Indian Strategic Studies: 08/07/24

7 August 2024

Time for Hard Choices: How India Can Neutralise Pakistani Threat - Opinion

Tara Kartha

Trouble is rearing its head again in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. That this occurs after a long period of peace in the area, particularly the usually untouched areas in Jammu, is cause not just for alarm, but also for some hard thinking about practical solutions for India. It’s not just that Assembly elections are due, but the Chinese border is also volatile. As Rawalpindi well knows, that puts India in a rather difficult position.

Situation on the ground

The data available needs to be seen in perspective.

First, while the army generally considers this period infiltration season, given that passes will soon close for winter, the facts indicate that infiltration has occurred in multiple areas, including across the international border through Punjab and Nepal. In other words, it’s multi-pronged. Infiltration through Nepal has been observed before, but not through Punjab. This likely means another network is active.

Second, this buildup has been happening for some time. Recall that two officers and a police officer were killed in Anantnag in September of last year, and that incidents have escalated since then.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Resigns Under Pressure From Military and Mass Uprising

Charlie Campbell

Bangladesh’s embattled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned Monday under pressure from the military following escalating clashes between police and anti-government protesters that resulted in at least 300 deaths, including more than 90 on Sunday alone.

Reports that Hasina had stepped down circulated before Bangladesh army chief Waker-uz-Zaman confirmed the news in an address to the nation at 4 p.m. local time, prompting widespread jubilation among crowds that poured onto the street, honking car horns and waving flags.

“Prime Minister Sheik Hasina has resigned and an interim government will run the country,” army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman told the nation. He added there was no more need for a curfew or state of emergency at present but urged protesters to return home.

Barricades were removed and internet access suddenly restored as rumors circulated that Hasina had fled overseas. Even before Waker-uz-Zaman’s announcement, which was repeatedly delayed amid negotiations with political players, protesters had already stormed the Ganabhaban, the prime minister’s official residence in the capital Dhaka.

What do Americans really think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Scott D. Sagan, Gina Sinclair

In mid-August 1945, within weeks of the end of World War II, Americans were polled on whether they approved of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An overwhelmingly high percentage of Americans—85 percent—answered “yes.” That level of approval has gone down over the years, with (depending on the precise wording of the question) only a slim majority (57 percent in 2005) or a large minority (46 percent in 2015) voicing approval in more recent polls.

This reduction in atomic bombing approval over time has been cited as evidence of a gradual normative change in public ethical consciousness, the acceptance of a “nuclear taboo” or what Brown University scholar Nina Tannenwald has called “the general delegitimation of nuclear weapons.” This common interpretation of US public opinion, however, is too simplistic. Disapproval has indeed grown over time, but most Americans remain supportive of the 1945 attacks, albeit wishing that alternative strategies had been explored. These conclusions can be clearly seen in the results of a new, more complex public opinion survey, conducted for this article, that asked a representative sample of Americans about their views on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, examined alternative strategies for ending the war, and provided follow-on questions to determine how the public weighs the costs and benefits of different strategies. Scratch beneath the surface, and the American public today, as in 1945, does not display an ethically based taboo against using nuclear weapons or killing enemy civilians, but rather has a preference for doing whatever was necessary to win the war and save American lives.

Myanmar airstrikes on border hospital near China kill 10: media

Military planes carried out at least two air strikes on Laukkai city, normally home to some 25,000 people, late on Thursday night, a resident told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

Local media quoted one resident as saying 10 civilians were killed in the strike.

Myanmar's northern Shan state has been rocked by fighting since late June when an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups renewed an offensive against the military along a major trade highway to China.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) group have held Laukkai since January after more than 2,000 junta troops surrendered there in one of the military's biggest defeats in decades.

MNDAA spokesman Li Jiawen told AFP a military airstrike had hit a hospital in Laukkai, but he had no information yet on casualties.

The junta has been approached for comment.

