: Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate

JROC: Joint Requirements Oversight Council

INDOPACOM: US Indo-Pacific Command

IT: Information technology

MCWL: US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory

NDAA: National Defense Authorization Act

NDC: Nontraditional defense company/contractor

NGSW: Next Generation Squad Weapon

NORTHCOM: US Northern Command

NSIN: National Security Innovation Network

OSC: Office of Strategic Capital

OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense

OT: Other Transaction

PE: Program elements

PEO: Program executive officer/office

RDER: Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve

RDT&E: Research, development, testing, and evaluation

S&T: Science and technology

SAE: Service acquisition executive

SBA: Small Business Agency

SBIR: Small Business Innovation Research program

SDA: Space Development Agency

SOCOM: US Special Operations Command

STRATFI: Strategic Funding Increase

STTR: Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer

UAS: Uncrewed aerial system

USD(A&S): Under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment

USD(C)/CFO: Under secretary of defense (comptroller) / chief financial officer
USD(R&E): Under secretary of defense for research and engineering

USD: Under secretary of defense

VC: Venture capital/venture capitalist

VCJCS: Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

1 Brandi Vincent, “Navy’s Task Force 59 reaches full operational capability as it works to build a ‘digital ocean’ of connected assets,” DefenseScoop, January 10, 2023, https://defensescoop.com/2023/01/10/navys-task-force-59-reaches-full-operational-capability-as-it-works-to-build-a-digital-ocean-of-connected-assets/

2 “Technical Vision and Modern Service Delivery,” Program Executive Office Digital and Enterprise Services, April 29, 2022, https://www.peodigital.navy.mil/Portals/96/Documents/PEODigital_TechVision3.pdf?ver=zbp72dNJv9-KABjQUAIiqA%3D%3D.

3 Todd Harrison, “Bad Idea: Innovation Theater,” Defense360, Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 27, 2023, https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-innovation-theater/?id=13181.

4 “World Class Alignment Metrics,” Program Executive Office Digital and Enterprise Services, last accessed on January 9, 2024, https://www.peodigital.navy.mil/About/#:~:text=World%2DClass%20Alignment%20Metrics%20(WAMs,%2C%20acquisition%20performance%2C%20and%20alignment.

The post Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption: Final report appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Arsenal of Autocracy: North Korea and Iran are arming Russia in Ukraine

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 20:48:09 +0000

Over the New Year holiday period, Russia launched some of the biggest bombardments of Ukrainian cities since the start of the full-scale invasion almost two years ago. These attacks had been widely expected, with Russia believed to have been actively stockpiling missiles and drones during the final few months of 2023. Nevertheless, the origin of some of the missiles used in Russia’s latest air attacks has sparked considerable disquiet in Ukraine and throughout Western capitals.

In the days following these latest bombardments, the White House announced that Russia had used North Korean ballistic missiles to strike Ukraine. These claims were subsequently corroborated by senior Ukrainian officials. In a joint statement issued on January 9, the US, UK, EU, Australia, Germany, Canada and nearly 40 other partner nations condemned North Korea’s export of ballistic missiles to Russia.

The delivery of North Korean ballistic missiles marks the latest escalation in the country’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Reports of North Korean arms shipments to Russia first emerged in late 2022. In October 2023, US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby announced that Pyongyang had delivered more than 1,000 containers of equipment and munitions to Russia. Speaking in late 2023, South Korean officials claimed North Korean military production facilities were operating “at maximum capacity” in order to meet Russian demand for armaments.

It is not clear what Russia is offering in exchange for the weapons it is receiving from North Korea, but there are fears that Moscow is providing the heavily sanctioned nation with access to new military technologies. During a September 2023 visit to Russia, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a number of military sites showcasing advanced weapons systems.

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North Korea is not the only authoritarian regime currently providing Putin with weapons for the invasion of Ukraine. Iran has supplied Russia with large quantities of attack drones as well as artillery shells, while Russia is using Iranian drone technologies to establish large-scale domestic production of attack drones for use in Ukraine. Recent reports indicate this cooperation is now intensifying. Russia is poised to receive Iranian ballistic missiles, with Iran also delivering upgraded drones.

The military support currently being provided by North Korea and Iran is believed to be critical for the Russian war effort. While Vladimir Putin has succeeded in moving much of the Russian economy onto a war footing, the intensity of the fighting in Ukraine means Russia is currently unable to meet high demand for key munitions categories including drones, missiles, and artillery shells.

With the invasion of Ukraine about to enter a third year, deliveries of Iranian and North Korean ammunition are enabling Russia to maintain a significant artillery advantage in what is now widely regarded as a war of attrition. Likewise, the steady supply of Iranian drones makes it possible for Russia to continue its intensive bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure. Deliveries of North Korean and Iranian ballistic missiles will allow Russia to further expand the air war against Ukraine.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

While Putin’s fellow autocrats in Tehran and Pyongyang grow bolder in their readiness to back the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the West’s collective commitment to the Ukrainian war effort is now increasingly in question. In recent months, a major new US aid package for Ukraine has become hostage to domestic American politics, while the passage of long-term EU aid has been blocked in Brussels thanks to opposition from Hungary. This is fueling speculation over the future of Western support for Ukraine in a long war with Russia.

Vladimir Putin has clearly been encouraged by mounting recent indications of Western weakness, and believes he can ultimately outlast the West in a test of political wills. The Russian dictator has long framed the invasion of Ukraine in historic terms as an attempt to end the era of Western dominance. He aims to usher in a new multipolar world order and is building alliances with like-minded authoritarian regimes.

It is now clear that Russia has succeeded in establishing an Arsenal of Autocracy together with Iran and North Korea. Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang are leveraging their military potential and producing the quantities of weapons necessary to overwhelm Western resistance and achieve Russian victory in Ukraine.

This authoritarian alliance poses grave threats to the future of global security. If Russia prevails in Ukraine thanks to military support from Iran and North Korea, Ukrainians will not be the last victims. On the contrary, Putin’s triumph would set a disastrous precedent. The international community would soon be faced with further wars of aggression as the world plunged into a dangerous new era where today’s rules regarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity no longer applied.

None of this is inevitable, but the clock is already ticking. If Western leaders wish to avoid decades of international insecurity and instability, they must send a clear message to all autocratic rulers and Putin wannabes by making sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in decisive defeat.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

To defeat Putin in a long war, Ukraine must switch to active defense in 2024

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 21:54:53 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches the two-year mark, it is vital for Ukraine’s military and political leadership to properly digest the lessons of 2022 and 2023.

The most important conclusion to draw from the past two years of fighting is the dominance of defensive warfare over offensive operations. This has been demonstrated again and again, beginning with the failure of Russia’s initial blitzkrieg in the first month of the war.

A second key lesson is the importance of balancing political goals with military capabilities. Since February 2022, political considerations have forced both Russia and Ukraine to embark on ill-fated offensives with insufficient forces, leading to heavy losses.

While Ukraine’s long-term aim remains the complete liberation of the country from Russian occupation, current circumstances do not favor bold offensive operations. On the international front, US and EU aid commitments have run into serious political obstacles, while efforts to expand the production of military equipment and armaments have fallen well behind schedule. In Ukraine, concerns are mounting over high casualty rates and potential manpower shortages.

With this in mind, Ukraine’s military strategy for 2024 should focus on holding the front line and ensuring continued control over the approximately 82% of the country that remains in Ukrainian hands. A strategic shift to active defense would play to Ukraine’s current strengths while buying valuable time to regroup and rearm ahead of what are likely to be more advantageous conditions in 2025.

Crucially, a more defensive posture would allow Ukraine to exploit Moscow’s pressing need for victories. With the Russian army under huge political pressure to advance, Ukrainian commanders would have plenty of opportunities to steadily bleed out Putin’s invasion force, much as they are currently doing at Avdiivka.

In parallel, Ukraine should look to continue degrading Russia’s ability to wage war by conducting an escalating campaign of air strikes on targets far behind the front lines throughout occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. This could include attacks on troop concentrations, military bases, and munitions stores along with logistical hubs and armament production facilities.

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The effectiveness of any defensive strategy in 2024 will rely heavily on the level of support provided by Ukraine’s partners. In terms of weapons deliveries, priorities will include vast amounts of artillery ammunition together with electronic warfare systems, strike drones, additional air defense capabilities, and long-range missiles. The hotly anticipated arrival of F-16 fighter jets in the coming months will also significantly enhance Ukraine’s ability to deny Russia control of the skies.

If this military aid is forthcoming, Ukraine will be in a position to implement a strategy of active defense throughout the coming year, while also preparing for future offensives. These preparations should include expanded training programs for Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries. While tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have already undergone training during the first two years of the war, front line setbacks in the second half of 2023 exposed the shortcomings of these efforts. Clearly, much more time is required to provide Ukrainian soldiers with the military knowledge and skills required to succeed on the modern battlefield.

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Adopting an active defense in 2024 will not prevent Ukraine from conducting specific offensive actions. The most likely focus of Ukraine’s offensive operations during the coming year will be the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. This was confirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his recent interview with The Economist.

The systematic destruction of Russian logistics and military capabilities in Crimea during 2024 would achieve two important objectives. Firstly, it would help secure freedom of navigation for merchant shipping in the Black Sea and build on Ukraine’s recent progress in breaking the Russian naval blockade of its ports. Secondly, it would hamper Kremlin efforts to resupply the Russian army in southern Ukraine, potentially creating weak points along the front lines of the land war.

Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea has showcased the potency of Western weaponry when combined with the skill and ingenuity of the Ukrainian military. Further breakthroughs in Crimea and at sea in 2024 will hinge on the willingness of Ukraine’s partners to supply the necessary long-range missiles and other weapons.

Calls for Ukraine to adopt a defensive strategy during the coming year are a far cry from the optimism that abounded in early 2023 following resounding Ukrainian victories in Kharkiv and Kherson. While some observers will inevitably see this stance as pessimistic or even defeatist, it reflects the current realities of the war and represents the most plausible pathway to future success. Indeed, if a Ukrainian switch to active defense in 2024 paves the way for eventual victory, future historians will come to view it as prudent and wise.

Vladimir Putin is openly preparing his country for a long war and is encouraged by mounting signs of weakness among Ukraine’s Western allies. In order to defeat the Kremlin dictator and end the threat posed by resurgent Russian imperialism, Ukraine and its international partners must stop thinking in terms of individual offensives and adopt a more long-term approach to this historic task.

In contrast, Putin’s new bombing offensive appears to have a wider focus, with targets of recent attacks including military and defense industry objects along with residential buildings, hospitals, and shopping malls. The increased targeting of civilians has already led to dozens of deaths. This has sparked suggestions that Russia seeks to undermine Ukrainian morale while also degrading Ukraine’s ability to produce the weapons and ammunition needed to sustain the country’s war effort.

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Russia’s most immediate objective may be to overwhelm Ukraine’s limited air defense capabilities. Although Ukraine has been able to dramatically enhance its air defense systems since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two years ago, Kyiv remains heavily reliant on the country’s partners for the resupply of interceptor missiles and other forms of ammunition. With further US and EU military aid currently in question due to political obstacles, there is a very real danger that Ukraine could exhaust its existing stocks of air defense ammunition in the coming weeks.

The consequences of a collapse in Ukraine’s air defenses would be catastrophic. Ukrainian forces have so far outperformed all expectations, incorporating a wide array of air defense systems provided by the country’s international partners. This has enabled them to shoot down an average of around 70 to 80 percent of incoming drones and missiles. However, if ammunition supplies become critically low in late January or early February, senior officials in Kyiv may be forced to concentrate limited resources and effectively leave much of the country undefended. In such circumstances, a single wave of Russian air strikes could easily result in thousands of civilian casualties.

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Officials in Kyiv appear well aware of the looming threat and have been actively seeking additional air defense support in recent months. The country received a second Patriot system from Germany in December, and also secured a commitment from Japan to supply Patriot missiles to the United States in a move which may allow the US to hand over further missiles to Ukraine. In the aftermath of Russia’s latest bombardment, Zelenskyy spoke with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with air defense supplies high on the agenda. Britain had earlier responded to Russia’s massive air attack of December 29 by confirming delivery of a further 200 air defense missiles to Ukraine.

While officials in Kyiv welcome this support, they also recognize that much will depend on the outcome of the current political deadlock in Washington DC, where progress on a major new Ukraine aid package has stalled as attention turns toward the 2024 US presidential election. Unless the US Congress can unblock the multi-billion dollar package, the Ukrainian military will face a range of critical shortages including in the air defense arena.

Meanwhile, Russian officials will be hoping that delays and reductions in Western aid, together with their own ample supplies of missiles and drones, will leave Ukrainian cities increasingly vulnerable to attack. The sense of growing confidence in Moscow has been tangible in recent weeks, with Putin vowing to fight on until victory and the Russian Foreign Ministry posting that Ukraine must be “completely denazified and demilitarized,” Kremlin code for the country’s total capitulation and subjugation.

Ultimately, even a dramatic increase in deliveries of air defense systems and ammunition to Ukraine will not be enough to end Russia’s terror bombing campaign. In order to effectively counter the threat posed by Russian drones and missiles, Ukraine must receive long-range missiles of its own, along with the political green light from its partners to strike launch sites and related targets inside Russia. As long as Western leaders insist on restricting Ukraine’s ability to strike back at Russia, Ukrainian commanders will be forced to fight the air war with a shield but no sword.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Long range fires in the form of the tracked Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and wheeled High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), together with very long ranged and highly accurate Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) munitions have been supplied, but in relatively small quantities. Despite an inventory of hundreds of M1-series main battle tanks kept in storage, the US has delivered only 31 tanks to Ukraine, almost two years into the conflict.

The European Union for its part has contributed around $80 billion in overall aid, but much of this has been in the form of financial assistance rather than military supplies. A closer look shows that the burden has not been fairly shared across Europe. As a percentage of GDP, contributions from Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, and Norway, all of whom share a border with the Russian Federation, far outstrip wealthier states like Germany, France, and Italy.

In addition to MiG-29s, Poland transferred more than 320 modernized main battle tanks to Ukraine in 2022 and early 2023, replacing most of Ukraine’s battlefield losses. Estonia transferred all of its 155mm howitzers and more than a third of its annual defense budget to Ukraine. Latvia contributed all of its Stinger missiles. Tiny Lithuania has contributed almost $1 billion in aid of all types, second only to Norway as a percentage of GDP. Britain, too, has played a leading role, providing NLAW anti-tank systems, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and Challenger tanks to Ukraine when others have remained reluctant, thereby “priming the pump” for major allies to follow suit.

Clearly, those states most threatened by Russian aggression have shown far greater commitment to supporting Ukraine. For the most part, the rest have followed the US lead in helping Ukraine to resist further Russian territorial gains, but have denied Ukraine the means to achieve decisive success in reclaiming occupied territory. Above all, this means no or very few main battle tanks, fighter aircraft, or long range missile artillery.

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What accounts for the West’s cautious approach to supporting Ukraine? It appears to be driven by three key concerns. Firstly, some Western policymakers fear that providing Ukraine with the weapons and capabilities to win will cross a “red line” and provoke Putin to risk nuclear war. Secondly, there is alarm that a decisive Russian defeat in Ukraine would lead to Putin’s overthrow, with chaos likely to follow. The third factor is the belief that Russia must be preserved as a major player and crucial element in the international system, something defeat in Ukraine could call into question.

The possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons has been dismissed by many experts, including the Director of US Central Intelligence. Deploying nuclear weapons might well lead to uncontrolled escalation and the end of Putin’s regime or even Russia itself. Putin’s famed “escalate to deescalate” doctrine, essentially nuclear saber-rattling to preclude Western intervention, has proven successful due to timidity on the part of US and European leaders, but this does not constitute actual intent. For eight decades, nuclear deterrence has proven to be stable and durable. The US has invested trillions in its nuclear systems and should have faith in its own ability to deter Putin.

Worries over the potential instability of a post-Putin Russia are similarly unconvincing. If Putin is overthrown due to failure in Ukraine, would his successors really adopt the same course and attempt to renew Russian aggression? Any successor would be faced with a shattered military, a damaged economy, and a disillusioned and despondent population. Russian elites, many of whom have a taste for Western luxuries, are more likely to seek escape from Western sanctions and reintegration into the international community. And even in an autocratic society, the Russian people will have a voice in a new Russia. After suffering fearful losses and economic deprivation, they will also want change.

The argument in favor of preserving Russia as a key element of the international system is perhaps the hardest of all to defend. Putin does not want a stable international system and is unlikely to ever operate as a responsible player within it. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy was on the march and autocracy seemed to be in full retreat. Today, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea combine to present a formidable challenge to traditional Western liberalism and democracy, with the Putin regime serving as a destabilizing factor in international affairs.

Defeat in Ukraine and regime change in Moscow would undoubtedly lead to a diminution of Russian power in the near and mid-term. Some parts of the Russian Federation with non-Russian majorities such as Chechnya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, North Ossetia and others might break away. However, the core of the Russian state with its nuclear weapons and vast energy, agricultural, and mineral resources would remain viable and intact and would have clear incentives to act in accordance with international norms and rules.

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The Biden administration deserves credit for its efforts to support the survival of Ukraine as an independent state. But its policy objective has not been to enable Ukrainian victory. Time and again, President Biden and his chief aides have warned about the dangers of provoking World War III as a rationale for withholding critical assistance. The major European powers have for the most part followed suit. The irony here is that pursuing a policy designed to prevent a Russian victory while denying Ukraine the tools its needs to win actually increases the chances of an even more dangerous conflict in Europe.

As the war grinds on, international support for Ukraine must wane. Far smaller in population and resources, Ukraine’s military and Ukrainian society cannot endure large scale war indefinitely. In time, Ukrainian morale and national resolve will degrade. Though Russia has suffered enormous losses, it has far greater resources. With the support of China and other autocratic regimes, Moscow has the capacity to carry on the invasion of Ukraine for many years.

Unless the current dynamics of the invasion change in 2024, the most likely result is yet another frozen conflict like Georgia and Moldova, but with Russian forces occupying the sovereign territory of a neighboring state on a much larger and more dangerous scale. In this circumstance, Russia is unlikely to lick its wounds and slumber. Instead, any pause in the invasion of Ukraine would allow the Russian military to refit and retrain.

Meanwhile, Putin’s well-documented imperial ambitions would seek new outlets. If the West falters in Ukraine, the Baltic States and even Poland would be squarely in Putin’s sights, raising the chances that the US will become directly involved due to its NATO treaty obligations.

Had the US and its NATO allies committed themselves in spring 2022 to a Ukrainian victory, Ukraine would now possess a superior tank fleet, a capable air force, ample long range fires able to reach deep into the Russian rear, and breaching assets capable of solving the problem of dense minefields. In all likelihood, Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive would have succeeded in turning the tide decisively in Ukraine’s favor. No NATO soldiers would have had to enter the fight, and at a small fraction of NATO defense budgets, the Russian military threat could have been neutered for a generation. Most importantly of all, the prospects for escalation and a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO would have been dramatically reduced.

That outcome is still possible and can be achieved without wrecking Western defense budgets, alliance cohesion, or domestic politics. However, time is running out. Ukraine remains defiant but its forces have been mauled and are increasingly suffering from ammunition shortages. A policy reversal by Western leaders in early 2024 could see Ukraine equipped with the capabilities it needs to win the war by the end of the year. Above all, that means artillery ammunition, long range fires, air power, and assault breaching equipment.

A stirring Ukrainian success in 2024 would have far-reaching effects for European security and international stability. Aggressive authoritarian regimes like China and Iran would be chastened, not encouraged. Global food security and supply chain disruptions would be eased. Putin would probably be removed, with reasonable prospects for improved relations between Russia and the West and a more stable international equilibrium.

In all of this, Western leaders must be reminded that the world remains a dangerous place. Half measures do not enhance deterrence and do not impress aggressors. If we seek to avoid conflict and confrontation with Russia and with others, we must do so in concert with friends and allies with determination and a measure of boldness. So far, we are falling short.

Richard D. Hooker Jr. is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. He previously served as Dean of the NATO Defense College and as Special Assistant to the US President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia with the National Security Council.

Poland’s new PM now appears determined to transform the optics around the war in Ukraine by reminding his fellow Western leaders of exactly what is at stake. He will be helped by a high international profile and strong personal credentials, having previously served as Polish Prime Minister from 2007-2014 before continuing his career in Brussels as president of the European Council from 2014-2019. In its latest annual rating published in early December, Politico named Tusk as “the most powerful person in Europe,” while noting his record as a Russia hawk and his calls for unwavering support for Ukraine.

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Ukrainians are hoping the new government in Warsaw will provide a boost to bilateral ties following some signs of increasingly strained relations in recent months. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Poland has been among Ukraine’s most important allies. This Polish support has included welcoming millions of Ukrainian refugees and providing the Ukrainian military with everything from ammunition to tanks and fighter jets. Poland was also credited with helping convince Germany to supply Ukraine with modern Leopard tanks in early 2023.

Cracks first began to appear in the relationship between Kyiv and Warsaw in summer 2023, with Poland imposing restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural exports following protests from Polish farmers. Tensions rose further in November when Polish truckers began blockading the border with Ukraine over what they claimed was unfair competition from Ukrainian freight carriers. In an indication of improving ties, the border was partially unblocked on December 11.

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The uncompromisingly pro-Ukrainian position voiced by the new Polish government was widely expected in Moscow, but Tusk’s commitment to rally international support for Ukraine will nevertheless be viewed by the Kremlin as particularly unwelcome news. While Russia has struggled to achieve its military goals in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin remains confident that he can ultimately secure victory by outlasting the West. The Kremlin dictator believes time is on his side and is actively preparing his country for a long war. He has already succeeded in shifting much of the Russian economy onto a wartime footing, and is prepared to wait until his opponents lose heart.

Putin has been visibly encouraged by recent signs of fatigue among Ukraine’s international partners, boasting in October that Ukraine would have “a week to live” if Western military deliveries ceased. He will be watching closely in the coming months for further signals of declining Western resolve, and will be hoping that the current stalemate along the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine continues to undermine dwindling faith in a Ukrainian military victory.

The incoming Polish authorities are now aiming to reverse the recent trend of declining support for Ukraine by calling on Western colleagues to redouble their efforts. That may be easier said than done. With the Russian invasion now approaching the two-year mark with no end in sight, a degree of war weariness is inevitable. Viewed from Warsaw, it is clear to the new Polish PM that Europe’s future security is at stake in Ukraine, but he must also convince other Western leaders that committing to support a long war against Russia is in their national interests.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Two months later, Ukraine liberated Snake Island, a strategically important Black Sea outpost located some 120 kilometers southwest of Odesa. By midsummer 2022, Ukrainian forces were carrying out air strikes on targets in Russian-occupied Crimea with increasingly regularity. As the largest city in southern Ukraine and the headquarters of the Ukrainian navy, Odesa was at the heart of these efforts.

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The Battle of the Black Sea has escalated significantly during 2023. While international attention has focused on the largely static front lines of the Russian invasion in southern and eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been pushed out of the northwestern Black Sea, with most Russian warships retreating in recent months from their traditional home port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

This success has proven possible thanks to a combination of daring Ukrainian commando raids and surgical strikes against Russian air defenses, logistical hubs, and shipping. Ukraine has used innovative new naval drones and Western-supplied missiles to damage or destroy a growing list of Russian vessels and hit key targets including the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Satellite footage and international media reports in early October 2023 confirmed that the bulk of the Russian Black Sea Fleet had been withdrawn from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

While it is far too early for Ukraine to declare victory in the Battle of the Black Sea, the successes achieved in the past year are arguably no less significant in terms of their impact on the wider war than the liberation of Kharkiv region and Kherson in the final months of 2022. In addition to forcing Putin’s fleet to retreat, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea have also significantly weakened the logistical networks that are essential for the resupply of the Russian army in southern Ukraine.

Crucially, Ukraine has also been able to ease the blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports. Russia began blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea coast on the eve of the full-scale invasion. This blockade was partially lifted by a UN-brokered Grain Deal in July 2022, but Russia was soon attempting to leverage its continued participation in the agreement to blackmail the international community. It came as no surprise when Putin officially confirmed Russia’s withdrawal in summer 2023, leaving the future of Ukraine’s maritime trade in doubt.

Ukraine responded to this latest setback by unilaterally announcing the establishment of a new humanitarian maritime corridor for merchant vessels sailing to and from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. This would have been unthinkable in the first months of the Russian invasion, but Ukrainian progress in the Black Sea region during summer 2023 meant a new corridor was a realistic possibility. By early December 2023, more than 200 ships had passed through Ukraine’s Black Sea humanitarian corridor, carrying over seven million tons of grains, metals, and other cargo.

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The reopening of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports creates a vital lifeline for the country’s battered wartime economy. While current monthly cargo volumes remain well below prewar averages, the steady flow of merchant shipping is providing a very welcome boost to Ukrainian GDP and bringing in billions of dollars in taxes. It is also reinvigorating the business climate in port cities including Odesa, providing work for local residents in a range of industries.

Ukraine’s progress on the Black Sea front of the war with Russia cannot be taken for granted. Despite suffering a string of naval setbacks, Russia retains the ability to attack shipping and strike Ukraine’s ports. Odesa has been bombed repeatedly since summer 2023, with attacks targeting the city’s port facilities along with the UNESCO-listed historic downtown area.

In order to win the Battle of the Black Sea, Ukraine needs to receive further support from the country’s partners. The most urgent requirement is additional air defense systems to guard Ukraine’s port infrastructure and territorial waters. Cities like Odesa much be protected if maritime trade is to continue. Longer range missiles are also needed to deter Russian warships. At sea, existing international efforts to clear the Black Sea of Russian mines are very welcome but should be significantly expanded.

Another critical factor is maritime insurance. A number of initiatives have already been launched to provide insurance coverage for cargo vessels serving Ukraine’s southern ports, but high rates remain an obstacle. While the Ukrainian authorities are attempting to address this problem, the country’s Western allies could potentially take steps to inspire far greater confidence among global insurance providers.

Keeping Ukraine’s ports open for business makes sense economically for Ukraine’s partners. It will save them money in the long run by reducing the financial burden of meeting Kyiv’s budgetary shortfalls as the war with Russia grinds on. More importantly, it also represents a significant step toward victory in the Battle of the Black Sea, which would bring Ukraine closer to defeating Russia’s invasion.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a member of the Ukrainian parliament with the European Solidarity party.

Tracking narratives

Pro-Kremlin sources spread conspiracy theory alleging US ‘climate weapons’ caused storm in Crimea

Putin unveils Russia’s AI strategy to counter Western ‘monopoly’

Multiple reports of Ukrainian drone attacks as Russia continues its assault

On November 27, sources on Telegram reported a massive explosion with subsequent detonations in eastern Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region. It seems likely that drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) attacked a Russian munitions storage facility, but the AFU has not claimed responsibility for the attack. That same day, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that air defenses detected Ukrainian drones deep inside Russia, notably in the Ryazan region. Ukrainian drones also reportedly targeted an aircraft plant in Smolensk the previous day.

Also on November 27, AFU reported twelve Russian attacks in the direction of Lyman, along with Russian assaults in the directions of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, with twenty-six and twenty-one attacks, respectively. The next day, Ukraine reported fifty-six attacks by Russian forces, with the fiercest combat occurring near Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka.

According to Reuters, tension between Russian and Indian enterprises is intensifying over the sale of oil for rupees. Russia reportedly refuses to accept a “non-convertible currency” and insists all transactions are made with China’s yuan. As a result, certain transactions are being paid in installments in various currencies, including the yuan, Hong Kong dollar, and UAE dirham. At the same time, the Financial Times reported that Turkey is increasing its exports to Russia, notably in microchips, communications equipment, and telescopic sights. US Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson is expected to visit Turkey imminently to hold discussions with Turkish officials on limiting this trade.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has alleged that Russian leadership spent 1.5 billion dollars on a large-scale information campaign known as “Maidan 3,” according to the Ukrainian outlet Babel. The campaign, which has not been independently verified, was allegedly designed to incite dissent, exacerbate contradictory reporting, and instill dread and terror in Ukraine. The report also alleged that Russia spent 250 million of the 1.5 billion dollars on Telegram operations.

In additional security-related news, the United States is negotiating with Greece to purchase 75,000 shells for Ukraine. It was reported that this will include 50,000 105-millimeter shells, 20,000 155-millimeter shells, and 5,000 203-millimeter shells, according to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. The Greek army possesses 203-millimeter shells for use with the US-made M110 self-propelled artillery units. These shells are also suitable for firing from the Soviet 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns, which are utilized by the AFU’s 43rd brigade.

Meanwhile, a new photo appearing to originate from Ukrainian soldiers shows NT120 artillery mines designed for 120mm mortars, which are believed to have been sent to Ukraine by Spain. Spain rarely announces new aid packages for Ukraine, but it has previously supported Ukraine with artillery shell production.

Naval News reported on possible GPS jamming on Russian auxiliary ships in occupied Sevastopol that are systematically broadcasting signals as if they were located at Belbek airfield, many kilometers north. Radar interference patterns are visible on satellite imagery from Sevastopol.

