Source: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/drones-are-not-artillery-yet

by L. Lance Boothe

Ukrainian drones strike a major military depot in a Russian town northwest of Moscow

“Mushroom clouds are rising above the ground; doors in Staraia Toropa are shaking. Part of the military personnel fled during the night, abandoning the vehicles they arrived in. Everything is burning,” an unidentified villager tells Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU. These things happen when munitions are left laying out in the open in a depot and stacked-up on not-so-secret railway platforms. Welcome to war. A drone pack set in motion by Ukrainian special forces claims another arsenal deep in Russian territory.

A few days prior on 18 September 2024, Ukrainian special forces attacked warehouses in Toropets, Russia, belonging to the 107th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) 500 km from Ukraine. One hundred Ukrainian produced drones descended on this ammunition depot, setting it ablaze after triggering earthquake producing explosions. Clearly, at over 300 miles from the fight, the Russians did not see this coming despite claiming some of the drones were taken down by jamming. In war, belligerents constantly surprise each other as Clausewitz reminds us, so in this aspect there is nothing new here. But are we seeing a new evolution in drone warfare?

At first glance, the observer of the Russia-Ukraine War may be tempted to see these strikes deep into Russia with remote controlled or possibly autonomous “smart” drones as the new artillery of the 21st Century. But what we are seeing is more akin to a poor man’s air force than the next generation of artillery. Also, the observer needs to appreciate that drones are more versatile than artillery systems and munitions. Though smart attack drones could, and should, be the next evolution in artillery submunitions. The point is that intelligent machines whether unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or robotic ground systems operating by adaptive algorithms can do more than attack targets. They can perform reconnaissance and surveillance functions, deliver supplies, be communications and electronic warfare platforms, clear and emplace mines, provide security, and conduct counter-air operations. And all ithese functions can be done without putting a whole bunch of soldiers at risk on the battlefield.

For the putative Ukrainians, the last several weeks of their drone blitz into Russia have netted considerable results. The current ratio of artillery fire “between Ukrainian and Russian forces is about 1:2. This marks an improvement from early summer 2024, when the ratio was 1:3, and even more so compared to the beginning of the year, when the ratio heavily favored Russia at 1:7, 1:8, or worse.” This is good news. Artillery fire produces 80% of the casualties in the Ukraine war. The Ukrainian counterfire fight is having a strategic effect. Instead of playing whack-a-mole against Russian artillery pieces, a Sisyphean feat, the Ukrainians are attacking the logistics that feed the Russian beast. This is just good targeting – identify vulnerable critical nodes and attack them – Targeting 101. The goal being to create more than a localized effect. In these instances of the Ukrainians attacking ammunition supply points, their takedown of logistical nodes impacts a large number of systems on the battlefield, producing an effect on the entire Russian artillery enterprise which takes considerable time from which to recover. This is just competent targeting. While I would like to believe the Ukrainians have cracked this code all by themselves, I suspect otherwise thanks to the targeting professionals in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The anatomy of these strikes seems rather obvious. Group II drones are launched from within Russia by special operations teams who case the target after infiltering into position or Group III drones are launched from Ukraine proper, infiltering the Russian integrated air defense system (IADS), to strike the target acquired through satellite imagery. Regardless of the exact method used to acquire and attack the target, the key takeaway is that drones are being used for precision strike against targets that are susceptible to infiltration and vulnerable to destruction by creating an explosive chain reaction, which starts at multiple points to consume a larger area, magnifying the destructive effect. Further down the line, the gift keeps giving as supply chains are disrupted to the point that artillery fires across the front are restricted. In some instances, parts of the line are left without artillery fires as ammunition is moved to more critical sectors to sustain ongoing offensive operations. Either way, planning is complicated, target engagement restricted, and dilemmas created. All this disruption is caused by killing mechanisms that are relatively cheap to produce and employ. Given that three Russian arsenals were pretty much destroyed along with their stocks of billions of dollars in artillery projectiles and missiles by a pack of drones that at most cost tens of thousands of dollars, the Ukrainians came out ahead on the cost equation. Russia cannot sustain these kinds of losses either materially or financially. When the apparent Russian strategy is one of exhausting Ukrainian resistance through attrition, degrading Russia’s ability to attrit the Ukrainian Army through their main combat arm – artillery – spells defeat for such a strategy.

Of course, this begs the question: are drones a replacement for rocket/missile artillery? Well, the Ukrainians do not think so. They have been wailing incessantly about being “allowed” to strike into Russia with missiles like the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) provided by the US. Of course, a debate rages among armchair generals as to whether it is advisable to expand the war in this manner. Operationally, it makes sense. And Ukraine should ignore NATO’s handwringing. The strategic gains already achieved by striking deep into Russia are proof enough of drone effectiveness in particular, and surface-to-surface fires in general. But alas, the timidity with those with no skin in the game always seems to trump operational imperatives when it comes to Great Power Competition. But to answer the question as to drones being the new artillery, the answer is no – at least for now.

Well, the Ukrainians do not think so

While what the Ukrainians have achieved to-date with drones is specular, bear in mind they are also losing about 10,000 of them a month primarily due to electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) interdiction. For that outlay in drones, there is no evidence Russian casualties are exponentially increasing. War is about more than destroying stuff. It is about killing. Well trained and competent people are much harder to replace than things. So while precise strikes with drone packs garner headlines by igniting explosive chains from stockpiles of munitions on pallets sitting in warehouses stacked on top of each other and carelessly piled in the open, what is not happening here are high casualty rates. No deaths and only 13 injuries were reported after the drone raid on the 107th Arsenal of the GRAU. Substantially more casualties come from massed artillery fires on exposed positions, maneuver formations in the open, artillery and mortar firing points occupied too long, or at ammunition exchange points directly feeding the fight. Remember, 80% of the casualties in this war are being produced by massed artillery fires from volleys of “dumb” munitions (rockets and cannon projectiles unaided by GPS) against formations and their field trains and command posts. Drones are not the preferred means for producing mass casualties despite YouTube videos showing drones attacking Russian trucks stuck in the mud or armored vehicles (and personnel in the open) scurrying around the battlefield. Drones are good at precision strikes, not area fires. Drones are most effective where EMS interdiction is limited, so that their circuitry does not get fried, or transmitter-receivers jammed. It is about the permissibly of the environment around the target and the target itself (and effect desired on it) that dictates the means of attack. Every munition has its time and place – the entire point of weaponeering – and make no mistake drones are now munitions as we are witnessing.

Also, we are not seeing large swaths of critical infrastructure or communications networks being crippled exclusively through drone attack. Yes, infrastructure is attacked with drones, particularly oil refineries and power generation stations, but interestingly, those effects appear rather localized and temporary. Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are freezing to death in mass when winter hits. Cars are still on the road. Communications networks while suffering disruption from limited drone attack remain largely functional. The internet is running and accessible for all the war bloggers on both sides to keep us appraised from their mothers’ basements on every detail of the fight. Most structures, whether of military value or not, in towns and cities where the fighting is raging are being reduced to dust by copious amounts of high explosive. This destruction is wrought more by cannon projectiles, rockets/missiles, and glide bombs than “kamikaze” drones. Group I-III UAS do not have the payload capacity for the amount of high explosives required to bend steel I-beams, nor are they heavy enough to penetrate reinforced concrete in any structurally compromising way. Of course, if one of these drones comes crashing into, say, some Soviet era concrete tenement building, the folks in the apartment that gets struck will have a bad day. There will not be much left of their drab digs, but the entire building is not going to come down on them or the other tenants as witnessed in Ukraine’s most recent drone attack in Moscow.

Simply put, the Ukrainians are using drones as long-range precision fires that would otherwise be provided by artillery systems and munitions (and of course, fighter-bombers), because drones are all they have available given the restrictions placed on them by their Western benefactors. The right answer for efficient shaping fires is to use both drones and rockets/missiles. As Matthew Savill at the Royal United Services Institute asserts, “ATACMS could do serious damage to Russian air defense radars and systems.” He claims, “if you punch a hole through…Ukrainian long-range drones have got better options to penetrate deeper into Russia” to interdict lines of communication (LOCs) mostly insulated by distance from the forward line of troops. Interdicting LOCs should be the norm for deep strikes, only the means of attack will vary. Drones are best suited to attack LOCs at points where IADS and EMS defense is weak. Let rockets/missiles kick in the door, opening a route to the target area for the drones. Rockets/missiles can be impervious to electronic interference while overwhelming IADS at points along LOCs where these defenses are strong, creating mass casualties and destruction over a greater area than drones. Again, it comes down to the target, and the environs around the target. Neither the use of attack drones or rockets/missiles (guided or not) is an aberration, they ought to be complementary and routinely used to interdict LOCs. I suspect that if the Ukrainians were unrestricted in their means of attack, they would mix it up in ways that would discomfit the Russians, and surprise Western observers. Necessity remains the mother of invention.

War is a harsh schoolmaster. And the war in Ukraine is only going to get harsher. Drones are the wave of the future. This is beyond dispute. What neither side is doing in this war so far is delivering smart drones via missiles to hunt in wolfpacks, attacking high payoff targets (HPTs) without human control or oversight. This is the next evolution in drone warfare. This is a capability the US military needs to be developing in earnest. Once drones are truly autonomous, enabled by artificial intelligence, hardened against EMS interdiction, used in packs, and delivered into target areas of interest at hypersonic speed, then the war gets interesting and far more deadly. Let us hope the madness in Ukraine is ended before we get a nasty surprise from it. War at machine speed without respite will break human endurance, spiraling well out of control.

As I have asserted in Military Review, intelligent machines are going to take warfare to a whole new level. Enemies will aim to draw blood at each other’s industrial, agricultural, and energy underbelly – the center of gravity for any nation. Once the people who make life possible are dead and the associated infrastructure is wrecked, the means to resist is shattered. To presume the advent of smart drones will turn warfare into an intelligent machine on intelligent machine melee is folly. Clearing an adversary’s intelligent machines from the battlespace is just the prelude to attacking the center of gravity. Smart drones jeopardize a nation’s center of gravity as never before because they are relentless killing machines, taking war to maximum effectiveness and its logical conclusion without nuclear holocaust.

Chantal Grut argues in the Journal of Conflict & Security Law that as weapons technology becomes more and more advanced, humans are moving further and further away from the battlefield. We already live in a world of robotic warfare, in which a pilot sitting in an operating room … can control an unmanned aerial vehicle or ‘drone’ to conduct lethal targeting operations on the other side of the world. In a sense, weapons development has always been moving in this direction, with the goal of removing human personnel as far from the risk of harm as possible. The next step may remove the human from the process altogether.

However, where Grut gets it wrong is that people will never be removed from risk. The Russian villagers around those GRAU arsenals found this out when those facilities went up in flames right in their backyards. The unpleasant truth is humans at the center of gravity of a nation are more at risk than ever before, both combatants and noncombatants. Intelligent machines are not just built to fight other machines. Look no further than how remote-controlled drones or ones with limited programming for autonomy are being used in the Ukraine war. The Russians are certainly attacking critical infrastructure with the drones they send into Ukraine. Nor are the Ukrainians ignoring Russian infrastructure, striking refineries and power generation facilities in addition to grabbing headlines with their drone attacks on “military” targets like GRAU arsenals. For nation-states, particularly developed ones, food, fuel, electricity, and consumer products rule the day. The people who feed society, power society, and bring society its daily necessities are the linchpin to life. Attacking them and the infrastructure which sustains society can bring society to its knees.