Geography Matters, Time Collides: Mapping China’s Maritime Strategic Space under Xi

Andrew S. Erickson

With an increasingly powerful People’s Republic of China (PRC) under paramount leader Xi Jinping engaging in meteoric military-maritime buildup and pressing disputed sovereignty claims with increasing assertiveness, it is more important than ever to consider Beijing’s “mental map”: how its leaders regard the physical nature of strategic space. As Andrew Rhodes argues cogently, “Being able to ‘think in space’ is a crucial tool for decision-makers, but one that is often deemphasized.”1 This applies to understanding both how PRC leaders envision China’s strategic space and how it is evolving in practice.

Beijing pursues a disciplined hierarchy of national security priorities in a pattern that Peter Dutton terms “concentrism”: “The strongest power is reserved for managing and securing its periphery, the next ring is a zone of disruption of potential attacking powers, and the third is to venture beyond the first two largely at the sufferance of stronger regional powers.” He refers to these three spheres, respectively, as “zones of control, influence, and reach.”2 The resulting “ripples of capability” in China’s military forces, extending in progressively descending circles of intensity outward from PRC shores, remain best viewed overall “through the lens of distance.”3

Per the mental map of Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) the PRC has achieved relatively smooth expansion of influence overland through Central Asia to Europe and the Middle East. It is still working on a more contested project of maritime expansion but has made considerable progress there as well. Beijing’s ambitions also extend to frontier domains. Regarding the projection of sea power, China faces difficult opponents and geography. It is nevertheless becoming an increasingly formidable opponent to neighbors over sovereignty disputes, none more so than Taiwan. The map below by Rhodes offers perspectives on Beijing’s geostrategic location.

Embracing Communist China was the U.S.’ greatest strategic failure

James E. Fanell & Bradley A. Thayer

Due to its grievous mistakes, the U.S. permitted the rise of its enemy. Now Russia and Iran are operating in the space that the PRC provides them.

The foreign policy of the U.S. under President Biden has been a failure. From the disastrous retreat in Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine to the horrific terror attack on October 7th 2023 and the subsequent wars in the Middle East, the world has been thrown into flames. This is to say nothing of the daily threats that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is making against allies like the Philippines and key partners like India and Taiwan.

The deep causes of these problems are not found in Moscow, Tehran, Tokyo or Taipei, rather they are the result of two fundamental and interrelated grand strategic mistakes made by the U.S. First, the willful refusal to recognize the threat from the PRC. Second, the failure to balance against it to defeat the PRC. As a result of these mistakes, the U.S. is at risk of losing its national security vis-à-vis its dominant position in global politics to an emboldened PRC working in cooperation with Putin’s Russia and the mullahs in Iran.

Surveying the unrest in the world, it is important for Americans, allies, and partners like India to understand how this happened, how it was possible that the U.S. could achieve victory in the Cold War and give that away to the PRC and the unsatisfactory strategic condition America finds itself in today.

AI Complacency Is Compromising Western Defense

Charles Ferguson

Just as the West has been forced into confrontation with Russia and China, military conflicts have revealed major systemic weaknesses in the US and European militaries and their defense-industrial bases.

These problems stem from fundamental technology trends. In Ukraine, expensive manned systems such as tanks, combat aircraft, and warships have proven extremely vulnerable to inexpensive unmanned drones, cruise missiles, and guided missiles. Russia has already lost more than 8,000 armored vehicles, a third of its Black Sea fleet, and many combat aircraft, leading it to move its expensive manned systems farther from combat zones.

Inexpensive mass-produced drones made by China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and now Ukraine have become both crucial offensive weapons and valuable tools for surveillance, targeting, and guidance. Often based on widely available commercial products, drones are being produced by the million at a cost of just $1,000-$50,000 apiece. Yet no such drones are made in the United States or Western Europe – a major weakness in the West’s industrial base and military posture.

Combatting China’s Legacy Chip Threat: Time To Revive Section 421

Jonathan Harman & Lillian Ellis

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long sought to make geopolitical competitors dependent on it for materials necessary for national security by oversaturating the market with cheap Chinese products. Using that same strategy, the PRC is now looking to gain a monopoly on legacy chips—less advanced microchips required for both civilian and military technology. To combat this and future Chinese market threats to American national security, Congress should reinstate and modernize Section 421 of the 1974 Trade Act to allow the federal government to evaluate and recommend tariffs to the President for specific Chinese imports.