Lastly, the Slovakian truckers union announced plans to blockade its border with Ukraine beginning on December 1. Truckers in Slovakia have threatened to close the country’s major border crossing unless measures are implemented to curb competition from Ukrainian truckers. Truckers from Poland are also seeking restrictions on Ukrainian truckers, who they allege provide lower costs for their services and carry products throughout the European Union (EU) rather than just between the EU and Ukraine. The announcement further reinforces signals coming from Bratislava that the country could curtail sending aid to Ukraine.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Finland enforces border closure with Russia in response to escalating migrant concerns

On November 28, Finland announced the complete closure of its border crossings with Russia to curb an unusually high influx of asylum seekers. The decision remains effective for a two-week period concluding on December 13. Finnish authorities accused Russia of acting as a conduit for the influx of migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, by intentionally guiding them toward Finland. Russia denied these allegations, insisting that the individuals attempting to cross the border have a legitimate right to do so. Earlier this month, Finland began closing most of its border crossings with Russia, leaving only the northernmost point open for processing asylum seekers.

According to Finnish officials, Russia is exploiting migrants as part of a hybrid warfare strategy to destabilize the country following its accession to NATO. Authorities reported approximately nine hundred asylum seekers crossing from Russia, an unusually high number for the country.

“Finland has a profound reason to suspect that the entry [of migrants] is organized by a foreign state,” asserted Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. “This deals with Russia’s influencing operations and we won’t accept it. We don’t accept any attempt to undermine our national security. Russia has caused this situation, and it can also stop it.”

Deutsche Welle reported that facilitators assisted in the border crossings, providing services for a fee, such as visas, language courses, transportation, and accommodations. Some facilitators asserted they had agreements with Russian border officials, claiming that these officials would stamp migrants’ passports and guide them to the Finnish border, where they could apply for asylum. Deutsche Welle identified several Arabic-language Telegram channels where administrators and other group members offer assistance in crossing the Russian-Finnish border in exchange for a fee. The DFRLab previously reported on similar tactics on Facebook in relation to migrant transit to the EU via Belarus in 2021.

—Victoria Olari, research assistant, Moldova

Pro-Kremlin sources spread conspiracy theory alleging US ‘climate weapons’ caused storm in Crimea

A severe storm system moved through the Black Sea this week, impacting occupied Crimea and parts of Ukraine and Russia, leaving millions without heat and power. Amid the storm, pro-Kremlin sources re-circulated an old conspiracy theory suggesting US-based entities were complicit in the storm’s creation.

The conspiracy theory accuses the United States of having a technological program that can control the weather. The DFRLab observed five Russian news websites amplifying this old conspiracy theory in the context of the recent storm in Crimea, including Ukraina.ru, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Don24, Crimea News, and Privet Rostov.

The news reports referenced weather manipulation against Russia and suggested a link between geopolitical events and incidences of weather disasters. Text analysis of the five reports revealed that they often used the Russian phrase for “climate weapons” (климатическое оружие). They also referenced the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey. The articles cited two sources to support the theory, including an interview in Ukraina.ru, a Kremlin-affiliated outlet, with Dmitry Efimov, former chief analyst of the Federal Security Service of Russia, and an interview in the pro-Kremlin media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda with scientist Vladimir Polyakov. The reports also implied a connection between the February 2023 earthquake and the presence of the US destroyer ship USS Nitze in Turkey, but acknowledged a lack of concrete evidence.

The conspiracy theory also received traction on Telegram. Using the Telegram analytics tool TGStat, the DFRLab identified that the Russian phrase for “climate weapons” garnered 1,911,451 views on November 27, and found that Ukraina.ru’s report had been republished by at least six Telegram channels. The conspiracy theory pushed by these news outlets not only seeks to amplify distrust toward the United States but also has the potential to fuel climate denialism. The trend of attributing natural disasters to foreign actors can divert attention from the scientific community’s consensus on the climate crisis and allows states to evade accountability.

—Sayyara Mammadova, research assistant, Warsaw, Poland

Putin unveils Russia’s AI strategy to counter Western ‘monopoly’

On November 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for the country to develop its own artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, warning against allowing the West to monopolize AI development. Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Journey 2023 Conference in Moscow, Putin emphasized that Russian AI should counter Western systems and be grounded in the Russian language, traditional culture, and spiritual heritage. This echoes a narrative used in Russian propaganda that highlights the preservation of Russian culture and positions Russia as a defender of religious traditions.

Putin expressed concern that Western search engines ignore Russian culture, accusing them of promoting xenophobia. “The algorithm may tell the machine that Russia, our culture, science, music, and literature simply do not exist,” he said. “They are canceled in the digital space. Later, they can do the same with other cultures and civilizations, inserting themselves and emphasizing their exceptionalism in this space.”

Putin announced his intention to approve a national strategy for the development of artificial intelligence to counter the West’s “monopoly domination.” Three key proposals in the strategy have been revealed. First, Russian scientists should have access to next-generation “supercomputers” being developed in Russia. Second, Putin called for expanding AI technology development programs at the master’s and doctoral level in relevant universities. Third, the strategy will consider restructuring research funding and allocating resources to research in generative AI and large language models, as well as develop new academic programs. Addressing safety and ethics in technological progress, Putin referred to Russian classical writers as moral guides for researchers and proposed that Russia’s experience would contribute to shaping international ethical standards in AI. He suggested discussing these issues at the 2024 BRICS summit, which Russia will chair in Kazakhstan.

—Sopo Gelava, Research Associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

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Arming Ukraine is the cheapest way to stop Putin’s resurgent Russia

Ivan Verstyuk — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 15:23:31 +0000

As members of the US Congress continue to debate the future of their country’s support for Ukraine, US President Joe Biden has reminded everyone of the pragmatic argument for continued military aid.

“If we walk away from the challenges of today, the risk of conflict could spread, and the costs to address them will only rise,” wrote Biden in a November 18 opinion piece in the Washington Post. “We know from two world wars in the past century that when aggression in Europe goes unanswered, the crisis does not burn itself out. It draws America in directly. That’s why our commitment to Ukraine today is an investment in our own security. It prevents a broader conflict tomorrow.”

At a time when politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are becoming increasingly alarmed by the high price of arming Ukraine and the lack of any obvious pathway to Ukrainian victory, Biden’s comments are particularly welcome. They remind skeptics that while the price of defeating Russia in Ukraine is admittedly high, the cost of stopping Putin will only rise if his invasion is allowed to succeed.

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War is an expensive business, as Ukrainians know only too well. Next year, the Ukrainian authorities plan to spend around half of the entire state budget on defense. This is in stark contrast to defense spending in neighboring NATO countries, many of which still struggle to meet the Alliance’s annual funding target set at two percent of GDP.

If military aid to Ukraine slows in the coming months and the country is left without the tools to defend itself, Putin could succeed in his war aim of seizing and subjugating all or most of the country. This would transform the global security climate. Triumphant Russian troops would advance across Ukraine to NATO’s eastern borders. With NATO discredited and humbled by the fall of Ukraine, the Kremlin would be tempted to further test the resolve of the Alliance.

In this environment, all NATO member countries would inevitably be obliged to dramatically increase defense spending. Earlier reluctance to meet NATO’s two percent target would soon be forgotten as countries scrambled to counter the looming threat posed by a resurgent Russia.

There is no way of knowing how Russia would behave in the aftermath of success in Ukraine, of course. The Kremlin could choose to pause and regroup before embarking on any new invasions, and might find itself preoccupied with consolidating its grip on newly occupied Ukrainian regions. Nevertheless, the obvious danger of further Russian aggression would necessitate an unprecedented wave of military spending across Europe that would dwarf the current cost of arming Ukraine.

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The current debate over continued military support for Ukraine is already emboldening Moscow and strengthening Vladimir Putin’s conviction that the West ultimately has no stomach for a full-scale confrontation with Russia. Putin does not face the funding uncertainties that plague Ukraine, and can rely upon an authoritarian economy to fuel his war machine.

The Russian dictator may also seek to generate further economic tension among his opponents by driving energy prices higher. With the United States about to enter an election year, the US electorate will be particularly sensitive to any rises in energy prices. This could negatively impact public opinion toward support for Ukraine. Most European countries are similarly vulnerable. Russia has already weaponized food supplies by blocking Ukrainian agricultural exports; further such acts of economic aggression can be expected.

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches the two-year mark with no end in sight despite catastrophic Russian losses, it should now be abundantly clear to any objective observer that Vladimir Putin is engaged in a messianic mission that goes far beyond the limited geopolitical objectives driving most modern world leaders. The invasion of Ukraine is central to his dream of reviving the Russian Empire and reestablishing it as a global superpower. He is fully prepared to pay a very high price to achieve his goal.

By unleashing Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, Putin has burned all his bridges with West. He is now preparing for a long war and is attempting to consolidate an anti-Western authoritarian axis together with China, Iran, and North Korea. At this stage, it is wishful thinking to believe Putin can be bought off by sacrificing Ukraine. On the contrary, any attempts to appease him will only increase his appetite for further acts of aggression while inflating the price of defeating Russia. Arming Ukraine may be expensive, but it is by far the cheapest way to stop Putin.

Ivan Verstyuk is a Ukrainian analyst and commentator based in Kyiv.

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Russia’s air strike campaign caused widespread damage and disruption to everyday life across Ukraine but ultimately failed to achieve its goals. The Ukrainian civilian population did not lose the will to resist and did not pressure their own government to end the war; on the contrary, the Kremlin’s terror bombing tactics visibly strengthened Ukrainian resolve.

Despite five months of regular bombardments, Russia was unable to strike a decisive blow against Ukraine’s power grid. While individual Russian missiles and drones frequently managed to penetrate the country’s often patchy air defenses, Ukraine’s energy sector engineers and administrators rose to the challenge with a range of improvised solutions that succeeded in keeping the lights on.

As the bombing campaign unfolded and Russia’s destructive intentions became clearer, Ukraine’s partners responded by sending additional air defense systems to the country. As this defensive shield grew more formidable, the percentage of intercepted Russian missiles and drones in each new attack rose from around 50 percent to 75 percent or higher.

While the bombing campaign targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure eventually wound down with the arrival of spring, Russian air attacks have continued across Ukraine throughout 2023. Since April, there has been a sharp rise in drone attacks, with Russia using drones supplied by Iran and also also manufacturing its own versions domestically. Russian missiles continue to pose a threat, with earlier expectations that supplies would run low proving inaccurate. In recent months, Russia is believed to have been stockpiling missiles and drones for the coming winter campaign.

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Russia’s apparent preparations for a new bombing campaign are certainly alarming, but Ukraine has also not been idle. Over the past year, the Ukrainian military has been developing its own drone capabilities, and has carried out a number of air strikes on targets inside Russia. Some attacks on Russian sites including airbases and missile production plants have also been attributed Ukrainian Special Forces teams operating deep in enemy territory.

Ukraine’s proven ability to conduct offensive operations inside the Russian Federation should give the Kremlin food for thought. In recent weeks, officials in Kyiv have publicly warned that if Russia resumes the large-scale bombardment of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, they will hit back. “This year we will not only defend ourselves, but also respond,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented in late October.

Ukraine’s air strike arsenal is not limited to drones. The delivery of Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles in recent months has significantly increased Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian targets in occupied regions of Ukraine including Crimea. A combination of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on the Russian Black Sea Fleet has already forced Putin to withdraw many of his warships from their naval base in occupied Crimea, including ships previously used to launch cruise missile attacks on Ukraine.

While Ukraine now has much better capacity to strike back against Russia, the biggest issue remains the country’s air defenses. Ukraine’s air defenses have improved dramatically over the past year, with new systems regularly supplied by the country’s partners. However, shooting down large volumes of Russian missiles and drones has depleted Ukraine’s stocks of ammunition, much of which is extremely expensive and in relatively limited supply. With Russia now believed to be manufacturing its own cheap domestic drones in growing quantities, the Kremlin may seek to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses with waves of drones before using missiles to land a series of crushing blows.

One solution is to explore hybrid air defense options incorporating elements of Soviet-era air defense systems with those from the US and other Western partners. This approach has already been adopted with some success by the Ukrainian military, and could help overcome supply and cost issues while resulting in a further strengthening of Ukraine’s air shield.

As Ukrainians prepare for the winter season, there is no room for complacency. After all, Russia has doubtless learned valuable lessons from last year’s devastating but ultimately failed bombing campaign. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s air defenses are currently stronger than ever and will continue to improve as more systems arrive in the coming weeks. The country also now has the ability to strike back against Russia in ways that were not possible one year ago.

Marcel Plichta is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and former analyst for the US Department of Defense. All views are his own.

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In his interview and essay, Zaluzhny seeks to explain how technological advances on both sides of the front lines currently favor defensive operations while making any major offensives extremely costly. The fighting during 2023 has provided ample evidence of this trend, with Ukraine enjoying defensive advantages in places like Avdiivka and Vuhledar, while Russia has held the upper hand in the south on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fronts. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” Zaluzhny comments.

The present dominance of defensive tactics on the battlefield works in Russia’s favor, as Ukraine cannot afford to let the conflict freeze along the current front lines. As Zaluzhny acknowledges, a static, positional form of warfare would greatly benefit Russia, allowing it to rebuild its military power before eventually threatening Ukraine’s armed forces and the state itself. Ukrainian commanders have far more limited resources at their disposal, and must aim to maintain momentum as they seek to liberate around 20 percent of the country and free millions of citizens from Russian occupation.

Zaluzhny sees technology as the key to regaining the battlefield initiative and ultimately defeating Russia’s invasion. In a war that has already witnessed the unprecedented use of everything from naval drones to cyber attacks, he argues that victory will go to the side best able to harness the potential of existing and new defense sector technologies. “The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing,” Zaluzhny writes. “In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other.”

Zaluzhny’s blueprint for future victory over Russia has appeared at a relatively early stage in the conflict. A century ago during World War I, which is widely perceived as a similarly deadlocked conflict marked by the ascendancy of defensive tactics, new technologies did not begin to create openings for offensive operations until the third or fourth year of the war. It is also noteworthy that nothing comparable to Zaluzhny’s frank analysis has emerged from the Russian side, despite the reputation of Putin’s top commander, Valeriy Gerasimov, as something of an innovator.

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Despite his emphasis on the importance of new technologies, Zaluzhny’s vision for the future conduct of the war does not rely on any single “wonder weapon.” Instead, the Ukrainian general outlines the importance of effectively combining drones, electronic warfare, counter-battery fire, and new mine-breaching technologies.

Ukraine is now counting on the country’s partners to supply more of these advanced military technologies. While Zaluzhny is careful not to criticize Ukraine’s allies when commenting on the military aid supplied so far, he hints at a reluctance to send the most modern technologies and notes frequent delays in deliveries. “It is important to understand that this war cannot be won with the weapons of the past generation and outdated methods,” he says.

Zaluzhny argues that electronic warfare (EW) capabilities hold the key to victory in the drone war and acknowledges that for the moment, Russia has a clear advantage in this area. He advocates expanded production of anti-drone EW systems within Ukraine and abroad, and also calls for greater access to electronic intelligence from Ukraine’s allies, including data from assets that collect signals intelligence.

Zaluzhny recognizes that technology alone cannot defeat Russia. He notes the need to build up Ukraine’s reserves and close gaps in existing legislation that allow citizens to avoid military service. He also calls for a more modern approach to command and control within the Ukrainian military, “so we can visualise the battlefield more effectively than Russia and make decisions more quickly.”

Ukraine’s top commander cautions against underestimating Russia. He stresses that despite suffering heavy losses since February 2022, Putin’s army will continue to have superiority in weapons, equipment, missiles, and ammunition for a considerable time. Reading Zaluzhny’s detailed and sobering analysis, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that time is not on Ukraine’s side.

Throughout his interview and essay, Zaluzhny repeatedly emphasizes the dangers of a long war, which he says would strongly favor Russia with its far greater human and material resources. “A positional war is a prolonged one that carries enormous risks to Ukraine’s armed forces and to its state,” he warns. The solution, Zaluzhny insists, lies in the effective use of the most advanced defense technologies. “New, innovative approaches can turn this war of position back into one of maneuver.”

Ukraine has been actively preparing for another winter of infrastructure attacks. Repair works have continued since spring 2023, while Ukrainian energy sector traders have been busy securing coal and gas stocks for the coming winter season. By the start of the heating season in early November, Ukraine had accumulated 16 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas in storage, significantly more than last year’s figure of 14.7 bcm. State energy company Naftogaz has also been working to increase domestic production, commissioning 54 new production wells during 2023. This has helped Ukraine achieve unprecedented levels of self-sufficiency and has freed the country from earlier dependence on comparatively expensive European imports.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, has defied all odds by rebuilding some of its lost wind generation capacity in locations close to the front lines. Company officials pledge to expand this renewable energy capacity further. Helpfully, the Ukrainian grid operator, Ukrenergo, and its neighboring EU counterparts have also been working to increase border transmission capacity. This will allow Ukraine to access enough electricity imports to power two million homes.

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Despite significant efforts to prepare for winter, Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure remains in many respects more vulnerable than last year. Much will depend on the delivery of sufficient additional air defense systems in the coming weeks. These are needed to protect the entire civilian population along with power plants and transmission lines across Ukraine. At present, only Kyiv benefits from a genuinely comprehensive anti-missile shield, but there are at least another 45 Ukrainian cities with a population of over 100,000 in need of protection.

The situation is further complicated by rising levels of domestic energy consumption in wartime Ukraine. Last year, demand for electricity fell to around half of prewar levels. This drop was due to a combination of factors including the destruction of Ukraine’s industrial base, the Russian occupation of around 20 percent of the country, and the departure of over seven million people who fled the invasion and entered the EU as refugees.

This reduction in consumption made it easier for Ukraine to maintain energy supplies to the remaining population. However, demand has been steadily rising by around 2-3 percent per month in 2023 as the Ukrainian economy stabilizes and millions of Ukrainians return home from the European Union. Amid signs of economic recovery, the IMF recently upgraded its 2023 GDP growth forecast for Ukraine to 4.5 percent. Ukraine is therefore likely to face greater demand for electricity this winter, but will be dependent on a damaged and reduced energy network.

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One long-term solution to protect Ukraine’s power grid would be to redesign the entire system and install decentralized, self-contained production hubs using small-scale gas-fired turbines. The current system relies on centralized transmission lines and large generating units, which are highly vulnerable to attacks because any damage in one part of the network can disable the entire structure. Russia is well aware of this weakness and has sought to exploit it. A more decentralized system would be less vulnerable to Russian attack and could potentially cover demand in urban areas. However, this would require significant time and money that Ukraine currently does not have.

For now, enhanced air defenses are the only realistic option to guarantee a high degree of protection during the coming winter. Additional air defense systems must be supplied urgently by Ukraine’s international partners. The clock is ticking. While the weather remains unusually warm in Ukraine, the traditional winter chill is expected to begin in the coming weeks. When temperatures drop below freezing, this is widely expected to signal the start of Russia’s anticipated winter bombing campaign.

Efforts are currently underway to improve Ukraine’s air defenses. In early November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that more Western-supplied NASAMS systems had arrived in the country and had been deployed. Ukraine’s partners continue to send additional air defense systems and ammunition, although there is little specific data regarding overall quantities. Speaking on November 12, Zelenskyy noted that the country’s air defenses remain insufficient to cover the whole of the country. “The Ukrainian sky shield is already more powerful compared to last year,” he commented. “It has greater capabilities, but unfortunately, it does not yet fully protect the entire territory.”

While it is clear that Ukraine’s air defense shield is now far more formidable than it was one year ago, the country’s energy network remains significantly weakened. Russia has also doubtless learned valuable lessons from last winter’s devastating but ultimately failed attempt to bomb Ukraine into submission. As temperatures drop, the coming months will be a serious test of Ukraine’s resilience and the continued commitment of the country’s partners.

While there are signs of progress toward resolving Ukraine’s munitions supply issues, it will be many months before any major breakthroughs are achieved. Meanwhile, the intensity of artillery fire along the 850 kilometer front line of the war means that projected production is unlikely to meet Ukraine’s needs until the second half of 2024 or early 2025.

Shell shortages are nothing new for the Ukrainian military, which has been obliged to improvise repeatedly throughout the first twenty months of the war. One effective solution has been the increased use of FVP (first person view) kamikaze drones. We can expect to see many more drones deployed on the battlefield in 2024. Nevertheless, anticipated supply shortfalls in key munitions will likely shape Ukraine’s strategic thinking for next year’s spring and summer campaigning seasons.

Ukrainian military plans will also reflect geopolitical considerations. Many in Kyiv have watched with mounting alarm in recent months as the issue of continued US military aid to Ukraine has become caught up in domestic American politics. With the United States about to enter an election year, many Ukrainians are now fearful that further weapons deliveries from the United States could be delayed or otherwise disrupted.

The situation across the Atlantic looks somewhat more promising, with many of Ukraine’s European partners seemingly ready to increase arms shipments. Even so, uncertainty over weapons deliveries will weigh heavily on Ukraine’s military thinking and may lead to a higher degree of caution as commanders seek to conserve limited resources.

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Another key factor that will determine the course of the war in 2024 will be Russia’s political priorities. The Kremlin may choose to remain on the defensive and focus on retaining currently occupied territories. Alternatively, Putin could order his commanders to resume large-scale offensive operations with a view to completing the occupation of the four Ukrainian provinces which were officially “annexed” by Russia in September 2022.

At present, a defensive strategy would appear to meet Russia’s main political objective, which is to freeze the conflict along the current front lines. The absence of any major Ukrainian breakthroughs during the country’s ongoing counteroffensive has already bolstered perceptions of a stalemate and led to growing international calls for a return to the negotiating table. If Russia can repeat this success in 2024, Ukraine will find it even more difficult to sustain international support for further large-scale offensive operations.

The recent Russian offensive around Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine is a reminder that Putin still has considerable unfulfilled territorial ambitions in Ukraine and may seek to seize new territory in the coming months. Purely defensive operations are unlikely to satisfy the Russian dictator, not least because he must orchestrate his “re-election” in 2024 and will therefore be eager to project strength. While the outcome of Russia’s scheduled presidential ballot is obviously a foregone conclusion, fresh battlefield victories would be particularly welcome as they would help distract domestic and international attention away from yet another rigged election.

While many military experts are highly skeptical regarding the offensive capabilities of Putin’s depleted military, Russian commanders do not appear to be constrained by any concerns over heavy losses. With this in mind, the sheer size of the Russian army and the overwhelming firepower advantages it continues to enjoy mean further advances cannot be ruled out.

The Kremlin’s army recruitment policies over the next few months will provide perhaps the best indication of Russia’s intentions for 2024. Any attempts to repeat the mass mobilization of late 2022 would signal plans to launch new offensive operations in the coming spring. Alternatively, if Moscow limits itself to more clandestine mobilization, this would suggest an emphasis on strategic defense.

In contrast to Ukraine, Russia is unlikely to face serious munitions shortages in 2024. Putin has already been working for more than a year to move much of the Russian economy onto a war footing. While this process has been far from perfect, it is producing results. Coupled with an unprecedented increase in military spending in Russia’s 2024 budget, this should ensure Putin’s troops have supplies for the coming year. However, the Russian military’s emphasis on massive artillery bombardments means even increased domestic production may not be enough to fully cover the army’s needs.

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Ukraine’s slow progress against Russia’s heavily fortified defenses during the current counteroffensive could persuade Ukrainian commanders to opt for different tactics in 2024. Instead of relying on frontal assaults against Russian positions, Ukraine may seek to preserve its offensive capabilities while concentrating on attrition in order to erode Russia’s ability to wage war.

Any switch in emphasis toward attritional warfare would likely include a dramatically expanded list of targets in occupied Crimea and inside Russia itself. Much would depend on the anticipated arrival of F-16 fighter jets and deliveries of long-range cruise missiles. Kyiv would also look to build on its recent successes in the Black Sea, where a combination of Ukrainian air strikes and commando raids has forced Russia to withdraw much of its fleet from Crimea.

If Ukraine chooses to focus on attrition in 2024, this would create significant political risks for Kyiv. The Ukrainian military would be able to preserve troops and equipment for a major new push in 2025 once increases in Western arms production begin to materialize, but another year without any breakthroughs would also inevitably fuel international calls for some kind of compromise deal with the Kremlin.

Despite the absence of any meaningful changes to the front lines so far in 2023, efforts to portray the war as a stalemate are misleading. We are currently witnessing a period of intense attrition, but this may well be followed by a fresh round of maneuver warfare. At present, the key task for commanders on each side is to protect their own forces and inflict heavy losses on the enemy while preparing to exploit windows of opportunity, as Ukraine was able to do in September 2022.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia are currently ready to negotiate. Instead, both sides remain committed to a military resolution and are already looking ahead to the coming campaigns of 2024. Ukraine’s leaders know they must regain the momentum that has been lost during the current counteroffensive, while also maintaining the international support that has proven so crucial for the country’s war effort.

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The cities of Reni and Izmail lie along a 112 kilometer stretch of the lower Danube’s Kiliya branch which forms the Ukrainian border with Romania. Both cities are located within what is one of Ukraine’s most ethnically diverse and remote regions. Known historically as Bessarabia, this isolated region lies to the south of Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port city, Odesa, and has few land connections with the rest of the country.

Since Ukraine regained independence in 1991, the informal method of rule for Bessarabia has typically been to let local business and political elites keep things under control. In exchange, members of the local establishment have been expected to provide political support for those holding power in Kyiv. For example, leadership in the city of Izmail has not changed significantly since 2010, with local authorities simply rebranding themselves to reflect each successive change in the national government.

This implied agreement has shielded local elites from any serious investigations into their business activities. However, the political stability that Kyiv has prioritized in its dealings with the Bessarabia region has come at the cost of economic stagnation. In the past few decades, there has been no major strategic planning for the development of Bessarabia beyond a handful of individual projects.

Long before the current wartime efforts to expand Ukraine’s Danube grain exports, the region was already struggling to get its own locally-produced agricultural products to market inside Ukraine, let alone exported via the Danube. Meanwhile, a ten-minute ferry service over the Danube between Orlivka on the Ukrainian side and the Romanian town of Isaccea is still the only way to cross the river directly. This service was hailed as an innovation when it was first launched, but it has remained a choke point for traffic with limited space and no plans to scale up.

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Since July 2023, numerous new proposals on how to get Ukrainian grain exports to global markets have been generated by the country’s European allies. On August 22, President Zelenskyy attended a Balkan Summit in Athens hosted by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. One of the results from a series of bilateral meetings between Zelenskyy and Balkan leaders was the proposal from Croatian Prime Minister Andriy Plenkovic to utilize Croatian port facilities on the Danube to offload and then truck Ukrainian grain to its Adriatic ports for onward global delivery. This type of innovative thinking utilizing Europe’s vast river and logistical networks should be further explored.

More recently, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery, Oleksandr Kubrakov, announced a new export route that utilizes the Danube Delta’s Sullina canal to move grain ships more securely in and out of Odesa while still using the Black Sea for export. Importantly for the region, discussions now include the participation of Moldova’s isolated Danube port outpost at Giurgiulesti.

Kyiv’s policy toward the Bessarabia region and its Danube shoreline must move on from the earlier arms-length approach of political patronage favored by the Ukrainian authorities that prioritized stability over efficiency and progress. A new approach is required recognizing that good governance and economic development are critical to Ukraine’s wartime success and the country’s postwar recovery.

Without an engaged and robust local governance framework, Ukraine’s river port cities will struggle in both the short and long term. Kyiv should work with its international partners to make up for lost time on the Danube by engaging with local authorities in a meaningful way.

Ukrainian civil society, local businesses, and political parties represented in Bessarabia must also wake up to the historic processes currently underway and seize the opportunity to realize their full potential. By working together, Ukraine’s national government and local authorities in Bessarabia can dramatically increase their country’s economic potential and reshape regional trade on Europe’s largest river. Crucially, meaningful progress in Bessarabia could have a major impact on the outcome of the war with Russia.

Michael Druckman is resident program director for Ukraine at the International Republican Institute.

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Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea is all the more remarkable as the country does not currently have a functioning navy. Instead, Ukraine has relied on daring commando raids along with a combination of domestically produced drones and long-range cruise missiles provided by the country’s Western partners. This limited arsenal has been deployed with the kind of ingenuity that has become the calling card of the Ukrainian military.

The first notable breakthrough for the Ukrainian war effort at sea was the April 2022 sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva. Two months later, Ukrainian forces liberated the small but strategically important Snake Island, which lies close to shipping lanes in the northwestern Black Sea and had been seized by Russia in the early days of the invasion. This was followed by a series of increasingly ambitious drone strikes on Russian military targets across Crimea throughout the second half of 2022 and into the current year.

Ukraine’s Black Sea offensive aims to secure a number of important objectives. By striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and sites in Crimea, Kyiv hopes to end the naval blockade of its ports and to disrupt the resupply of Putin’s army in southern Ukraine. Ultimately, the goal is to make the further occupation of Crimea untenable for the Russian military.

The Russian fleet’s withdrawal from Sevastopol underlines the effectiveness of Ukraine’s tactics. This can also be seen in the recent tentative reopening of the country’s Black Sea ports to merchant shipping. Russia first began blockading Ukraine’s ports on the eve of the full-scale invasion, before agreeing to a UN-brokered deal in summer 2022 that enabled limited grain shipments. The Kremlin then withdrew from this grain agreement in July 2023 and threatened to target all cargo vessels sailing to Ukraine.

Undeterred by Russian threats, the Ukrainian authorities declared a new “humanitarian maritime corridor” in early August that runs through Ukrainian waters in the northwestern Black Sea before hugging the coast close to NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. By early October, more than a dozen ships had successfully sailed from Ukrainian ports via the new blockade-breaking route. This maritime traffic represents an economic lifeline for Ukraine that can play a major role in the country’s ability to support itself in a long war.