Realism drives war. Since Napoleon Bonaparte, warfare has been the “nation in arms,” so everyone at the center of gravity is fair game. For one nation to defeat another, war must be taken to its logical conclusion. We should bear in mind, the United States dropped atomic weapons on Japan to shatter that nation in arms, bringing the worst conflagration in human history to a decisive end. In war, there is no substitute for victory, and the unmitigated employment of intelligent machines is the next, best, means to victory.

Every capability has a counter or weakness. Direct energy (DE) weapons show the potential to effectively counter drones. But can DE be everywhere at once, particularly around all critical infrastructure or over extended LOCs? Can it be overwhelmed? These things are yet to be seen. Power generation is critical to DE. If power is being supplied by the national electrical grid, then the grid is a logical target, which is easy to strike in mass at hundreds if not thousands of points of failure. While DE will be formidable once it arrives in force on the battlefield, it can and will be countered. Part of that counter comes in the form of presenting multiple dilemmas – a combination of smart drones, guided and dumb artillery munitions (even bombs and missiles from Big Blue or the US Navy) delivered in coordination with a variety of non-lethal enablers can open windows for these lethal munitions to get in to destroy HPTs or compound the destructive effect of these Joint fires. I believe the Ukraine war is teaching us that massed artillery fires matter more than any other means of attack. When GPS aided munitions or remote-controlled and semi-autonomous drones work, they produce devastating results. The Ukrainians clearly want to use all the means at their disposal just as we would if we were in their predicament. What will be interesting to see is whether DE proliferates in the Ukraine war as a counter to the pervasive drone warfare witnessed so far. My bet is that when DE starts to make a significant appearance, artillery fires will increase further. Then DE systems will struggle to survive on the battlefield and elsewhere. And the drones will keep on flying.

In conclusion, it is too soon to draw definitive conclusions, but as a friend and respected old soldier reminds me, it is never too late to speculate. What is obvious is that drones work. At the writing of this piece, Ukraine launched another drone attack deep into Russia. This time attacking the “Chechen special forces university” (whoever they are and whatever that is), damaging the facility and presumably disrupting operations. Like with the arsenals around Staraia Toropa out of ATACMS range, but clearly within drone range, the Ukrainians continue to do what they can to bring Goliath down. If the Ukrainians get the green light from the West (the US in particular) to do what is operationally sound and strike LOCs within Russia with ballistic and cruise missiles, a new chapter in this war will open – perhaps even a decisive one for the valiant Ukrainians. Indications are they would strike using a combination of drone and artillery fires. One complimenting the other and vice versa. Once truly intelligent drones capable of hunting targets autonomously, expelled from missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds into target areas, make their debut, the game changes. Then drones become artillery. And then the vicious cycle of countermeasure upon countermeasure to yet more counters begins until the next technological breakthrough emerges, worlds without end in our eternal quest to better slaughter one another.

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Counterfire is more than just counter-battery fire (acquiring and engaging artillery systems). The counterfire fight is about defeating threat artillery logistics and command and control (C2). Given that modern artillery systems (self-propelled howitzers and rocket launchers) emplace and displace rapidly, employing “shoot and scoot” tactics, it is nearly impossible to engage artillery when it is shooting. Howitzers and launchers simply are not around long enough after firing to engagement with counter-battery fires from other howitzers and launchers. Between the time it takes from acquisition (usually by radar) to mission processing to fire mission execution and the time of flight of the projectiles or rockets onto target, the howitzers or launchers you are shooting at will be long gone. This is why you must either anticipate where the threat might be or more effectively track them to rearm, refuel and refit sites. Better yet, find logistics resupply points (or the unit supply trains) and destroy them, depriving the guns or launchers of ammunition and fuel. The next best thing to do is break the link between guns/launchers and observers/sensors or the ability to issue fire orders to the guns/launchers, i.e. attack their C2. Artillery is useless if it can’t shoot or communicate, and dead if it can’t move. And if you must punk individual firing platforms, it is best done by attack helicopters or fighter-bomber aircraft, and now drones, after the guns or launchers are rendered ineffectual and trying to hide or retreat – movement attracts predators.

Whether it’s the US Army’s targeting methodology of decide, detect, deliver, assess (D3A) or special operations world’s find, fix, finish, assess (F3A) or the USAF’s convoluted find, fix, track, target, engage, assess (F2T2EA), targeting in practice all boils down to matching sensors to targets to killing / engagement mechanisms. The nodal analysis done to decide what to attack is the most critical part of the process. The point is to get the best result (effect) for the most economical expenditure of resources at the least risk to our forces. Identifying and striking the critical point or points of failure in the enemy’s system of systems and operations (this part tends to get overlooked by the targeting Rain Men in the USAF) is the Grail Quest for the targeting community.

For a pretty good explanation of UAS groups visit

Of course, the exact ranges for these systems are protected by the pay wall of officialdom. But the real takeaway here that’s being lost in translation concerning drone warfare is its cost effectiveness, and the fact that the US military is behind the innovation curve after essentially pioneering drone warfare. Elliot Ackerman put out an article in The Free Press

warning us that our military isn’t ready for modern war; that is to say, the next evolution in drone warfare. And if this isn’t startling enough, even our Congress has figured out that drone warfare is upon on us and essential to Ukrainian succuss on the battlefield, which as Ackerman points out in his article, and I quote: “This past May, a bipartisan group from Congress grew so concerned they sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. It read, in part: ‘we strongly encourage you to include the delivery of small, American-made drones to Ukraine, which are essential for tactical success on the battlefield’. Six months later, these American-made drones have yet to arrive in Ukraine.” Say it isn’t so. Let’s understand this for a moment – we have spent billions on the mess in Ukraine and delivered them none of the cheap drones they want and need yet have managed to deliver a whopping 700 high-cost Switchblades at $60-80,000 a pop, whereas the Ukrainians are using (and prefer to use) the Mavic 3 series, an off-the-shelf drone which costs anywhere from $2,199 to $4,799 on Amazon. If this isn’t fraud, waste, and abuse, then nothing is. And since that war consumes 10,000 drones a month, the Switchblades we did manage to send are long gone by now, while the Chinese, yes, that is right, the Chinese seem able to ship all the Mavic 3s the Ukrainians could possibly want. Apparently, the Chinese aren’t afraid to profit from both sides in the Ukraine war. The cynicism at play here would make Lucifer cringe. Go free market – the irony is rich.

De-escalation is the obsession of the weak, indecisive, and feckless. De-escalation is no more a strategy than fighting the Russians to the to last Ukrainian. And concerns over escalation are not an excuse for failing to do what is operationally expedient. The Ukrainians are engaged. Now, it is time to finish the fight. Of course, this will never happen because the West fears its own shadow, so the Ukrainians will be forced into a settlement – a casualty of Great Power Competition – despite their sacrifice in blood and treasure. War is not just (as I have opined in this august journal previously).

Note that this report is on the casualties being taken by Ukrainians from Russian artillery fires. Those fires are persistent, pervasive, and demoralizing, and of course, deadly. War is made with artillery. This remains as true today as it was when Napoleon practiced it in the 19th Century.

While dropping grenades on hapless Russians in open personnel carriers or chasing them around exposed positions with drones makes for good YouTube videos, the propaganda value and psychological effect is far greater than the actual casualties produced when compared to massed artillery fires. Frankly, the videos are kind of sick, and by-the-way, the Russians are doing the same to Ukrainian soldiers (and civilians). War is not some sort of grotesque reality video game despite what social media would have us believe. You are not going to win a war by droning individuals, but you can win through accumulating mass casualties, something we have yet to see drones do.

Of course not much condemnation is forthcoming over these nonmilitary (“civilian”) targets being struck by the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are just as guilty of creating collateral damage as the Russians, but only one is called a war crime – interesting how that works.

And lest we forget, these ground-based fires should be integrated with air support, performing air interdiction. But we’re not here to discuss air component operations, which for the Ukrainians are relatively nonexistent outside of UAS employment by their land component.

The Russian arsenals attacked by the Ukrainians are out of range of ATACMS, but in range of ground-based cruise missiles. When the new missile replacing ATACMS comes online fully, and if given to the Ukrainians (doubtful), supply depots like the Toropets arsenal could be held at risk by ballistic missiles that are cheaper and faster than cruise missiles, not to mention far easier to plan and shoot with the US Army Field Artillery’s current C2 system. Also, it is not always possible or even desirable to carry out precision strikes down to a gnat’s butt. Target size and dispersal or disposition matters. And all sensors contrary to popular belief do not have the same degree of accuracy in locating targets (or share the same confidence level), thereby requiring area fires to hit the targets they acquire. Area fires hit the target with shrapnel from the casing around the explosive warhead or projectile, ball bearings or tungsten cubes encased in front of or embedded in the high explosive filler, or shape-charge bomblets expelled from the rocket/missile or cannon projectile. Hence the term “steel rain.” You are covering an area with metal to ensure you hit the target. So not only does raining down metal all over the place have the advantage of hitting imprecisely located targets (in the artillery we call it high target location error – TLE), but it allows us to hit large targets that would otherwise require multiple aimpoints to destroy with hit-to-kill munitions like laser guided bombs, GPS aided unitary warhead rockets, or full motion video attack drones with high explosive (HE) payload. Steel rain falls on the just and unjust, hitting multiple things spread-out all over God’s green earth, maximizing death and destruction beyond blast overpressure. Yes, how pleasant. Killing is ugly. Artillery is not an extreme range snipper rifle, and we are not putting rounds into a one-inch bullseye lined up in crosshairs. Artillery is an indirect fire weapon where rounds are calculated to essentially be lobbed onto target, producing casualties and destruction with the area containing that target through HE. We must stop confusing accuracy with precision. Cannon projectiles and rockets/missiles are not bullets precisely aimed directly at targets. That’s not how it works nor intended to be. Artillery munitions are accurately put into the vicinity of the target, and HE does the rest.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by C. F. Smith (Cambridge: Loeb Classic Library Harvard University Press, 1920), III: LXXXII.

Chantal Grut, “The Challenge of Autonomous Lethal Robotics to International Humanitarian Law,” Journal of Conflict & Security Law 18, no. 1 (2013): 5–23,

Hugh Nibley, Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, ed. Don E. Norton and Shirley S. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 295.

What would any article on military affairs be without mentioning the Joint Force? All things “joint” is military jargon for the Armed Services working together in perfect harmony (at least in theory). The US military has been obsessed with “jointness” since it got force fed it after the debacle in Grenada in the 80s. Ever since the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, it’s been joint this and joint that, which is really to say the USAF runs everything now. Anyhow, what is being described here, looking passed the reference to Joint fires, is the US military’s aspiration to achieve effects in all domains (or cross them or throughout them or from one to another – no one has yet to really figure out how to describe it to the collective’s, that is to say, the Joint Force’s satisfaction in some pithy term). We think the key to success now and in the future is to integrate lethal fires (things that go boom) from all the Services with nonlethal effectors (things that buzz) from all the Services to create effects on land, at sea, in the air, in outer space, and, of course, cyberspace to discomfit and otherwise destroy our foes in battle.

