Credible Defense

Michael Kofman and co. performed a fact-finding mission to Zaporizhia over the past couple of weeks. They have released a podcast about the experience which viewers might appreciate. Featuring Dmitri Alperovitch, Rob Lee, and Michael Kofman.

https://geopolitics-decanted.simplecast.com/episodes/trip-report-what-i-learned-in-kyiv-and-conversation-with-mike-kofman-and-rob-lee-about-counteroffensive-and-wagner

It’s Perun o’clock! This week’s episode focuses on cluster munitions and the impact the overall balance of artillery has on a war.

https://youtu.be/1zcUe47xerQ

Frustrated by Biden, China Courts ‘Old Friends’ Like Kissinger

The red carpet welcome in Beijing for Henry A. Kissinger, the 100-year-old former secretary of state, included China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, telling him that “the Chinese people will always remember you.” It featured praise from China’s top diplomat for his wisdom. And it involved a meeting with the Chinese defense minister, who has rebuffed multiple requests to engage with his American counterpart.

China’s enthusiastic reception for Mr. Kissinger this week is the latest example of how Beijing is reaching outside official diplomatic channels to broaden the reach of its message and try to influence Washington’s thinking. Beijing has turned to those it deems more aligned with its position as it has become more skeptical toward, and at times openly frustrated with, the Biden administration.

With the visit by Mr. Kissinger, whom Mr. Xi and other officials called an “old friend,” Beijing has sought to emphasize cooperation and mutual respect between the powers. With visits by business leaders like Bill Gates — also dubbed an old friend by Mr. Xi — and Elon Musk, China has tried to highlight the longstanding economic relationship and the perils of untangling global supply chains.

Such efforts may become increasingly significant as Beijing pushes back against what it sees as the Biden administration’s efforts to contain China geopolitically, militarily and technologically. China is also watching as Republicans and Democrats unite in wanting to remain tough on Beijing, and a U.S. presidential election approaches in which candidates will likely be more critical of China.

ISW Update

Key Takeaways:

The July 17 attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge will likely have significant and sustained impacts on Russian logistics as traffic from tourism to occupied Crimea jams Russian logistics to southern Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south.

Russian and occupation authorities appear to be consumed with mitigating the consequences of the attack rather than leveraging the incident to levy heavy informational attacks with rhetorical inflections.

The Russian milblogger response to the Kerch Strait Bridge attack largely criticized Russian authorities for failing to secure the bridge.

The Wagner Group continues to prepare to establish a permanent presence in Belarus.

Russia continues efforts to reorganize its domestic security apparatus in the wake of the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front over the backdrop of increased Russian offensive operations along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border on July 17.

Russian forces conducted active offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line and have likely made marginal tactical gains in this direction.

Russian forces continued limited ground attacks southwest and south of Kreminna, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area and advanced near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia administrative border.

Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks in western Donetsk Oblast.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued unsuccessful ground attacks in the Orikhiv area in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported that Russian authorities have removed at least eight Russian military commanders without reappointing them to new positions since the start of the war, which is largely consistent with ISW’s previous assessments.

Russian occupation authorities continue to artificially increase the number of Russian citizens in occupied Ukraine ahead of the September regional elections.

US close to providing Ukraine with long-range cluster missiles

The Biden administration is close to deciding it will provide Ukraine with a version of ATACMS long-range missiles armed with cluster bomblets rather than a single warhead, according to several people familiar with the ongoing deliberations.

Biden moved during the summer from a firm and long-standing “no” to saying the issue was “still in play.” Although the administration backed away from initial concerns that Kyiv would use the long-range weapons to strike inside Russian territory, the Pentagon still worried that drawing down enough ATACMS from relatively small military stockpiles to make a difference on the Ukraine battlefield would undercut the readiness of U.S. forces for other possible conflicts.

But the cluster-armed version of ATACMS are more plentiful than those topped with a single — or “unitary” — warhead and are no longer considered a front-line U.S. weapon. From an estimated original production of 2,500, some from the early 1990s, an unknown number were later refitted with unitary warheads, according to a fiscal year 2018 Defense Department publication. But many of the cluster variant remain in stockpiles. Consideration of the cluster warhead ATACMS was first reported by Reuters.

Ruined, Empty, Mined and Overgrown: Ukraine’s Forgotten Villages

Leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium and turn west onto rougher roads, where dead trees and twisted power lines give way to a string of shattered villages.

These enclaves, once the backbone of Ukraine’s agricultural eastern steppe, were reduced to ruin as the war passed over them like a flood tide.

Despite being recaptured by Ukraine’s military last fall, the villages of Sulyhivka, Virnopillia and Kamianka are now at risk of being lost — not to artillery or pitched battles, but to overgrown weeds, wildflowers and minefields. They are another kind of casualty in a war that has claimed many.

Countries are make-believe. They exist because a critical mass of people all agree that “country” is a meaningful category, and that certain groups fit into that category. The exact particulars of both of these vary across time and space, but the modern Western definition includes ideas like “the monopoly on violence”, “Westphalian sovereignty”, and so on. The point is, peoples’s image/perception of a country and the country itself are to some degree one and the same. Things which shake a country’s citizens’ perception of their own nation really do shake the nation itself. Therefore, when the identity of a country is threatened, said country will react in the same way as if it were faced with any other existential threat. Similarly, when a concept or idea is incorporated into the identity of a country, it becomes worth protecting to the same or greater extent as the physical markers of a country’s existence.

China has incorporated the idea of territorial integrity, including Taiwan, into its very bedrock as a nation. There are many reasons why it did so, but they are beyond the scope of this comment. Therefore, China must pursue the reintegration of Taiwan, the same way it pursues “internal security” or “common values” or any other thing that you may consider part of being a “country”. To give up on this pursuit would be a body blow to its people’s consensus that the current “China” is a meaningful entity worth preserving. In short, China must pursue Taiwan because pursuing Taiwan is what the People’s Republic of China does. If ever it was to cease to do so, there would be a real risk of the People’s Republic of China ceasing to be the People’s Republic of China.