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The dynamic nature of recent developments in the Black Sea is in stark contrast to the relatively static situation on the front lines of the war in southern and eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces have struggled for four months to break through dense minefields and heavily fortified Russian defenses. Since June, Ukraine’s lack of progress has dominated coverage of the war. This media emphasis on large-scale land operations has obscured the wider picture of Ukraine’s considerable success on the Crimean Front. However, news of the Russian fleet’s retreat from Sevastopol may now refocus attention.

Speaking on October 3 at a security conference in Warsaw, UK Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey argued that the military significance of Ukraine’s recent operations against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was comparable to the liberation of Kharkiv Oblast one year earlier. “The functional defeat of the Black Sea Fleet, and I would argue that is what it is, because the fleet has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine, is an enormous credit,” commented Heappey in the Polish capital.

Few in Moscow will underestimate the importance of recent setbacks in the Black Sea. On the contrary, they will be well aware of the mounting threat to Crimea and to the Russian army’s operations in the south of Ukraine, not to mention the damage that is being done to Russia’s already battered international prestige. The Russian navy’s retreat from Crimea is a particularly bitter personal humiliation for Vladimir Putin, who began his invasion of Ukraine almost ten years ago with the triumphant February 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula.

The occupation of Crimea was by far the single most popular event of Putin’s entire reign, sending his approval rating soaring to record highs and setting the stage for the subsequent invasion of mainland Ukraine. This makes the current situation all the more embarrassing. Putin was already struggling to account for his army’s evident inability to conquer a nation that he insists does not exist. He must now also explain how his once vaunted Black Sea Fleet is being defeated by a country without a navy.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

These operational and coordinated activities by the private sector demonstrate that there is a “sixth domain”—specifically, the “sphere of activities” of the private sector in warfare—that needs to be included as part of warfighting constructs, plans, preparations, and actions if the United States and its allies are to prevail in future conflicts. As will be elaborated below, that sphere of activities focuses mainly on the roles of information and critical infrastructures, including their intersections—ranging from the transmission and protection of information to the assurance of critical infrastructure operations.

Many of the United States’ activities in the sixth domain will take place in the United States homeland. However, while “defending the homeland” is listed as the first priority in the 2022 National Defense Strategy, insufficient attention has been paid to the actions that will be required of the private sector beyond just the defense industrial base as part of accomplishing an effective defense.³ Likewise, when US military forces are engaged in overseas combat, private-sector companies in allied countries (as well as US companies operating overseas) will be critical for the effectiveness of US forces, as well as for the allies’ own militaries. In short, establishing an effective strategy for the private sector in warfare is a key requirement for the United States and its allies.

This report sets forth the elements of such a strategy.⁴ In substantial part, the paper builds on lessons regarding the sixth domain derived from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war. The report discusses the key operational activities that fall within the sixth domain and how such activities need to be included in war planning with a focus on the organizational structures and authorities required for effective implementation of private-sector activities in warfare. For clarity of exposition, the report focuses its recommendations for the most part on the United States, though comparable approaches will be important for allies and partners.

The report recognizes the existing frameworks that have been established in the United States for interactions between the government and the private sector as set forth in Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21) of 2013 on critical infrastructure security and resilience, the statutory requirements including those in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which addresses the resilience of critical infrastructures, and the role of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience.⁵The report expands on those existing structures to recommend actions that will provide the framework for effective operational activities by the private sector in wartime.

Specifically, the report recommends:

Congress and the administration should work together to expand the existing national framework to provide for effective engagement with and coordination of the role of the private sector in wartime. This expanded framework for coordination between the private sector and federal government should include the requisite authorities and resources to accomplish each of the recommended actions below.
A Critical Infrastructure Wartime Planning and Operations Council (CIWPOC) with government and private-sector membership should be established to oversee planning for, and coordination of, government and private-sector wartime activities in support of national defense.
Regional resilience collaboratives should be established in key geographical locations to plan for and coordinate US government and private-sector activities in wartime and other high-consequence events and wartime efforts, including by the creation of regional risk registries that evaluate systemic risks.
Private-sector systemic risk analysis and response centers should be established for key critical infrastructures: a) using as an initial model the Analysis and Resilience Center for Systemic Risk that has been established by large private-sector firms for the financial and energy sectors, and b) focusing on cascading as well as other high-consequence, sector-specific risks. New centers should include key firms in the transportation, health, water, and food sectors.
An integrated corps of cybersecurity providers should be established whose private-sector members would provide high-end cybersecurity in wartime to key critical infrastructures and, if requested, to states, localities, tribes, and territories (SLTTs).
A “surge capability” of cybersecurity personnel in wartime should be established through the creation of a national cybersecurity civilian reserve corps and expansion of National Guard military reserve cybersecurity capabilities.
Cyber Command’s “Hunt Forward” model of operations should be expanded in wartime to support key critical infrastructures in the United States and, if requested, to provide support to SLTTs.
An international undersea infrastructure protection corps should be established that would combine governmental and private activities to support the resilience of undersea cables and pipelines. Membership should include the United States, allied nations with undersea maritime capabilities, and key private-sector cable and pipeline companies.
The Department of Defense should continue to expand its utilization of commercial space capabilities including the establishment of wartime contractual arrangements and other mechanisms to ensure the availability of commercial space assets in wartime.
Congress should enact the necessary authorities and provide the appropriate resources to accomplish the actions recommended above.

I. Homelands at risk in wartime

While the United States has largely not been subject to armed attack on the homeland, the National Defense Strategy now makes explicit that the “scope and scale of threats to the homeland have fundamentally changed . . . as the “PRC and Russia now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home.”⁶ Gen. Glenn VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command, has similarly testified that the:

. . . primary threat to the homeland is now . . . significant and consequential. Multiple peer competitors and rogue states possess the capability and capacity to threaten our citizens, critical infrastructure, and vital institutions.⁷

As Gen. VanHerck has stated, the challenges are particularly acute regarding critical infrastructures. The cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline, the attack on SolarWinds software supply chains, and multiple major ransomware attacks are illustrative of the types of attacks that have taken place in the United States.⁸ Such attacks could be expected to be substantially expanded in the event of armed conflict.

The potential for attacks on critical infrastructures in a conflict with Russia is significant. The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community has stated that, while “Russia probably does not want a direct military conflict with US and NATO forces, . . . there is potential for that to occur,” including in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war where “ the risk for escalation remains significant.”⁹ The 2023 Annual Threat Assessment is unequivocal regarding Russia’s capabilities to attack infrastructure in such an event:

Russia is particularly focused on improving its ability to target critical infrastructure, including underwater cables and industrial control systems, in the United States as well as in allied and partner countries, because compromising such infrastructure improves and demonstrates its ability to damage infrastructure during a crisis.¹⁰

Similarly, the 2023 report speaks to China’s capacity to threaten critical US infrastructures:

If Beijing feared that a major conflict with the United States were imminent, it almost certainly would consider undertaking aggressive cyber operations against U.S. homeland critical infrastructure and military assets worldwide. . . . China almost certainly is capable of launching cyber attacks that could disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States, including against oil and gas pipelines, and rail systems.¹¹

Moreover, Chinese intrusions into US critical infrastructures appear to have already occurred, according to media reports:

The Biden administration is hunting for malicious computer code it believes China has hidden deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world, according to American military, intelligence and national security officials.¹²

Of course, as the foregoing indicates, Russia or China could be expected not only to attack critical infrastructures in the United States, but also to undertake comparable actions against US allies. Indeed, such actions have already occurred in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war, in which Russia’s attack on the Viasat satellite network disrupted information networks in multiple countries, including Germany, France, Greece, Italy, and Poland.¹³ Other Russian activities in its war against Ukraine have similarly targeted allied critical infrastructures including “destructive attacks with the Prestige ransomware operation against the transportation sector in Poland, a NATO member and key logistical hub for Ukraine-bound supplies,” and additionally “compromis[ing] a separate Polish transportation sector firm, and later increas[ing] reconnaissance against NATO-affiliated organizations, suggesting an intent to conduct future intrusions against this target set.”¹⁴

Moreover, as noted above, China has comparable capabilities that could be utilized in a conflict against US allies and partners. For example, as the Department of Defense’s 2022 report on China’s military activities states, in the context of a conflict over Taiwan, the PRC “could include computer network . . . attacks against Taiwan’s political, military and economic infrastructure.”¹⁵

In sum, in the event of a conflict with either Russia or China, US, allied, and partner critical infrastructures and information flows will “almost certainly” be subject to attacks. But most of those critical infrastructures, including information and communications technology capabilities, are owned and operated by the private sector. As discussed below, those private-sector capabilities will be critical for military operations, continuity of government, and maintaining the performance of the economy in the event of conflict. Accordingly, a key issue for the United States and its allies and partners is how to effectively engage the private sector in wartime in order to offset the consequences of expected adversarial actions.

II. Lessons from the Ukraine-Russia war—The role of the private sector in warfare

A useful starting place for understanding the sixth domain, and the role of the private sector in establishing an effective defense, comes from an overview of the efforts of private-sector companies in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war.

A worthwhile report by Irene Sánchez Cózar and José Ignacio Torreblanca summarized the actions of a number of companies:

Microsoft and Amazon, for example, have proven fundamental in helping Ukrainian public and private actors secure their critical software services. They have done so by moving their on-site premises to cloud servers to guarantee the continuity of their activities and aid in the detection of and response to cyber-attacks. Moreover, Google has assisted Ukraine on more than one front: it created an air raid alerts app to protect Ukraine’s citizens against Russian bombardment, while also expanding its free anti-distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) software-Project Shield-which is used to protect Ukraine’s networks against cyber-attacks.¹⁶

Similarly, Ariel Levite has described how Ukraine, the United States, and the United Kingdom have utilized their technical capabilities in cyber defense and other areas during the Ukraine-Russia conflict:

Ukraine and its Western allies have fared much better than Russia in the competition over cyber defense, early warning, battlefield situational awareness, and targeting information. This is due in large part to the richness and sophistication of the technical capabilities brought to bear by the U.S. and UK governments as well as various commercial entities (including SpaceX, Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, Mandiant and many others), some of which received funding from the U.S. and UK governments. These actors came to Ukraine’s help with intelligence as well as invaluable space reconnaissance sensors, telecommunications, and other technical assets and capabilities for fusing information and deriving operational cues. The Ukrainians skillfully wove these assets together with their indigenous resources.¹⁷

The discussion below elaborates on these points, focusing on five functional sectors (which have some degree of overlap) where the private sector has had key roles: cybersecurity, cloud computing, space, artificial intelligence, and communications.

A. Cybersecurity

Effective cybersecurity has been a key element of Ukraine’s defense against Russia—achieving a degree of success that had not been generally expected:

The war has inspired a defensive effort that government officials and technology executives describe as unprecedented—challenging the adage in cybersecurity that if you give a well-resourced attacker enough time, they will pretty much always succeed. The relative success of the defensive effort in Ukraine is beginning to change the calculation about what a robust cyber defense might look like going forward.¹⁸

The key to success has been the high degree of collaboration:

This high level of defense capability is a consequence of a combination of Ukraine’s own effectiveness, significant support from other nations including the United States and the United Kingdom, and a key role for private sector companies.
The defensive cyber strategy in Ukraine has been an international effort, bringing together some of the biggest technology companies in the world such as Google and Microsoft, Western allies such as the U.S. and Britain and social media giants such as Meta who have worked together against Russia’s digital aggression.¹⁹

A crucial part of that effort has been the private sector’s willingness to expend significant resources:

The cybersecurity industry has thrown a huge amount of resources toward bolstering Ukraine’s digital defense. Just as the United States, European nations and many other countries have delivered billions of dollars in aid and military equipment, cybersecurity firms have donated services, equipment and analysts. Google has said it’s donated 50,000 Google Workspace licenses. Microsoft’s free technology support will have amounted to $400 million by the end of 2023, the company said in February. In the run-up to the invasion there was a broad effort by industry to supply Ukraine with equipment like network sensors and gateways and anti-virus and endpoint-detection and response tools.²⁰

These combined actions have been highly effective. Ukraine was able to proactively foil Russian cyber operations at least two times, according to Dan Black. The threats involved were, he wrote, “a destructive malware targeting a shipping company in Lviv and the Industroyer2 operation against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure at the onset of the Donbas offensive.” Ukraine, with international, nongovernmental entities, disrupted them “through coordinated detection and response.”²¹

B. Cloud computing

Another critical set of activities—likewise focused on resilience—has been undertaken by private cloud companies. Ukraine has:

. . . worked closely with several technology companies including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google, to effect the transfer of critical government data to infrastructure hosted outside the country. . . . Cloud computing is dominated by . . . hyperscalers—[and] Amazon, Microsoft, [and] Google . . . provide computing and storage at enterprise scale and are responsible for the operation and security of data centers all around the world, any of which could host . . . data.²²

The result has been consequential for both assuring continuity of governmental functions and for supporting the performance of the economy:

Ukraine’s emergency migration to the cloud has conferred immeasurable benefits. Within days of the war breaking out, key [critical infrastructure] assets and services came under the protection of Western technology companies, allowing Ukrainian authorities to maintain access and control over vital state functions. The uptime afforded by the public cloud cut across various critical services. Banking systems kept working, trains kept running on schedule, and Ukraine’s military kept its vital connections to situational awareness data. Physical risks to data centres and incident-response personnel were likewise mitigated.²³

C. Space

Private-sector space capabilities have been crucial factors in Ukraine’s defense efforts. Most well-known perhaps are the activities of the satellite company Starlink, a unit of SpaceX. As described by Emma Schroeder and Sean Dack, Starlink’s performance in the Ukraine conflict demonstrated its high value for wartime satellite communications:

Starlink, a network of low-orbit satellites working in constellations operated by SpaceX, relies on satellite receivers no larger than a backpack that are easily installed and transported. Because Russian targeting of cellular towers made communications coverage unreliable, . . . the government ‘made a decision to use satellite communication for such emergencies’ from American companies like SpaceX. Starlink has proven more resilient than any other alternatives throughout the war. Due to the low orbit of Starlink satellites, they can broadcast to their receivers at relatively higher power than satellites in higher orbits. There has been little reporting on successful Russian efforts to jam Starlink transmissions.²⁴

Starlink is not, however, the only satellite company involved in the war:

Companies both small and large, private and public, have supported Ukraine’s military operations. Planet, Capella Space, and Maxar technologies—all satellite companies—have supplied imagery helpful to the Ukrainian government. . . . The imagery has done everything from inform ground operations to mobilize global opinion . . . Primer.AI, a Silicon Valley startup, quickly modified its suite of tools to analyze news and social media, as well as to capture, translate, and analyze unencrypted Russian military leaders’ voice communications.²⁵

The role of space assets presents a specific example of the systemic overlap among different capabilities operated by the private sector—and the need to coordinate with and protect them during wartime. As Levite indicates, the fusion of space and cyberspace as well as land- and space-based digital infrastructure is evident in the Ukraine conflict:

Digital information, telecommunication, navigation, and mass communication assets are vital for modern warfare, and many now operate in or through space. In the Ukraine conflict we can detect early signs that attacking (and defending) space assets is not only deeply integrated with warfare in the air, sea, and land but is also heavily intertwined with digital confrontation in other domains. Control (or conversely disruption or disablement) of digital assets in space is thus becoming indispensable to gaining the upper hand on the battlefield and in the overall war effort.²⁶

D. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is another capability utilized in the Ukraine-Russia war that has been heavily supported by the private sector. Robin Fontes and Jorrit Kamminga underscore the voluntary role and impact of companies, primarily American ones, to heighten Ukraine’s wartime capacity:

What makes this conflict unique is the unprecedented willingness of foreign geospatial intelligence companies to assist Ukraine by using AI-enhanced systems to convert satellite imagery into intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance advantages. U.S. companies play a leading role in this. The company Palantir Technologies, for one, has provided its AI software to analyze how the war has been unfolding, to understand troop movements and conduct battlefield damage assessments. Other companies such as Planet Labs, BlackSky Technology and Maxar Technologies are also constantly producing satellite imagery about the conflict. Based on requests by Ukraine, some of this data is shared almost instantly with the Ukrainian government and defense forces.²⁷

In providing such assistance, the private sector has often integrated its artificial intelligence capabilities with open-source information, combining them for military-effective results. Fontes and Kamminga also provide some granular examples of this and discuss how open-source data also bolster battlefield intelligence:

In general, AI is heavily used in systems that integrate target and object recognition with satellite imagery. In fact, AI’s most widespread use in the Ukraine war is in geospatial intelligence. AI is used to analyze satellite images, but also to geolocate and analyze open-source data such as social media photos in geopolitically sensitive locations. Neural networks are used, for example, to combine ground-level photos, drone video footage and satellite imagery to enhance intelligence in unique ways to produce strategic and tactical intelligence advantages.
This represents a broader trend in the recruitment of AI for data analytics on the battlefield. It is increasingly and structurally used in the conflict to analyze vast amounts of data to produce battlefield intelligence regarding the strategy and tactics of parties to the conflict. This trend is enhanced by the convergence of other developments, including the growing availability of low-Earth orbit satellites and the unprecedented availability of big data from open sources.²⁸

E. Communications

Maintaining functional information technology networks has been a critical requirement of Ukraine’s defense. As Levite has pointed out, that has been accomplished despite massive Russian attacks essentially because of the inherent resilience of the underlying private-sector technologies including space and cloud capabilities (as described above):

One especially novel insight to emerge from the Ukraine conflict is the relative agility of digital infrastructure (telecommunications, computers, and data) compared to physical infrastructure. Physical, electromagnetic, and cyber attacks can undoubtedly disrupt and even destroy key digital assets and undermine or diminish the efficacy of the missions they serve. But Ukrainian digital infrastructure (especially its cell towers and data servers) has been able to absorb fairly massive Russian missile as well as cyber attacks and continue to function, notwithstanding some temporary setbacks. . . . It appears that modern digital technology networks (such as those based on mobile and satellite communications and cloud computing infrastructure) are more robust and resilient than older infrastructure, allowing relatively quick reconstitution, preservation, and repurposing of key assets and functions.²⁹

III. The US homeland security framework does not include wartime requirements for the private sector

The current US framework for private-sector engagement with the government is not focused on wartime. Rather, as set forth in PPD-21, the scope is limited by the definition of the term “all hazards,” which stops short of armed conflict:

The term ‘all hazards’ means a threat or an incident, natural or man-made, that warrants action to protect life, property, the environment, and public health or safety, and to minimize disruptions of government, social, or economic activities. It includes natural disasters, cyber incidents, industrial accidents, pandemics, acts of terrorism, sabotage, and destructive criminal activity targeting critical infrastructure.³⁰

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) similarly notes that, while the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was initially established in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and correspondingly had a counterterror focus, PPD-21 “shifted the focus from protecting critical infrastructure against terrorism toward protecting and securing critical infrastructure and increasing its resilience against all hazards, including natural disasters, terrorism, and cyber incidents.”³¹

While wartime planning and operations are not covered, it is nonetheless important to recognize that the United States does undertake multiple efforts under the National Plan that are focused on the resilience of critical infrastructures and that the National Plan has been enhanced by each administration and the Congress since its inception. The National Plan is briefly reviewed below, as it provides the context and a valuable starting point for the recommendations made by this report with respect to the role of the private sector in wartime.

The GAO has described the National Plan as providing both a foundation for critical infrastructure protection and an “overarching approach” to make the work of protection and resilience an integrated national effort:

The National Plan details federal roles and responsibilities in protecting the nation’s critical infrastructures and how sector stakeholders should use risk management principles to prioritize protection activities within and across sectors. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration, partnering, and voluntary information sharing among DHS and industry owners and operators, and state, local, and tribal governments.³²

DHS has the overall coordination responsibility under the National Plan and, within DHS, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been established as the “national coordinator for critical infrastructure protection,” partnering with federal, state, and municipal agencies as well as territorial and tribal authorities and the private sector.³³

In conjunction with the National Plan, PPD-21 designated sixteen critical infrastructure sectors. In each sector, a lead agency or department—dubbed a sector risk management agency (SRMA)—coordinates with CISA; collaborates with critical infrastructure owners and operators; coordinates with the varying levels of governments, authorities, and territorial partners; and participates in a government coordinating council as well as a sector coordinating council with owners-operators of critical assets and relevant trade association representatives.³⁴

Pursuant to PPD-21, including through actions taken by CISA, a host of coordination mechanisms exist to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures, including the Federal Senior Leadership Council, the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, government coordinating councils, and sector coordinating councils.³⁵ Congress also established the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), whose mandate includes working with “all levels of government, America’s international allies and partners, non-profits, academia, and the private sector, to shape and coordinate federal cybersecurity policy.”³⁶ ONCD’s mandate includes coordinating the recently issued National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, whose multiple initiatives include defending critical infrastructures, disrupting threat actors, shaping market forces for security and resilience, undertaking investment, and forging international partnerships.³⁷

In addition to the substantial efforts at coordination, CISA and the SRMAs have undertaken a number of other worthwhile steps to enhance the US capability to respond to attacks on critical infrastructures. Regulatory authority has been utilized to require or propose cybersecurity requirements including for air, rail, pipelines, and water.³⁸ Utilizing the authority and resources provided by Congress, cybersecurity assistance is being provided to SLTT entities.³⁹ A Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative has been established to effectuate “operational collaboration and cybersecurity information fusion between public and private sectors, for the benefit of the broader ecosystem, [and for] producing and disseminating cyber defense guidance across all stakeholder communities.”⁴⁰ CISA additionally conducts exercises and training with the private sector, ranging from a tabletop exercise to the large-scale Cyber Storm exercise, which simulates a cyberattack.⁴¹

CISA also has set forth a “planning agenda” seeking to “combin[e] the capabilities of key industry partners with the unique insights of government agencies . . .[in order to] create common shoulder-to-shoulder approaches to confront malicious actors and significant cyber risks.”⁴² The agenda includes “efforts to address risk areas” such as open-source software, and the energy and water sectors, while recognizing that “our plans and doctrine have not kept up” with the requirements of cybersecurity.⁴³ Similarly, CISA has recognized the value of effective cybersecurity firms supporting less-capable companies, specifically seeking to “advance cybersecurity and reduce supply chain risk for small and medium critical infrastructure entities through collaboration with remote monitoring and management (RMM), managed service providers (MSPs), and managed security service providers (MSSPs).”⁴⁴

CISA’s efforts are complemented by the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by the Cybersecurity Collaborative Center (CCC) led by the National Security Agency (NSA). Under the recent National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, the FBI is to “expand its capacity to coordinate takedown and disruption campaigns with greater speed, scale, and frequency.”⁴⁵ The NSA’s CCC provides support to the private sector including cost-free protection for DIB companies through a “filter which blocks users from connecting to malicious or suspicious [Internet] domains” as well as “bi-directional cyber threat intelligence sharing with major IT and cybersecurity companies who are best positioned to scale defensive impacts [and which has] hardened billions of endpoints across the globe against foreign malicious cyber activity.”⁴⁶

To sum up, while the National Plan is focused on significant threats and there is much to commend in the actions taken and planned, those efforts have not yet taken account of the significant disruptive potential of wartime threats. Neither CISA (through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative or otherwise) nor the SRMAs nor the ONCD have yet established the type of coordination mechanisms necessary for effective private-sector operations in wartime along the lines as have been undertaken in the Ukraine-Russia war. Similarly, while the FBI and the NSA undertake certain operational activities, in their current format those actions do not reach the level of effort required for effectiveness in wartime.

IV. Recommendations

The discussion above demonstrates both the ongoing engagement of the private sector in the Ukraine-Russia war and the potential for important private-sector future roles if the United States and its allies were involved in a future conflict. Maximizing that potential for the United States and its allies will require collaborative initiatives that engage the private sector as an operational partner. The discussion below sets forth ten such initiatives focusing largely on actions to be taken in the United States, though as previously noted, comparable actions should be undertaken by allies and key partners.

A. Congress and the Biden administration should expand the existing national framework to provide for effective engagement with the private sector in wartime

Congress and successive administrations have regularly focused on the need to upgrade homeland security and each branch of government has undertaken to assure an effective national defense. However, neither Congress nor the executive branch has yet brought the two together in a comprehensive approach, and neither has provided a framework for the inclusion of the private sector as part of operational wartime defense activities.

The importance of establishing such a framework has recently been made clear by the lessons drawn from the Ukraine-Russia war, as discussed above. Broadly, the administration should issue an executive order under existing authorities to begin the establishment of such a framework, and Congress should work with the administration to establish the necessary full-fledged approach, including the provision of the requisite authorities and resources. The specific actions are discussed at length in the recommendations below.

Initially, the administration should establish a Critical Infrastructure Wartime Planning and Operations Council with government and private-sector membership (including, as requested, SLTTs); establish regional resilience collaboratives; and help facilitate the establishment of sector-specific coordinating mechanisms. Congress and the administration should work together to establish an Integrated Cybersecurity Providers Corps; authorize the establishment of a national Cybersecurity Civilian Reserve Corps and an expansion of National Guard cybersecurity capabilities; authorize Cyber Command in wartime to support key critical infrastructures; establish an international Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps; expand the use of private-sector space capabilities; and enact the required authorities and provide the necessary resources to accomplish each of the foregoing.

B. Establish a critical infrastructure wartime planning and operations council with government and private-sector membership

In the United States (and in most other allied countries), there is no comprehensive mechanism to engage the private sector in warfare. While there are worthwhile efforts—such as by CISA and the SRMAs, as described above—they are focused on prewar resilience. By contrast, Finland, NATO’s newest member, has long had a comprehensive approach to national security that fully engages the private sector, including in the event of an “emergency,” which is defined to include “an armed or equally serious attack against Finland and its immediate aftermath [or] a serious threat of an armed or equally serious attack against Finland.”⁴⁷

In such an event, the Finland model of “comprehensive security” provides that the “vital functions of society are jointly safeguarded by the authorities, business operators, organisations and citizens.”⁴⁸ The Security Strategy for Society describes a “cooperation model in which actors share and analy[z]e security information, prepare joint plans, as well as train and work together.”⁴⁹ Participants include the central government, authorities, business operators, regions and municipalities, universities, and research and other organizations.⁵⁰ Quite importantly, “[b]usiness operators are playing an increasingly important role in the preparedness process . . . [and in] ensuring the functioning of the economy and the infrastructure.”⁵¹

Finland has a small population, so the precise mechanisms it utilizes for its comprehensive approach would need to be modified for other countries, including the United States. But the key point is that there needs to be such an overarching cooperation model involving this range of actors and activities.

To accomplish such a coordinated effort—and to focus on the United States—a CIWPOC with government and private-sector membership should be established through the issuance of an executive order as part of the overall White House national security structures.

At the governmental level, it is important to recognize that neither the existing Federal Senior Leadership Council, which includes CISA and the SMRAs, nor any of the other councils and coordinating efforts described above are operationally oriented for wartime activities, nor are they designed to undertake the necessary actions required to “analyze security information, prepare joint plans, as well as train and work together” in the context of conflict or imminent threat of conflict.⁵²Accordingly, a better mechanism to guide actions in wartime would be to establish a CIWPOC along the lines of a joint interagency task force (JIATF) with appropriate personnel from relevant agencies plus private-sector subject matter experts, each of whom would have the background and capabilities to plan for and, if required, act in a wartime context.⁵³

Such a CIWPOC could be headed by CISA prior to a wartime-related emergency, with the Defense Department acting as the deputy and organizing the necessary planning and training. In the event of a conflict or if a threat is imminent, the Defense Department would take command to integrate the CIWPOC into the full context of responding to the conflict, with CISA then in the deputy role. The dual-hatting of CISA and the Defense Department is key to ensuring a smooth transition in the event of conflict as that will allow for coordination mechanisms to be established prior to conflict. The planning and training led by the Defense Department prior to conflict will also establish lines of coordination as well as the necessary familiarity with tasks required in wartime, both for DOD and CISA as well as for the other government departments and private sector entities that are engaged with the CIWPOC.

Initially, at least, the CIWPOC membership should be limited to departments with responsibility for sectors most relevant to wartime military efforts as well as to continuity of government and to key elements of the economy. Utilizing that criterion, a first set of members would include defense, homeland security, energy, finance, information and communications technology, transportation, SLTTs, food, and water.

Private-sector representation on the CIWPOC should come from the key critical infrastructures, noted above, most relevant to planning and operations in a conflict. As discussed below, that would include representatives from the proposed Integrated Cybersecurity Providers Corps and the Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps, as well as from the regional resilience collaboratives and the private-sector systemic risk analysis and response centers, established as recommended below. As would be true for governmental departments, private-sector membership will not necessarily include all critical infrastructures, as the focus for the CIWPOC is on the operational capabilities that the private sector can provide in the event of a conflict. There would be costs to the private-sector entities associated with the planning and training efforts described, and, inasmuch as those costs are associated with providing national defense, Congress should undertake to include them in the national defense budget.
As part of organizing the proposed CIWPOC, DOD would have to determine which military command would have the lead and what resources would be required. In order to achieve the full degree of effectiveness required, the administration should undertake a thorough review of command arrangements and resources required for homeland defense, as the current arrangements are not sufficient.⁵⁴

Northern Command’s current mission is to provide “command and control of . . . DOD homeland defense efforts and to coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”⁵⁵ While it is analytically the appropriate command to lead in the context of the CIWPOC, in reality, Northern Command would need substantial additional resources and expanded authorities to undertake the requisite actions. By way of example, its mission would need to expand beyond “defense support to civil authorities” to include planning for wartime and operational control as required in the event of conflict.
Transportation Command, Cyber Command, Space Command, and the Coast Guard each would have important roles in generating the necessary plans, training, and (if required) operations. They likely should be supporting commands in undertaking those missions in the United States in order to maintain unity of command at the DOD level and unity of effort both at the interagency and private-sector levels. However, the arrangements within DOD and with interagency participants are not yet established.
The review recommended above should be undertaken promptly, and the results presented to the president and then to the Congress for such actions as may be required—but that process should not be a bar to the initial establishment of the CIWPOC, including DOD’s engagement.