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L. Lance Boothe is a senior Concepts Developer for Field Artillery in the Concepts Development Division of the Fires Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He is a retired Field Artillery Officer and veteran of Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, and Bosnia.

Small Wars Journal was transferred in May, 2024 to the Arizona Board of Regents, for and on behalf of Arizona State University. A site update with additional information is forthcoming.

Original content is published under a Creative Commons License per our Terms of Use.

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Exerpts and article from: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/11-6-24-National-Security-News-and-Commentary.html?soid=1114009586911&aid=fHwWASje-zM

China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

The only thing surprising about this is that there are still people who are surprised by this unrestricted warfare.

Excerpts:

Hackers burrowed deep into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. With each layer of network infrastructure they unlocked, the Beijing-linked group studied how America’s communications wiring works without detection, carrying out targeted thefts, people familiar with the breach said. 

The newly uncovered espionage campaign, earlier reported in September by The Wall Street Journal, is the latest in a long string of successes for China’s government hackers, as Western governments accuse Beijing of spying at an unprecedented scale.

But as U.S. officials and security experts piece together what the hackers—part of a group nicknamed Salt Typhoon by investigators—were able to achieve, they have assembled clues that fuel concerns that China’s mastery of cyber-espionage is dangerously advanced.

The hackers appeared to have had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier—a group that includes AT&T and Verizon—but limited their targets to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures, some of the people familiar with the investigation said. 

China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

Hackers scooped up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio, piercing America’s communications infrastructure

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-hack-enabled-vast-spying-on-u-s-officials-likely-ensnaring-thousands-of-contacts-1340ba4a?st=euwkB8&utm

By Dustin Volz

Follow, Aruna Viswanatha

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Nov. 5, 2024 4:58 pm ET

Chinese hackers burrowed into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more.

Hackers linked to Chinese intelligence used precision strikes to quietly compromise cellphone lines used by an array of senior national security and policy officials across the U.S. government in addition to politicians, according to people familiar with the matter.

This access allowed them to scoop up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio from potentially thousands of Americans and others with whom they interacted. The emerging picture of the intrusion’s reach helps confirm the intelligence community’s concerns about the potentially dire national security consequences of the attack, the people said.

Hackers burrowed deep into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. With each layer of network infrastructure they unlocked, the Beijing-linked group studied how America’s communications wiring works without detection, carrying out targeted thefts, people familiar with the breach said. 

The newly uncovered espionage campaign, earlier reported in September by The Wall Street Journal, is the latest in a long string of successes for China’s government hackers, as Western governments accuse Beijing of spying at an unprecedented scale.

But as U.S. officials and security experts piece together what the hackers—part of a group nicknamed Salt Typhoon by investigators—were able to achieve, they have assembled clues that fuel concerns that China’s mastery of cyber-espionage is dangerously advanced.

The hackers appeared to have had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier—a group that includes AT&T and Verizon—but limited their targets to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures, some of the people familiar with the investigation said. 

Hackers used stolen credentials to access parts of the management layer of the network at Lumen Technologies. Photo: Lindsey Wasson/Associated Press

The hackers also appear to have infiltrated communications providers outside the U.S., including at least one country that closely shares intelligence with the U.S., though it isn’t yet clear where or how extensively. Investigators expect more victims to be identified as the probe continues.

Investigators don’t yet know how China planned to use the information it allegedly stole. U.S. intelligence officials have warned for over a decade that Beijing has amassed an enormous trove of information on Americans in order to identify undercover spies, understand and anticipate decisions by political leaders, and potentially build dossiers on ordinary citizens for future use. 

Though political figures are among those spied upon, officials don’t suspect the Chinese are seeking to use the access to disrupt or otherwise interfere in the presidential election.

U.S. security officials have said they are concerned that China is applying artificial intelligence to their stolen data to glean additional insights and create elaborate social maps of millions of Americans.

JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, was notified that he had been a target of the hacking group. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“It’s a vulnerability that no one imagined or anticipated,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Mark Warner, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said last week that it was “one of the most serious breaches” he had ever seen.

In a statement, a spokesman for the National Security Council said U.S. agencies across the federal government were “collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat” and were “surging support to affected entities and determining the full scope and impact on Americans, companies and the government.”

He added: “We are taking this matter very seriously.”

Breaking in

At Lumen Technologies, a carrier and government contractor whose network makes up a core piece of the global internet, hackers stole credentials to give themselves access to parts of the management layer of the company’s infrastructure in late summer. That access helped them quietly collect information about how network routers were configured and perform other reconnaissance for more than a month before they were caught.

In the broader attack on U.S. telecom networks, officials believe that the hackers also targeted systems that carriers use to comply with court-authorized surveillance requests. At Lumen, which doesn’t provide wireless service, the attackers didn’t steal any customer data or access its wiretap capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter. Lumen, which has contracts with the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, was notified of the intrusion by a company that specializes in threat intelligence, the people said.

While the hackers appear to have used multiple vectors for their attacks on other telecom companies, they were able to gain some access in part by compromising routers from Cisco Systems and other equipment makers, some of the people said.

The hackers have also attempted to re-enter patched systems after being ejected from them by exploiting additional powerful vulnerabilities, some of which weren’t previously known to cybersecurity analysts. That bold behavior confounded some U.S. officials because it appeared the hackers were essentially scraping to stay inside systems long after their cover was blown, taunting investigators and continuing to collect data.

In one breakthrough, investigators have determined that the hackers were working on behalf of a Chinese intelligence agency, likely the Ministry of State Security, which is responsible for foreign intelligence collection. They have identified a specific Chinese contractor they believe carried out the attack, the people familiar with the inquiry said. The MSS often relies on contractors to carry out hacking missions.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington has previously denied the country’s involvement in the hack and accused U.S. spy agencies and cybersecurity firms of “secretly collaborating to piece together false evidence.”

What they took

The hackers were able to capture at least some voice audio from some compromised victims, including people affiliated with both Trump and Harris campaigns, investigators have learned. It is unclear whether they recorded actual calls, voice memos or something else.

After Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, was notified that he had been a target of the Salt Typhoon hacking group, he joked about it on a popular podcast. “It’s a pretty badass name, right? If they have anything on me, I can’t be too pissed off at them,” Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan.

In addition to surveillance on specific Americans, targeting of court-authorized wiretap systems has prompted fears Beijing was able to observe ongoing U.S. inquiries into Chinese spies and others.

The group behind the Salt Typhoon attacks has previously compromised some telecommunications infrastructure in Southeast Asia, according to cybersecurity researchers.

The Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET has long referred to the Salt Typhoon hacking group as FamousSparrow and says it has previously broken into government agencies and hotel networks worldwide, including in France, the U.K., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Brazil, among other countries. They were one of more than 10 advanced hacking teams caught exploiting a series of flaws in Microsoft’s Exchange email software in 2021, according to ESET.  

The 2021 Exchange hack rendered an estimated tens of thousands of businesses and government networks vulnerable to intrusion. The Biden administration blamed China’s Ministry of State Security for those hacks, a callout that was joined by the U.S. and the European Union.

Robert McMillan contributed to this article.

Write to Dustin Volz at [email protected], Aruna Viswanatha at [email protected], Drew FitzGerald at [email protected] and Sarah Krouse at [email protected]

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the November 6, 2024, print edition as 'China Hack Enabled Spying on U.S. Officials'.

In Next President’s Inbox: 10 Global Nightmares

Tom Nagorski is the Managing Editor for The Cipher Brief. He previously served as Global Editor for Grid and served as ABC News Managing Editor for International Coverage as well as Senior Broadcast Producer for World News Tonight.

– As a divided nation hurtles towards the election, and officials worry about politically-driven violence, potential nightmares abound for the next commander-in-chief. Put simply, the 47th president of the United States will face an unprecedented array of global and national security threats.

Major wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East, powerful U.S. adversaries are acting in concert, China poses threats on many fronts, and fresh dangers lurk in the realms of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as well.

In this special report, we lay out ten such threats, drawn from assessments made — in articles, public events, and at the recent Cipher Brief 2024 Threat Conference — by members of our network of experts. It’s a subjective exercise – different experts are worried about different issues – but on one point there is no disagreement: it’s a profoundly challenging inbox for the next commander-in-chief.

Soon after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed, intelligence agencies issued warnings of terrorism inspired by the war — in particular by the toll of dead and wounded Palestinians. One year later, more than 40,000 Gazans have been killed and nearly 100,000 wounded, and those terror warnings have proved prescient.

At the recent Cipher Brief conference, Brett Holmgren, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), was blunt: “The Israel-Hamas conflict is emerging as the most consequential event impacting global terrorism in the last decade,” Holmgren said, citing at least 19 attacks and 21 disrupted plots in more than 20 countries, for which the Gaza war had served as “a primary motivational factor.”

Holmgren and other top U.S. officials worry that this is the tip of an iceberg, involving what Avril Haines, head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), calls “a new generation of terrorists” inspired by the war in Gaza – and now in Lebanon as well.

Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers told The Cipher Brief last month that while the global terrorism threat had not reached “pre-9/11 levels…the conditions for it are certainly there. And now with the wars in the Middle East and the situation in Gaza, this will accelerate global jihadism again.”

Among those “conditions,” Vickers and other experts highlight the growing number of global safe havens for jihadists.

Ahmad Zia Saraj, the last head of Afghan intelligence before the 2021 Taliban takeover, told The Cipher Brief that since the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan has become “a utopia for jihadi groups,” thanks to Taliban support and large numbers of young and poor recruits. “The [jihadist groups] have free or very cheap manpower,” Saraj said. “So this makes Afghanistan a place where they can accomplish a lot.”

Every report we’ve done on this subject, and every new briefing from officials and experts who monitor the technology, has been more frightening than the last. A decade ago, drone weapons were limited to the arsenals of the U.S. and a few other global powers; the weapons themselves were inaccurate or unreliable or — if they performed well — prohibitively expensive. Today, advances in technology have made them cheaper and easier to obtain; and artificial intelligence has opened the way to higher-end drone weapons that can actually “communicate” with one another, in swarm-like attacks.

These weapons – high- and low-end both – have been on frequent display in Ukraine and the Middle East. And while Ukraine has created a large-scale domestic drone industry, several U.S. adversaries have as well. China dominates global drone production, and Iranian drone weapons are in play on multiple fronts – used by Russia against Ukraine, supplied to Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel, and provided to the Houthis in Yemen, who have used drone weapons to attack vessels in the Red Sea.

If it seems a distant threat, consider what the autonomous weapons expert Zachary Kallenborn told The Cipher Brief, when asked about scenarios that keep him up at night.

“You send a whole bunch of drones equipped with facial recognition, and search Capitol Hill for different congressmen who voted on a particular bill terrorists didn’t like,” Kallenborn said. “They could narrow the search to target only those people – no staffers, civilians, anything like that. Only those particular congressmen. Ideal, from the terrorists’ perspective.”

Kallenborn and others see a long list of such possibilities – agricultural drones “which are more or less ready-made chemical biological weapons delivery systems” is another worrisome one – and experts fear that the advances in technology and affordability may outpace the capability to defend against them.