The PRC has long achieved dominance in international markets by subsidizing strategic industries to overproduce and flood the market with cheap products. Take rare earths as an example. Beginning in the 1980s, cheap Chinese labor and production costs drove out nearly all competing rare earth mines in the United States and abroad. Chinese rare earths now comprise nearly 80 percent of U.S. rare earth imports.

China’s secret torpedo resistant to jamming, threatens enemy aircraft carriers

Bojan Stojkovski

The footage showcases a rare demonstration of Chinese submarine attack capabilities.

The clip shows the target—probably a retired Type 074 amphibious landing vessel—hit by the Yu-10 torpedo, causing its stern to rise out of the water from the explosion’s shock wave and a towering column of water nearly 100 meters (328 feet) high, the South China Morning Post reported.

According to Ordnance Industry Science Technology, the torpedo was probably a Chinese-developed Yu-10, which reportedly entered service in 2015, though no official specifications were released.

Due to the torpedo’s significant power, an aircraft carrier would likely face sinking, and destroyers or landing docks could be put out of operation even if they don’t sink completely, the Chinese publication added.

China's Plan to Revamp Economy Revealed by Ambassador to US

Tom O'Connor

China's senior-most diplomat in the United States has shared with Newsweek the details behind Beijing's plan to overcome the many challenges afflicting the world's second-largest economy and population at a time of worsening global turmoil and intensifying competition with Washington, D.C.

The initiative, as explained by Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng in a written interview with Newsweek, involves hundreds of reforms aimed to combat what he called "the growing pains" associated with decades of rapid growth that could see China become the world's largest economy within the next 10 years.

But today, facing slowing consumption, real estate instability and increasing debt among local governments, Xie acknowledged that "the low-hanging fruits have been reaped, the good meat has been eaten, and all that is left are hard bones to chew."

Xie ultimately exuded optimism, however. He asserted that the new roadmap would allow China to "not only accomplish the targets for economic and social development this year, but also build momentum for sustainable development in the long run," specifically by the target year of 2029.

US mainland ultra-vulnerable to China, Russia hybrid attacks

Gabriel Honrada

The US Army’s recent Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) report warns that near-peer adversaries China and Russia are gearing up for unprecedented hybrid warfare tactics targeting the US homeland.

The report says the US homeland, traditionally considered a sanctuary, is now vulnerable to its near-peer adversaries’ conventional, hybrid and irregular warfare tactics.

The TRADOC report emphasizes that these adversaries are heavily investing in capabilities designed to disrupt and attack soft targets within US territory, leveraging information and cyber operations to create significant effects with minimal risk of escalation compared to kinetic strikes.

The TRADOC report suggests that China and Russia are likely to transition from subtle, non-attributable cyber and information operations to more overt and destructive physical actions in the event of a conflict.

It mentions the potential use of ultra-long-range systems with conventional payloads, asymmetric platforms and commercial off-the-shelf unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to target critical infrastructure and military operations.

Chinese Migrants Rush to Find Way to U.S. Border Before Doors Close

Wenxin Fan

New measures to stem the flow of Chinese migrants into the U.S. over the southern border have set off a scramble of would-be asylum seekers from the world’s second-largest economy, with many spurred to take new risks by the possibility of a second Trump presidency.

Some are now attempting to start their overland journeys from as far away as La Paz, Bolivia, roughly 7,000 miles and nine border crossings from Tijuana, the final stop in Mexico for many trying to make it into the U.S.

The government of Ecuador suspended visa-free arrivals for Chinese nationals on July 1, closing the most popular access point for Chinese migrants hoping to reach the border. The move was welcomed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which two days later deported 116 Chinese migrants on a charter flight from Texas to the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang.

Chinese officials, meanwhile, have been making examples of those caught and punished for the attempt.

Yemen’s Houthis claim first attack on container ship in two weeks

Yemen’s Houthi armed group says it has targeted a Liberian-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Aden, claiming its first attack on shipping since Israel carried out an air strike in the port city of Hodeidah on July 20.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement on Sunday that the MV Groton was attacked by ballistic missiles.