C. Establish regional resilience collaboratives

In addition to the central Critical Infrastructure Wartime Planning and Operations Council discussed above, it will be important to coordinate government and private-sector activities in key geographical locations with a focus on support to national defense wartime efforts.

Not everything can best be done centrally in the context of a conflict. By way of example, the Finnish model of collective security underscores the importance of regional efforts:

There should be cooperation forums of security actors (such as preparedness forums) . . . in each region . . . [which] would form the basis for the preparedness plan that would also include the lines of authority, continuity management, use of resources, [and] crisis communications plan[s] . . . The workability of the preparedness plans and the competence of the security actors would be ensured by training and joint exercises.⁵⁶

CISA does have established mechanisms to reach out to private sector companies and to SLTTs, including through its regional offices and its SLTT grant program.⁵⁷ However, in accord with its overall approach, those efforts are not focused on wartime activities. One way to generate the necessary regional efforts for wartime would be to establish regional resilience collaboratives for key geographic areas with an initial focus on those areas that provide critical support to military operations such as key US ports on the East, Gulf, and West coasts. To increase the attractiveness for the private sector, the regional resilience cooperatives should focus on both wartime and other high-consequence risks, such as cascading impacts in circumstances short of war.

The Senate version of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision focused on regional resilience. The bill provides for a pilot program to evaluate “how to prioritize restoration of power, water, and telecommunications for a military installation in the event of a significant cyberattack on regional critical infrastructure that has similar impacts on State and local infrastructure.”⁵⁸ The bill requires that the pilot program should be “coordinated with . . . private entities that operate power, water, and telecommunications” for the military installations included in the pilot program.⁵⁹

It should be apparent that the Defense Department will not be able of itself to create the necessary cyber resilience against an attack nor the necessary restoration processes (though, as discussed below, DOD can provide important support). Those actions will have to be undertaken by the private sector (or, in some cases, by SLTTs that operate critical infrastructure).

Accordingly, the FY2024 NDAA when enacted should include provisions to establish regional resilience collaboratives, initially to operate to generate sustained engagement among public and private entities designed to respond to wartime attacks and high-consequence cybersecurity risks in peacetime through collaboration among key private, SLTT, and federal entities. As a first step (and consistent with the Senate bill calling for mapping dependencies) , a regional resilience collaborative should build a regional risk registry focused on regional dependency models, including cascading risks.⁶⁰

As with the case of the CIWPOC discussed above, CISA would lead in peacetime and DOD in wartime. Support would also come from the integrated cybersecurity protection corps described below. Regional resilience collaboratives would undertake operational planning led by the Department of Defense that would utilize both private and public capabilities. Continuous planning (including updated threat reviews and net assessments) and implementing actions would enhance resilience and allow for effective responses, if required. While the benefits from a regional resilience collaborative would be made widely available, the actual participants would be selectively included as relevant to the risks identified by the regional risk registry.

A regional risk collaborative effort would have costs associated with its activities. As would be the case regarding the CIWPOC as well as the integrated corps of cybersecurity providers, and since those costs are associated with providing national defense, Congress should undertake to include them in the national defense budget.

D. Establish private-sector systemic risk analysis and response centers

Certain sectors of the economy are sufficiently critical that undertaking enhanced efforts to reduce risk in wartime would be important to the national defense. To be sure, all critical infrastructures already undertake a variety of coordination efforts, including those noted above, as well as through Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) and Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations.⁶¹However, particularly in the context of wartime, it will be important to go beyond information sharing and to undertake coordinated risk-reduction efforts.

A model for this in the United States is the Analysis and Resilience Center for Systemic Risk (ARC), which is a “coalition that is identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating risks to their infrastructure and the points of connection to other critical infrastructure sectors.”⁶² The ARC brings together “small groups of industry experts [who] identify risks and find solutions that benefit the larger critical infrastructure community.”⁶³ The activities of the ARC go well beyond the information sharing currently undertaken by the ISACs, seeking to respond to systemic risk in a coordinated way. While the existing ARC members come from leading financial and energy firms, the concept should be extended to key functional areas including transportation, food, water, and healthcare.

Newly established private-sector systemic risk analysis and response centers will also benefit from close coordination with key providers of network infrastructure and services, as is currently being accomplished for the financial industry through the Critical Providers Program of the financial services ISAC (FS-ISAC).⁶⁴ That program “enables critical providers to use FS-ISAC channels to communicate during large-scale security upgrades, technical outages, cyber-based vulnerabilities, software and hardware misconfigurations, and/or changes that could impact multiple FS-ISAC members.”⁶⁵ As the foregoing suggests, there is already a certain amount of coordination being undertaken in the information and communications technology (ICT) arena, and a determination can be undertaken as to the value of establishing an ICT systemic risk analysis and response center.

E. Establish an integrated cybersecurity providers corps

As discussed above, one of the key roles that the private sector has played in the Ukraine-Russia war is to provide highly effective cybersecurity for critical infrastructures despite significant and continuing Russian cyberattacks. In the event of a conflict with either Russia or China, US cybersecurity firms could be expected to undertake similar actions, including based on service-level agreements they have with critical infrastructures in the United States and efforts like the Critical Providers Program noted above. However, also as noted above, the actions being taken in Ukraine are part of a larger operational collaborative effort that includes firms working together and with governments (including the United States, the UK, and Ukraine). Accordingly, for private-sector cybersecurity support to be most effective in the United States in wartime, a similar approach to coordinated support should be organized in advance of the need, in conjunction with the government, including appropriate information sharing, planning, and exercises relevant to wartime operations.

To begin such an effort, an Integrated Cybersecurity Providers Corps (ICPC) should be established and focused on providing effective cybersecurity for those critical infrastructures most relevant to military activities, continuity of government, and maintaining the performance of the economy. One of the fundamental recommendations of the National Cybersecurity Strategy is to “ask more of the most capable and best-positioned actors to make our digital ecosystem secure and resilient,” and that should certainly apply to wartime.⁶⁶

The ICPC should operate under the general ambit of the Critical Infrastructure Wartime Planning and Operations Council, described above. Membership should consist of highly capable cybersecurity firms and major cloud providers, with CISA and DOD jointly determining whether a cybersecurity provider met the requirements for membership in the corps. Broadly speaking, an integrated cybersecurity provider should be able to provide high-end cybersecurity services including authentication, authorization, segmentation, encryption, continuous monitoring, and protection against DDoS attacks. Cloud providers should have the ability to protect the cloud itself and to offer other expert security providers the opportunity to provide cybersecurity as a service on the cloud. The intent would be to ensure that key critical infrastructures have the support of effective integrated cybersecurity providers in wartime.⁶⁷

Concomitant with the establishment of the ICPC, DHS/CISA and DOD, who will work closely with the ICPC members, should undertake to assure the engagement of the key critical infrastructures most relevant in wartime to military activities, continuity of government, and maintaining the performance of the economy. Usefully, DHS/CISA already is required to identify infrastructures of critical importance to the United States:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with relevant Sector Specific Agencies (SSAs), annually identifies and maintains a list of critical infrastructure entities that meet the criteria specified in Executive Order (EO) 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, Section 9(a)(‘Section 9 entities’) utilizing a risk-based approach. Section 9 entities are defined as ‘critical infrastructure where a cybersecurity incident could reasonably result in catastrophic regional or national effects on public health or safety, economic security, or national security.’⁶⁸

The Section 9 list could provide the basis—or at a minimum, a starting point—for identifying the infrastructures most critical in the context of wartime. Additionally, however, since one key objective in wartime will be continuity of government, at least some SLTT governments will need to be included on the list—though there will have to be some very significant prioritization since there are approximately ninety thousand local governments in the United States.⁶⁹Initial inclusion of SLTTs might be for those related to areas for which regional resilience collaboratives are established.

A third step will be to create a process to provide assured linkages between the designated key critical infrastructures (including the key SLTTs) and integrated cybersecurity providers. Congress should enact legislation authorizing regulations requiring such support in wartime for designated critical infrastructures and should establish a voluntary program for key SLTTs. A regulatory approach is particularly necessary as, for the most part, critical infrastructure companies are far less capable at cybersecurity than are the expert cybersecurity providers—and that would certainly be true in wartime, when the threat would be more substantial. Under the regulations, designated critical infrastructures should be required to plan and train with integrated cybersecurity providers prior to conflict so that the requisite cybersecurity resilience could be achieved in wartime. SLTTs should likewise be provided the opportunity for cybersecurity support, including planning and training on a voluntary basis, for reasons of federalism. As noted above, there will be costs associated with such activities which, since they would be undertaken in support of national defense, should be included by Congress in the Defense Department budget.

F. Create a wartime surge capability of cybersecurity personnel by establishing a cybersecurity civilian reserve corps and expanding National Guard cyber capabilities

The need for the federal government to overcome the currently existing shortage of qualified cybersecurity personnel is well understood, and the importance of having sufficient cybersecurity personnel would be even greater in wartime. At the time of this writing, both the House and Senate versions of the fiscal year (FY) 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) have provisions intended to help ameliorate that shortage, but more substantial improvements are warranted.

In the House, Representative Mark Green had proposed requiring a report on the “feasibility of establishing a cyber unit in every National Guard of a State.”⁷⁰ That recommendation was not included in the House version of the NDAA but there is a provision authorizing Cyber Command to “accept voluntary and uncompensated services from cybersecurity experts.”⁷¹ By contrast, in the Senate, Senators Jacky Rosen and Marsha Blackburn had proposed establishing a pilot program for a cyber reserve for DOD and DHS.⁷² That proposal also was not included in its entirety in the Senate version of the NDAA but there is a provision for the Secretary of the Army to “carry out a pilot project to establish a Civilian Cybersecurity Reserve.”⁷³ Each of the proposed provisions is a step forward and enacting both the House and Senate provisions would be worthwhile, but the final version of the NDAA should go further than the existing proposals and move promptly to full-fledged cyber civilian reserve and augmented National Guard cyber capabilities.

Establishing a “surge capability” able to add significant numbers of personnel from the private sector for cybersecurity activities in the event of a conflict should be a high priority for the United States. The value of such a capability has been underscored in the context of the conflict in Ukraine, in which:

[i]mmediately after the invasion, Ukraine also began to elicit support from the private sector to supplement its own cyber capabilities. One aspect of this effort was to call on national private-sector experts. Requests for volunteers to help protect [critical infrastructures] were reportedly circulated through communities at the request of a senior Ukrainian defence ministry official. These volunteers were requested to help defend infrastructure, identify critical vulnerabilities and carry out other defensive tasks.⁷⁴

In the United States, such a reserve capability could be established by a combination of the proposed measures now in the House and Senate versions of the NDAA as well as Representative Green’s proposal for expanding National Guard cyber capabilities.

A cybersecurity civilian reserve corps would provide for the United States access to personnel beyond those seeking to be part of the military. Such an approach is being utilized by US allies with very substantial cyber capabilities. The UK has already established its Joint Cyber Reserve Force with a “mantra of high-end cyber talent first,” so that the “Reserves ‘conventional’ physical entry standards (physical ability, fitness, etc.) are not our immediate concern. This ensures that we can select untapped talented individuals who would not normally see reserve service as an option or possibility.”⁷⁵ Other countries such as Estonia have also developed reserve models to “bring together competent IT experts who can solve significant and long-term cyber incidents.”⁷⁶
The National Guard currently includes both Army and Air Force cyber units.⁷⁷ However, expanding their numbers and better integrating them into the force would have high value. Given the substantial demand for additional cyber personnel, and as previously recommended, “the number of National Guard personnel directed toward the cyber mission should be significantly increased. . . . [and] a reasonable initial step would be to increase Guard end strength in order to increase the number of cyber personnel to approximately double the current levels.”⁷⁸ In accomplishing that increase, the “Department of Defense [should] bolster its operational capacity in cyberspace through improved utilization of the National Guard,” as Congress has previously called for: “Despite [Congressional] calls for change, the Department of Defense and the military services appear not to have made any meaningful change in how the expertise resident within the National Guard and the Reserve Component can be better leveraged.”⁷⁹

In sum, combining the current versions of the House and Senate NDAA legislation and additionally establishing an expanded National Guard cyber capability would result in significant benefits to the United States in the event of a conflict.

G. Expansion of Cyber Command’s “hunt forward” model to support key critical infrastructures in wartime in the United States

US Cyber Command regularly works with allied and partner nations at their request to enhance the cybersecurity of their critical infrastructures.⁸⁰ Testimony from Cyber Command has described that “since 2018, [it] has deployed hunt forward teams 40 times to 21 countries to work on 59 networks.”⁸¹ Cyber Command has described its Hunt Forward operations (HFOs) as follows:

. . . strictly defensive cyber operations conducted by U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) at the request of partner nations. Upon invitation, USCYBERCOM Hunt Forward Teams deploy to partner nations to observe and detect malicious cyber activity on host nation networks. The operations generate insights that bolster homeland defense and increase the resiliency of shared networks from cyber threats.⁸²

A Hunt Forward operation is a joint effort, as the Cyber Command operators “sit side-by-side with partners and hunt for vulnerabilities, malware, and adversary presence on the host nation’s networks.”⁸³

As a matter of policy, Cyber Command does not currently undertake operations in the United States. In wartime, however, Cyber Command should have an expanded mission to support key critical infrastructures most relevant to national defense. As described above, such governmental efforts have been instrumental—along with the actions of the private sector—in supporting Ukraine, and a similar collaborative approach should be undertaken for wartime in the United States.

In the United States in wartime, Cyber Command hunting capabilities should be coordinated with the relevant critical infrastructures and with the proposed Integrated Cybersecurity Providers Corps. Undertaking prior training and exercises would, of course, make any actual operations more effective. Additionally, to accomplish such a mission without diverting resources from Cyber Command’s core mission set (i.e., global cyber operations and defense of DOD networks), Cyber Command would likely require a substantial increase in personnel for wartime operations.⁸⁴ As discussed in the prior section, there are good reasons to establish a wartime cyber civilian reserve and to increase National Guard cybersecurity capabilities—and supporting Cyber Command wartime operations would be one of the most important.

In expanding the mission as recommended above, Cyber Command would be subject to the same constitutional requirements as other federal departments and agencies, including the Fourth Amendment’s limits on intrusion into private activities. While searches based on enemy actions in wartime would likely be deemed reasonable and warrants could be obtained, a much better approach—both as a matter of constitutional law and appropriate policy—would be for the federal government to work with the key critical infrastructures to establish a consensual wartime set of arrangements and for Congress to undertake a review of the agreed activities.⁸⁵

H. Establish an undersea infrastructure protection corps

The United States and its allies have long recognized the vulnerability of undersea pipelines and cables.⁸⁶ Attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022 have underscored those vulnerabilities and raised the visibility of the security issue at the highest levels of government.⁸⁷ At the May 2023 G7 summit, the group determined, “[w]e are committed to deepen our cooperation within the G7 and with like-minded partners to support and enhance network resilience by measures such as extending secure routes of submarine cables.”⁸⁸ Relatedly, the Quad grouping of countries (i.e., Australia, India, Japan, United States) agreed to establish “the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience [which] will bring together public and private sector actors to address gaps in the infrastructure and coordinate on future builds.”⁸⁹

The G7 and Quad actions are future-oriented, but pipelines and undersea cables are currently subject to more immediate vulnerabilities, with Russia being a particularly concerning threat.⁹⁰ As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated:

So we know that Russia has the capacity to map, but also potentially to conduct actions against critical infrastructure. And that’s also the reason why we have, for many years, addressed the vulnerability of critical undersea infrastructure. This is about gas pipelines, oil pipelines, but not least thousands of kilometres of internet cables, which is so critical for our modern societies—for financial transaction, for communications, and this is in the North Sea, in the Baltic Sea, but across the whole Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea.⁹¹

A report to the European Parliament similarly highlighted the issues, noting the Russian Navy has a “special focus” on the Yantar-class intelligence ships and auxiliary submarines, which have the capacity to disrupt undersea cable infrastructure. Also of note are “new abilities to deploy mini-submarines” to explore underwater sea cables by stealth, according to the report.⁹²

As a consequence of those concerns, NATO has established a NATO Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure as a partnership with the private sector.The Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure will be based in Northwood near London. NATO had earlier set up a coordination cell in Brussels to better monitor pipelines and subsea cables that are deemed especially endangered by underwater drones and submarines. ⁹³ Per Secretary General Stoltenberg, the purpose is to strengthen the protection of undersea infrastructure:

And of course, there’s no way that we can have NATO presence alone [surveilling] all these thousands of kilometres of undersea, offshore infrastructure, but we can be better at collecting information, intelligence, sharing information, connecting the dots, because also in the private sector is a lot of information. And actually, there’s a lot of ongoing monitoring of traffic at sea and to connect all those flows of information will increase our ability to see when there is something abnormal and then react dependent on that.⁹⁴

Secretary General Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of collaborating with the private sector:

And then most of it is owned and operated by the private sector and they also have a lot of capabilities, to protect, to do repair and so on. So the purpose of this Centre . . . is to bring together different Allies to share information, share best practices, and to be able to react if something abnormal happens and then also to ensure that the private sector and the government, the nations are working together.⁹⁵

As the new NATO effort underscores, resilience of undersea infrastructure will be of high consequence in the event of armed conflict. However, NATO itself does not generally provide the capabilities that the organization utilizes, but rather relies on the capabilities provided by its member nations. Accordingly, the United States should work with allies and those elements of the private sector that have relevant undersea capabilities to establish an international Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps, both to support NATO activity and because security for undersea infrastructures is inherently international. This corps should include both the private-sector builders/maintainers and the owners of undersea cables and pipelines. That group would organize the actions required to enhance the resilience that would be necessary in wartime.

The countries and companies connected by cables and pipelines involve substantial numbers of US allies. According to one industry analysis, the top five undersea cable vendors are Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (France), SubCom LLC (United States), NEC Corporation (Japan), Nexans (France), and Prysmian Group (Italy).⁹⁶ In terms of ownership, US companies are significantly involved with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon being significant investors in cables.⁹⁷ With respect to undersea pipelines, there are multiple such pipelines in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, all, of course, involving US allies and/or the United States.“⁹⁸ Accordingly, there should be sufficient geopolitical alignment with respect to establishing an Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps, and while the precise arrangements will have to be negotiated, it is notable that several countries have already taken steps. The UK, Norway, and Italy are each organizing security efforts to enhance pipeline security, and the United States, the UK, and France have well-established undersea capabilities.⁹⁹

An international Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps should have three areas of focus. First, as is true with respect to other information and communication technology networks, undersea cables will need the same type of effective cybersecurity. As noted above, several significant undersea cable owners are also companies that have been extensively involved in the defense of Ukraine’s ICT networks, including working with the United States and the UK. That operational experience and real-time experience with public-private coordination should provide a basis for extending such an approach to undersea cables.¹⁰⁰

Second, all undersea cables eventually come out of the sea to on-ground “landing points.” John Arquila has indicated that “concerns about the vulnerability of landing points, where the cables come ashore . . . has led to the idea of having many branch points near landfall.”¹⁰¹ Arquila also describes efforts “to improve landing-point security through concealment and hardening—including, in the latter case, the shielding with armor of the cable segments in shallower waters near landing points. . . . [and also use of] both surveillance technologies and increased on-site security.”¹⁰² An Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps can build on such approaches.¹⁰³

Third, undersea infrastructures can be repaired, with cable repairs regularly undertaken for commercial reasons.¹⁰⁴ However, as a report to the European Parliament describes, the availability of cable repair capabilities deserves review:

A key and often neglected vulnerability of the cable infrastructure is the
capabilities . . . for repair. The capabilities within Europe are very limited . . . The repair infrastructure is often not featured in risk analyses, although it is in larger-scale coordinated attack scenarios.¹⁰⁵

The proposed international Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps should evaluate whether sufficient repair capability exists under the conditions that might occur if there were an active conflict and recommend such remediation steps as should be undertaken in the face of any deficiencies.

I. Expand usage of commercial space-based capabilities

In the Ukraine-Russia war, commercial space capabilities have been critical to Ukraine’s defense (as described above), as well as to maintaining governmental and economic functioning. The United States is already undertaking significant activities with the commercial space sector in the defense arena. The discussion below summarizes key elements of that effort and further proposes additional actions for the use of private-sector space capabilities that would enhance resilience in wartime for defense, government continuity, and the economy.

First, in the defense arena, commercial capabilities are being increasingly relied upon to meet the military’s space launch requirements. Private-sector SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable rockets, which regularly put commercial satellites in place, have recently been used, for example, to launch “the first 10 of the planned 28 satellites [for defense] low-latency communications [and] missile warning/missile tracking.”¹⁰⁶ That space architecture is planned to expand to 163 satellites.¹⁰⁷ Similarly, other companies such as Rocket Lab have commercial launch capabilities.¹⁰⁸ Continuing the use of commercial launch capabilities to generate military constellations as well assuring their availability in wartime will be critical to effective defense operations.

Second, and as the foregoing suggests, the proliferation of satellites that the DOD can rely on in wartime significantly adds to the resilience of the space enterprise. As one report describes:

The use of small, inexpensive satellites in a pLEO [proliferated low-Earth orbit] constellation also improves deterrence because of its increased cost imposition potential. The cost of a direct-ascent KE ASAT [kinetic antisatellite] is now greater than the target satellite, and because of the sheer number of assets an enemy must attack, proliferation reduces the effectiveness and impact of these weapons and other coorbital threats.¹⁰⁹

Third, commercial sensing capabilities can complement the military’s more exquisite sensing. Satellite companies such as Planet, Capella Space, and Maxar Technologies have supplied imagery upon Ukraine’s request, as noted above.¹¹⁰ The Defense Department has likewise been utilizing such commercial space-based, ground-sensing capabilities having, for example, recognized a “critical need for improved, large scale, situational awareness satisfied by less expensive, day/night, all-weather imaging satellites capable of filling gaps in space-based reconnaissance.”¹¹¹ For example, Planet was awarded a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) contract in October 2019 for “an unclassified, multi-year subscription service contract for daily, large-area, 3-5 meter resolution commercial imagery collection. . . . [for] access to new daily unclassified imagery over multiple areas of interest to military planners, warfighters, and the national security community.”¹¹²

Moreover, commercial sensing is becoming increasingly capable, going beyond optical capabilities, with Umbra having launched commercial “radar-imaging” microsatellites whose capabilities can be used for “remote wildlife habitat protection, pollution and plastic waste tracking, oil spill detection, military intelligence gathering [italics added], live flooding estimation during storms, and more.¹¹³

The Defense Department also has been seeking to expand its “space domain awareness” through collaboration with the private sector. Maxar Technologies, for example, recently signed a contract with the NRO which “includes a provision to experiment with using its satellites to provide ‘non-Earth’ data, which includes high-resolution imagery of the space environment.”¹¹⁴ That effort would complement ongoing actions by Space Force, whose “fleet of radars, known as the Space Surveillance Network, observe space from the ground and feed data into command and control systems that catalog space objects” to deal both with issues of “congestion and debris in low Earth orbit . . . and aggression from adversaries like Russia and China.”¹¹⁵

Fourth, the information and communications technology networks being established by commercial providers can themselves be utilized for wartime operations, again as has been demonstrated by the use of Starlink in Ukraine. But Starlink would not be the only provider. Currently, another constellation consisting “of small, low-cost satellites under 100 kilograms capable of multiple rapid-launch” is under development, based “on an orbital mesh network of . . . commercial and military microsatellites,” which will be “capable of providing low-latency internet connectivity between sensors and weapons for military mission.”¹¹⁶ Future capabilities include the establishment of “free space optical networks” which will potentially have “immense benefits including high security, better data rates [and] fast installations, no requirement of licensed spectrum, best costs [and] simplicity of design,” and will be challenging to detect and to intercept “in view of small divergence of the laser beams.”¹¹⁷

Governments plan to develop position, navigation, and timing capabilities—now generally done in medium-Earth orbit by the Global Positioning System or equivalent satellites—with a variety of capabilities including but not limited to low-Earth orbit capabilities.¹¹⁸ In the United States, Xona Space Systems is “developing PULSAR—a high-performance positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service enabled by a commercial constellation of dedicated [low-Earth orbit] satellites.”¹¹⁹

Another application of commercial capabilities for defense space support is the use of the cloud for development of space-related software:

The Space Development Agency awarded a $64 million contract to Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) to develop a software applications factory for the agency’s low Earth orbit constellation [but] . . not [by] build[ing] an actual factory but [rather] a cloud-based development process to design, test and update software applications using a repeatable path.¹²⁰

In light of the very substantial ongoing interactions between the Department of Defense and the commercial space sector, as discussed above, the key issue for wartime is simply to ensure that the existing (and future) capabilities are available for use as required. That can be accomplished in the first instance by contractual arrangements along the lines of those utilized by DOD for support from the airline and maritime industries. By way of example, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) provides “selected aircraft from US airlines [which are] contractually committed to CRAF [to] augment Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft.”¹²¹

The US Space Force is in process of developing the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) program. As with CRAF, CASR would seek to establish “voluntary pre-negotiated contractual arrangements” that would provide support to the military by ensuring that “services like satellite communication and remote sensing are prioritized for U.S. government use during national security emergencies.”¹²² Among the issues that Space Force presumably is discussing with the private sector in connection with CASR would be determining which services and in what amounts could reliably be provided in a wartime environment, whether such services could be based on existing (or planned) private-sector constellations or whether those would need to be expanded, what provisions would need to be made for satellite and/or ground station replacement in the event of adversary attacks, what provisions for indemnification need to be agreed upon, and what level of funding would be appropriate both to incentivize the private sector and to accomplish the requisite wartime tasks as well as to undertake planning and training prior to conflict.

Relatedly, it is worth noting that the Defense Production Act authorizes the government to require the prioritized provision of services—which would include services from space companies—and exempts any company receiving such an order from liabilities such as inability to support other customers.¹²³ However, it would be much more desirable—and much more effective—if the necessary arrangements were established in advance through a voluntary arrangement as the CASR program is seeking.

J. Authorities and resources

Undertaking the actions recommended above will require some important changes to governmental authorities as well as the provision of additional resources necessary to accomplish the recommended outcomes.

Regarding authorities, the administration currently has the authority to establish a Critical Infrastructure Wartime Planning and Operations Council with government and private-sector membership (including, as requested, SLTTs); establish regional resilience collaboratives; and help facilitate the establishment of sector-specific coordinating mechanisms. The administration and the Congress should work together to establish the authorities necessary to:

Create an Integrated Cybersecurity Providers Corps.
Establish a national Cybersecurity Civilian Reserve Corps and expand National Guard cybersecurity capabilities.
Authorize Cyber Command to support key critical infrastructures in wartime.
Establish an international Undersea Infrastructure Protection Corps.
Expand the use of private-sector space capabilities.

In undertaking such enactments as required, Congress should also evaluate whether any antitrust or other safe harbor exemptions would be necessary to allow for the desired level of collaboration.

In terms of resources, funding, as noted above, will be required for each of the recommended activities. Including such costs as line items in the Defense Department budget would be appropriate to support each of the proposed activities as the activities are all to be undertaken in support of national defense in a wartime context. As a complement to line-item budgeting, Congress might also consider authorizing the use of transferable tax credits, which could be utilized as payment in order to offset the costs of the provision of capabilities and services prior to or in wartime.¹²⁴ The precise nature of the funding arrangement might differ among the different activities. Space Force’s CASR initiative is a useful model but whatever the precise mechanism, it is important to recognize that the private sector would incur potentially significant costs including pre-conflict planning and training activities, and that those are being undertaken to support national defense.

Conclusion

The United States has made significant efforts in enhancing the resilience of critical infrastructures, but has not yet focused on how to support those infrastructures in wartime. The recommendations in this report provide a basis for such an effort. That effort should start now. Indeed, one of the lessons from Ukraine’s wartime experience is the importance of beginning as soon as possible. As one analysis states:

. . . others seeking to replicate Ukraine’s model of success should recognise that building an effective cyber-defence posture is a marathon, not a sprint. Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russia’s offensive stems from incremental improvements in its cyber defences over years of painstaking effort and investment. The specific plans and contingencies developed for the war would not have been possible without modernising national cyber-defence systems and raising the maturity levels of public and private critical infrastructure providers in the years leading up to the invasion. Take for example the unprecedented levels of threat intelligence sharing from external partners—undeniably a significant boon to Ukrainian situational awareness and ability to detect emerging threats. Without prior efforts to close visibility gaps, train defenders and adopt a more active cyber-defence posture, the ability to integrate and exploit this intelligence at scale would have been severely limited.¹²⁵

The private sector will have important roles in any future conflict in which the United States engages. To maximize that potential, there needs to be active development of the sixth domain, with the private sector being fully included in wartime constructs, plans, preparations, and actions, as recommended in this report.