“The bottom line is we are going to have to completely rethink the way we defend against drone armies – on land, air, sea, and undersea,” said Cipher Brief expert and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove. “And I think we have a ways to go. ”

Fears of “World War III” are raised all too often these days, in different contexts and involving different parts of the world. Our list of global threats includes three scenarios that have surfaced under that heading.

In the Mideast version, the events play out like this: Iran and/or its proxy armies are joined in war against the U.S. and Israel; Russia takes the side of Iran, returning the favor of Iranian support in Ukraine; global terror threats and attacks follow; the Gulf states and others are pulled in.

There’s a range of opinions on the likelihood of such a conflagration. Pessimists worry that Israel will strike harder than it has thus far against Iran, and that Iran – after only limited responses to date – will feel it must retaliate with greater force. Last week, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel now has “greater freedom of action in Iran than ever.” That sounded like a prescription for more Israeli attacks, and a possible escalatory spiral.

The more optimistic view? Israel has so degraded Iran’s proxy armies, and laid bare Iran’s own limitations in terms of air defense, that Iran may be unable (or unwilling) to climb what Cipher Brief expert Gen. Frank McKenzie, a former head of U.S. Central Command, has called the “escalation ladder” of conflict with Israel.

“Israel’s attacks…have undermined Iran’s entire regional security strategy to an extent that may not yet be appreciated,” Norman Roule, former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI, told us last week.

At the Cipher Brief Threat Conference, CIA Director William Burns warned of “the very real danger of a further regional escalation of conflict…the risk of a further escalation between Iran and Israel.” And in an interview last month, Gen. McKenzie argued that the much-feared “wider war” between Israel and Iran had already begun (and that was before Israel’s latest counterattack).

So – not “World War III” by any means, but still uncharted territory for the Middle East.

Nation-State Hacker Attacks on Critical Infrastructure

This nightmare gets less attention — much to the dismay of experts in the intelligence community who worry about it constantly. Cyber experts within the Cipher Brief community regularly sound the alarm: America’s critical infrastructure is at grave risk from hackers — some interested in ransom payments, others working for America’s adversaries — and the U.S. is unprepared to deal with the threat.

As Harry Coker, Jr., the White House National Cyber Director, put it at the Threat Conference, “We cannot lose sight of the fact that critical infrastructure is under steady attack.”

The problem, in a nutshell: because the nation’s water supply and electrical grid and other key infrastructure systems are decentralized, and only as secure as their weakest links, they are all prime targets for cyber attacks. And America’s adversaries are taking advantage.

Of particular concern: cyber criminals tied to China who have probed and occasionally breached American infrastructure – often in remote, poorly-protected areas. The fear is that these probes are meant to give China the ability, in the event of a future U.S.-China conflict, to cause havoc for millions of Americans.

Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a Cipher Brief expert and former Executive Director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, believes the nation’s water supply is at greatest risk.

“It combines this perfect storm of ‘not ready,’” he said, adding that recent research showed water supply systems lacked proper security, infrastructure, and public-private collaboration. “All three elements were missing,” Montgomery said. “It’s extremely vulnerable.”

There are dozens of other potential nightmares in this space, and a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assessment suggested more were on the way.

“Domestic and foreign adversaries almost certainly will continue to threaten the integrity of our critical infrastructure with disruptive and destructive cyber and physical attacks,” the DHS said, “because they perceive targeting these sectors will have cascading impacts on U.S. industries and our standard of living.”

This threat is perhaps best measured by the number of experts and newly-minted organizations working to mitigate the danger. That danger is simple and profound: AI can now mimic legitimate sources of information, and U.S. adversaries will use that ability to spew disinformation and sow discord among Americans.

Last month, National Intelligence Council Acting Chair Michael Collins told The Cipher Brief that of all the issues that cross his desk, AI-driven disinformation is “the one that bothers me the most. Because at its core, what we’re talking about is the ability of an adversary to tell a different story without the same degree of accountability or standards controlling what their approach is to the truth – or the lack thereof.”

Among the scenarios: a fake video purports to show a political candidate saying something offensive to the electorate; an AI-created statement spreads false information about an act of terrorism; a replica of a trusted news organization spreads a conspiracy theory. The list is long. And many such “scenarios” are already happening.

Ellen McCarthy, a Cipher Brief expert and former Assistant Secretary of State who now runs the Trust in Media Cooperative, has argued for information standards – just as food and medicine are labeled and certified – to help mitigate the threat.

“We need to prove that if people understand what’s in the information they’re consuming, they will make different choices,” McCarthy said.

That’s the hope. The danger – given the fast pace of AI growth and all those who use it to spread disinformation – is that the good guys face an uphill climb.

The latest DHS Threat Assessment warned that “China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, undeclared, criminal, and coercive tactics to seek new opportunities to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and domestic social cohesion. Advances in AI likely will enable foreign adversaries to increase the output, timeliness, and perceived authenticity of their mis-, dis-, and malinformation designed to influence US audiences.”

This may be the most distant threat on this list – but if and when it happens, a full-blown conflict over Taiwan would be an unprecedented nightmare. More accurately, multiple nightmares: horrors for the region; a potential U.S.-China conflict; and — given Taiwan’s role as the world’s premier manufacturer of microchips – a nightmare for the global economy as well.

“The sense on timing, given what [China’s leader] Xi Jinping is saying to his people and what he’s doing to prepare his forces and to insulate his economy…is that something is likely within single-digit years,” Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told The Cipher Brief. “There’s a deep concern and it’s resulting in a lot of preparations.”

The reunification of Taiwan with mainland China has been a core tenet for Beijing since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, and Xi has suggested he may use force to make it happen. In May, China dropped language from a government paper referencing “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and following the inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who is viewed by Beijing as a separatist, China launched “punishment” military drills near Taiwan. It has since held regular exercises to plan for either an invasion or blockade of the island.

The Chinese government increased its defense spending by 7.2% this year, part of a military buildup and modernization that are widely seen as preparation should Xi order an assault against Taiwan.

Bottom line: this isn’t a Day-One crisis for the next U.S. president, but it may well surface during his/her term.

This threat has made few headlines, but it certainly belongs on this list. Biosecurity experts are worried that governments haven’t done enough to limit the risk of terrorists using AI models to create biological weapons.

It’s a classic example of the tug between the good and the frightening potential of AI: on the one hand, AI holds life-changing potential when it comes to helping scientists develop new medicines and vaccines; at the same time, it may be a tool for would-be bioterrorists.

At the Threat Conference, Jennifer Ewbank, a former CIA Deputy Director for Digital Innovation, said she was “very concerned about the application of AI in biological weapons by unsavory actors.” While “everyone wants to talk” about AI and the nuclear threat, Ewbank said, the barriers to creating a bioweapon were much lower. “The ability to either jailbreak a model, or leverage an open source model in a manipulative way to understand how to create bespoke bio weapons – that is a real and genuine threat.”

A recent report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security warned that in the near future, AI models may “greatly accelerate or simplify the reintroduction of dangerous extinct viruses or dangerous viruses that only exist now within research labs.”

Thomas Inglesby, the Hopkins center’s director, told The Cipher Brief that the U.S. and other countries must create systems and guardrails against the danger.

“The concern is that these [AI] models will simplify, enable and lower the barriers toward creating very high-consequence biological constructs,” Inglesby said. “And whether that then results in accidents or deliberate misuse, that could lead to very, wide-ranging biological events – epidemics, even pandemics. That’s the concern.”

What if the worriers are right? What if Vladimir Putin, backed into a corner, with no possible route to victory, actually does resort to the tactical nuclear option? Or to an attack against NATO nations?

On the one hand, it’s a highly unlikely scenario at the moment, given recent Russian battlefield gains. And experts note that these would likely be suicidal options for Putin.

“The Ukrainians have crossed every red line that the Russians have put down,” former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus told The Cipher Brief. “I think the threat has proven to be hollow, and is still hollow.”

But losing the current war might also be suicidal for Putin, in a different way. And as Julia Davis, the creator of Russian Media Monitor, told The Cipher Brief, Kremlin-friendly propagandists have repeatedly urged Putin to use the nuclear option against Ukraine.

“They don’t actually believe that the Russian government is insane enough to start using nuclear weapons against the West,” Davis said. “However, they do believe that the Russian government might use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine if things look like they’re losing.”

“Right now I think nobody a hundred percent dismisses those threats that are coming from Putin, or some of his ‘red lines,’” Dave Pitts, a former Assistant Director of CIA for South and Central Asia, told The Cipher Brief.

And while CIA Director Burns told the Threat Conference that he doubted Putin would choose the nuclear option, he added that “Russia is the only other nuclear power in the world today, at least comparable to the United States. So we can’t take [Putin’s threats] that lightly.”

In every recent U.S. presidential transition, North Korea has ranked high on the list of global threats passed on to the incoming administration. Now North Korea is back in the headlines – for a new reason.

North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to Russia has stunned policymakers and experts around the world – even those who were already sounding the alarm over the North’s military aid to Moscow.

Various intelligence agencies say between 8,000-12,000 soldiers from the North have been sent to the fight. It’s the first time a third country’s forces have been deployed in the nearly three-year-old war, and their appearance in Russia’s Kursk region – where Ukrainian troops have seized 400 square miles of territory – came in the same week that North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time this year.

Cipher Brief expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA director of East Asia Operations, worries that the Moscow-Pyongyang partnership carries consequences well beyond the Ukraine war. In his view, “North Korea’s enhanced allied relationship with Russia, and leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send troops to aid Russia in its war of aggression in Ukraine, could be the prelude to war on the Korean Peninsula.”

At last month’s Threat Conference – before the North Korean deployment was public – CIA Director Burns told us that in the past year, “one of the more troubling developments has been the strengthening of the defense partnership between North Korea and Russia, with the North Koreans supplying significant quantities of artillery munitions for Russia, desperately needed by the Russians on the battlefield. Short-range ballistic missiles as well. And of course the challenge is, this is a two-way street, because the North Koreans benefit as well from this, something we watch very carefully.”

While Cipher Brief experts and U.S. officials give varying weight to different global threats, they regularly bring the conversation back to the home-grown variety.

The DHS has warned repeatedly of threats from within, most recently of “terrorism…fueled by potential extremist responses to the November election, and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. Lone wolves and small groups represent the greatest menace.”

Vickers, the former Under Secretary of Defense, says that for all the global dangers, his greatest worry involves divisions and potential violence on the home front.

“The thing I’m most concerned about is really the domestic basis of American power,” Vickers said. “Our political fragmentation, our social divisions, the receptiveness we seem to have for disinformation and fake news.”Already there have been two attempts made on one presidential candidate’s life; the nation is less than four years removed from the attempted insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021; and by almost any assessment, the nation is more polarized now than it was then.

~

Forensic technicians work at the site of a car bomb attack in downtown Jerécuaro, Guanajuato state, Mexico, October 24, 2024.Ivan Arias (REUTERS)

In the state of Guerrero, the mayor of Chilpancingo was decapitated. In Sinaloa, a truck was discovered with at least five bodies along with the ominous message “Welcome to Culiacán.” And now Guanajuato has been shaken by two explosions. Police in the city of Acámbaro reported a car bomb attack outside their offices, resulting in at least three officers injured, seven vehicles burned, and extensive property damage early Thursday morning. Just hours earlier, in the city of Jerécuaro, located just 20 miles away, another attack was reported: a car exploded and several others were set on fire, including a patrol car. No deaths were reported.