United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations and British security firm Ambrey said the vessel was targeted on Saturday by a missile 125 nautical miles (230km) east of Yemen’s port of Aden. Both said no water entry or oil leaks were observed.

The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), a multinational coalition overseen by the US navy, said all crew members on board were safe and “the vessel was reported diverting to a port nearby,”

The Groton had left Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Groton’s Greek managers did not respond to a request for comment.

Will Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Hold Together?

Steven Simon

Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran signal that no leader within Iran’s “axis of resistance” is beyond reach. But what exactly is this alliance, how tight is Iran’s grip, and what are the stakes for the region and the United States if Israel goes to all-out war with it?

Gaza: A Return to the Status Quo Ante

Joshua Yaphe

Nine months into the war in Gaza, Israel is still negotiating with Hamas under international pressure from the United States, regional neighbors, and protesters from around the world. It is the surest sign that the most likely outcome of this conflict is a return to the status quo that existed before October 7.

1) The targeted killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh removes the main conduit for communicating messages to Hamas leaders in Gaza, effectively leaving the far more irrational and unpredictable Yahya Sinwar in a position of almost sole authority for the movement.

2) It will be a long, slow road for Hamas to restore its financial and military strength, given the difficulties involved in reconstruction, Israel’s reluctance to allow the transfer of funds and materials, and the lack of economic activity for generating tax revenues.

3) Israel will probably impose buffer zones and nightly raids, maintaining its foothold along the Philadelphi Corridor and thereby creating a persistent set of issues to occupy international protestors.

Nevertheless, the most probable scenario moving forward is a return to Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and the Israeli government at a loss for options on how to ensure long-term security. The public remarks by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari on June 19 and again on July 8 have only put a voice to what all sides should already know. And yet, none of these leaders appear to have thought through the implications of what happens when reality sets in for their publics.

Hostage Diplomacy: The Downside

Edward Lucas

Hydrocarbons and now hostages: Russia’s exports are booming. The West has failed to apply sanctions effectively to Russian oil, gas, or coal. Now it has given a boost to the Kremlin’s new industry, kidnapping. And it has expended scarce political energy on a high-profile humanitarian issue rather than the only geopolitical one that matters: Ukraine.

Those bleak conclusions cloud the joyful news that 16 people imprisoned in Russia and (in one case) Belarus have been swapped for eight Russians, ranging from an assassin to deep-cover illegals.

The freed Americans include Evan Gershkovich, who, during nearly 500 days behind bars, benefited from a tireless campaign by his family, colleagues, and employer, the Wall Street Journal (disclosure: part of the same Murdoch media empire as the London Times, where I am a columnist). Similar efforts helped Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen with permanent American residency. His friends are delighted that he will not die in a Russian prison.

The Changing Global Energy Map

Scott B. MacDonald & Alejandro Trenchi

Pushed along by geopolitical upheaval increasingly reminiscent of the 1930s, global energy markets are polarizing. Rhetoric between nations is heated, economic disengagement has emerged as a core foreign policy consideration, and governments are being pushed to delineate between their friends and foes. Nowhere is this more evident than in global energy markets, ranging from oil and gas to renewable energy.

On one side of the energy divide is a loose-fitting authoritarian construct driven by China and Russia, including Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela; the other side encompasses North America, Europe, and economically advanced countries of Asia with links to parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. A number of other countries, many of them in the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), sit uncomfortably in the middle. The trend toward two different energy market systems is likely to accelerate as geopolitical competition intensifies in the years ahead.

Oil and gas markets are dominated by the United States, China, Russia, and OPEC countries (the chief of which is Saudi Arabia). These countries preside over a complex network of energy exploration, supply chains, industrial products, and major multinational corporations and state-owned companies. Traditional elements of global energy trading are the use of the U.S. dollar for transactions, internationally accepted business standards that provide transparency, and Western-dominated financial institutions. In recent years, this system, which was relatively open and conducive to large energy flows between Russia and Europe and the Persian Gulf and China, has become more politicized and opaque.