About the author

Board director

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow

Cybersecurity Defense Policy

Franklin D. Kramer is a distinguished fellow and board director at the Atlantic Council. Kramer has served as a senior political appointee in two administrations, including as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. At the Department of Defense, Kramer was in charge of the formulation and implementation of international defense and political-military policy, with worldwide responsibilities including NATO and Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the nonprofit world, Kramer has been a senior fellow at CNA; chairman of the board of the World Affairs Council of Washington, DC; a distinguished research fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University; and an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs of The George Washington University. Kramer’s areas of focus include defense, both conventional and hybrid; NATO and Russia; China, including managing competition, military power, economics and security, and China-Taiwan-US relations; cyber, including resilience and international issues; innovation and national security; and irregular conflict and counterinsurgency.

Kramer has written extensively. In addition to the current report, recent publications include China and the New Globalization; Free but Secure Trade; NATO Deterrence and Defense: Military Priorities for the Vilnius Summit; NATO Priorities: Initial Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War; “Here’s the ‘Concrete’ Path for Ukraine to Join NATO”; and Providing Long-Term Security for Ukraine: NATO Membership and Other Security Options.

1 “Multi-Domains Operations Conference—What We Are Learning,” Allied Command Transformation, April 8, 2022, https://www.act.nato.int/articles/multi-domains-operations-lessons-learned.

2 Christine H. Fox and Emelia S. Probasco, “Big Tech Goes to War,” Foreign Affairs, October 19, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/big-tech-goes-war.

3 Department of Defense (DOD), 2022 National Defense Strategy, 7, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF.

4 The report elaborates on the discussion of the private sector and the sixth domain in Franklin D. Kramer, NATO Deterrence and Defense: Military Priorities for the Vilnius Summit, Atlantic Council, April 18, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/nato-summit-military-priorities/.

5 PPD-21 is in process of being updated. Tim Starks, “A Presidential Critical Infrastructure Protection Order Is Getting a Badly Needed Update, Officials Say,” Washington Post, May 11, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/11/presidential-critical-infrastructure-protection-order-is-getting-badly-needed-update-officials-say/; White House, “Presidential Policy Directive—Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience,” February 12, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/presidential-policy-directive-critical-infrastructure-security-and-resil; William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2021, Pub. L. No. 116–283, 134 Stat. 3388 (2021), https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ283/PLAW-116publ283.pdf; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Infrastructure Protection Plan and Resources, accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/national-infrastructure-protection-plan-and-resources; CISA, “About CISA,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/about.

6 DOD, National Defense Strategy 2022, 5.

7 “Statement of General Glen D. VanHerck, Commander, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command Before the Senate Armed Services Committee,” March 23, 2023, 8-9, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/NNC_FY23%20Posture%20Statement%2023%20March%20SASC%20FINAL.pdf.

8 CISA, “The Attack on Colonial Pipeline: What We’ve Learned & What We’ve Done Over the Past Two Years,” May 7, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/attack-colonial-pipeline-what-weve-learned-what-weve-done-over-past-two-years; Saheed Oladimeji and Sean Michael Kerner, “SolarWinds Hack Explained: Everything You Need to Know,” Tech Target, June 27, 2023, https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/SolarWinds-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know; and “Stop Ransomware,” CISA (website), accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/stopransomware/resources.

9 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, February 6, 2023, 12, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2023-Unclassified-Report.pdf.

10 ODNI, Annual Threat Assessment, 14.

11 ODNI, Annual Threat Assessment, 10.

12 David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations,” New York Times, July 29, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/us/politics/china-malware-us-military-bases-taiwan.html.

13 Cyber Peace Institute, “Case Study, Viasat,” June 2022, https://cyberconflicts.cyberpeaceinstitute.org/law-and-policy/cases/viasat. The case study describes the breath of the impact: “The attack on Viasat also impacted a major German energy company who lost remote monitoring access to over 5,800 wind turbines, and in France nearly 9,000 subscribers of a satellite internet service provider experienced an internet outage. In addition, around a third of 40,000 subscribers of another satellite internet service provider in Europe (Germany, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland) were affected. Overall, this attack impacted several thousand customers located in Ukraine and tens of thousands of other fixed broadband customers across Europe.”

14 Microsoft Threat Intelligence, “A Year of Russian Hybrid Warfare in Ukraine,” March 15, 2023, 19, https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RW10mGC.

15 DOD, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022, 127, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-military-and-security-developments-involving-the-peoples-republic-of-china.pdf.

16 Irene Sánchez Cózar and José Ignacio Torreblanca, “Ukraine One Year On: When Tech Companies Go to War,” European Council on Foreign Relations, March 7, 2023, https://ecfr.eu/article/ukraine-one-year-on-when-tech-companies-go-to-war/.

17 Ariel E. Levite, Integrating Cyber Into Warfighting: Some Early Takeaways from the Ukraine Conflict, Working Paper, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2023, 14, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Levite_Ukraine_Cyber_War.pdf.

18 Elias Groll and Aj Vicens, “A Year After Russia’s Invasion, the Scope of Cyberwar in Ukraine Comes into Focus,” CyberScoop, February 24, 2023), https://cyberscoop.com/ukraine-russia-cyberwar-anniversary/.

19 Groll and Vicens, “A Year After Russia’s Invasion.”

20 Groll and Vicens, “A Year After Russia’s Invasion.” A report from Google, Fog of War: How the Ukraine Conflict Transformed the Cyber Threat Landscape, underscores the “unprecedented” nature of the efforts including “expanded eligibility for Project Shield, our free protection against distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), so that Ukrainian government websites and embassies worldwide could stay online and continue to offer critical services” as well as “rapid Air Raid Alerts system for Android phones in the region; support for refugees, businesses, and entrepreneurs . . . and “compromise assessments, incident response services, shared cyber threat intelligence, and security transformation services—to help detect, mitigate and defend against cyber attacks.” See Threat Analysis Group, Fog of War, Google, February 2023, 2, https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/google_fog_of_war_research_report.pdf.

21 Dan Black, Russia’s War in Ukraine: Examining the Success of Ukrainian Cyber Defences, International Institute for Strategic Studies, March 2023, 14, https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library—content–migration/files/research-papers/2023/03/russias-war-in-ukraine-examining-the-success-of-ukrainian-cyber-defences.pdf.

22 Emma Schroeder and Sean Dack, A Parallel Terrain: Public-Private Defense of the Ukrainian Information Environment, Atlantic Council, February 2023, 14, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/A-Parallel-Terrain.pdf.

23 Black, Russia’s War in Ukraine, 17-18.

24 Schroeder and Dack, A Parallel Terrain, 16.

25 Fox and Probasco, “Big Tech Goes to War,” 4.

26 Levite, Integrating Cyber Into Warfighting, 17-18.

27 Robin Fontes and Jorrit Kamminga, “Ukraine: A Living Lab for AI Warfare,” National Defense, March 24, 2023, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/3/24/ukraine-a-living-lab-for-ai-warfare; their report notes that “the Russia-Ukraine war can also be considered the first conflict where AI-enhanced facial recognition software has been used on a substantial scale. In March 2022, Ukraine’s defense ministry started using facial recognition software produced by the U.S. company Clearview AI. This allows Ukraine to identify dead soldiers and to uncover Russian assailants and combat misinformation. What’s more, AI is playing an important role in electronic warfare and encryption. For example, the U.S. company Primer has deployed its AI tools to analyze unencrypted Russian radio communications. This illustrates how AI systems were constantly retrained and adapted, for example, to deal with idiosyncrasies in customized ways, such as colloquial terms for weaponry.”

28 Fontes and Kamminga, “Ukraine: A Living Lab”; they also note that AI has also been used for the “spread of misinformation and the use of deep fakes as part of information warfare. AI has, for example, been used to create face images for fake social media accounts used in propaganda campaigns. While the spread of disinformation is not new, AI offers unprecedented opportunities for scaling and targeting such campaigns, especially in combination with the broad range of social media platforms.”

29 Levite, Integrating Cyber Into Warfighting, 17.

30 White House, “Presidential Policy Directive—Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, Definitions,” February 12, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/presidential-policy-directive-critical-infrastructure-security-and-resil.

31 Government Accountability Office (GAO), Critical Infrastructure Protection: Time Frames to Complete DHS Efforts Would Help Sector Risk Management Agencies Implement Statutory Responsibilities, February 2023, 7, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105806.pdf.

32 GAO, Critical Infrastructure Protection.

33 GAO, Critical Infrastructure Protection, 11.

34 GAO, Critical Infrastructure Protection, 8.

35 CISA, “FSLC Charter and Membership,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/fslc-charter-and-membership; CISA, “Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC),” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/groups/critical-infrastructure-partnership-advisory-council-cipac; CISA, “Government Coordinating Councils,” accessed July 6, 2023), https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/groups/government-coordinating-councils; and CISA, “Sector Coordinating Councils,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/groups/sector-coordinating-councils.

36 White House, “Office of National Cyber Director,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/.

37 White House, National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, July 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-Implementation-Plan-WH.gov_.pdf.

38 Transportation Security Administration (TSA), “TSA Issues New Cybersecurity Requirements for Airport and Aircraft Operators,” March 7, 2023, https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2023/03/07/tsa-issues-new-cybersecurity-requirements-airport-and-aircraft; TSA, “TSA Issues New Cybersecurity Requirements for Passenger and Freight Railroad Carriers,” October 18, 2022, https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2022/10/18/tsa-issues-new-cybersecurity-requirements-passenger-and-freight; TSA, “TSA Revises and Reissues Cybersecurity Requirements for Pipeline Owners and Operators, July 21, 2022, https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2022/07/21/tsa-revises-and-reissues-cybersecurity-requirements-pipeline-owners; and Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA Cybersecurity for the Water Sector,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.epa.gov/waterriskassessment/epa-cybersecurity-water-sector.

39 CISA, “State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program,” accessed July 4, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/state-and-local-cybersecurity-grant-program.

40 CISA, “JCDC FAQs, What Are JCDC’s Core Functions,” accessed June 24, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/topics/partnerships-and-collaboration/joint-cyber-defense-collaborative/jcdc-faqs.

41 CISA, “Cybersecurity Training and Exercises,” accessed July 4, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-training-exercises.

42 CISA, “JCDC 2023 Planning Agenda,” accessed June 24, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/topics/partnerships-and-collaboration/joint-cyber-defense-collaborative/2023-jcdc-planning-agenda.

43 CISA, “JCDC 2023 Planning Agenda.”

44 CISA, “JCDC 2023 Planning Agenda.”

45 “National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, accessed July 18, 2023, https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber/national-cyber-investigative-joint-task-force; White House, National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, July 2023, 21, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-Implementation-Plan-WH.gov_.pdf.

46 National Security Agency, NSA Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, accessed September 7, 2023, https://www.nsa.gov/About/Cybersecurity-Collaboration-Center/

47 Government of Finland, Ministry of Defense, Security Committee, Security Strategy for Society, November 2, 2017, 98, https://turvallisuuskomitea.fi/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/YTS_2017_english.pdf.

48 Government of Finland, Security Strategy for Society, 5.

49 Government of Finland, Security Strategy for Society, 5.

50 Government of Finland, Security Strategy for Society, 7.

51 Government of Finland, Security Strategy for Society, 7-8.

52 CISA, Federal Senior Leadership Council Charter, accessed July 4, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/fslc-charter-2021-508.pdf.

53 The FBI-led National Cybersecurity Investigative Joint Task Force is, of course, a joint task force, but it is not oriented to wartime activities.

54 The National Cybersecurity Implementation Plan requires DOD to issue an “updated DOD cyber strategy,” and while the full scope of homeland defense goes beyond cyber, the two efforts might be undertaken in a coordinated fashion. White House, National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, July 2023, 21, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-Implementation-Plan-WH.gov_.pdf.

55 Northern Command, “Defending the Homeland,” accessed July 6, 2023, https://www.northcom.mil/HomelandDefense.

56 Government of Finland, Security Strategy for Society, 10.

57 CISA, “CISA Regional Office Fact Sheets,” August 4, 2021, https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/cisa-regional-office-fact-sheets; and CISA, “State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program.”

58 Section 331(c)(1)(a), Senate Armed Services Committee, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, accessed September 2, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_ndaa_bill_text.pdf

59 Section 331(d), Senate Armed Services Committee, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, accessed September 2, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_ndaa_bill_text.pdf

60 Section 331(c)(2), Senate Armed Services Committee, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, accessed September 2, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_ndaa_bill_text.pdf.

61 CISA, “Information Sharing: A Vital Resource,” accessed July 2, 2023, https://www.cisa.gov/topics/cyber-threats-and-advisories/information-sharing/information-sharing-vital-resource.

62 Analysis and Resilience Center for Systemic Risk, “Who We Are,” https://systemicrisk.org/.

63 Analysis and Resilience Center for Systemic Risk, “What We Do,” https://systemicrisk.org/.

64 FS-ISAC, “Critical Providers Program FAQ,” accessed July 2, 2023), https://www.fsisac.com/faq-criticalproviders.

65 FS-ISAC, “Critical Providers.”

66 White House, National Cybersecurity Strategy, March 2023, 4, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-2023.pdf.

67 The National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan takes a step in this direction by requiring the Department of Commerce to publish a “Notice of Proposed rulemaking on requirements, standards, and procedures for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers and resellers.” White House, National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, July 2023, 25, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-Implementation-Plan-WH.gov_.pdf.

68 CISA, “Support to Critical Infrastructure at Greatest Risk, (‘Section 9 Report’) Summary,” February 8, 2021, https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/support-critical-infrastructure-greatest-risk-section-9-report-summary.

69 “Census Bureau Reports There Are 89,004 Local Governments in the United States,” US Census Bureau, August 30, 2012, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-161.html.

70 “Amendment to Rules Comm. Print 118–10 Offered by Mr. Green of Tennessee,” June 27, 2023, https://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/Cyber%20in%20National%20Guard%20Amendment230630140357934.pdf.

71 Section 1521, Rules Committee Print 118–10 Text of H.R. 2670, The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, June 23, 2023, https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RCP_xml_1.pdf.

72 Office of Senator Jacky Rosen, “Rosen, Blackburn Introduce Bipartisan Bills to Strengthen Federal Response to Cyberattacks,” March 21, 2023, https://www.rosen.senate.gov/2023/03/21/rosen-blackburn-introduce-bipartisan-bills-to-strengthen-federal-response-to-cyberattacks/.

73 Section 1116, Senate Armed Services Committee, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, accessed September 2, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_ndaa_bill_text.pdf.

74 Black, Russia’s War in Ukraine, 14.

75 “Joint Cyber Reserve Force,” Gov.UK, accessed June 3, 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-cyber-reserve-force.

76 Republic of Estonia, Information System Authority, “Cyber Security in Estonia 2023,” 51, https://www.ria.ee/media/2702/download.

77 National Guard, “National Guard Cyber Defense Team,” accessed September 2, 2023,https://www.nationalguard.mil/Portals/31/Resources/Fact%20Sheets/Cyber%20Defense%20Team%202022.pdf.

78 Franklin D. Kramer and Robert J. Butler, “Expanding the Role of the National Guard for Effective Cybersecurity,” The Hill, April 21, 2021, https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/550740-expanding-the-role-of-the-national-guard-for-effective-cybersecurity/.

79 Mark Pomerleau, “Lawmakers Pushing for More Integration of National Guard, Reserve Personnel into DOD Cyber Forces,” Defensescoop, June 12, 2023, https://defensescoop.com/2023/06/12/lawmakers-pushing-for-more-integration-of-national-guard-reserve-personnel-into-dod-cyber-forces/.

80 Cyber Command, “Hunt Forward Operations,” November 15, 2022, https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/3218642/cyber-101-hunt-forward-operations/.

81 “2023 Posture Statement of General Paul M. Nakasone,” US Cyber Command, March 7, 2023, https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/3320195/2023-posture-statement-of-general-paul-m-nakasone/.

82 Cyber Command, “Hunt Forward Operations.”

83 Cyber Command, “Hunt Forward Operations.”

84 This is a nontrivial requirement, as there is a significant shortage of highly skilled cyber talent, and retaining such talent has been a challenge for US Cyber Command. As Gen. Nakasone recently observed, “someone that has this type of training is very, very attractive to those on the outside.” Jim Garamone, “Cyber Command, NSA Successes Point Way to Future,” DOD News, March 8, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3322765/cyber-command-nsa-successes-point-way-to-future/.

85 There are important legal issues regarding the interface between the Fourth Amendment and constitutional wartime powers, but establishing a consensual regime—which should be in the self-interest of critical infrastructures —would avoid those questions.

86 There are approximately 550 existing and planned undersea cables; see TeleGeography, “Submarine Cable Frequently Asked Questions,” accessed July 2, 2023, https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequently-asked-questions. There are far fewer undersea pipelines, but for Europe, important pipelines include those in the North, Baltic, and Mediterranean seas with “about 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) of oil and gas pipelines crisscross[ing] the North Sea alone.” Lorne Cook, “NATO Moves to Protect Undersea Pipelines, Cables as Concern Mounts over Russian Sabotage Threat,” Associated Press, June 16, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/nato-russia-sabotage-pipelines-cables-infrastructure-507929033b05b5651475c8738179ba5c.

87 There is at least some indication that Ukraine undertook those Nord Stream actions. See Julian E. Barnes and Michael Schwirtz, “C.I.A. Told Ukraine Last Summer It Should Not Attack Nord Stream Pipelines,” New York Times, June 13, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-ukraine-cia.html.

88 White House, “G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communiqué,” May 20, 2023, paragraph 39, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/20/g7-hiroshima-leaders-communique/.

89 White House, “Quad Leaders’ Summit Fact Sheet,” May 20, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/20/quad-leaders-summit-fact-sheet/.

90 Though there is at least some indication that Ukraine undertook the Nord Stream actions. Barnes and Schwirtz, “C.I.A. Told Ukraine Last Summer It Should Not Attack Nord Stream Pipelines.”

91 Jens Stoltenberg, “Press Conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Following the Meeting of NATO Ministers of Defense in Brussels,” Remarks (as delivered), NATO, June 16, 2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_215694.htm?selectedLocale=en.

92 Christian Bueger, Tobias Liebetrau, and Jonas Franken, Security Threats to Undersea Communications Cables and Infrastructure–Consequences for the EU, In-Depth Analysis Requested by the SEDE Sub-committee, European Parliament, June 2022, 31, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2022/702557/EXPO_IDA(2022)702557_EN.pdf.

93 See “NATO to Set Up New Unit to Monitor Pipelines/Other Critical Infrastructure,” Pipeline Technology Journal, June 19, 2023, https://www.pipeline-journal.net/news/nato-set-new-unit-monitor-pipelines-other-critical-infrastructure.

94 Stoltenberg, “Press Conference.”

95 Stoltenberg, “Press Conference.”

96 “Frequently Asked Questions, Submarine Cable Systems Market,” MarketsandMarkets, accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/submarine-cable-system-market-184625.html.

97 “Submarine Cable Frequently Asked Questions,” TeleGeography, accessed July 1, 2023.

98 Underwater Arteries—the World’s Longest Offshore Pipelines,” Offshore Technology, September 9, 2014, https://www.offshore-technology.com/features/featureunderwater-arteries-the-worlds-longest-offshore-pipelines-4365616/; “After Nord Stream Attack, Europe Scrambles to Secure Subsea Pipelines,” Maritime Executive, October 2, 2022, https://maritime-executive.com/article/after-nord-stream-attack-europe-scrambles-to-secure-subsea-pipelines; “Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas,” National Centers for Environmental Information (“There are over 26,000 miles of oil and gas pipeline on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor,”), accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/gulf-data-atlas/atlas.htm?plate=Gas%20and%20Oil%20Pipelines.

99 “After Nord Stream Attack,” Maritime Executive; and Christiana Gallardo, “UK and Norway Team Up to Protect Undersea Cables, Gas Pipes in Wake of Nord Stream Attacks,” Politico, June 28, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-norway-team-up-protect-undersea-cables-gas-pipelines/.

100 For a series of specific recommendations, see Sherman, Cyber Defense Across the Ocean Floor.

101 John Arquila, “Securing the Undersea Cable Network,” Hoover Institution, 2023, 4, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/Arquilla_SecuringUnderseaCable_FINAL_0.pdf.

102 Arquila, “Securing the Undersea Cable Network,” 8, 9.

103 For recommendations on enhancing the cybersecurity of undersea cables, see also Justin Sherman, Cyber Defenses Across the Ocean Floor, Atlantic Council, September 2021, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/cyber-defense-across-the-ocean-floor-the-geopolitics-of-submarine-cable-security/.

104 Mick Green et al., “Submarine Cable Network Security,” Slide Deck, International Cable Protection Committee, April 13, 2009, https://www.iscpc.org/publications/.

105 Bueger, Liebetrau, and Franken, “Security Threats to Undersea Communications Cables,” 53.

106 DOD, “Space Development Agency Successfully Launches Tranche 0 Satellites,” April 2, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3348974/space-development-agency-successfully-launches-tranche-0-satellites/.

107 DOD, “Space Development Agency.”

108 Rocket Lab, “About Us,” accessed July 5, 2023, https://www.rocketlabusa.com/about/about-us/.

109 Charles S. Galbreath, “Building U.S. Space Force Counterspace Capabilities: An Imperative for America’s Defense,” Mitchell Institute, June 2023, 16, https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Building-US-Space-Force-Counterspace-Capabilities-FINAL2.pdf.

110 Fontes and Kamminga, “Ukraine: A Living Lab.”

111 “Planet Labs, Inc.—Peacetime Indications & Warning,” Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), 2019, https://www.diu.mil/solutions/portfolio/catalog/a0Tt0000009En0yEAC-a0ht000000AYgyYAAT.

112 “Planet Labs,” DIU.

113 “Umbra Launches World’s Most Capable Commercial Radar-Imaging Satellite,” Umbra, June 25, 2021, https://umbra.space/blog/umbra-launches-worlds-most-capable-commercial-radar-imaging-satellite.

114 Courtney Albon, “Maxar Explores New Uses for Earth Observation Satellites,” C4ISRNET, May 30, 2023, https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2023/05/30/maxar-explores-new-uses-for-earth-observation-satellites/.

115 Albon, “Maxar Explores New Uses.”

116 Offset-X: Closing the Deterrence Gap and Building the Future Joint Force, Special Competitive Studies Project (a bipartisan, nonprofit effort), May 2023, 51, https://www.scsp.ai/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Offset-X-Closing-the-Detterence-Gap-and-Building-the-Future-Joint-Force.pdf.

117 Suresh Kumar and Nishant Sharma, “Emerging Military Applications of Free Space Optical Communication Technology: A Detailed Review,” 2022 Journal of Physics Conference Series (2022), 1, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2161/1/012011/pdf.

118 The European Commission has undertaken an evaluation of seven different systems that it found to have met technical requirements. See L. Bonenberg, B. Motella, and J. Fortuny Guasch, Assessing Alternative Positioning, Navigation and Timing Technologies for Potential Deployment in the EU, JRC Science for Policy Report, EUR 31450 EN (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2023), https://doi.org/10.2760/596229.

119 “Safran to Provide GNSS Simulation Solutions for Xona Space System’s Low-Earth-Orbit Constellation and Navigation Signal,” Electronic Engineering Journal, April 6, 2023, https://www.eejournal.com/industry_news/safran-to-provide-gnss-simulation-solutions-for-xona-space-systems-low-earth-orbit-constellation-and-navigation-signals/.

120 Sandra Erwin, “SAIC to Develop ‘Software Factory’ for Space Development Agency,” SpaceNews, June 8, 2023, https://spacenews.com/saic-to-develop-software-factory-for-space-development-agency/.

121 US Air Force, “Civil Reserve Air Fleet,” accessed July 4, 2023, https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104583/civil-reserve-air-fleet/.

122 Sandra Erwin, “Space Force to Further Define Details of a ‘Commercial Space Reserve,’” Space News, July 25, 2023, https://spacenews.com/space-force-to-further-define-details-of-a-commercial-space-reserve.

123 50 US Code, §§ 4511 and 4557.

124 See Franklin D. Kramer, Melanie J. Teplinsky, and Robert J. Butler, “We Need a Cybersecurity Paradigm Change,” The Hill, February 15, 2022, https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/594296-we-need-a-cybersecurity-paradigm-change/.

125 Black, Russia’s War in Ukraine, 39.

The post The sixth domain: The role of the private sector in warfare appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making real progress on the Crimean front

Peter Dickinson — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 23:22:59 +0000

More than three months since the start of Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces have only managed to liberate a tiny portion of the territory currently under Russian occupation. However, the success or failure of the campaign cannot be measured in square kilometers alone. Beyond the front lines, the Ukrainian military is steadily reducing Russia’s ability to wage war and is methodically creating the conditions for future advances. This progress is nowhere more evident than in Crimea.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has carried out a number of strategically significant attacks across the Crimean peninsula, which has been under Russian occupation since early 2014 and has served as a key logistics hub for current invasion. These operations are enabling Ukraine to threaten the supply lines of the Russian army in southern Ukraine, while also making it increasingly difficult for the Russian navy to maintain a presence in the northwestern Black Sea.

Employing a combination of Ukrainian-produced drones, Western-supplied cruise missiles, and commando raids, Ukraine has struck a series of high value targets in Crimea including Russian air defense systems, communications outposts, transport hubs, airfields, and ammunition stores. A number of strikes have reportedly targeted senior Russian officers. The growing frequency of these Ukrainian offensive operations in Crimea has made a mockery of earlier Russian attempts to claim that any attacks on the occupied peninsula represented a “red line” for the Kremlin.

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Some of Ukraine’s recent attacks on the Crimean front have been spectacular enough to garner international headlines. In mid-September, Ukraine struck a warship and submarine while they underwent repair works in the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s home port of Sevastopol. According to an intelligence update by Britain’s Ministry of Defense, the Minsk landing ship was “almost certainly functionally destroyed” in the attack, while the Kilo class Rostov-on-Don submarine “likely suffered catastrophic damage.” Furthermore, the task of removing wreckage from the dry docks in Sevastopol will likely take months, creating major challenges for fleet maintenance.

Ukraine went even further on September 22, launching an audacious daylight attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the heart of Sevastopol. This resulted in a number of direct hits that caused serious damage to the symbolically important building. Ukraine’s success was a major embarrassment for Putin, exposing the ineffectiveness of Russia’s air defenses and underlining the vulnerability of the Black Sea Fleet. In a sure sign of Moscow’s extreme displeasure, the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media initially ignored the humiliating attack entirely.

The steady depletion of Russia’s air defenses on the Crimean peninsula in recent months may be an indication of Ukraine’s future intentions. With the skies over occupied Crimea increasingly undefended, Ukraine will likely seek to expand attacks on Crimean transport and munitions hubs that are critically important for the Russian war effort in southern Ukraine. This could deprive Russian forces of resupply at a critical moment in the fighting along the front lines in Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

While the situation for Russia’s occupation forces in Crimea is not yet critical, the outlook is far from promising. Reports following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent White House meeting with US President Joe Biden indicate that the United States is now preparing to supply Ukraine with ATACMS cruise missiles for the first time, though the exact range is yet to be announced. The delivery of ATACMS missiles would enable the Ukrainian military to strike targets throughout Crimea. Ukraine is also developing powerful new underwater drones that will significantly increase the threat to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. At this point, there can be little doubt that Ukraine is ultimately aiming to make Crimea untenable for the Russian military.

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Ukraine has also seized the initiative at sea, using innovative naval drones to target Russian warships and other shipping. In early August, a Ukrainian naval drone attack seriously damaged the Russian landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak in the eastern Black Sea close to the Russian naval base at Novorossiisk. The attack highlighted Ukraine’s ability to hit targets hundreds of miles from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled coastline. Numerous smaller Russian warships have also reportedly been damaged in similar attacks during the past few months.

This unfolding campaign against the Russian naval presence in the Black Sea is crucial for Kyiv’s efforts to unblock Ukraine’s southern ports and reopen an economic lifeline for the country’s maritime trade to global markets. In defiance of Russia’s naval blockade, the Ukrainian authorities announced the launch of a new shipping corridor in August that runs down the western shoreline of the Black Sea from the port city of Odesa. The viability of this corridor hinges on Ukraine’s ability to deter Russian warships from intervening. By September 26, seven vessels had sailed from Odesa via the new sea route.

Ukraine’s increasingly ambitious offensive operations on the Crimean peninsula and in the Black Sea are part of a far larger counteroffensive picture. In parallel to the attacks being carried out on the Crimean front, Ukraine is also hitting targets with increasing regularity inside Russia itself.

Drone strikes in Moscow have become an almost daily occurrence in recent months, forcing the Russian military to withdraw limited air defense systems from the front lines in Ukraine in order to redeploy them in the Russian capital. Suspected Ukrainian drone activity has also repeatedly forced Moscow’s international airports to shut down, causing economic damage and providing the Russian public with a taste of wartime disruption. More significantly, a series of drone attacks on airfields deep inside Russia have led to the destruction of multiple warplanes.

Ukrainian commanders recognize that today’s complex attrition tactics will only get them so far, and are well aware that they must eventually break through Russia’s defenses and liberate their entire country if they wish to secure a meaningful peace. Nevertheless, any analysis of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive is incomplete without an awareness of the broader attrition campaign that is currently underway far from the relatively static front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. The pace of the Ukrainian advance remains slow, but developments elsewhere may prove equally important in determining the future course of the war.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukraine’s drone army is bringing Putin’s invasion home to Russia

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 13:03:03 +0000

One of the most striking aspects of the Russia-Ukraine War over the past six months has been the intensification of Ukrainian drone strikes against targets throughout the Russian Federation. While the Ukrainian authorities remain reluctant to officially acknowledge responsibility for these attacks, there is little doubt that they reflect the steadily expanding capabilities of Ukraine’s increasingly impressive drone army.