Guanajuato is the Mexican state with the highest number of intentional homicides, with 1,863 open murder investigations this year, according to official data. The state is grappling to understand these brutal events, as no criminal organization has claimed responsibility. The new governor, who took office less than a month ago, is seeking answers. “The events that occurred in Acámbaro and Jerécuaro will not stop our efforts to restore peace to Guanajuato,” said Libia Dennise García Muñoz Ledo, who was inaugurated as state governor on September 26. In response to the violence, she announced a coordinated land and air operation to apprehend those responsible, and suspended her public agenda to address the emergency.

“This new wave is a result of changes in the government,” says analyst David Saucedo, who attributes the attacks to the onset of a new political cycle. He argues that the reshuffling within the state government has led to an “attitude of resignation” among outgoing officials, coinciding with criminal groups’ intent to send a “strong message” to incoming leaders.

“The criminal organizations in the area are trying to dominate local governments, and if there is any resistance or opposition, they will resort to acts of narcoterrorism to undermine their credibility in public opinion,” he explains. Saucedo firmly believes that the attacks fall within the realm of narcoterrorism, as they aim to instill fear in the population and compel authorities to submit to organized crime. However, other experts are hesitant to classify the explosions in Jerécuaro and Acámbaro as acts of terrorism. The classic definition of terrorism involves using violence to achieve political or religious objectives. Víctor Hernández, a researcher at the Tec de Monterrey University, argues that this definition may not apply in this case, as the intent behind the attacks remains unclear. “If the Sinaloa Cartel or the Jalisco Cartel were attempting to take control of the Mexican state and replace it, we could discuss narcoterrorism. The reality is that organized crime is primarily interested in having the government in its pocket,” he contends. This debate extends beyond academic circles; during the U.S. election campaign, ultra-conservative factions of the Republican Party, along with those close to Donald Trump, are advocating for cartels to be classified as terrorist organizations to justify U.S. military interventions in Mexico. “We must be cautious with labels,” warns Saucedo. The discussion has also infiltrated Mexican politics: while the National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have called these attacks and others as “acts of terrorism,” the left-wing Morena party tends to downplay the incidents of violence, accusing the media and opposition of “exaggerating.”

The fracture within the Sinaloa Cartel has drawn significant media attention during the final stretch of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration and the beginning of the Sheinbaum government. However, official figures updated at the end of September reveal that Guanajuato has experienced more than double the number of homicides compared to Sinaloa in 2024. The ongoing conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel has unleashed a wave of violence across the state. In the past week alone, three women were shot in Celaya, human remains were discovered in Yuriria, a shooting in Acámbaro left six wounded, and an intentional fire broke out at the Villagrán garbage dump. Analyst David Saucedo hypothesizes that the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel is behind these attacks, as both municipalities are considered areas of influence for that group, and the modus operandi aligns with their tactics. “Explosives are their hallmark,” he explains. In January 2019, at the start of López Obrador’s offensive against huachicol (fuel theft), the cartel abandoned a van laden with explosives outside a refinery in the city of Salamanca, which was later deactivated. In 2020, there were further warnings, including a car bomb left outside the refinery that failed to detonate and another explosion outside a National Guard base in Celaya that resulted in no injuries. In 2021, two individuals delivered a “gift bomb” to restaurant owners in Salamanca, resulting in two deaths and five injuries. In 2022, two police officers were ambushed with remote-controlled explosives in Irapuato, and in June of last year, 10 National Guard agents were injured in a car bomb explosion in a rural community in Celaya. The attacks in Jerécuaro and Acámbaro were not isolated incidents. In the absence of an official account of the recent attacks, Saucedo notes that explosives are typically employed by Santa Rosa de Lima to demand payment for protection money, weaken the operational capacity of security forces, divert attention from authorities, or to assert control. “There is no other criminal group in the region that has the capacity, expertise, or history in handling explosives,” he concludes. Conversely, analyst Víctor Hernández suggests that the tactical use of explosives may point to the Jalisco Cartel, describing it as “a violent, bloodthirsty, and predatory cartel of the local economy.” Authorities have yet to release initial findings from their investigations. It is also possible that each group may attempt to incriminate its rivals to draw law enforcement attention. Guanajuato remains a battleground rife with uncertainty.

The use of bombs and drones has also spread to other violent hotspots across Mexico. In Michoacán, the Jalisco Cartel has been reported to employ antipersonnel mines in rural areas, and just two weeks ago, there was a bomb threat at a shopping center in Morelia, the state capital. Last week, a homemade bomb was deactivated in Sinaloa amid ongoing disputes between Los Mayos and Los Chapitos. At the end of last year, the Ministry of National Defense reported the seizure of 33 drones in eight different states since 2019, with more than half recovered in Michoacán, followed closely by Guanajuato.

Hernández points out that the Sinaloa Cartel has formed pragmatic alliances with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel to launch incursions into Guanajuato and combat their common enemy, the Jalisco Cartel. He compares incidents like the drone attack in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, to scenes witnessed during the invasion of Ukraine. Two months ago, three drug factories producing homemade and artisanal explosives were discovered in Michoacán, along with several mortars. Perhaps the most notorious precedent for such an attack on civilians occurred 16 years ago during the Independence Day celebrations in Morelia, where at least eight people died from a coordinated grenade assault. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, known as “El Marro,” was arrested in August 2020 after six years leading the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, marking one of the most publicized victories of López Obrador’s administration against organized crime. But Hernández says that while authorities promised that the arrest would put an end to the violence, this has not happened, arguing the situation in Guanajuato is an example of how the strategy of arresting high-profile leaders has failed. “They do not reduce violence; in fact, they often exacerbate it in the medium term,” he says. Regarding the recent attacks, he adds: “While it is complex and requires technical skill to assemble a car bomb, it did not have the capability to destroy the police station or cause a massacre. It has more of a psychological impact than a real one.” Saucedo is also skeptical about the effectiveness of the government’s strategy against crime, questioning whether there will truly be a shift under the leadership of Guanajuato’s first female governor and Mexico’s first female president. “The narrative of drug trafficking is more powerful than the government narrative. We only see plans and ideas from the authorities, while drug traffickers fight with blood and fire,” he concludes.

Korean Drone Provocation Tied to Russo-Ukraine War

An interesting thesis.

Drones from North Korea – A Provocation and Violation of Airspace

Here are my thoughts on the alleged drone incursion. I also think we should consider the ease of which deep fake photos can be created and it would not be hard for the north to simply acquire a South Korean made drone (it probably already has) and bring it to Pyongyang for a photo op.

This image, released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 11, 2024, shows a purported drone (in large circle) and a pack of leaflets (in small circle) that Pyongyang claims were sent by South Korea. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

There should be no doubt that South Korea has the advanced capabilities to penetrate north Korea air space to conduct intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance operations as well as targeting against north Korea, to include in Pyongyang. South Korea can hold the entire northern territory at risk with its advanced military capabilities and can attack any target.

That said, I doubt the veracity of this reporting by north Korea. I think alliance spaced based capabilities can provide sufficient ISR to support the intelligence needs of the ROK and US without conducting a hostile act that such a drone penetration during armistice would be perceived.

In this instance north Korea is likely conducting its routine political warfare activities which are focused on undermining the legitimacy of the ROK and dividing the ROK/US alliance. The north is likely trying to drive the UN Command to conduct an investigation to criticize the South and creating friction within the alliance.  In addition, this activity also is important for addressing Kim’s major weakness, international instability and resistance among the Korean people in the north. He must create the perception of a threat from the South and the ROK/US alliance to justify the sacrifice and suffering of the Korean people and to provide the ideological suppression of resistance in addition to the physical suppression and brutal treatment of the Korean people by his security forces.

Defense/Security

Korean Drone Provocation Tied to Russo-Ukraine War

Tension escalates again along the DMZ

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/korea-drone-provocation-tied-russia-ukraine-war?utm

Oct 24, 2024

By: Andy Wong Ming Jun

Korean Peninsula tension is reaching new highs with back-to-back flashpoint news over the past week between the two nations. The first incident of North Korea reporting alleged South Korean drone overflights over its capital city Pyongyang, later backed by the alleged discovery of one such crashed drone’s remains, was swiftly followed by South Korean intelligence delivering its most concrete warning yet of North Korean troops being sent to fight alongside Russian forces in its ongoing war against Ukraine, and facial recognition evidence of a North Korean missile engineer attending a Russian missile launch on the Eastern Ukraine frontline.

South Korea has since indicated that it might revise its current policy of not providing direct military aid to Ukraine should North Korean troops continue to be sent to fight on behalf of Russia there. All signs indicate that the long-simmering frozen conflict on the peninsula is increasingly being influenced by the Russo-Ukraine War half a world away in Eastern Europe as a fresh proxy theater threatening to further destabilize the security balance in Northeast Asia.

The influence of the Russian-Ukrainian War on the political and military dynamics of the peninsula has long predated recent events. While South Korea under the current Yoon administration officially has a policy in place banning the direct provision of homegrown lethal weapons to warring nations abroad, since 2023 the US has tapped South Korean ammunition factories to produce 300,000 155-millimeter artillery shells which have either been directly donated to Ukraine afterwards or been used to replenish NATO artillery ammunition stocks depleted from keeping Ukraine’s burgeoning batteries of Western-donated tube artillery firing against Russian targets.

Direct South Korean military aid to Ukraine has thus far been restricted to non-lethal items such as military trucks, mine-clearing equipment and protective body armor. Such a policy has been in place ostensibly to deny any overt casus belli for Russia to provide North Korea with military technology assistance, an outcome which has nevertheless occurred in the face of South Korean restraint.

At the same time, Russia has been actively seeking similar ammunition replenishment from North Korea to keep its tube and rocket artillery crucial to its strategy firing, with 70 shipments of munitions including missiles, anti-tank rockets, and most significantly some 8 million artillery shells of Russian 152 and 122-millimeter calibers estimated to have been sent since August 2023 to the present. It is strongly suspected that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has chosen to embark on a cynical and opportunistic strategy of leveraging on Russian desperation for artillery ammunition and potentially even armed manpower to turbocharge North Korea’s military modernization in the face of the ever-widening military technological gap against South Korea and the US. At the relatively cheap cost of supplying rocket and artillery shells which has a huge quantity in surplus even if questionable in quality, North Korea in return receives not only much-needed food aid from Russia but more significantly military technological transfers as well as Russian political patronage at the UN.

The immediate reactions from both North and South Korea towards the latest accusations of South Korean drone overflights over Pyongyang can however be described as kabuki theatre. According to a well-placed source within South Korea’s defense establishment who spoke to Asia Sentinel on condition of anonymity, the two general South Korean responses have been skeptical towards North Korea’s accusations, yet there is also uncertainty about whether there is a potential South Korean renegade element or external agent provocateur seeking to escalate North-South tensions with a false-flag drone overflight using drones of South Korean manufacture origin.