Defending Lady Liberty: Can democracies no longer win wars?

Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet

Washington under the Biden-Harris administration is radically redefining America’s global role in safeguarding democracy. We defend liberty, but only to the extent that it is just barely surviving.

Lady Liberty is increasingly unwilling to fight to win. As evidenced in Ukraine and the Middle East, Washington does not want our allies to achieve victory; it is enough for them to survive to defend another day.

That has been the consistent self-defeating message coming from the White House since President Biden took office. Now, that same messaging is being echoed by Vice President Kamala Harris as she is rapidly becoming the de facto president, and her campaign largely takes control of U.S. national security and foreign policy.

We have witnessed this losing strategy play out in Ukraine — and now tragically in the Middle East. It is also the modus operandi in waiting for Taipei should Chinese ruler Xi Jinping opt to militarily retake the island of Taiwan.

Why Israel Escalates

Dalia Dassa Kaye

The ten-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip long ago escaped its local geography, triggering dangerous military escalations across the Middle East—deadly clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Houthi assaults in the Red Sea and on Tel Aviv, attacks by Iranian-aligned militias against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and even direct clashes between Israel and Iran. Then, within the space of 24 hours last week, Israel took responsibility for the assassination of Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in Beirut in retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights, and the country is assumed to be behind the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, in Tehran. This one-two punch made many observers fear the eruption of an even more catastrophic regional war.

Why is Israel now escalating in such a risky manner? To be sure, its latest attacks are not, on their own, unprecedented. The country has a lengthy record of assassinating Palestinian leaders and has killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and Syria. Israel has also long demonstrated intelligence capabilities that allow it to penetrate deep inside Iran. And previous rounds of escalation over the past ten months have not led to an all-out regional war. But eventual de-escalation and containment are never guaranteed; any state’s rational calculations favoring restraint can suddenly be overtaken by events on the ground, leading to miscalculations or even intentional strategic decisions to provoke a wider conflict. The tempo and nature of the latest Israeli strikes dramatically increase the risk of more serious escalation. Israel’s leaders undoubtedly understand that the back-to-back assassinations of Shukr and Haniyeh—and the fact that the methods of the killings maximized Iran’s humiliation—will likely trigger Tehran, and possibly the other armed groups it backs, to retaliate.

America Isn’t Ready for the Wars of the Future

Mark A. Milley and Eric Schmidt

On the battlefields of Ukraine, the future of war is quickly becoming its present. Thousands of drones fill the skies. These drones and their operators are using artificial intelligence systems to avoid obstacles and identify potential targets. AI models are also helping Ukraine predict where to strike. Thanks to these systems, Ukrainian soldiers are taking out tanks and downing planes with devastating effectiveness. Russian units find themselves under constant observation, and their communications lines are prone to enemy disruption—as are Ukraine’s. Both states are racing to develop even more advanced technologies that can counter relentless attacks and overcome their adversary’s defenses.

The war in Ukraine is hardly the only conflict in which new technology is transforming the nature of warfare. In Myanmar and Sudan, insurgents and the government are both using unmanned vehicles and algorithms as they fight. In 2020, an autonomous Turkish-made drone fielded by Libyan government-backed troops struck retreating combatants—perhaps the first drone attack conducted without human input. In the same year, Azerbaijan’s military used Turkish- and Israeli-made drones, along with loitering munitions (explosives designed to hover over a target), to seize the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. And in Gaza, Israel has fielded thousands of drones connected to AI algorithms, helping Israeli troops navigate the territory’s urban canyons.

Why Americans and Israelis Don’t See Eye to Eye on Ira

Steven A. Cook

In his very first statement after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them, and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”

It was a statement that spawned a stream of commentary about the impossibility of destroying Hamas. The Israeli leader and his advisors clearly disagree. They proved that on July 13, when Israel struck Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, under whose name the announcement of the Oct. 7 operation was published, and his deputy in Khan Younis, Rafaa Salameh. (Israeli officials confirmed their deaths this week.)