The growth in Ukrainian drone attacks has helped to address one of the great imbalances of the country’s war with Russia. During the first year following Russia’s full-scale invasion, hostilities were almost exclusively confined to Ukraine itself, with neighboring Russian territory remaining virtually untouched. Russian and Ukrainian troops clashed along a front line running for more than 1000 kilometers through eastern and southern Ukraine, while Russia carried out air strikes against civilian targets across the country with apparent impunity.

Ukraine’s ability to retaliate was severely limited due to restrictions imposed by the country’s partners regarding the use of military aid. Fearful of provoking a Russian response against their own countries, Western leaders sought assurances from their Ukrainian colleagues that any weapons they provided would only be used within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. This led to the bizarre situation where Russian commanders were able to bomb Ukrainian residential areas, port facilities, energy infrastructure, and other civilian targets without fear of retribution.

Crucially, this extreme Western caution toward attacks inside Russia never extended to strikes using Ukrainian weapons. This helps to explain why Ukraine has been focusing on the development and production of drones as an economically sustainable way of countering Russia’s overwhelming air superiority and their own country’s reliance on Western military aid.

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Ukraine’s drone efforts have involved a high degree of improvisation and in many ways resemble a nationwide startup. Small groups of volunteers have played key roles, often creating prototypes while working in battlefield conditions. Ukrainian drone manufacturers and operators have been forced to constantly innovate in order to stay ahead of their Russian adversaries, who have also proven to be fast learners.

There is no single institution responsible for managing Ukraine’s drone army, with different military units and state agencies often operating in parallel. The country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation is probably the closest thing to a coordinating body, with Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov a prominent advocate of drone warfare. Earlier this year, Fedorov’s Ministry co-founded BRAVE1, a defense tech cluster that aims to streamline cooperation between the Ukrainian state, the armed forces, and the country’s vibrant tech startup scene.

The expansion of Ukraine’s drone army since the start of Russia’s invasion has been striking. Fedorov says the country has already trained 10,000 new drone pilots this year. According to a recent New York Times feature article on Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities, “so many small drones are flying now along one section of the front line that Ukraine’s military coordinates the flights with a dispatcher, akin to air traffic control.”

Ukrainians are racing to keep up with rapidly escalating demand within the country’s military for greater quantities of drones and innovative new models capable of penetrating Russia’s defenses. In August 2023, The Economist reported that there are currently more than 200 companies in Ukraine officially manufacturing drones, along with hundreds of additional smaller scale operations. This trend looks set to continue, with the Ukrainian government allocating approximately $1.3 billion in the 2024 state budget for drones.

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While drone activity above and around the battlefield remains the primary focus of Ukraine’s drone army, longer range attacks are playing an increasingly prominent role in the country’s war effort. These strikes have focused on a range of strategic targets. Russia’s energy infrastructure, including the country’s oil refineries and storage facilities, have been struck repeatedly. There have been a number of headline-grabbing drone attacks on airbases deep inside Russia, resulting in the destruction of numerous planes. Drones have frequently been used to destroy munitions storage facilities and Russian air defense systems, sometimes being deployed to create openings for missile strikes.

Drones are also playing a significant role in the war at sea. While the modest Ukrainian Navy has no warship presence in the Black Sea, drones are enabling Ukraine to strike back at Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, often in spectacular fashion. In early August, Ukrainian naval drones reportedly hit and severely damaged a Russian warship close to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in the eastern Black Sea, hundreds of miles away from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled coastline. Ukraine’s enhanced naval drone capability has been credited with altering the balance of power in the Black Sea.

Some drone attacks appear to have been undertaken in order to publicly embarrass the Kremlin or force Russia’s military leaders to pull air defenses away from the front lines in Ukraine. On the eve of Victory Day in May 2023, a drone hit the Kremlin in central Moscow. The exclusive Moscow City business center, which houses a number of government agencies, has been repeatedly targeted, highlighting the weakness of the Russian capital city’s air defenses.

Meanwhile, suspected Ukrainian drone activity close to Moscow’s international airports has forced airspace closures and flight cancellations on a regular basis in recent months. This imposes significant economic costs on Russia, while also bringing the reality of the war home to ordinary Russians whose lives have otherwise remained largely untouched by the carnage unfolding in neighboring Ukraine.

In June 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled the coming escalation in drone attacks when he declared that the war was “gradually returning” to Russia. “This is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process,” he commented during his daily address. Zelenskyy’s statement was a particularly noteworthy as it indicated Ukraine’s readiness to reject the artificial constraints imposed by the country’s Western partners regarding attacks inside the Russian Federation. Western leaders have since clarified that they fully recognize Ukraine’s right to strike Russian targets as part of the country’s overall defensive effort.

There is a clear military logic linking Ukraine’s mounting drone attacks on the front lines, inside Russia itself, and at sea. Unlike Russia, which uses air strikes primarily as a psychological weapon to induce terror among the civilian population, Ukraine’s drone activities focus on the methodical destruction of military targets and the steady erosion of Russia’s ability to wage war. By bringing the war home to Russia, Ukraine’s drone army is also forcing the Kremlin to redeploy its limited air defenses and weaken its invasion force inside Ukraine.

Ukraine does not have a monopoly on drone technologies or tactics, of course. Ukrainian commanders readily acknowledge that their Russian adversaries have rapidly adapted to the new threats posed by drones, and have also incorporated drones into their own offensive operations with deadly effectiveness. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s robust tech sector and innovation-friendly military leadership are helping the country to make the most of the novel opportunities created by drone warfare. Keeping one step ahead of the Russians will remain a daily struggle, but Ukraine is currently punching well above its weight in what is the world’s first ever full-scale drone war.

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Thanks in large part to the efforts of Ukrenergo along with others including the country’s biggest private power company, DTEK, Ukraine was able to restore and repair enough infrastructure last winter to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. However, much of the damage caused by Russia’s attacks has yet to be repaired and replacement parts have been hard to come by, especially autotransformers.

The resumption of Russia’s energy infrastructure attacks on September 21 was widely anticipated as the Kremlin seeks to further weaken Ukraine ahead of the coming winter season. Prior to this latest bombardment, Ukraine’s energy sector entities had spent a six-month period of relative quiet reinforcing their infrastructure with an eye to better withstanding a renewed series of attacks.

Ukrainian military intelligence and energy sector officials have warned in recent weeks that Russia is preparing for a new campaign of energy infrastructure strikes. In July 2023, Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said he was planning for a range of worst case scenarios, but assured that he was “certain our main network will be ready to function without restrictions.” Others have raised the alarm over Russian plans for a fresh offensive against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. “They are stockpiling missiles for it,” DTEK CEO Maksym Timchenko told CNN on September 18.

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At present, Ukraine appears to be in a far better position to counter a new air campaign than it was this time last year. The country now has valuable experience in terms of missile interception, emergency transmission system repairs, building protective domes over substations, and a wide range of other defensive and repair tasks.

Nevertheless, the sheer volume of drones and missiles employed by Russia and the large number of potential targets across Ukraine mean that significant damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure is virtually inevitable. The disruptive impact of blackouts on individual lives and on the broader economic situation in the country is likely to prove particularly problematic.

So, too, is the cost. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already caused upwards of $450 billion in damage to the country. Meanwhile, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated in early September 2023 that the cost of direct damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was already more than $8.8 billion. A new bombing campaign in the coming months will certainly add to this figure.

Western governments are helping, if not with replacement equipment then at least with financial assistance. In February 2023, the US government announced over $10 billion in assistance, including budgetary support for Ukraine and additional energy assistance to support Ukrainians suffering from Russia’s attacks. In June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised an additional $1.3 billion to help Ukraine “overhaul its energy grid” and modernize critical infrastructure. A number of European governments have also been generous in their support.

With the long winter season now weeks away, critics warn that this Western energy assistance has not been generous enough. Without substantially larger infusions of cash, equipment, and infrastructure repair support, Ukraine may emerge in spring 2024 hobbled by Russian energy aggression.

Current estimates indicate that approximately half of the seven million Ukrainian refugees who left the country following Russia’s February 2022 invasion are unlikely to return to their homeland. Another weaponized winter of freezing darkness could make sheltering overseas a permanent reality for many more Ukrainians. As the Ukrainian population prepares for the prospect of another wartime winter, they can only hope that support from the West doesn’t weaken further.

Suriya Jayanti is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Russian War Report: Black Sea military operations approach NATO countries’ waters

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:11:08 +0000

Zelenskyy expresses frustration with allies over grain imports during UN speech

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive continues in the direction of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his September 19 speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that Russia’s war against Ukraine threatens global security as the Kremlin weaponizes global energy and food supplies. Zelenskyy stated that by blocking Ukraine’s grain exports and attacking ports, Moscow seeks to deepen global food shortages and blackmail nations into recognizing Russia’s conquest of Ukrainian territory. In a recent overnight attack, the Russian army used drones to strike the Izmail region of Odesa on September 13, injuring six civilians and damaging the port and other civil infrastructure.

The Ukrainian president criticized Kyiv’s allies that continue to block Ukraine’s grain imports despite the already dire situation caused by the Russian blockade. Though Zelenskyy did not name any countries, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary have said they will keep restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports despite the EU’s decision not to prolong the ban.

On September 20, the Atlantic Council honored Zelenskyy with a 2023 Global Citizen Award.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov announced on September 19 that the bulk carrier Resilient Africa, sailing under Palau’s flag and loaded with three thousand metric tons of wheat, left the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk for the Bosphorus. Resilient Africa and the cargo vessel Aroyat are the first civilian ships to agree to enter Ukrainian ports following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July. After Russia withdrew, it threatened to attack ships operating in Ukrainian maritime space. Resilient Africa and Aroyat are expected to deliver twenty thousand tons of grain to countries in Africa and Asia. According to Kubrakov, Aroyat remains in Chornomorsk port, loading Ukrainian wheat bound for Egypt.

Zelenskyy warned other nations at UNGA that Russian military actions will threaten more areas of the world. This resonates with recent developments in the Black Sea region, where Russian naval and military operations continue to escalate and increasingly approach the waters of NATO countries Romania and Bulgaria. The recent Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol on September 14 was carried out in conjunction with an attack on patrol vessels near Bulgaria’s economic zone. The Telegram channel of military blogger Rybar shared a map speculating that Ukrainian forces used Bulgarian and Romanian waters for the attack.

The hacker group KillNet claimed responsibility for an attack against Bulgaria’s banking system. It said the attack was motivated by Bulgaria’s decision to lift the ban on grain exports from Ukraine. Pro-Russian Telegram channels in Bulgaria expressed support for the attack. Meanwhile, on September 17, Bulgarian authorities found drone remains near Tyulenovo, a strategic location on the coast. While there is insufficient evidence to determine the drone’s origin and why it was in the area, the event provoked media reactions and commentary about the possibility that the war in Ukraine could spill into neighboring areas. The incident received attention on pro-Russian Telegram channels that speculated the drone was a kamikaze-type Ukrainian UAV. Citing comments made by Bulgarian authorities, Ukrainian Telegram channels suggested that the wreckage contained an 82mm mortar shell.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Romania increases security measures after possible drone remains found on its territory

On September 13, near the city of Tulcea, the Romanian army identified possible drone fragments located a few hundred meters away from a military base. The discovery occurred after local residents reported an explosion to emergency services following Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports along the Danube River on the night of September 13. This is the third time in the last two weeks that suspected drone fragments have been found on Romanian territory. The first two drones were located in the Plauru village of Tulcea County, situated in close proximity to the Ukrainian border. However, the third drone was discovered deeper in Romania, approximately in twenty-five kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Screenshot from Google Maps showing Tulcea and Plauru’s proximity to the Ukraine border. (Source: Google Maps)

According to Romania’s Ministry of Defense, preliminary results indicated the fragments found near Tulcea appear to originate from a “drone similar to those used by the Russian military.” An investigation is underway to uncover more details.

On September 18, Minister of National Defense Angel Tîlvăr met with officials from defense, public order, and national security committees. Later, the defense ministry announced that Romania had increased the number of military personnel in the Danube Delta region due to the heightened drone attacks near Romania. Approximately six hundred soldiers will be sent to the border to monitor the Danube shore from Galați to Sulina. Additionally, the ministry said it would deploy more observation points and ground sensors, and increase the number of river fleet patrols on the Danube.

Romania has also initiated the construction of anti-aircraft shelters for residents living near the Ukrainian border in response to Russia’s repeated violations of its national territory.

—Victoria Olari, research assistant, Moldova

Russia seems unlikely to block YouTube without a domestic alternative

Citing Russian media outlet Interfax, Riga-based independent Russian media outlet Meduza noted on September 17 that Russia does not plan to block YouTube until the Kremlin finds an “adequate replacement.”

Interfax reported that Alexander Khinshtein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, said that as of now there is no full-fledged domestic alternative to YouTube, and “premature blocking of the platform might negatively impact users who will become hostages of the situation.”

Russian Member of Parliament Anton Gorelkin said that Russia should develop its own alternative, “as YouTube remains a hostile platform deliberately violating” Russian laws. He added that YouTube could one day pursue “a more aggressive policy” to distribute videos Russia considers illegal. He added that Russian YouTubers have “no future.”

Last month, a Russian court fined YouTube’s parent company Google for not deleting videos about the war in Ukraine that the Kremlin alleges are false.

Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia blocked and banned several Western social media platforms and online outlets but allowed YouTube to remain accessible. In 2021, there were approximately 91 million Russian YouTube users, while Russia’s existing domestic alternative, RUTUBE, had only three million users. YouTube’s dominance in Russia and public support for the platform are likely why the Kremlin has approached its potential restriction cautiously.

The DFRLab has previously covered Russia’s attempts to introduce domestic replacements for popular Western online services, including Wikipedia, Instagram and various Google products.

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

US targets individuals and entities for sanctions evasion

On September 14, the United States imposed sanctions on more than 150 individuals and entities from Russia, Turkey, Georgia, and the United Arab Emirates. The US implemented the sanctions in response to Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, targeting various sectors of Russia’s economy and entities involved in crucial energy projects and infrastructure.

Among the sanctioned are Russian companies participating in developing energy projects, such as Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas project, and associated companies procuring essential materials and advanced technology. The United States also designated companies operating within the metals and mining sector as well as entities that offer repair and maintenance services to the Russian defense sector.

The sanctions also targeted Russian malign influence in Georgia. The United States sanctioned Otar Partskhaladze, a former prosecutor General of Georgia it described as a “Georgian-Russian oligarch,” alongside Aleksandr Onischenko, a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer. Partskhaladze has close ties to former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the ruling party, Georgian Dream; the corruption monitoring organization Transparency International described Ivanishvili as “the informal ruler of Georgia.” In its sanctions announcement, the US Department of State noted, “Onishchenko and the FSB have leveraged Partskhaladze to influence Georgian society and politics for the benefit of Russia. Partskhaladze has reportedly personally profited from his FSB connection.”

The sanctions also included five Turkish ship repair and construction companies working on “vessels that have been blocked as property of entities operating or having operated in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.” Additionally, the United States imposed sanctions against Pavel Shevelin, an individual affiliated with the Wagner Group, for facilitating the shipment of munitions from North Korea to Russia.

The latest round of sanctions was part of a broader international effort, with the United States and its allies having previously imposed extensive sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

—Sopo Gelava, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

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Ukraine’s wartime resilience portrayed on stage in Washington

Jacob Heilbrunn — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:17:30 +0000

Coming just days before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House, the September 16 premiere of an audacious new 90-minute play, Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, at Washington’s Woolly Mammoth Theater, could hardly have been more timely.

Written by the playwright Sasha Denisova and directed by Yury Urnov, this new theatrical production highlights Ukraine’s remarkable resistance to Russia’s ongoing invasion and centers on Zelenskyy’s secret weapon, a brash grandmother named Olga Ivanovna who guards her Kyiv apartment with a rifle. “They’re getting closer,” she declares at the outset. “The situation is grave. They’re getting closer on all fronts.” There is no need to elucidate who “they” are.

In between whipping up elaborate meals in her tiny but immaculate post-Soviet kitchen, Olga Ivanovna plots with the Ukrainian president to outwit the Russians and shame the West into supporting Ukraine. The play exemplifies Ukraine’s true grit as it repels Russia’s murderous war of conquest, all with a dash of humor and endless mother-daughter conflict.

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Denisova, who grew up in Kyiv, is a well-known playwright whose previous work The Gaaga (the Russian pronunciation for The Hague) imagined a future war crimes trial of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies. For her new play, she drew upon her mother’s WhatsApp messages sent after the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Denisova recently told the Guardian newspaper, “when Mama went international in her writing, when she started appealing to Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, when she started calling Vladimir Putin a Ruscist bastard scum, I started feeling OK, she is on this level where it needs to become a play.”

Denisova deftly explores her mother’s life to provide a riveting account of Ukrainian resistance to tyranny. Olga Ivanovna was born in a bomb shelter on the very day in 1941 that the Nazis began bombing Kyiv, including the hospital where she was supposed to be born. The parallels with today’s Russian assault are obvious. Indeed, in a February 2022 address to the Russian people, Zelenskyy himself observed, “Tonight you began bombing residential areas in the hero city of Kyiv. This is like 1941.”

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The protagonist Olga Ivanovna, who lives with her much younger husband, is an incendiary presence. As the play progresses, she recounts her turbulent love life, zest for travel, and passion for engineering. But the Russian menace is never far away: The ingenious staging has drones periodically buzzing by that Olga Ivanovna tries to deflect and destroy with everything from a fly swatter to a pickle jar. The mix of frustration, exasperation, and anger is palpable as she shouts at Zelenskyy for permission to bring them down. At one point, the play even has her in the cockpit of a fighter jet targeting the Kremlin itself.

Olga Ivanovna is fearless: In several extremely effective scenes, television footage of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz offering tepid support for Ukraine are beamed onto the stage. Olga Ivanovna yells at them to man up. The chasm between their banalities and her righteous moral indignation could hardly be more palpable.

When Biden visits her apartment wearing his trademark dark aviator glasses, Olga Ivanovna serves him Ukrainian delicacies and prods him to do more for her country. Perhaps the most evocative scene of the entire play arrives when Putin himself slithers into her apartment. Olga Ivanovna bashes the despot over the head with a pickle jar, but not before a vengeful Putin detonates a tactical nuclear weapon.

Olga Ivanovna is undaunted. The play shows her bargaining with God himself to intervene on behalf of Ukraine and stop the war while Bach’s “Air on a G string” plays in the background. Even the almighty himself finds it difficult to resist this woman.

Surreal and moving, the play sometimes threatens to lurch out of control, particularly towards the end as Denisova pulls out all the stops in her homage to her irrepressible mother. But ultimately it succeeds in highlighting the everyday resistance that ordinary Ukrainians have displayed in spades. From the outset of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians of all ages and backgrounds have volunteered in myriad ways to help defend their country.

The play also underscores the resilience that Zelenskyy himself embodies. Putin has sought not only to win fresh territory, but also to extirpate Ukrainian culture and nationhood. The Kremlin’s latest move has reportedly been to order Russian state media to stop referring to Zelenskyy as “president” and to employ the term “Zelenskyy regime.” Denisova’s absorbing play offers a potent reminder of why Putin’s quest will not end in Ukraine’s demise but his own.

Jacob Heilbrunn is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, editor of the National Interest, and author of the forthcoming “America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.”

Hammes speaks about new DoD initiative on The Japan Times

Atlantic Council — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:58:51 +0000

On September 13, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Thomas Hammes was quoted on The Japan Times stressing the importance of cooperation with US allies and partners in the Replicator I nitiative, a new initiative that will use drones to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Hammes also offered solutions to forecasted logistical challenges that the United States may face in using these technologies.

Allies are critical in any conflict with China. And as we are seeing in Ukraine, the ability to mass-produce munitions is an essential part of modern warfare.

Thomas Hammes

Fellow

Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

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Ukraine’s vibrant tech ecosystem is a secret weapon in the war with Russia

Mykhailo Fedorov — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:31:59 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has unleashed the most technologically advanced war the world has ever seen. On land and sea, in the air and in cyberspace, both Russia and Ukraine are deploying rapidly advancing technologies on an almost daily basis. While Russia enjoys overwhelming advantages in terms of conventional military might, manpower, and resources, Ukraine can call upon a vibrant and sophisticated tech sector including around 300,000 IT professionals, and also benefits from a digital culture that is deeply rooted throughout Ukrainian society. This tech ecosystem is proving to be Ukraine’s secret weapon in the war against Russia.

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s current priority is the development of defense technologies that can help secure victory over Russia. This sector will likely remain at the heart of Ukraine’s tech ecosystem long after Russia is defeated, and has immense potential to shape the future growth of the country’s entire digital economy. With Ukraine currently serving as a testing ground for many of the world’s most advanced defense technologies, the country is already becoming an innovation hub and has every chance of establishing itself as a world leader in the defense tech sector.

Alongside this focus on defense technologies, Ukraine’s IT industry also continues to expand. Indeed, the IT sector is perhaps the only segment of the wartime Ukrainian economy that has remained on a growth trajectory since February 2022, creating new jobs, implementing new projects, and attracting investment. At Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, we are seeking to do everything possible to help IT businesses not only survive but thrive, despite the unique challenges created by the Russian invasion. This includes the development of favorable tax and legal conditions via the Diia.City platform, the launch of free developer training opportunities, efforts to advance the reform of IT education, and enhanced backing for Ukrainian startups.

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Launched just two weeks before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Diia.City aims to offer some of the most attractive tax conditions in the world for companies operating in the IT and tech sectors. When we developed the architecture for the Diia.City platform, our goal was to demonstrate that lower tax rates can actually stimulate greater tax revenues for the state budget. This has now been confirmed by the most recent annual data from Ukraine’s State Tax Service. In 2022, Diia.City resident companies paid more than UAH 4.1 billion in taxes, which represents a 22.5% increase compared to the previous year. Today, more than 600 companies are residents of Diia.City. The list includes young Ukrainian companies and large international players such as Samsung, Visa, Nokia, Ajax Systems, and Global Logic.

Another current priority is support for Ukrainian startups. Even amid the horrors and upheavals of the Russian invasion, Ukrainians continue to innovate. Indeed, over the past eighteen months of war, there have been numerous examples of Ukrainians creating innovative new products that are helping the country defend itself. In order to encourage this trend, we are working to develop a dynamic venture capital investment ecosystem. Since December 2022, the Ministry of Digital Transformation has begun overseeing the Ukrainian Startup Fund, which has become the country’s largest angel investor. The fund has already supported over 350 startups and has now pivoted toward defense tech projects.

Ukraine’s flagship defense tech platform is the BRAVE1 initiative, a tech cluster for the development of the country’s defense tech industry. BRAVE1 was launched in spring 2023 by Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Strategic Industries, the National Security and Defense Council, and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The main goal of BRAVE1 is to create a fast track for innovation in the defense and security sectors. Any company or defense tech startup can find partners and gain assistance through the cluster. The overall objective is to build a system that will streamline the launch of defense tech projects. By midsummer 2023, BRAVE1 had registered approximately 400 projects, with almost 200 having also undergone military testing. The projects currently under development have been prioritized by Ukraine’s military leadership and include drones, robotic systems, electronic warfare, artifical intelligence tools, cybersecurity, communications, and information security management systems.

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Making the most of Ukraine’s tech potential requires international investment. While security concerns inevitably cast a long shadow over the Ukrainian investment climate, there are some tentative signs of progress amid rising awareness of Ukraine’s tech potential. The European Commission’s European Innovation Council announced in May 2023 that it would allocate €20 million toward the development of Ukrainian startups and innovative projects. Meanwhile, the Seeds of Bravery project, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Innovation Development Fund, has been selected as a key partner of the EU, creating opportunities for hundreds of domestic startups to receive financial assistance and growth opportunities. This will include mentoring programs with top tier figures from the international tech industry. The Ukrainian authorities are also actively supporting the participation of Ukrainian startups at international trade events such as London Tech Week, Viva Tech, TechCrunch Disrupt, and others. This already helped Ukrainian startups to raise more that $10 million in additional funding in 2022.

Consolidating Ukraine’s tech ecosystem will require greater direct international involvement in addition to investment. With this in mind, Ukraine plans to launch an e-residency initiative by the end of 2023. This will allow citizens of other countries to run their tech businesses in Ukraine and benefit from favorable conditions including attractive tax rates. At the pilot phase of the project, e-residency will be made available to citizens of Slovenia, India, Pakistan, and Thailand. This list will be expanded as the program is rolled out. The initiative aims to offer e-residents a fast, convenient, fully automized experience without the need to interact directly with any state officials. The first stage is expected to involve around 1000 e-residents, which could generate $1 million for the Ukrainian budget. More importantly, it will introduce Ukraine to a new generation of tech professionals from around the world and elevate the country’s profile as an emerging global tech hub.

The current war has served to underline the strategic importance of a strong tech sector. Luckily, Ukraine has been moving in this direction for some years and has therefore been able to adapt rapidly to wartime conditions. Beyond the existential challenge of defeating Russia and securing Ukrainian statehood, I am now more convinced than ever that the tech sector will be the main engine of Ukraine’s future GDP growth. The Ukrainian economy will become increasingly digital in the years ahead, and the country will bolster its reputation not only as an exporter of IT services but as home to a wide range of globally competitive tech brands. To help make this happen, we will continue to create favorable conditions for international tech companies to scale up their businesses and open offices in Ukraine, as both Palantir and SpaceX have done since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Over the past eighteen months, Ukraine has demonstrated that it has the capacity to implement new ideas in the tech sector with remarkable creativity and efficiency. Wartime conditions are accelerating evolutionary processes within the country’s tech sector that have been underway for more than a decade; this is propelling Ukraine toward the status of digital superpower. It is now clear that Ukraine has the potential to become one of the world’s top ten innovation-driven economies. This will play a key role in the country’s future prosperity and will also help keep Ukrainians safe.

Mykhailo Fedorov is Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister for Innovations and Development of Education, Science, and Technologies, and Minister of Digital Transformation.

Ukraine has been confronting this problem since Russia first began launching regular drone attacks in late 2022. The Ukrainian military has been obliged to deploy layered air defenses around the country’s cities and strategic infrastructure, thereby depriving Ukrainian soldiers in the combat zone of similar protection. Even with Ukraine’s air defenses redeployed, many cities such as Odesa remain far more vulnerable than Kyiv, and have suffered a succession of drone strikes against grain silos and other key civilian targets.

With drone attacks on Moscow now sparking public alarm and causing considerable embarrassment for the Kremlin, Russian military planners are facing the same dilemma as their Ukrainian counterparts. They must find a balance between maintaining air defenses along the front lines of the war and securing the airspace above the Russian capital and other key cities.

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For the past eighteen months, Russia has relied heavily on Iran for supply of OWA drones, with large-scale deliveries of drones beginning in the second half of 2022. However, a new report by British-based international weapons watchdog Conflict Armament Research has found evidence that Moscow is now producing its own versions of Iranian OWA drones and has started using them to attack Ukraine. Additional reports indicate China is secretly supplying Russia with significant quantities of drones, even as Beijing proclaims its neutrality.

Ukraine’s ability to source and manufacture OWA drones of its own is also rapidly evolving. The first recorded incident involving a suspected Ukrainian long-range OWA drone came in June 2022, with an attack on a Russian oil refinery in Rostov. Given Ukraine’s lack of other long-range strike options such as cruise missiles, OWA drones offer obvious advantages to the Ukrainian military, enabling the country to threaten targets previously considered beyond the range of Ukraine’s capabilities.

For Kyiv, manufacturing one-way attack drones has become a priority and is a key element of their “Army of Drones” strategy. According to a recent report in The Economist, there are currently more than 200 companies officially manufacturing drones in Ukraine. Hundreds of smaller-scale startup-style operations are also developing new drone models as Ukrainians race to get a technological edge on their Russian enemies.

Ukraine’s partners are helping Ukraine’s drone strategy gain ground. In May 2023, the UK government announced that it was supplying hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200 kilometers to Ukraine’s military. Britain is one of numerous countries currently sending drone technologies to Ukraine.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

While Russian drone attacks have predominantly targeted civilian infrastructure and non-military targets in Ukrainian towns and cities, Ukraine has so far used the limited number of long-range drones at its disposal to strike military and government sites. In addition to headline-grabbing attacks on Moscow, Ukraine has also launched a significant number of drone strikes on targets in Russian-occupied Crimea. Russian naval forces based in the Ukrainian peninsula have been a particular focus, with attacks involving both air and marine drones affecting the day-to-day operations of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Most recently, Ukraine demonstrated its increasingly advanced naval drone capabilities with a series of successful attacks in the Black Sea. In early August, Ukrainian drones struck a Russian warship and a sanctioned Russian oil tanker used to supply the Russian military, causing serious damage to both vessels. These attacks took place close to Novorossiysk, an important Russian naval base and oil port in the eastern Black Sea. The Wall Street Journal noted that the attacks “alter the balance of power in the Black Sea.”