According to this source, neither North nor South Korea has much to gain from either presenting full incontrovertible evidence proving that the drone was indeed built and operated by the South Korean government or military-sanctioned elements, or even giving any clear signals of denying or accepting full responsibility for the claimed drone overflights. Indeed, while North Korea has loudly protested these “South Korean” drones flying over its capital city, it has been silent on where it suspects the drones flew from. With the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea along the 38^th Parallel one of the most closely-monitored areas of the world, it is highly unlikely that such drone overflights would have happened unnoticed by either side, especially when North Korea has detected balloon propaganda leaflet overflights across this area in the past.

Although North Korea has publicly accused a South Korean company called “Sungwoo Engineering” of having manufactured the drones, based on the few public photos of one such drone’s crashed remains which bear superficial similarity to the company’s “SD-BAT” model, it has not produced any pictures of any drone components that bear the company’s identification numbers or markings. For its part, Sungwoo has kept silent, choosing to neither confirm nor deny the provenance of the drones. According to the anonymous source, while such drones are not easily bought or operated by amateurs due to their size and price tag, it is still entirely possible for them to be bought by private individuals or entities without needing official South Korean government sanction before being flown across North Korea’s northern border with China or even from the South via a coastal sea route over the Yellow Sea and then doglegging it over Pyongyang.

Regardless, North Korea’s loud protestation about the overflights doesn’t portray a position of strength for Kim Jong Un. In effect, Kim has admitted that his air defense network is able to be compromised without detection. And while there are some in the South Korean government and military establishment who are more than happy to indulge in a little schadenfreude over this drone incident, there are others who believe it is merely a North Korean false-flag operation used to invent a justification for expanded North Korean military support towards Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Links for your interests:

• https://www.asiasentinel.com/s/defensesecurity/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=menu

• https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/korea-drone-provocation-tied-russia-ukraine-war?utm

• https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241015000551315

• https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-south-drones-pyongyang-leaflets-c4e618792ee487715098c7aa271c4b34

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vkqwe9wwdo

• https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-news-could-follow-north-russia-ukraine-war-1972082

• https://www.kyivpost.com/post/40871

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/21/north-korean-troops-russia-ukrainehttps://www.38north.org/2024/06/north-koreas-flawed-but-winning-strategy-in-ukraine/

 North Korea has joined Putin’s war effort. A timid West must respond by Mick Ryan

The world is finally taking notice of north Korea. Yes, finally. (But for how long – will it fade from the limelight soon enough as we shift focus to other threats? Funny how that works.

Is north Korea giving us the wake up that we need to understand this paragraph?

Excerpt:

There is also a significant geostrategic impact from the North Korean deployment. The authoritarian quad of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea has been waging an information, influence and economic war on Western nations, and the post-World War II international system, for some time. The speeches of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are replete with references to their war against NATO and the West. But this North Korean deployment to Ukraine is an escalation in the confrontation between the forces of authoritarianism and the democracies of Europe, Asia and North America.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (Center-R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) walk past children attending a welcoming ceremony at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on June 19, 2024. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Vladimir Smirnov / POOL / AFP)

North Korea has joined Putin’s war effort. A timid West must respond

North Korea’s Out-of-Theatre Deployment

The deployment of North Korean forces to Ukraine has geostrategic ramifications.

The Sydney Morning Herald · by Mick Ryan · October 24, 2024

October 25, 2024 — 9.51am

In the past 24 hours, the US administration has verified that North Korea is deploying troops to Russia, with the possibility of them fighting in their war against Ukraine. Ukrainian and South Korean government sources have previously reported that at least 1500 North Korean troops, and possibly up to 10,000, are part of this initial deployment.

The mission of the North Koreans remains a mystery. They could be used in occupation duties behind the front lines in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Alternatively, the North Koreans could be used as front-line troops in the eastern offensive by Russian ground forces, or part of Russia’s campaign to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk. Given the recently signed Russia-North Korea defence pact, Kursk seems like a logical destination for the North Koreans.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un raises a toast with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Credit: North Korean government/AP

They are likely to be a logistical burden for the Russians and there will be cultural, doctrinal and tactical challenges with the integration of the North Koreans into Russian ground formations. Given the size of the North Korean contingent, they are unlikely to have a decisive impact on the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. Russia is currently suffering around 1200 casualties a day in Ukraine. The North Koreans represent about a week’s human expenditure by Russia.

North Korea, which already supplies rockets and artillery munitions to the Russian war effort, has much to gain from becoming a co-belligerent in the war against Ukraine. Politically, it ensures it has a grateful “fellow traveller” in Russia. Additionally, Russia may provide an array of financial incentives for North Korea’s troop deployment. It is likely to share with North Korea many of the new tactics and technologies developed for the war, as well as intelligence on captured Western equipment. Less likely, but still possible, the Russians could share technology to enhance the capacity of North Korea’s nuclear weapon delivery systems.

Regardless, this deployment will help North Korea undergo a rapid transformation and modernisation of its military forces. This will be a destabilising influence for the Korean peninsula and the Pacific region.

There is also a significant geostrategic impact from the North Korean deployment. The authoritarian quad of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea has been waging an information, influence and economic war on Western nations, and the post-World War II international system, for some time. The speeches of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are replete with references to their war against NATO and the West. But this North Korean deployment to Ukraine is an escalation in the confrontation between the forces of authoritarianism and the democracies of Europe, Asia and North America.

NATO, and the US administration, have sought to shy away from that confrontation for the past decade. While some of the rhetoric around competing with China has evolved, the unwillingness of the US and other nations to call out Putin’s bluffs on escalation in Ukraine (and in Europe, too, with his ongoing sabotage campaign) means that authoritarian leaders now believe they can undertake a broader range of military aggression with impunity.

When this authoritarian coercive behaviour has been called out by Western political leaders, there is an immediate response from the massive propaganda agencies of Russia and China denouncing “Western aggression”. One of the favourite rejoinders from China, in particular, is that the West is engaging in Cold War thinking.

Chinese dictator Xi has used this term frequently, and for good reason. He understands, better than most Western leaders, that their return to the kind of successful thinking and strategy that won them the Cold War would be bad for China. Cold War thinking saw Russia contained, and the international flows of technology and finance were steered away from it (and China) by a large coalition of like-minded nations over several decades. The Chinese leader knows that if the West were to return to Cold War thinking, his nation’s ascent would be stymied and potentially reversed.

This is the geopolitical context of the North Korean deployment. It is as much about stepping up the confrontation with Western nations as it is about North Korea gaining intelligence and foreign currency from Russia, and the modernisation of its military.

What might be the response of the US administration and NATO? So far, there has been the equivalent of a strategic shoulder shrug from the American and NATO leadership. The US administration, never a rapid or decisive actor during this war in Ukraine, has essentially issued a “wait and see” holding statement. NATO, reliant on consensus decision-making, appears to lack the will or capability to respond to the North Korean provocation.

With this kind of slow, risk-averse political leadership, it is little wonder that authoritarian leaders such as Putin, Xi and Kim believe the “East is rising and the West is declining” and have decided to act to hasten that process. By adopting an “avoid World War III” strategy, the Biden administration has appeased rather than resisted authoritarian aggression – and may well have made it more likely.

Mick Ryan is a retired major general who served in the ADF for more than 35 years and was commander of the Australia Defence College. He is the author of War Transformed and an adjunct fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

· President Yoon Seok-yeol speaks on the phone with Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

• Discussing measures to respond to illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, including the North Korean military's dispatch of troops to Russia -
• Confirmation of firm commitment at the highest level to strengthen Korea-NATO cooperation -

President Yoon Seok-yeol had a phone call today (October 21, Monday) at the request of Mark Rutte, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and shared information about the deployment of North Korean combat troops to Russia. and discussed future response plans.

On the phone, the President congratulated Secretary-General Luther on his inauguration (October 1) and expressed hope that Korea and NATO will continue to work closely together in the future so that they can contribute to the security of the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic.

The President explained that North Korea has gone beyond supporting large-scale weapons of destruction to Russia and has gone so far as to send elite troops, and that our intelligence authorities have recently confirmed that about 1,500 North Korean special forces have been dispatched to Russia and are receiving adaptation training. .

The President said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's reckless military closeness reaffirms that the security of the Inter-Pacific region and the Atlantic region are inextricably linked, while at the same time fundamentally shaking the rules-based international order and threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the world. , our government said it would never sit idly by.

The President said that our government will closely monitor trends in Russia and North Korea and actively take step-by-step measures in accordance with the progress of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, and that he hopes to explore practical countermeasures with NATO and NATO member countries in the process. .

Secretary-General Luther expressed serious concern about North Korea's deployment of troops to Russia, which directly violates international law and UN Security Council resolutions, and expressed NATO's readiness to actively cooperate with the Republic of Korea to respond to Russian-North Korean military cooperation that threatens international peace and security. He emphasized that there is. In addition, Secretary-General Luther requested that the Korean government send a delegation to NATO to share more detailed information, and hoped that defense industry cooperation and security dialogue between Korea, Ukraine and NATO will be strengthened to respond to North Korea's troop dispatch to Russia in the future.

In response, the President said he would quickly dispatch a delegation to share information and take steps to revitalize security cooperation between Korea, Ukraine, and NATO. Regarding the President's statement that he hoped that our process of joining the NATO Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System (BICES) would proceed quickly so that Korea and NATO could communicate in real time and share information safely and efficiently. , Secretary General Luther responded that he would actively take care to ensure that progress is made quickly.

The two sides agreed to closely monitor trends in illegal cooperation between Russia and North Korea, including the possibility of Russia's transfer of sensitive technology, and review effective joint responses to this.

 Is the Free World Already at War with Russia? – NEIL BARNETT: We're already at war with Russia

I have pasted Neil Barnett's Daily Mail article below this one.

Excerpts:

Neil Barnett’s assertion that we are already at war with Russia is a sobering wake-up call. This is not a war fought with traditional means, but it is no less dangerous. Russia’s strategy of hybrid warfare has allowed it to weaken its adversaries from within, attacking the very institutions that define Western democracies.

The West must recognise the reality of this conflict and respond accordingly, or risk being continually undermined by a rival that is playing by an entirely different set of rules.

The first step in combating this threat is acknowledging its existence. Only by understanding the nature of Russia’s tactics can the West hope to defend itself and preserve the values and institutions that have defined it for generations. The time to wake up is now.

Again: Recognize the enemy's strategy (in this case its political warfare strategy), Understand the strategy. EXPOSE the strategy (to inoculate the American people against it) and then attack the strategy with a superior political warfare strategy to defeat it. Recognize. Understand . EXPOSE. Attack.

Is the Free World Already at War with Russia? –

eutoday.net · by gary cartwright · October 24, 2024

53

In the wake of global political shifts, economic turmoil, and the rise of hybrid warfare, it is becoming increasingly clear that the free world – the West in particular – is in a state of conflict with Russia, according to expert Neil Barnett, writing in the Daily Mail.

However, the nature of this war is so unconventional that many haven’t yet fully grasped the reality of it. The battlefields are not defined by soldiers clashing in open fields, but rather by cyberattacks, misinformation campaigns, energy dependency, and geopolitical chess games that stretch across borders.

This isn’t a new revelation. For years, experts like Neil Barnett have argued that the West, particularly Europe and the United States, are engaged in an undeclared war with Russia—a conflict that has unfolded through covert operations, political subversion, and strategic alliances.