Then the Israelis apparently turned their sights on Ismail Haniyeh—the leader of Hamas’s Qatar-based political office—killing him on Wednesday with a bomb planted in the building in Tehran where he was staying. In between the killings of the two Hamas leaders, the Israelis laid waste to a portion of the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in Yemen and assassinated Fuad Shukr, a military advisor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Unconfirmed reports indicate that a commander with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was assassinated in Syria not long after Haniyeh’s demise.

Hamas May Emerge Battered, but Not Beaten, From Israel’s Latest Blows

Erika Solomon

First came the death of its top leader abroad, Ismail Haniyeh, by a bomb planted in Tehran. Then came Israel’s announcement that, only weeks earlier, it had killed Hamas’s most elusive and revered military leader. All of this as Israel continues to wage the deadliest war Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have ever faced.

At first tally, the latest score in the 30-year struggle between Israel and Hamas looks like a devastating one for the Islamist movement, one that throws its future into question. Yet the history of Hamas, the evolution of Palestinian militant groups over the decades and the logic of insurgencies more broadly suggest that not only will Hamas survive, it may even stand to emerge politically stronger.

Analysts and regional observers in contact with Hamas leaders see the latest blows it has suffered — including Mr. Haniyeh’s assassination, widely believed to be at Israel’s hand — as offering Israeli forces a short-term victory at the cost of long-term strategic success.

For Israelis, Jittery Wait for Retaliatory Strikes Stretches Into a New Week

Isabel Kershner

Israel went into a new workweek in a state of deep uncertainty on Sunday, with the potential for attacks by Iran and the militant groups it supports already causing disruptions for many.

A number of international airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel pending expected retaliation against the country by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. That has left tens of thousands of Israelis unable to come home, according to an Israeli official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Delta, United, the Lufthansa group and Aegean Airlines were among those that suspended services to Israel after the assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in a strike in Beirut on Tuesday, and the killing early Wednesday of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. The fear is that the responses to the killings could be the start of a wider regional war.

Why We’re Banning Phones at Our School

Russell Shaw

In the early 1960s, when my parents were in high school, they received free sampler packs of cigarettes on their cafeteria trays. To the cigarette companies, it made sense: Where better to find new customers than at schools, whose students, being children, hadn’t yet established brand loyalties? This is hard to fathom in 2024.

I believe that future generations will look back with the same incredulity at our acceptance of phones in schools. The research is clear: The dramatic rise in adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide correlates closely with the widespread adoption of smartphones over the past 15 years. Although causation is debated, as a school head for 14 years, I know what I have seen: Unfettered phone usage at school hurts our kids. It makes them less connected, less attentive, less resilient, and less happy. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written for this magazine, smartphone-based life “alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.” It is time to remove phones from schools.

At the entrance to our high school is an indoor amphitheater we call the Forum. The space acts simultaneously as a living room, dining room, library, and town square. When making my rounds during the school day, I will often stand at the top of the Forum and observe our students in their natural habitat. A group of sophomores plays hacky sack in one corner while a lone senior leans against the wall reading Moby-Dick, highlighter in hand. Students share a pizza. A duo prepares for an upcoming chemistry quiz. It is a hive of activity—one visitor to our school described the atmosphere as having an “intellectual crackle.”

As Recruiting Rebounds, the Army Rebuilds for Modern Warfare

Lolita C. Baldor

Buoyed by an increase in recruiting, the Army will expand its basic combat training in what its leaders hope reflects a turning point as it prepares to meet the challenges of future wars.

The added training will begin in October and comes as the Army tries to reverse years of dismal recruiting when it failed to meet its enlistment goals. New units in Oklahoma and Missouri will train as many as 4,000 recruits every year.

Army leaders are optimistic they will hit their target of 55,000 recruits this year and say the influx of new soldiers forced them to increase the number of training sites.

“I am happy to say last year’s recruiting transformation efforts have us on track to make this year’s recruiting mission, with thousands awaiting basic training” in the next year, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said. Adding the two new locations, she said, is a way to get the soldiers trained and into units quickly, “with further expansion likely next spring if our recruiting numbers keep improving.”

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