Recent Ukrainian drone attacks in the Black Sea and against Moscow suggest that the momentum in the drone war may be shifting in Ukraine’s favor. Russia is now faced with the task of redeploying its air defenses to counter the growing threat posed by Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated drone army. Crucially, Russia may be far more vulnerable to all-out drone warfare, with the country’s vast energy industry infrastructure presenting a particularly inviting array of potential targets for Ukrainian drone operators.

Ukraine and Russia are now locked in a struggle to gain the technological ascendancy while also racing to manufacture drones in ever greater numbers and secure further supplies from international partners. With more and more OWA drones likely to be appearing above the battlefield and in the skies over Russian and Ukrainian cities, much will depend on the ability of both countries to improve the efficiency of their air defenses. The Kremlin still enjoys the advantage of far greater resources, but Ukraine’s imaginative and bold use of drones looks capable of causing Russia mounting problems.

Marcel Plichta is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and former analyst for the US Department of Defense. All views are his own.

Modern militaries must embrace HMT or risk conceding military edge to competitors effectively leveraging AI and autonomy.

Machines are becoming ubiquitous across the twenty-first-century battlespace, and modern militaries must embrace human-machine teaming (HMT) or risk conceding military edge to competitors effectively leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy.¹ This report investigates the implications of the increasing incorporation of AI into military operations with a particular focus on understanding the parameters, advantages, and challenges to the US Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) adoption of the concept of HMT.²

Key takeaways

Looking through the lens of three military applications for HMT, the authors arrive at the following conclusions.

HMT has the potential to change warfare and solve key operational challenges: AI and HMT could potentially transform conflict and noncombat operations by increasing situational awareness, improving decision-making, extending the range and lethality of human operators, and gaining and maintaining advantage across the multi-domain fight. HMT can also drive efficiencies in many supporting functions such as logistics, sustainment, and back-office administration, reducing the costs and timelines of these processes and freeing up humans to carry out higher-value tasks within these mission areas.

DOD must expand its definitions for HMT: Definitions of HMT should be expanded to include the breadth of human interactions with autonomous uncrewed systems and AI agents, including those that have no physical form (e.g., decision support software). Extending the definition beyond interactions between humans and robots allows DOD to realize the wide-ranging use cases for HMT—ranging from the use of lethal weapon systems and drone swarms in high-intensity warfare to leveraging algorithms to fuse data and realize virtual connections in the information domain.
HMT development and employment must prioritize human-centric teaming: AI development is moving at an impressive pace, driving potential leaps ahead in machine capability and placing a premium on ensuring the safety, reliability, and trustworthiness of AI agents. As much attention must be dedicated to developing the competencies, comfort levels, and trust of human operators to effectively exploit the value of HMT and ensure humans stay at the center of human-machine teams.
DOD must move from the conceptual to the practical: HMT as a concept is gaining momentum within some elements of the DOD enterprise. Still, advocates for increased AI and HMT adoption stress the need to move the conversation from the conceptual to the practical—transitioning capability development into the real-time testing and employment of HMT capabilities, as has been demonstrated by the Navy’s experimentation with AI through Task Force 59—to better articulate and demonstrate the operational advantages HMT can deliver.
Experimentation is crucial to building trust: Iterative, real-world experimentation in which humans develop new operational concepts, test the limits of their machine teammates, and better understand their breaking points, strengths, and weaknesses of machines in a range of environments will play a key role in speeding HMT adoption. This awareness is also essential to human operators as they develop the trust in their AI teammates required to effectively capitalize on the potential of HMT.
DOD must address bureaucratic challenges to AI adoption: DOD’s risk-averse culture and siloed bureaucracy is slowing acquisition, experimentation, and adoption of HMT concepts and capabilities. Increasing the agility and flexibility of the acquisition process for HMT capabilities, iterative experimentation, incentives to take on risks, and digital literacy across the force are necessary to overcome these adoption challenges.

The Legged Squad Support System is experimental technology being tested by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. It is programmed to follow an operator through terrain, carrying heavy loads like water and food. Credit: US Marine Corps, Matthew Callahan: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/1445811/meeting-ls3-marines-experiment-with-military-robotics.

Definitions and components of HMT

HMT refers to the employment of AI and autonomous systems alongside human decision-makers, analysts, operators, and watchkeepers. HMT combines the capabilities of intelligent humans and machines in concert to achieve a military outcome. At its core, HMT is a relationship with four equally important elements:

Human(s): An operator (or operators) that provides inputs for and tests machines, as well as leverages their outputs;
Machine(s): Ranging from an AI and machine learning (ML) algorithm to a drone swarm, the machine holds a degree of agency to make determinations and supports a specified mission; and
Interaction(s): The way in which the human(s) and machine(s) interface to meet a shared mission.
Interface(s): The mechanisms and displays through which humans interact with machines.

Applications of human-machine teaming

HMT is most frequently envisioned narrowly as the process of humans interacting with anywhere from one to several hundred or more autonomous uncrewed systems. In its most basic form, this vision of HMT is not new: Humans have collaborated with intelligent machines for decades—with early machine talents epitomized in 1997 by supercomputer Deep Blue defeating world champion Gary Kasparov in a game of chess—and militaries have long tested concepts to move the needle in this critical capability. The recent impressive pace of development in AI as well as in robotics, however, is driving increased consideration of the new capabilities, efficiencies, and advantages these technologies can enable.

The “loyal wingman” concept is a frequently cited example of this manifestation of HMT in which a human pilot controls the tasking and operations of a handful of relatively inexpensive, modular, attritable autonomous uncrewed aerial systems (UAS). These wingman aircraft can fly forward of the crewed aircraft to carry out a range of missions, including electronic attack or defense, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), or strike, or as decoys to attract fire away from other assets and “light up” enemy air defenses.

Interest in this manifestation of HMT has increased not just in the United States but also in most modern militaries. In addition to the United States, Australia, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and India all have at least one active loyal wingman development program, while the sixth-generation fighter efforts Global Combat Air Programme (United Kingdom, Italy, Japan), Next Generation Air Dominance programs (US Air Force and Navy), and Future Combat Air System (Germany, France, Spain) involve system of systems concepts of airpower that stress both HMT and machine-machine teaming.

As important as this category of HMT is and will continue to be to emerging military capabilities, discussion of HMT should include the full breadth of human interaction with AI agents (which learn from and make determinations based on their environments, experiences, and inputs), including the overwhelming majority of interactions that occur with algorithms that possess no physical form. Project Maven is one example of how DOD and now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency use this category of HMT to autonomously detect, tag, and trace objects or humans of interest from various forms of media and collected intelligence, enabling human analysts and operators to prioritize their areas of focus.

HMT can provide multiple layers of overlapping advantages to the United States and its allies and partners.

Beyond imagery analysis and target identification, nonphysical manifestations of HMT can support a range of important tasks such as threat detection and data processing and analysis. It is essential to military efficacy in operational environments marked by significant increases in speed, complexity, and available data. They also can generate efficiencies in logistics and sustainment, training, and back-office administrative tasks that reduce costs and timelines for execution.

By combining the processing power and decision support capabilities of AI with the social intelligence and judgment of humans and, in some cases, the force-multiplying effects of uncrewed systems with different degrees of autonomy, HMT can provide multiple layers of overlapping advantages to the United States and its allies and partners, including those high-level advantages listed in Figure 1.

Figure 1: High-level description of three layers of HMT value.

These values are already being acknowledged and recognized in some parts of DOD, though they are likely to intensify or expand as technologies and concepts associated with HMT progress. Source: Tate Nurkin. Images from Microsoft Icons database.

DOD recognition of the current and future multilayered value of HMT as part of broader efforts to “accelerate the adoption of AI and the creation of a force fit for our time” has increased. Still, several persistent challenges to adoption of AI and HMT endure throughout the Pentagon. To accelerate and deepen HMT adoption, the DOD must commit to an approach that aligns development efforts and private sector engagement, creating flexibility for acquisition officials to scale HMT solutions across the defense enterprise. This approach must be complemented by:

Continued and increased focus on building trust between humans and machine partners;
Leading in establishing best practices and norms around ethics and safety;
Aggressive and iterative experimentation; and
Clear and consistent messaging

These elements are crucial to realizing the value and advantages HMT can deliver across the multi-domain future fight.

Demonstrating advantage through use cases

Use cases serve as a means of better understanding how HMT can provide value and lead to advantage in and across several missions and environments. Certainly, practitioners have seen or experienced use cases in various settings—including through war games and analysis of the ongoing war in Ukraine—and the slow nature of HMT adoption may call into question the utility of use cases. Still, highlighting the varied and, in certain instances, underappreciated applications of HMT can help demonstrate the different contexts in which HMT acts as a force multiplier and how this capability can support the US military in meeting the demands of the modern battlefield.

However, changing the perceptions of HMT across a large organization such as DOD is an iterative task and requires the frequent reinforcement of its value, especially as the technologies and concepts supporting HMT create new or enhanced opportunities. The three use cases discussed below are far from inclusive—our workshops and research explored several other compelling use cases—but the authors chose them because they reflect the layered value of HMT in serving missions and meeting operational threats and challenges being urgently considered by defense planners, as described in Table 1.³

Table 1: A high-level review of the advantages of each of the case studies discussed in this briefing.

Use cases of HMT	Key advantages
A2/AD conflict	The use of masses of expendable and attritable systems to penetrate A2/AD environments, sustain forces, and extend the range of effects from crewed platforms operating outside A2/AD cordons. Finding, fixing, and tracking key nodes and threats in a data-rich environment. Providing situational awareness at the edge.
Sense-making and targeting	Enhancing situational awareness and threat detection through data processing and fusion improves situational awareness and threat detection and ensures decisions are made at the speed of relevance. Finding connections that human analysts and operators did not know were present. Supporting humans in target identification and prioritization across domains. Improving precision of effects by recommending to human decision-makers the most applicable kinetic or non-kinetic weapon to engage targets.
Presence, prioritization, and deterrence	Extending the range of high-value crewed assets through the use of ISR meshes that incorporate several uncrewed systems. Identifying anomalies and disruptions in activity patterns across geographically dispersed theaters. Prioritizing threats and ensuring efficient resource allocation based on AI-driven assessments. Aggressive and iterative experimentation in real-world environments builds trust between operators and their machine partners.

Anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD): Coping with mass, range, and attrition

Determining how to conduct operations in an A2/AD environment is a clear priority for defense planners. This is especially the case in the Indo-Pacific, where the military modernization effort of the People’s Republic of China has emphasized utilizing pervasive multi-domain sensors and a surfeit of kinetic and non-kinetic strike assets to establish cordons in which US and allied forces are highly vulnerable to enemy fires and, in the worst-case scenario, unable to operate effectively.

HMT will not mitigate all risks of operating against robust A2/AD systems, though it can help US and allied forces better manage these risks in several ways, including in processing and analyzing large and complex datasets to support better and faster human decision-making.

Teaming uncrewed systems, crewed assets, and human operators

Reducing risk to human operators does not mean eliminating this risk, and the use of attritable uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) will still incur costs.

The use of attritable and expendable uncrewed systems, in conjunction with crewed assets and human controllers and decision-makers, can achieve several important objectives in the A2/AD context. Most notably, these smaller, less expensive, generally modular systems can be used to saturate A2/AD systems, identify enemy defenses, and force adversaries to expend their deep stores of munitions—all while extending the operating range of higher-value crewed and uncrewed assets and reducing the risks to crewed assets and their human operators.

The use of attritable and expendable uncrewed systems, in conjunction with crewed assets and human controllers and decision-makers, can achieve several important objectives in the A2/AD context.Attritable or reusable systems are those that are considerably lower cost than higher-end uncrewed systems such as the MQ-9 Reaper.⁴ Most notably, these smaller, less expensive, generally modular systems can be used to saturate A2/AD systems, identify enemy defenses, and force adversaries to expend their deep stores of munitions—all while extending the operating range of higher-value crewed and uncrewed assets and reducing the risks to crewed assets and their human operators.

To that end, reducing risk to human operators does not mean eliminating this risk, and the use of attritable uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) will still incur costs. Moreover, even attritable systems and their payloads can be worth several million dollars. New calculations of value as well as increased capacity to reconstitute systems must keep pace with expected levels of attrition to ensure the right sizing of HMT-enabling force structures.

Sense-making and decision support: Enhanced situational awareness and improved decision-making at the pace of relevance

The A2/AD environment also serves as an example of how machines can support humans in the crucial and increasingly demanding task of sense-making—the art of interpreting and fusing data for enhanced decision-making.

Sense-making in A2/AD environments

A2/AD environments will be characterized by an abundance of complex datasets and both signal and noise across domains including in the electromagnetic spectrum. The amount of data available to operators will be overwhelming. Multi-domain sensors and surveillance and strike assets will be actively operating and engaging with both friendly and adversary forces, creating a need for AI agents to help process and filter data and feed relevant information back to the warfighter. The result will be to improve the quality and speed at which human operators filter data and then fix and track critical nodes in adversary A2/AD systems. This high-level A2/AD example reveals one context in which AI-enabled data fusion and processing of complex datasets can increase situational awareness and speed up decision-making. But the applications of this sense-making are impressively broad, including in increasing the speed and precision of identifying targets, determining appropriate kinetic or non-kinetic weapons to use to strike the target, and ensuring precision of effects.

Targeting: Joint all-domain command and control (JADC2)

Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command observe computer screens in the cyber operations center at Fort Meade. Credit: US Marine Corps, Jacob Osborne, https://www.315aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2002752944/.

DOD’s “connect everything” JADC2 effort offers another example of how HMT can be applied to support improved targeting and speeding up sensor-to-shooter processing. As a January 2022 Congressional Research Service report observed, “JADC2 intends to enable commanders to make better decisions by collecting data from numerous sensors, processing the data using AI algorithms to identify targets, then recommending the optimal weapon—both kinetic and non-kinetic—to engage the target.” While JADC2 is still largely a concept rather than an architecture for future military operations, the US military is already using AI to help find and track possible targets or entities of interest on the battlefield. In September 2021, Secretary of the US Air Force Frank Kendall acknowledged that the Air Force had “deployed AI algorithms for the first time to a live operational kill chain” to provide “automated target recognition.” Kendall noted that by doing so, the Air Force hoped to “significantly reduce the manpower-intensive tasks of manually identifying targets—shortening the kill chain and accelerating the speed of decision-making.”

AI in the intelligence field

Sense-making through human-machine teams is also shaping the future of disciplines such as intelligence analysis and mission planning (see sidebar below), in which AI-enabled data fusion, pattern and anomaly detection, and research and analysis support are helping analysts manage and exploit the explosion in available sources and data. Tasks that would take days for humans to perform can now be performed in hours, allowing humans to concentrate on the most relevant pieces of information derived from large datasets. For example, through the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are already using natural language processing tools that leverage AI to translate and analyze intercepted Russian communications, saving analysts time and allowing them to focus on key messages and intelligence. The use of AI is not only speeding up analysis but also demonstrating value in bringing “unknown knowns”—observed but ignored or forgotten connections, insights, and information—to the attention of an analyst and articulating the value or quality of information to the human decision-maker.⁵

Large language models for intelligence and planning activities

The release of Chat GPT-4 in March 2023 has led to discussion of how DOD can leverage similar large language model (LLM) tools to support intelligence activities. There is understandable concern that the current sophistication of LLMs and their tendency to “hallucinate”—make up information that is incorrect—would make extensive use or reliance on these tools premature, or even counterproductive.

However, experimentation with LLMs would be useful in better understanding where and how these tools can add value, especially as they become more reliable. An April 2023 War on the Rocks article detailed how the US Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfighting is using war games to explore how LLMs can assist humans in military planning. These systems were used to provide, connect, and visualize different layers of information and levels of analysis—such as strategic-level understanding of regional economic relationships and more-focused analysis of dynamics in a specific country—which planners then used to refine possible courses of action and better understand the adversary’s system.

Tasks that would take days for humans to perform can now be performed in hours, allowing humans to concentrate on the most relevant pieces of information derived from large datasets.

In January 2023, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), situated within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announced a program known as REASON (Rapid Explanation, Analysis, and Sourcing Online). The program will use AI-enabled software to improve human-authored intelligence assessment products. The software reviews human-authored reporting and automatically generates recommendations for additional sources the human may not be aware of or did not use and also offers suggestions of how to improve the analytical quality of the report, performing the role of an autonomous red-team reviewer. This program offers a step in the right direction, demonstrating one of many ways in which AI can help humans make connections between data and sources and improve analysis and decision-making.⁶

Presence, prioritization, and deterrence: Coping with distance and complexity

The US military faces significant, varied, and frequently dispersed challenges across its geographic combatant commands. Take, for example, US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). INDOPACOM covers more of the globe than any other combatant command and is home to the DOD’s “pacing challenge” of China, a range of potential military and geopolitical hot spots, several US allies and partners, and a growing list of security challenges. While differing in its prioritization, US Central Command (CENTCOM) is similarly complex in nature. CENTCOM covers nearly 4 million square miles, an area that includes key waterways and shipping lanes, active conflicts, ethnic and sectarian violence, and a diverse set of threats to regional security and US national interests.

HMT offers a solution to meet an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape while operating with insufficient resources.

The Central Command area of responsibility. Source: US Central Command

While each command faces unique problem sets, the size and complexity of today’s security challenges are straining the limited number of forces available to deter, identify, assess, or respond to a fast-moving threat or crisis in a timely manner. HMT offers a solution to meet an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape while operating with insufficient resources.

Exporting Task Force 59: A sandbox for AI experimentation and integration

In September 2021, CENTCOM’s 5th Fleet established Task Force 59—the Navy’s testing ground for unmanned systems and AI—to experiment with teaming human operators and both smart robots and AI agents to increase presence across the region, provide persistent and expanded maritime domain awareness (MDA), and prioritize threats for in-demand crewed and high-value assets.

Task Force 59’s experimentation efforts combine AI and uncrewed systems—particularly USVs but also vertical take-off and landing UAS, which are valuable in expanding the coverage of the Navy’s ISR networks in the region—and are further amplified by cooperation with partners and allies. In comments at the February 2023 International Defence Conference in Abu Dhabi, 5th Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Brad Cooper explained that each of the small USVs with which Task Force 59 is experimenting can extend the range of ISR networks by thirty kilometers, meaning that even a modest investment in smart uncrewed systems can deliver a significant increase in MDA.⁷

A MANTAS T-12 unmanned surface vessel operates alongside a US Coast Guard patrol boat during exercise New Horizon, which was Task Force 59’s first at-sea evolution since its establishment. Credit: US Central Command https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/IMAGERY/igphoto/2002880797/.

AI agents then process the millions of data points collected by the uncrewed systems to create an understanding of normal patterns of life, which, in turn, serves as a baseline for AI agents to identify anomalies that require further investigation by human operators and watchkeepers. In doing so, human-machine teams can cultivate a deeper understanding of the operational environment, moving toward a predictive model in which the DOD can possibly anticipate and prevent future threats and prioritize allocation of limited resources to areas that AI agents determined are most vulnerable to disruption.

Building on the success of the Navy’s Task Force 59, both the Army and Air Force components of CENTCOM have stood up task forces to experiment with emerging technology and HMT concepts. The Army component, Task Force 39, was established in November 2022 to advance experimentation in counter-small UAS solutions that can be scaled not just within CENTCOM environments but across the DOD. The Air Force’s Task Force 99 was stood up in October 2022 as an operational task force to pair unmanned and digital technologies to improve air domain awareness in much the same way that Task Force 59 seeks to improve MDA by expanding presence and anticipating emergent threats. Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, commander of CENTCOM’s Air Force component, stated in February 2023 that the objective is “not just tracking objects in the air, but maybe finding things that could be on the ground about to be launched into the air and how those could be a threat to us.”

The applicability of this HMT approach is not limited to CENTCOM; indeed, it is now being adopted in other commands. In April 2023, the US Navy announced the expansion of its experimentation with unmanned and AI tools into US Southern Command’s 4th Fleet to increase MDA awareness in a region with its own particular dynamics, threats, and MDA requirements. Notably, 4th Fleet is taking a different approach to adoption of HMT lessons and new HMT capabilities, deciding to integrate them into its command and staff structure rather than through the standing up of a discrete task force. While these task forces provide valuable models for quickly bringing off-the-shelf technologies to the warfighter, the challenge rests in scaling these solutions across services and domains (and the defense enterprise at large).

Pathways to HMT adoption at scale and pace

The pace of AI and HMT technology development has exceeded the capacity of the DOD to adopt these technologies at scale. To more fully realize the advantages of HMT, DOD must:

Address several cultural, bureaucratic, and organizational challenges;
Ensure continued focus on HMT ethics, safety, and agency;
Embrace rapid and realistic experimentation of HMT; and
Develop the human component and enhance trust in their machine teammates.

Culture, acquisition, and melting the “frozen middle”

Organizational and cultural constraints radiate across the DOD, affecting the way the enterprise acquires and adopts the technologies, concepts, and capabilities necessary to enable HMT. Innovation and adoption are hindered by DOD’s “frozen middle”—layers of relatively senior military and civilian personnel within DOD bound by an underlying set of inherited assumptions, incentives, and instincts that are resisting the adaptive, collaborative practices necessary for adoption of HMT concepts and capabilities at pace and scale. These organizational layers and bureaucratic proclivities have a cascading effect as they embed in a DOD acquisition system. According to former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, co-chairs of the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, the effect is slowing adoption by requiring multiple levels of review “because incentives do not exist to be bold and to move fast.”

Organizational “tribalism” also has an enervating effect on the DOD’s acquisition of key technologies and adoption of HMT-relevant capabilities. Examples of cross-service and cross-command collaboration do exist. Workshop participants highlighted joint projects on AI transparency between service laboratories and the ability of the US Special Operations Command, as a functional command, to work across regions and services. Far more frequently, though, disjointed development and vendor engagement and procurement efforts have been the norm. To achieve the necessary momentum for adoption across DOD—and, most importantly, the salutary outcomes of this adoption—requires an increased willingness to share and subsequently align research, information, development efforts, acquisition models, and best practices across the department and, particularly, the services.

In June 2022, David Tremper, director for electronic warfare in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, provided an example of how DOD siloes slow adoption of HMT-enabling capabilities. Tremper highlighted an incident in which the Navy developed an electronic warfare algorithm that was of interest to the Army, though transfer of the algorithm could not take place without a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two service’s labs. It took nine months for the lab that developed the algorithm to approve the transfer, and, after eighteen months, the MoU was determined to be inadequate to support the algorithm migration. According to Tremper, “one service just lawyered up against the other . . . and prevented a critical capability . . . from going from one service to another service.” This example highlights the hurdles blocking the services from learning and gaining from one another’s strides in HMT; the cross-service applicability of HMT solutions is critical to avoid a service unnecessarily depleting its resources in a field where its sister service has already paved the way.

An officer places an XRS-150 X-ray generator in front of a simulated downed unmanned aerial system. Credit: US Air National Guard, Brigette Waltermire https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6485647/379th-esfs-and-eod-team-up-counter-uas-training.

To melt this frozen middle and reduce cultural and organizational obstacles to HMT adoption, the DOD must center its efforts around three high-level aims. First, acquisition reform is a necessary and foundational step. The ability to develop, build, and acquire advanced platforms and systems with longer development times remains important to achieving DOD missions. There is also growing and urgent demand for the technologies and capabilities enabling HMT, such as software and lower-cost uncrewed systems, across the Pentagon. The program-centric system used to acquire and develop many advanced platforms—with the development of requirements, budgets, and capabilities completed individually for hundreds of programs—is not optimized for the rapid acquisition of the innovative technologies and capabilities developed by traditional defense suppliers and the commercial sector.

While the objective of this report is not to provide a comprehensive set of recommendations for acquisition reform, two principles are useful in guiding this reform: 1) the need for increased flexibility and agility within the acquisition process, enabling response to changing technologies and requirements; and 2) new incentives that stimulate an enhanced degree of risk tolerance.⁸

Second, among the workforce setting requirements for and working alongside machine teammates, a lack of understanding surrounding HMT and its applications is slowing adoption. The human element of this equation must be adequately prioritized through recruitment, retention, and training programs. Specifically, DOD must provide its personnel with opportunities to enhance digital literacy and understanding of the technologies, concepts, and applications of HMT capabilities within not just the acquisition force and those that set requirements but also among many senior decision-makers.

The human element of this equation must be adequately prioritized through recruitment, retention, and training programs.

Third, DOD should work to press the limits of existing authorities for “quick wins” in support of rapid acquisition and experimentation, similar to the Task Force 59 model. According to Schuyler Moore, CENTCOM’s chief technology officer, one of the key lessons of command innovation efforts is “that [CENTCOM] can actually work with the existing [authorities] fairly flexibly” and officers must consider “whether or not the authority exists or whether it’s simply never been tried before.⁹ Officers must be incentivized to use their own ingenuity as a tool for testing new HMT capabilities and demonstrating operational successes.

The human component: Trust and training

Building and calibrating appropriate levels of human trust in AI teammates is essential to HMT adoption across the DOD. This discussion typically begins with several actions designed to ensure the reliability—that is, the trustworthiness—of AI agents, such as establishment and implementation of effective best practices for the design, rigorous testing, iterative experimentation, and deployment of AI-enabled machines. Enhancing data security is another frequently cited component of building trust: Humans cannot trust algorithms if they lack faith in the integrity of the data being processed or used to train the algorithm.

Limitations in AI transparency (i.e., how machines perceive the environments they are in) and explainability (i.e., how machines come to decisions) pose another challenge. While not prohibitive to the employment of HMT in many missions and contexts, reducing the “black box” nature of AI outputs will have a positive impact on the capacity for humans to trust their machine teammates and, in turn, on the pace of adoption for the range of HMT applications.

Increased experimentation—in terms of frequency, rigor, and realism—can enhance the human operator’s understanding of how an AI agent reached a certain conclusion. The DOD must embrace accelerated experimentation across a diverse set of scenarios and use cases. By asking humans to “try to break the technology,” operators and analysts can develop a better understanding of the limits, strengths, and weaknesses of their AI-enabled teammates as well as any possible unexpected behaviors. Rapid and aggressive experimentation in conditions that replicate real-world operational conditions has been a regularly highlighted feature of Task Force 59’s success to date, though there is concern that this practice has not been adopted broadly across DOD.

Human trust in machines, however, is only one part of the discussion of the human component of HMT. At least as much attention should be focused on building up the competencies and confidence of humans to effectively engage with and employ their machine partners. Humans will require just as much preparation and training as their machine teammates to become effective team leaders and to ensure that the value of human-machine teams is realized. In a worst-case scenario, adequate human training will help avoid a circumstance in which ineffectual human engagement with machines (the inability to recognize a hallucinating machine, for example) or unnecessary interference with machine operations could lead to mistakes that carry deleterious tactical, operational, or strategic outcomes. One salient example is seen in the Marine Corps experimentation with LLMs. Experiment organizers noted that the tendency of these models to hallucinate means “falsification is still a human responsibility” and that “absent a trained user, relying on model-produced outputs risks confirmation bias,” risking the potential of individuals “prone to [acting] off the hallucinations of machines.”

Project Convergence is the joint force experimenting with speed, range, and decision dominance to achieve overmatch and inform the Joint Warfighting Concept and Joint All Domain Command and Control. Credit: Army Futures Command, https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7502734/project-convergence-2022-2-yorks-experimanal-company.

This is especially the case in situations in which a general-purpose machine or set of machines is interacting with multiple humans rather than just one human controller. Protocols for determining who is in control, whose priorities are executed, and how to manage contradictory instructions become essential.

Ethics, agency, judgment, and reliability: Maintaining leadership and retaining relevance

DOD efforts to maintain leadership at home and internationally in establishing AI and HMT ethics and safety guidelines should be viewed as a process to follow rather than an end state to be achieved.

Pathways to adoption of HMT at speed and scale do not solely rely on the DOD doing things radically differently or applying new incentives and structures. Rather, they can build on the momentum of ongoing initiatives.

The DOD has already expended commendable energy in understanding and addressing questions of ethics, safety, alignment, and agency—all of which emerged as acute areas of interest and concern during the project workshops. The DOD, in collaboration with other parts of the US government, has been proactive in articulating its positions on key questions of ethics and safety around AI development and use for military purposes since first adopting principles for AI ethics in February 2020. In February 2023, at the conclusion of the Responsible AI in the Military Domain conference, the US Department of State released a “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy” as the foundation for the establishment of international norms and standards for the development and use of military AI. The document includes twelve best practices that emphasize concepts such as safe and secure development, extensive testing, and human control and oversight, among others, that endorsing states should implement.

These principles and best practices as well as current laws, policies, and regulations provide a useful foundation for resolving critical questions about agency, such as:

Which component of the human-machine teams makes decisions under what circumstances?
When might the machine’s judgment supersede that of the commander?
What implications will these answers have on recruitment, reskilling, and retention of talent?
How does the United States avoid or mitigate tactical events and AI/HMT mistakes that have significant strategic consequences?
How do we judge the possible risk of AI-enabled decision-making in kill chains relative to the current and demonstrated risk of human error in these decisions?

A Hyundai Rotem HR-Sherpa uncrewed ground vehicle on display at the International Defence Exhibition & Conference in Abu Dhabi in February 2023. The image behind and above the vehicle demonstrates one operational concept in which a human operator controls and works in tandem with the Sherpa. Training and trust are required to ensure that these concepts are designed and executed in ways that effectively exploit the advantages of HMT. Credit: Tate Nurkin.