The title of Barnett’s piece, “We’re already at war with Russia… we just haven’t woken up to it yet,” captures the essence of this slow realisation.

The Shadow War

What Barnett and many other geopolitical commentators are referring to is often called “hybrid warfare,” a concept that Russia has mastered under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.

Unlike conventional warfare, hybrid warfare blends military force with non-military tactics, including cyberattacks, economic warfare, and information manipulation. These methods allow Russia to exert influence and destabilise adversaries without officially declaring war.

One clear example of Russia’s hybrid warfare is its involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

U.S. intelligence agencies have confirmed that Russian operatives were behind a sophisticated misinformation campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and sowing division among Americans. Social media platforms were flooded with false information, polarising topics, and fake accounts, all designed to erode trust in the democratic process.

This tactic wasn’t new; it was an extension of Russia’s decades-long use of “active measures,” a Soviet-era strategy to influence the politics of rival nations without engaging in direct combat.

In Europe, similar tactics have been deployed. Russia has been accused of backing extremist political parties, stoking tensions in countries such as Hungary, France, and Germany. Its cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine, as well as interference in elections across Europe, have furthered the notion that Russia is waging an unconventional war against the West.

Energy as a Weapon

Another front in this war is energy. Russia’s vast reserves of natural gas and oil give it enormous power over Europe, which relies heavily on these resources for heating and electricity.

The Nord Stream pipelines, which carry gas from Russia to Germany, have been at the centre of this geopolitical struggle. By controlling the flow of energy, Russia can manipulate the economies of European nations and punish those that oppose its political agenda.

In the winter of 2009, for example, Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in the midst of a pricing dispute, leaving much of Eastern Europe in the cold.

It was a stark reminder of the Kremlin’s willingness to use energy as a geopolitical weapon. As tensions between Russia and the West continue to escalate, concerns about energy security have only grown.

The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 intensified these concerns, with Europe scrambling to reduce its dependency on Russian energy supplies in response to Moscow’s aggression.

The Importance of Cyberwarfare

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of Russia’s strategy is its use of cyberwarfare. As Barnett suggests, Russia is engaged in constant cyberattacks against Western nations, attacking financial institutions, government systems, and critical infrastructure.

In 2020, Russia was accused of orchestrating the SolarWinds hack, a massive cyber espionage campaign that targeted U.S. federal agencies and major corporations. The hack was one of the most significant cyberattacks in history, compromising sensitive data and raising alarms about the vulnerability of Western cyber defences.

Cyberattacks have the unique advantage of being difficult to attribute and often operate in the shadows, making retaliation more complex. By attacking through digital means, Russia can inflict significant damage on its adversaries without risking direct military confrontation. This form of warfare blurs the lines between peace and war, creating a murky battlefield where both sides are constantly on edge but reluctant to escalate to open conflict.

Western Naivety

A central theme of Barnett’s argument is the West’s failure to fully acknowledge the extent of this conflict. Western nations, particularly in Europe, have been slow to respond to Russia’s aggression, often underestimating the threat posed by hybrid warfare.

Part of this reluctance comes from a desire to maintain economic and political stability, especially in regions that are heavily dependent on Russian energy or have significant trade relationships with the Kremlin.

However, as Barnett points out, this complacency has only emboldened Russia. By not recognising the true nature of the conflict, the West has allowed Russia to operate in a grey zone, where it can continue its campaigns of disinformation, cyberattacks, and political manipulation without facing significant consequences.

The lack of a coordinated and robust response has left Western democracies vulnerable, allowing Russia to expand its influence and undermine the political and economic foundations of its rivals.

Waking Up to Reality

Neil Barnett’s assertion that we are already at war with Russia is a sobering wake-up call. This is not a war fought with traditional means, but it is no less dangerous. Russia’s strategy of hybrid warfare has allowed it to weaken its adversaries from within, attacking the very institutions that define Western democracies.

The West must recognise the reality of this conflict and respond accordingly, or risk being continually undermined by a rival that is playing by an entirely different set of rules.

The first step in combating this threat is acknowledging its existence. Only by understanding the nature of Russia’s tactics can the West hope to defend itself and preserve the values and institutions that have defined it for generations. The time to wake up is now.

Click here for more News & Current Affairs at EU Today

cyberattacksDaily Mailgeopolitical instabilityNeil BarnettPutin's WarRussia

eutoday.net · by gary cartwright · October 24, 2024

NEIL BARNETT: We're already at war with Russia

Daily Mail · by Neil Barnett For The Daily Mail · October 23, 2024

We're at war with Russia – we just haven't woken up to it yet.

Enraged by the West's support for Ukraine in its struggle against Moscow's invasion, the Kremlin has embarked on a campaign of sabotage and disruption against Kyiv's European allies. And that includes us.

Only last week it emerged that a fire at a Birmingham warehouse in July is believed to have been caused by an incendiary device planted by Russian spies.

This revelation came just days after the head of MI5, Ken McCullum, warned that Russia's intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate 'sustained mayhem on British and European streets'.

Delivering his annual update on security threats faced by the UK, Mr McCallum said GRU agents had carried out 'arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness' in Britain.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is using its extensive repertoire of dirty tricks to further its imperial ambitions in eastern Europe by interfering in this month's elections in Moldova and Georgia, and calling on its allies to help out in Ukraine.

You might think that our Government would respond to Putin's increasingly bellicose actions with some sabre-rattling of its own. Far from it.

The Kremlin is using its repertoire of dirty tricks to further its imperial ambitions in eastern Europe by interfering in elections. Pictured, Vladmir Putin and long-time ally Dmitry Medvedev

The UK is spending the same proportion of its national income on defence as it was in the early 1930s, while the Army is smaller than it has been at any time in the last 200 years.

With the Budget coming up on October 30, the Government should declare defence its number-one priority and drastically ramp up spending on security.

But we have not heard anything from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to indicate that she will do such a thing.

While Russia wouldn't be foolish enough to mount a military assault on Britain, or so naive as to think a nuclear strike would lead to anything but mutual destruction, it is quite prepared to carry out undercover operations on British soil.

And we have never been more vulnerable.

At the turn of the millennium, MI5 spent 20 per cent of its budget tackling what is known as 'hostile state activity' by countries such as Russia.

By 2009 that number was a miserly 3 per cent, as resources were diverted to fighting the so-called 'war on terror' against the Islamist threat.

Today it is likely to have returned to 20 per cent or more but the Security Service is still desperately trying to make up for lost time.

So just what are the myriad ways Russia is waging its hybrid war on Britain and our European allies – and what does the Kremlin hope to gain from such a prolonged proxy campaign?

One of Russia's most effective and dangerous assets is their network of sleeper agents around the world. These are Russian intelligence operatives deeply embedded in foreign countries, living under false identities.

Without a doubt, there are Russian sleeper agents – known as 'illegals' within the intelligence network – working in the UK, possibly in universities, laboratories and Government institutions.

A 2018 study by security think-tank the Henry Jackson Society, entitled 'Putin Sees and Hears it All: How Russia's Intelligence Agencies Menace the UK', claimed that the Russian dictator had bolstered the number of Russian spies operating in the UK five-fold over the previous eight years.

Russian sleeper agent Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, who posed as Brazilian academic José Assis Giammaria at the University of Tromso in Norway

At the time, the report's author Dr Andrew Foxall said 'Russia has as many as 200 case officers in the UK, handling upwards of 500 agents'.

(It's worth pointing out that, as the headcount at the Russian Embassy has been greatly reduced since 2022, the number of intelligence officers will have fallen too.)

Exactly two years ago, in October 2022, there was a rare arrest of an illegal in Norway.

José Assis Giammaria, apparently a Brazilian academic at the University of Tromso, was unmasked as a Russian called Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin.

One of the projects he was working on involved collaborating with the Norwegian government on security threats in 'Arctic Norway', primarily from Russia.

Illegals are typically engaged in espionage but some are also trained for sabotage and assassination.

As we saw with the murder of British citizen Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the more recent Salisbury poisonings in 2018, Russia is not afraid to commit murder on British territory.

And there have been attempts in Europe, too. In July it was reported that US intelligence had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of the German arms maker Rheinmetall, who was producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine.

A number of the most serious crimes perpetrated on foreign soil have been carried out by Russia's infamous GRU Unit 29155. It is believed to have been responsible for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016, cyber attacks against British institutions and a major explosion at a Czech munitions depot in 2014.

Russia's infamous GRU Unit 29155 is believed to have been responsible for the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, both pictured, in Salisbury

The poising of UK citizen Alexander Litvinenko, pictured shortly before his death in 2006, shows Russia is not afraid to commit murder on British territory

However, due to the advent of biometric passports, it is increasingly difficult to move fresh Russian operatives into the UK, which is why Russia has a new trick: hiring mercenaries from third countries to operate on their behalf. Six Bulgarian nationals – who as EU citizens have the right to free movement within the bloc – are currently awaiting trial in the UK accused of spying for Russia, for example.

One of the GRU's targets is believed to have been a warehouse in east London belonging to a company linked to Ukraine which caught fire in March as a result of a suspected arson attack. Seven men have been charged in connection with the incident.

But perhaps the greatest potential threat posed by Russia's shadow war is an attack on Europe's undersea cables.

These fibre-optic cables are responsible for transmitting the vast majority of modern-day digital communications, as well as an estimated $10trillion (£7.7trillion) in daily financial transactions.

In 2023 Putin's long-term ally, former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, announced that there was no longer anything 'to prevent us from destroying the ocean floor cable communications of our enemies'.

So great is the perceived threat to this undersea network that earlier this year six countries – including the UK and Germany – signed an agreement on further cooperation to protect infrastructure under the North Sea.

But not all of Moscow's targets are physical. Democracy, tolerance and the rule of law pose a far greater threat to Putin's dictatorship than guns or missiles.

Ahead of Sunday's presidential election in Europe's poorest country, Moldova, there were reports it was being plagued by Russian sabotage.

Sure enough, its pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu blamed an 'unprecedented assault on our country's freedom and democracy' by 'foreign forces' as the results came in.

In July it was reported that the US had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, boss of the German arms maker Rheinmetall, who was producing artillery shells for Ukraine

She failed to win an outright majority and now faces a run-off vote for the presidency on November 3, while a pivotal referendum on EU membership held the same day resulted in a victory by the slimmest of margins.

It is alleged that Russia spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying votes in Moldova, while also supporting the campaigns of pro-Kremlin candidates and even producing AI-generated deepfake videos that slandered their opponents.

Read More

Kremlin tries to discredit Moldova's referendum to join EU amid pro-West result

The fear now is that Moldova was a testing ground for Russian tactics and similar attempts will be made to sabotage other elections across the continent, including Saturday's poll in Georgia.

But no country is under greater threat than Ukraine. Russia's allies are becoming increasingly involved in the conflict, either by supplying munitions or cannon fodder.

The Kremlin is already understood to have deployed Chinese and Iranian drones in its offensive and, earlier this month, Ukraine's president Volodomyr Zelensky claimed that North Korea is preparing to send 10,000 troops to fight alongside Russians on the frontline.