Still, as technologies, concepts, applications, and competitions evolve, new questions are likely to be raised. Old practices may need to be iteratively revisited to ensure that adoption efforts remain relevant, current, and appropriate. DOD efforts to maintain leadership at home and internationally in establishing AI and HMT ethics and safety guidelines should be viewed as a process to follow rather than an end state to be achieved.

Understanding knock-on effects of HMT incorporation

DOD adoption of HMT into military operations will elicit responses from competitors and lead to changing risks, competitions, opportunities, and doctrine. For example, the use of HMT-enabled UAS swarms could shift targeting priorities from forward-deployed machines to the human controllers and decision-makers situated well behind contested environments. Another example can be found in the use of an AI-enabled machine to patrol a contested border, which could reduce immediate risk to human life and, as a result, reduce risks of rapid escalation. However, immediate loss of life may not be the only escalation pathway perceived by an adversary. If destroying autonomous systems is lower stakes than firing on humans, how many downed UASs would the United States tolerate? Alternatively, what if the AI-enabled machine recommends or makes a bad decision that leads to an unprovoked loss of life in the adversary state?

The United States and its allies should intensify examination of these types of what-if scenarios associated with HMT adoption. First, to preempt arguments that DOD has not thought through the long-term implications of HMT employment, and then to determine the most efficacious concepts of use and prepare for possible future risks. A combination of iterative tabletop, seminar-style, and live war games and model-based simulations would be especially useful in identifying and preparing for longer-term implications of HMT. These exercises could then inform live testing of HMT concepts and capabilities.

Shaping the narrative around military applications of HMT

Mixed feelings and misperceptions about the DOD’s use of AI and uncrewed systems persist within the defense enterprise and the US polity and society more broadly. Despite an increase in the number of young personnel who are considered to be more intuitively inclined to technological adoption, pockets of stubbornness and contrarianism, and efforts to protect institutional equities, remain throughout the force. In addition, some social and political perspectives on HMT may be skewed by fears of fully autonomous weapons systems and singularities in which AI overcomes human control with devastating consequences. Identifying and managing the variety of strategic, operational, social, and philosophical concerns about accelerating HMT adoption will necessitate a coherent and consistent campaign to shape the narrative around military AI use and HMT. This narrative should stress:

The demonstrated and prospective advantages HMT will provide to warfighters and decision-makers, and the budgetary efficiencies that could be gained through deeper adoption of HMT;
The measures DOD is taking to ensure the safe and ethical development and use of AI and to build humans’ trust in machines; and
The centrality of human agency to human-machine teams.

Army researchers publish a paper suggesting how future soldiers will communicate in complex and autonomous environments. Credit: Army Research Laboratory, T’Jae Ellis, https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6611058/evaluating-human-agent-team-performance.

Summary of recommendations and conclusion

The United States’ AI strides are not occurring in a vacuum; if the Pentagon is slow to adopt HMT at scale, it risks conceding military edge to strategic competitors like China that view AI as a security imperative.

HMT offers several advantages to twenty-first-century militaries. As such, the DOD must invest sufficient time and resources to address the challenges to adoption discussed above. Catalyzing HMT adoption will necessitate a combination of new ideas, procedures, and incentives, as well as intensification of promising ongoing adoption acceleration efforts, especially related to the following areas:

Developing an enterprise-wide approach to HMT adoption that builds on and provides sufficient money and authority to the establishment of centralized structures such as the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to ensure that requirements, capability, infrastructure, and strategy development as well as procurement and vendor engagement are mutually reinforcing across the DOD.
Rapid, iterative, and aggressive experimentation in settings that replicate the challenges of a real-world operational environment will facilitate adoption by helping humans test and understand the breaking points of HMT technologies. Different levels of experimentation can also build human trust in their AI teammates necessary to optimize HMT value.
Melting the “frozen middle” through reforms that increase incentives for moving quickly, align DOD and congressional reform priorities, and reinforce efforts to ensure an enterprise-wide—rather than service-by-service or command-by-command—approach to HMT adoption. The Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption has developed several specific recommendation sthat apply to the acquisition and adoption of HMT capabilities.¹⁰
Articulating and demonstrating the multilayered value of HMT in gaining advantage over competitors and potential adversaries in a future operational environment characterized by significantly increased pace of operations, amount of available data, and complexity of threats.
Continuing to lead on issues of agency and ethics by prioritizing the ethical and responsible development and use of trustworthy AI and keeping humans—and human judgment—at the center of human-machine teams. The US government and private sector should revisit and update guidelines around agency and ethics to reflect contemporaneous technology development trends and capabilities.
Development of strategic messages that highlight the value and safety of HMT for consumption by DOD and congressional stakeholders as well as American society more broadly.

The United States’ AI strides are not occurring in a vacuum; if the Pentagon is slow to adopt HMT at scale, it risks conceding military edge to strategic competitors like China that view AI as a security imperative. Machines and AI agents are becoming ubiquitous across the twenty-first-century battlespace, and the onus is on DOD to demonstrate, communicate, and realize HMT’s value to achieving future missions and national objectives.

Acknowledgements

To produce this report, the authors conducted a number of interviews and workshops. Listed below are some of the individuals consulted and whose insights informed this report. The analysis and recommendations presented here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the individuals consulted. Moreover, the named individuals participated in a personal, not institutional, capacity.

Maj Ezra Akin, USMC, technical PhD analyst, Commandant’s Office of Net Assessment
Samuel Bendett, adjunct senior fellow, Technology and National Security Program, Center for a New American Security
August Cole, nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Owen J. Daniels, Andrew W. Marshall fellow, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University
Phil Freidhoff, vice president for human centered design projects, 2Mi
Dr. Gerald F. Goodwin, senior research scientist, personnel sciences, US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
Dr. Neera Jain, associate professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
LCDR Marek Jestrab, USN, senior US Navy fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Zak Kallenborn, policy fellow, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University
Harry Kemsley OBE, president, government and national security, Janes Group
Dr. Margarita Konaev, nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Justin Lynch, nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Dr. Joseph Lyons, principal research psychologist, Air Force Research Laboratory
Brig Gen Patrick Malackowski, USAF (ret.), director, F-16, conventional weapons, and total force, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Col Michelle Melendez, USMC, senior US Marine Corps fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Rob Murray, nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Dr. Julie Obenauer-Motley, senior national security analyst, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab
John T. Quinn II, head, futures branch, concepts and plans division, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab
Dr. Laura Steckman, program officer, trust and influence, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

About the authors

Fellow

Tate Nurkin

Forward Defense Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

China Defense Industry

Former staff

Julia Siegel

Former Associate Director

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense

1 This paper uses the term human-machine teaming (HMT) to signify both the teaming of human operators with semiautonomous machines (sometimes referred to as manned-unmanned teaming) and interactions between humans and AI agents that do not take physical form.

2 From November 2022 to June 2023, the authors held workshops and interviews with defense and national security experts and practitioners to help inform their research.

3 HMT’s relevance to the future of cognitive and information warfare, anticipatory logistics and resilient sustainment, training, and military medicine were all raised through project interviews and workshops.

4 The generally acknowledged cost range for attritable or reusable aircraft is $2 million to $20 million, though there is no consensus as to whether this cost range includes only the aircraft or also includes mission systems. While designed to be reused, the significantly lower cost of these systems in comparison to high-value uncrewed systems and advanced crewed systems means that they can be placed into contested environments in advance of more-expensive platforms with a considerably reduced risk to force structure cost, especially if paired with in-theater means of reconstituting these systems. Expendable systems are even lower cost than attritable systems and are most often designed for a single use. Loitering munitions are one category of expendable uncrewed systems.

5 Phone interview with Harry Kemsley, president of Government and National Security, Janes, January 31, 2023.

6 Phone interview with Harry Kemsley, president of Government and National Security, Janes, January 31, 2023.

7 One of the authors, Tate Nurkin, attended the conference on February 19, 2023, and moderated the panel in which these comments were made

8 In April 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption released its interim report, which offers actionable recommendations to engender these changes. Lofgren et al., Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption Interim Report.

9 “US Central Command Chief Technology Officer Schuyler Moore and Innovation Oasis Winner Sgt. Mickey Reeve Press Briefing,” US Central Command”.

10 Lofgren et al., Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption Interim Report

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Ukraine’s slow counteroffensive is a wake-up call for the West

Maksym Skrypchenko — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 01:04:50 +0000

In recent weeks, an unsettling narrative has begun to take shape in some segments of the international information space. With Ukraine’s much hyped counteroffensive making minimal progress, a range of commentators have started suggesting the time has come to push Ukraine to the negotiating table rather than prolong the current stalemate.

Such arguments are dangerously misleading. In reality, the slow pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive progress should not come as a surprise. After all, Ukraine lacks modern aviation and long-range strike capabilities, while Russia has had many months to prepare formidable defenses across occupied Ukrainian territory, including complex fortifications and vast minefields.

The real question is whether the West is doing enough to support Ukraine’s military efforts. The blunt answer is no. Military aid provided since February 2022 has undeniably been crucial, but it is a far cry from what is needed for Ukraine to execute a successful operation against a well-armed and deeply entrenched enemy. No Western general would dream of attempting a similar offensive armed only with the weapons currently available to the Ukrainian military.

Delays in the delivery of military aid have already cost countless Ukrainian lives. If Ukraine had received modern battle tanks, long-range missiles, fighter jets, and Patriot missile defense systems during the early months of the fighting, the dynamics of the war would have been markedly different. If a significant portion of these weapons had been sent to Ukraine in 2021, the whole invasion could potentially have been averted. Instead, hundreds of thousands have been killed and entire cities have been reduced to rubble. In the face of this carnage, continued hesitation is inexcusable.

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Calls to pressure Ukraine into some kind of negotiated settlement are equally unhelpful and reflect a fundamental misreading of Russia’s invasion. Time and again, Putin has made clear his intention to destroy Ukrainian statehood and erase Ukrainian national identity. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rightly observed in February 2023, Russia fights for conquest while Ukraine fights for freedom. If Russia stops fighting the war will end, but if Ukraine stops fighting it will cease to exist, he warned.

After eighteen months of resistance involving terrible losses and incredible sacrifice, it should be obvious to all serious observers that Ukraine will not negotiate over its continued existence. On the contrary, the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly clarified their commitment to the complete liberation of the country. They are redoubling efforts to expand domestic military production capabilities and will fight on for many more years if necessary.

No reduction in Western military aid could coerce Ukraine into trading land for peace or condemning millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of permanent Russian occupation. Any attempt to test this flawed theory would merely extend the war further and increase the suffering of the Ukrainian people while emboldening the Kremlin.

Putin is encouraged by any sign of wavering international support for Ukraine. He is currently pinning his hopes on outlasting the West, and remains convinced Ukraine’s democratic allies will eventually lose interest in the war. If he is proved right, the consequences for international security would be disastrous; democracies around the world would find themselves at risk of aggression from authoritarian neighbors.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine strikes critical bridge as Wagner trains Belarusian brigades

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

Frustration over the slow pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive is understandable, as is pessimism regarding the prospects of a decisive breakthrough. At the same time, talk of a stalemate is shortsighted. Over the past eighteen months, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to adapt and innovate. If provided with sufficient support, there is every reason to believe Ukraine could achieve its goal of de-occupying the country.

Meanwhile, Russia looks to be increasingly vulnerable. Putin may appear unyielding, but the cracks in his regime are beginning to show. The aborted Wagner mutiny in late June left Putin looking weaker than at any time in his 23-year reign, while the recent dismissal or apparent detention of numerous senior generals has highlighted divisions within the Russian military.

Ukraine’s Western partners have every reason to expect a return on the considerable military aid they have provided over the past year-and-a-half. But this does not grant anyone the right to pressure Ukraine into surrender. Instead, Ukraine’s lack of progress over the past two months should serve as a wake-up call for Western leaders. Their response will shape the geopolitical landscape for decades to come.

Any attempt to abandon Ukraine or force the country into a compromise peace would be a moral and strategic failure of the highest order that the collective West would struggle to recover from. In order to safeguard international security, Russia must be defeated. This can be achieved by giving Ukraine the tools to finish the job. So far, Ukraine has been armed to secure the country’s survival. It is time to arm Ukraine for victory.

Maksym Skrypchenko is president of the Kyiv-based Transatlantic Dialogue Center.

aozen — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 12:44:01 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

The post Rich Outzen joins WION news to discuss Russian sanctions busting to make drones appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russian War Report: Drones target central Moscow skyscrapers

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 20:34:27 +0000

As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine—as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO, and the European Union—the DFRLab’s global team presents the latest installment of the Russian War Report.

Security

Wave of drone attacks target Moscow’s central business district

Media policy

TGStat restricts access to channel providing data on slain Russian soldiers

Ukraine strikes critical bridge as Wagner trains Belarusian brigades

Ukrainian armed forces announced on July 29 a successful attack on a railway bridge near Chonhar, along the M-18 Dzhankoi-Melitopol highway, which connects occupied Crimea with the occupied Kherson region. The bridge is a notable point along a critical ground line of communication for Russia.

Ukrainian officials circulated a photo purportedly documenting railway damage at one end of the bridge.

A photo of the Chonhar bridge after a Ukrainian strike on it on 29th July, 2023.

Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed a strike on Chonhar bridge (one of the key elements in Russian military logistics in the South of Ukraine).

Russian media did not mention the strike at all.… pic.twitter.com/1cfi8JWpKB
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 31, 2023

Satellite imagery before and after the attack appears to show damage in the same location.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1686030017916989441

The Ukrainian army continued to launch counteroffensive attacks in northwest and southwest Bakhmut and in the eastern and western parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar announced on July 31 that Ukrainian forces took back two square kilometers of territory in the Bakhmut area over the past week, as well as twelve square kilometers in the direction of Berdyansk and Melitopol. Ukrainian troops reported forty combat engagements with Russian forces in Donetsk’s Mariinka, Pobjeda, and Staromaiorske, as well as east toward Berestove in Kharkiv and near Novoselivske in Luhansk. Ukrainian troops also claimed that they caught a Russian saboteur group attempting to enter the Chernihiv region, though this is not yet confirmed.

A drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet appears to have resulted in casualties, according to intercepted radio communications between Russian Ka-29 helicopters involved in an evacuation and coastal aviation services. The Russian defense ministry claimed to have successfully repelled three naval drones that targeted the patrol ships Sergey Kotov and Vasily Bykov. However, audio shared by the Telegram channel Babel purports that one person was killed and five injured. The DFRLab cannot independently verify the authenticity of the audio at this time.

Soldiers with Ukraine’s AREY Battalion, within the Territorial Defense Forces, spoke to CNN on August 1 about the tactical strategies Russia employs against Ukraine. They alleged that Russia often hides the bulk of its personnel in basements to avoid aerial reconnaissance. As a result, when attacking, Ukrainian forces may encounter an enemy many times larger than expected. In addition, the report claimed that Russian army commanders had adopted the Wagner tactic of taking prisoners to uncover Ukrainian firing positions.

Meanwhile, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin met with Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani on July 31 in Tehran. The pair signed a memorandum of understanding and a military cooperation plan. In May, the government-affiliated Ukrainian National Resistance Center reported, citing unnamed Belarusian rebels, that Iran was considering opening a Shahed drone production plant in Belarus. This report has not been confirmed. Russia is actively using Shahed drones across Ukraine. On August 1, several groups of Shahed drones were reportedly launched from Russia’s Primorsko-Akhtarsk area toward Ukraine; around this time explosions were reported in Kherson.

Ukraine has begun producing RUBAKA kamikaze drones, which are expected to be deployed by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence. The drones reportedly have a range of five hundred kilometers. Unlike Iran’s Shahed drones, RUBAKA drones will carry a smaller warhead and cost about $15,000 per unit. According to a report from the New York Times, Shahed drones cost about $20,000 per unit.

On August 1, Ukrainian Telegram channels claimed that five medical personnel were reportedly wounded in an attack on a Kherson hospital. In addition, one person was reportedly killed and another injured in an aerial attack on Pershotravneve, Kharkiv Oblast.

On July 30, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that Wagner soldiers conducted company-level training with multiple Belarusian mechanized brigades. The Belarusian military usually conducts such exercises with Russian trainers. This could signal a new role for Wagner; the DFRLab will continue to monitor Wagner’s buildup in Belarus.

Ukrainian Presidential Chief-of-Staff Andriy Yermak stated on July 30 that Kyiv and Washington will begin consultations on providing Ukraine with “security guarantees.” Yermak said the guarantees would remain in place until Ukraine acquires NATO membership. US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed the consultations during a press briefing on July 31. “Those talks are going to kick off this week,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson Andrii Cherniak alleged on July 30 that since the beginning of 2022, Russia had forcibly mobilized 55,000 to 60,000 men in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Cherniak told Radio Svoboda that Russian forces “caught people on the street…and forcibly took people away.” Cherniak’s claims have not been independently verified.

According to a Financial Times report, the United States has signed contracts with Bulgaria and South Korea to supply 155mm shells to Ukraine. The report stated that the US government has also financed additional ammunition production facilities in Texas and Canada. Bulgaria recently opened a plant to produce 155mm projectiles. Negotiations toward a similar agreement with Japan are currently under way.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Wave of drone attacks target Moscow’s central business district

Drone strikes in Moscow’s central business district on July 30 and August 1 targeted buildings housing government ministries. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin addressed the July 30 attack on his Telegram channel, reporting zero casualties. According to Russian independent outlet Meduza, one of three drones was intercepted by anti-air defense systems, causing it to crash into one of the OKO towers, a complex of two eighty-four-story skyscrapers built in 2015, damaging the facade on the first and fourth floor. The neighboring fifty-story IQ-Kvartal skyscraper had damaged windows on the sixth and fifth floors. Sobyanin identified the drones as Ukrainian in his Telegram post. Short of admitting responsibility, Adviser to the Head of the Office of President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted about “[m]ore unidentified drones.”

#Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the "authors of the war" to collect all their debts… Everything that will happen in #Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more…
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) August 1, 2023

Speaking with journalists, Russian government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov referred to the incidents as “terrorist attacks” and “desperate attacks amid failures.” The second comment is a possible reference to the frontline situation. Telegram channel SOTA posted social media pictures that allegedly show documents found near the damaged towers. SOTA’s Telegram post alleged the documents belong to the ministries of industry and commerce, economic development, and digital development and communications; the DFRLab has not verified the authenticity of the documents at this time. Russian outlet Astra shared footage on Telegram capturing the moment of impact at the OKO Tower. Astra also reported that windows shattered on the twenty-first floor, the location of Russia’s economic development office.

On the morning of August 1, another drone strike targeted Moscow’s business district. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), one drone was allegedly “suppressed by means of electronic warfare, and having lost control, crashed on the territory of a complex of non-residential buildings in Moscow City.” The MoD also said it intercepted two drones over the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts in western Moscow Oblast.

Previously on July 24, a Russian MoD building was reportedly damaged in an earlier drone attack. The location was identified by Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev as the potential headquarters of Fancy Bear, a hacker group aligned with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). As cited by Meduza, quoting Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta, the struck building was previously mentioned in an US indictment as the home of military unit 26165, which allegedly has ties to Fancy Bear.

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

TGStat restricts access to channel providing data on slain Russian soldiers

Telegram analysis tool TGStat has restricted access to the channel “Don’t wait for me FROM Ukraine,” also known by its handle @poisk_in_ua (“Search in Ukraine”). When searching for the channel, the TGStat platform now displays a pop-up message with a 403 access restricted error that says forbidden content was found on the channel. The channel frequently shared death announcements for Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. It also reportedly posted data containing personal information and social media pictures of the deceased.

The DFRLab recently analyzed @poisk_in_ua’s posts about Russian fatalities to glean insights into the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The channel made nearly 20,000 posts about slain Russian soldiers, an estimate that is consistent with figures cited by other outlets, including the BBC and independent Russian media outlet Mediazona.

In a piece posted in early July 2023, Meduza indicated that it had confirmed more than 47,000 fatalities using reports of inheritance notices published since February 2022.

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

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What’s behind growing ties between Turkey and the Gulf states

Serhat S. Çubukçuoğlu and Mouza Hasan Almarzooqi — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 21:33:26 +0000

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s official visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week cemented a new era of economic cooperation with the Gulf region on gaining strategic autonomy from the West.

The trip builds on Erdoğan’s previous visit to the UAE more than a year ago, which had opened a new chapter to bolster the two countries’ political and economic ties ahead of Turkey’s May 2023 elections.

After his re-election, Erdoğan reinstated Mehmet Şimşek as minister of finance, putting the former investment banker back in charge of the state coffers. Şimşek’s appointment signaled the return to economic orthodoxy and prioritization of market stability that provided confidence to Gulf investors about the investment climate in Turkey. This raised hopes for the Turkish economy, which faces runaway inflation, chronic current account deficits, the devaluation of the lira, and the depletion of much-needed foreign currency reserves.

Erdoğan’s re-election and his appointment of Şimşek also signaled building momentum for normalization with the Gulf region—momentum that began with reciprocal official visits in 2021. This June, Şimşek has already held high-level meetings in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE to lay the groundwork for Erdoğan’s most recent visits and help promote bilateral economic partnerships.

Turkey’s developing relations with these three Gulf countries show a convergence of interests and agreement on many issues. These include agreement on their complementary comparative advantages, their eagerness to diversify trade partnerships, and their desire for strategic autonomy from the West. Reflecting their growing cooperation, Turkey announced that it had struck framework agreements for bilateral investment with the UAE that reached over $50 billion—it also announced agreements with Saudi Arabia and Qatar (the values of which are still undisclosed). Deepening partnerships in key sectors such as defense, energy, and transport indicate an interest among Turkey and Gulf countries to leverage financial capital, know-how, and geographic advantages for economic growth; they also indicate a realignment to share political risks in a volatile region and reduce dependence on the United States.

A solid foundation

The main rationale behind Turkey’s renewed interest in strengthening ties with the Gulf countries is to attract capital inflows and sustain Erdoğan’s legacy as a leader who delivered economic growth over the past two decades. After a brief slowdown during political upheavals between 2013 and 2020, the volume of Turkey’s trade with the Gulf has reached $22 billion, according to the Turkish government. Turkey has ambitious plans to almost triple this figure in the next five years.

The Gulf countries are also keen to scale up their footprint in Turkey. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries account for 7.1 percent of foreign direct investment in Turkey since 2020, with $15.8 billion in stock as of 2022. Qatar provided Turkey with the most foreign direct investment of the GCC countries, investing $9.9 billion. The UAE comes in second with $3.4 billion, and Saudi Arabia is the third highest, with $500 million. This amount is likely to increase two-fold to $30 billion over the next few years through investments prioritizing the energy, defense, finance, retail, and transport sectors. Previously, the UAE and Qatar provided Turkey with $20 billion in currency-swap agreements and Saudi Arabia deposited $5 billion into the central bank to support dollar liquidity.

But the new package of agreements signed during Erdoğan’s trip focus on capital investments in productive assets such as land, factory plants, and infrastructure. Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding sovereign wealth fund (ADQ) alone signed a memorandum of understanding to finance up to $8.5 billion of Turkey earthquake relief bonds and to provide $3 billion in credit facilities to support Turkish exports. Collectively, these are evidence of a longer-term vision for closer coordination between the GCC and Turkey at a strategic level.

Economic cooperation also draws Turkish investment to the Gulf, primarily toward construction and services sectors such as information technology, telecommunications, and agricultural technology. Possible joint manufacturing in the defense industry between Turkey and Gulf states, such as manufacturing of Baykar’s Akıncı and TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, carries the potential to upgrade this relationship beyond the economic realm. Even for Saudi Arabia, which has a domestic plant to produce Turkish Vestel Karayel drones primarily for reconnaissance missions, Akıncı could upgrade drone warfare doctrine to a new level.

Mutual advantages

This evolving partnership is a clear win-win situation. Turkey and the GCC countries’ combined geography connects three lucrative subregions—the Gulf, Eastern Mediterranean, and the Black Sea—that can help the countries build their connections and enhance their interdependence, when beneficial, in a volatile world. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, which boast a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.8 trillion, have plentiful resources and tremendous comparative advantages, not only in the oil and gas sector but also in their solid legal framework, world-class infrastructure, and relative ease of doing business.

The UAE, for instance, implements social and business reforms to attract foreign investment. They also have a young, tech-savvy, and talented population open to learning and determined to make an impact on emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Turkey, meanwhile, has comparative advantages in the defense, hospitality, and construction sectors. Turkey had traditionally been a capital-scarce, labor-intensive country that faced declining terms of trade, especially after joining the European Customs Union in 1995. But gradually, through upskilling in technology and investment in capital-intensive sectors, Turkey repositioned itself as an alternative industrial hub for the emerging markets of the Middle East. It has become a diversified, technologically advanced, and sophisticated economy as a member of the Group of Twenty.

Turkey is now more eager to expand its bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements into a multilateral agreement with the GCC. Moreover, the earthquakes in February 2023 are estimated to have cost Turkey $104 billion in infrastructural damage and economic loss—equivalent to 12 percent of its GDP—so Turkey needs to diversify and deepen its trade partnerships to recover quickly.

Nonaligned, interconnected

A major driving factor behind this rising economic cooperation is the quest to gain strategic autonomy from the West and distribute risks by hedging against changes in US policy toward Turkey and the Gulf’s neighborhood after the next US presidential elections and beyond. Turkey and the Gulf countries have emerged as nonaligned middle powers, adapting to a multipolar world as the global economy’s center of gravity shifts toward the Indo-Pacific region.

The war in Ukraine heightened Turkey’s geopolitical significance and provided it with leverage in negotiations with the United States and NATO, as witnessed at the Vilnius summit last week. Russia’s ongoing attack and consequential Western sanctions also turned countries’ eyes toward the Gulf countries in search of an alternative supplier of hydrocarbons. Windfall profits from oil and gas sales strengthened the war chests of Gulf sovereign wealth funds that are now looking to increase non-oil trade and diversify their portfolios into sustainable, long-term investments such as renewable energy, advanced technology, healthcare, tourism, and leisure.

A few major deals exemplify these diversification efforts. The Arab-China Business Conference—held in Riyadh this June—concluded with $10 billion worth of investment deals struck between Arab countries and China. Iraq is developing a $17-billion-dollar railroad, which is planned to run through Turkey to Europe, a project in which the GCC countries have also shown interest. Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company and the Turkey Wealth Fund launched a $300-million-dollar partnership to invest in Turkish technology startups. The UAE is also eager to invest in Istanbul’s metro and its high-speed railway to Ankara. The two countries aim to increase their trade volume from $18 billion to $40 billion in the next five years.

Ultimately, this flurry of new investments shows that the Gulf countries and Turkey view each other as mutually advantageous partners. Erdoğan’s visit to the Gulf this week further reaffirms their deepening partnership in the economic realm—with potential implications for the strategic realm in the long term.

Serhat S. Çubukçuoğlu is a senior fellow in strategic studies at TRENDS Research & Advisory in Abu Dhabi.

Mouza Hasan Almarzooqi is a researcher in economic studies at TRENDS Research & Advisory in Abu Dhabi.

The post What’s behind growing ties between Turkey and the Gulf states appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s tech sector is playing vital wartime economic and defense roles

David Kirichenko — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 16:35:49 +0000

The Ukrainian tech industry has been the standout sector of the country’s hard-hit economy during the past year-and-a-half of Russia’s full-scale invasion. It has not only survived but has adapted and grown. Looking ahead, Ukrainian tech businesses will likely continue to play a pivotal role in the country’s defense strategy along with its economic revival.

While Ukraine’s GDP plummeted by 29.1% in 2022, the country’s tech sector still managed to outperform all expectations, generating an impressive $7.34 billion in annual export revenues, which represented 5% year-on-year growth. This positive trend has continued into 2023, with IT sector monthly export volumes up by nearly 10% in March.

This resilience reflects the combination of technical talent, innovative thinking, and tenacity that has driven the remarkable growth of the Ukrainian IT industry for the past several decades. Since the 2000s, the IT sector has been the rising star of the Ukrainian economy, attracting thousands of new recruits each year with high salaries and exciting growth opportunities. With the tech industry also more flexible than most in terms of distance working and responding to the physical challenges of wartime operations, IT companies have been able to make a major contribution on the economic front of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.

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Prior to the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainian tech sector boasted around 5,000 companies. Ukrainian IT Association data for 2022 indicates that just two percent of these companies ceased operations as a result of the war, while software exports actually grew by 23% during the first six months of the year, underlining the sector’s robustness. Thanks to this resilience, the Ukrainian tech sector has been able to continue business relationships with its overwhelmingly Western clientele, including many leading international brands and corporations. According to a July 2022 New York Times report, Ukrainian IT companies managed to maintain 95% of their contracts despite the difficulties presented by the war.

In a world where digital skills are increasingly defining military outcomes, Ukraine’s IT prowess is also providing significant battlefield advantages. Of the estimated 300,000 tech professionals in the country, around three percent are currently serving in the armed forces, while between 12 and 15 percent are contributing to the country’s cyber defense efforts. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s IT ecosystem, hardened by years of defending against Russian cyber aggression, is now integral to the nation’s defense.

A range of additional measures have been implemented since February 2022 to enhance Ukrainian cyber security and safeguard government data from Russian attacks. Steps have included the adoption of cloud infrastructure to back up government data. Furthermore, specialized teams have been deployed to government data centers with the objective of identifying and mitigating Russian cyber attacks. To ensure effective coordination and information sharing, institutions like the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection serve as central hubs, providing updates on Russian activities and the latest threats to both civilian and government entities.

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