Perhaps the biggest question now is: Why? From the annexation of Crimea to the invasion of Ukraine and now a hybrid war against the whole of Europe – what does the Kremlin really hope to achieve?

Russia talks about its fear of being encircled by Nato. But I don't believe this is their true concern. Moscow is more worried about the Russian masses being led astray by Western liberal ideas.

And every act of sabotage on British soil must be viewed as an attempt to divide and disorientate the British public and the institutions we believe in. Putin must never be allowed to succeed.

• Neil Barnett is the co-author of Russia's Hybrid War Against the UK: Time to Fight Back Against the Kremlin, published by the Henry Jackson Society

Daily Mail · by Neil Barnett For The Daily Mail · October 23, 2024

 Oversight Committee Releases Report Exposing the CCP’s Destructive Political Warfare and Influence Operations

Someone in the US government is not afraid to use “political warfare.” We should know that the best counter to our enemies' political warfare strategy is to execute our own superior political warfare strategy.

There is a 300 page report from the committee at this link: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CCP-Report-10.24.24.pdf

It is going to take me some time to wade through it. I hope there is some useful information in it. This is a majority staff report so it compliments Trump though I do not think he really understood this problem and it was his national security team (Pottinger and McMaster and Schadlow) who really understood the issues. But this should in no way be a partisan issue.

Excerpts from the EXSUM of the report.

The CCP’s fight against the United States relies on its deployment of unrestricted warfare and political warfare.3 In many ways, unrestricted warfare—and political warfare, a component thereof—is a prelude to larger, more direct conflicts, which the CCP anticipates. Through political warfare, the CCP seeks to establish footholds, dependencies, and both willing and unwitting allies that further its larger effort to weaken the United States. Myopic business decisions capitalizing on cheap labor sourced from the PRC, rosy narratives promulgated by government officials in exchange for PRC special treatment, and social tensions the CCP exploits are all CCP tools that make any U.S. effort to excise dependence on the PRC difficult and politically delicate.  

Former President Trump and administration officials spoke in a unified voice on the dangers posed by CCP infiltration and influence operations to show the American people the threat the CCP poses to every aspect of American life.4 For example, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned the American public in an op-ed entitled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1” that “the [PRC] poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.”5 These public statements and speeches were marked by strong action in the Trump Administration. However, the Oversight Committee’s investigation has revealed that too many of these efforts—especially transparent communication about the CCP threat—were not built upon by the Biden-Harris Administration.  

While CCP infiltration and influence operations target every sector and community in America, much of the federal government under the Biden-Harris Administration has failed to understand, acknowledge, and strategically combat CCP political warfare. Not one federal agency in this government-wide investigation demonstrated a sufficient strategy to confront CCP unrestricted warfare. Of the twenty-five agencies the Committee surveyed in this investigation, one transparently acknowledged CCP infiltration operations, elucidated a strategy to combat a piece of the Party’s campaign, and engaged in outreach to the American people about it. Unfortunately, this single example—the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), seeking to defeat CCP-backed chemical and drug warfare that fuels the fentanyl crisis6—is hindered in its efforts to protect Americans due to the failure of the Biden-Harris Administration to adopt any government-wide strategy.  

Published: Oct 24, 2024

Oversight Committee Releases Report Exposing the CCP’s Destructive Political Warfare and Influence Operations

https://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-releases-report-exposing-the-ccps-destructive-political-warfare-and-influence-operation/?utm

Staff report finds that the Biden-Harris Administration lacks a government-wide strategy to counter China’s tactics and provides recommendations to help federal agencies secure America

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released a staff report today titled “CCP Political Warfare: Federal Agencies Urgently Need a Government-Wide Strategy.” The report, which includes information obtained during the Committee’s government-wide investigation into 25 federal sectors, details how the Biden-Harris Administration is dangerously behind in implementing measures to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence and infiltration campaign. The Oversight Committee conducted multiple hearings, held dozens of briefings, and found that most agencies’ solutions and policies either ignore, placate, or only weakly address the CCP’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States. To counter CCP political warfare, the report offers recommendations for federal agencies to use existing resources to defend America and critical U.S. industries.

“The House Oversight Committee has exposed the CCP’s political warfare and is working to ensure the federal government formulates a cohesive strategy to combat CCP threats and protect all Americans. The CCP is successfully infiltrating and influencing communities and critical sectors across this nation and the Biden-Harris Administration is asleep at the wheel. Today’s report details how federal agencies have failed to understand, acknowledge, or develop a plan to combat CCP political warfare and Americans are left to fend for themselves. It is past time for federal agencies to take this threat seriously and fulfill their responsibilities to the American people. Our report offers several solutions federal agencies can implement now with existing resources to address the CCP threat and protect the American people,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

Below are some key findings from the report:

• The report exposes the CCP for what it is—a totalitarian force that enslaves its own people, surveils and harasses critics of the Party and people of Chinese descent around the world, poisons tens of thousands of Americans every year with fentanyl, and actively seeks to destroy America. It seeks the downfall of the United States because the CCP views the American way of life as a threat to the authoritarian grip it desperately seeks to maintain.
• The CCP has identified America as its main enemy—against which it has waged infiltration and influence operations for decades. Unlike the first Cold War, the adversary is already within, having entrenched itself within U.S. borders, institutions, businesses, universities, and cultural centers by capturing elites in influential circles. 
• The report details what federal agencies, who work for the American people, are doing and failing to do to defend against CCP unrestricted warfare. While CCP infiltration and influence operations target every sector and community in America, much of the federal government under the Biden-Harris Administration has failed to understand, acknowledge, and strategically combat CCP political warfare.
• It is wholly unacceptable that federal agencies have failed to deter CCP unrestricted warfare, let alone to establish a cohesive government-wide strategy to do so, when the CCP has waged this war without weapons for decades. 
• To assess how each agency is fulfilling its duties to the American people, the Committee has scored each agency on key metrics—including strategy, knowledge and expertise, transparency and outreach to the American people, and collaboration with relevant partners and stakeholders. 

Below are some recommendations from the report:

• Federal agencies should use existing resources to defend America from CCP unrestricted warfare. A successful government-wide strategy must include four components: (1) acknowledgment of and transparent communication about CCP political warfare; (2) rejection of country agnostic and foreign malign influence-focused approaches and embracing of targeted strategies; (3) fostering the depth of knowledge needed to defeat unrestricted warfare; and (4) engaging the American people about the CCP threat and providing resources when appropriate that thwart CCP ambitions.
• Principled leaders who are willing to speak candidly about CCP infiltration of influential circles, communities, and businesses across the United States can turn the tide in America’s favor.

Read the report, including all key findings and recommendations, here.

• Access National Security News HERE.

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:45:30

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• “The ways in which nations wage war are changing well beyond how armies face each other on a battlefield. Irregular warfare takes into account all the instruments available to governments to shape the world’s balance of power,” said Chris Howard, ASU executive vice president and chief operating officer, and a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy who served as a helicopter pilot and then became an intelligence officer for the elite Joint Special Operations Command. “This new activity takes to heart the adage ‘war is too important for just soldiers’ and will bring to bear cutting-edge research forged by experts across multiple disciplines.”

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https://news.asu.edu/20241024-local-national-and-global-affairs-asu-selected-support-dod-irregular-warfare-center?utm

Arizona State University has been selected to work closely with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide reputable academic research support to deepen the understanding of current and emerging global trends in nontraditional warfare. ASU will lead a national consortium supporting the DOD’s Irregular Warfare Center[2] (IWC) in the National Capital Region.

The consortium will help the IWC accelerate the ability to understand and respond to changing trends in irregular warfare, forecast and track shifts in tactics, and assess the effectiveness of such approaches. The goal is to create a pool of national experts who can help the United States, through research, develop effective irregular warfare solutions and tactics.

“Arizona State University has been disciplined about developing expertise in this area and we are committed to being of service at the highest level for this important national security assignment,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “Being selected to lead this work is a responsibility that we take very seriously, and we are grateful to the entire Arizona congressional delegation for its support and confidence in us, and particularly for the leadership of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly.”

Irregular warfare refers to a broad spectrum of missions and activities that are often indirect and non-attributable, including unconventional warfare. The U.S. invests a great deal of money in maintaining its conventional and nuclear edge; the IWC-led and ASU-support effort represents an intellectual investment to ensure America can compete effectively in irregular warfare, as well.

“The ways in which nations wage war are changing well beyond how armies face each other on a battlefield. Irregular warfare takes into account all the instruments available to governments to shape the world’s balance of power,” said Chris Howard, ASU executive vice president and chief operating officer, and a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy who served as a helicopter pilot and then became an intelligence officer for the elite Joint Special Operations Command. “This new activity takes to heart the adage ‘war is too important for just soldiers’ and will bring to bear cutting-edge research forged by experts across multiple disciplines.”

The ASU-led consortium will include technologists, social scientists, educators, legal experts, historians and more from universities around the country with established irregular warfare programs and deep connections to units within the U.S. Department of Defense.

Projects will be conducted in areas such as information operations, emerging technologies (virtual reality, artificial intelligence), economic statecraft, and military assistance and cooperation.

“This effort demonstrates ASU’s capacity to contribute to the national security mission by leveraging our innovative organizational strengths, interdisciplinary research expertise and established record on national security research priorities,” ASU Executive Vice President Sally Morton said.

ASU, an R1 institution with over $900 million in research expenditures in FY23, is still finalizing agreements with prospective consortium partners. Each university, think tank and small business that will join the consortium will bring unique expertise to the study of irregular warfare.

"This work will advance not only our understanding of the evolving irregular warfare landscape, but how emerging technologies can help shape that landscape. There will be great depth of expertise within this consortium,” said Nadya Bliss, executive director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative. “ASU brings with it a range of disciplines and strengths — from cybersecurity, AI and microelectronics to social sciences and international law and more — that we can now bridge to new areas.”

ASU’s universitywide effort to advance national security priorities builds on a long history of successful collaboration with the DOD and military service branches, national networks of academic institutions and federal research labs, policymakers and leading defense contractors. ASU has more than $55 million in DOD-sponsored project expenditures over more than 250 projects, with more than 200 faculty experts engaged in defense programs.

• https://news.asu.edu/20241024-local-national-and-global-affairs-asu-selected-support-dod-irregular-warfare-center?utm
• https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/
• https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/arizona-state-university-selected-support-dod-irregular-warfare-center
• Access National Security News HERE.

The Defense Intelligence Agency has released a new publication describing the current nuclear capabilities of foreign adversaries.

The report, Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals, is the second edition in DIA’s authoritative unclassified product series. Global Nuclear Landscape was first published in early 2018 to address the nuclear programs of China, Russia, and North Korea.

Authored by DIA’s Defense Counterproliferation Office, this edition provides an updated, unclassified overview of the nuclear programs of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

DIA has a long history of producing comprehensive, authoritative defense intelligence overviews. In 1981, DIA published the first unclassified Soviet Military Power report, which was translated into eight languages and distributed around the world.

DIA published the report as part of ongoing transparency efforts to inform key publics of challenges, developments, and future projections regarding nuclear security. This report underscores DIA’s role as the United States’ authority on foreign military intelligence analysis.

Information within the report is considered current as of June 1, 2024.

Media may direct queries about the report to DIA Public Affairs at [email protected].