Indian Strategic Studies: 09/26/24

26 September 2024

Turkmenistan Resumes Work on TAPI Pipeline Despite Geopolitical Hurdles

Syed Fazl-e-Haider

On September 11, the inauguration ceremony of a critical section of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline project was held on the border between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Afghan Prime Minister Muhammad Hassan Akhund, Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov, Turkmen People’s Council Chair Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov all attended the ceremony (Turkmen Portal, September 11). Ashgabat and Kabul have officially resumed work on the much-delayed pipeline project, which involves the construction of a more than 1,700-kilometer (1,056-mile) pipeline from the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan to the Indian city of Fazilka via Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAFN, September 12). Ashgabat will finance the construction of the pipeline’s 150-kilometer (93-mile) Turkmenistan-Afghanistan segment, which will extend from the border town of Serhetabat in Turkmenistan to Herat, Afghanistan. The pipeline is set to deliver up to 33 billion cubic meters per annum of gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan (Upstream Online, September 13). The TAPI pipeline is undoubtedly an ambitious infrastructure project that looks to reshape the energy landscape of Central and South Asia. Still, it faces numerous challenges due to regional unrest, particularly between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other geopolitical rivalries.

Construction of the TAPI pipeline has been under discussion since the early 1990s. In 2014, a pipeline consortium was announced for the construction of the pipeline at an estimated cost of $10 billion. Construction began in 2018 but was halted due to security issues in Afghanistan (see EDM, December 6, 2021, June 6, 2023). At the opening ceremony on September 11, Akhund said, “We have been waiting for this day for years.” Additionally, Turkmenistan’s president, Serdar Berdymukhamedov, stated, “The start of these projects demonstrates the good neighborliness of our countries. These projects are beneficial not only for the people of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan but also for the countries of the region” (Tolo News, September 11).

Introduction: Mapping China’s Strategic Space

Nadege Rolland

In September 1939, merely two weeks after Germany’s invasion of Poland, a group of leaders from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) met with Assistant Secretary of State George Messersmith. The State Department’s policy planning capacity was nonexistent at the time, and CFR leaders offered to help the U.S. government prepare for the postwar world. Staunch internationalists, CFR members believed in greater U.S. involvement and leadership in world affairs, commensurate with the country’s growing economic power. With the State Department’s approval and the Rockefeller Foundation’s financial support, CFR officially launched a project named “Studies of American Interests in the War and the Peace,” aimed at examining the war’s effects on the United States and developing concrete proposals to safeguard U.S. interests once peace again prevailed. During the subsequent five years, several hundred U.S. leaders and experts from civil society, academia, business, and government, organized in five focused study groups, participated in over three hundred meetings and produced close to seven hundred reports dispatched to the State Department and the White House.1

In July 1941, CFR’s Economic and Financial Group completed a study introducing the concept of a “grand area” comprising most of the non-German world and including the “Western Hemisphere, the United Kingdom, the remainder of the British Commonwealth and Empire, the Dutch Indies, China and Japan.” 2 Based primarily on calculations of the need for continued U.S. access to export markets, as well as to raw materials and other products necessary to maintain a maximum defense effort, the definition of a quasi-global geographic sphere of U.S. interests also had military implications. As the report noted: “The United States should use its military power to protect the maximum possible area of the non-German world from control by Germany in order to maintain for its sphere of interest a superiority of economic power over that of the German sphere.” 3 In a world threatened by totalitarian mass conquest, the initial quest for sustained economic defense led U.S. planners to leap “from a hemispheric to a global mental map of U.S. interests and responsibilities,” a shift “which has proved enduring in the eight decades since.”4

The Middle East’s View of the “China Model”

Jon B. Alterman

U.S.-Chinese competition in the Middle East has been exacerbated by China’s increasing engagement in the region over the last 25 years, as well as the two states’ perceived stakes in regional patterns of governance. U.S. efforts to promote economic development overseas have yielded mixed results, and there is widespread frustration over contradictory U.S. strategic objectives and policies. Meanwhile, China's model of development, which features remarkable economic growth with comparatively little social disruption, appeals to Arab governments. On one level, the “China model” refers to China’s specific development model of state capitalism and digital repression. On another, the “China model” refers to a broader category of development models united in their departure from the Western-defined standard.

The CSIS Middle East Program researched Arab populations’ desire for an alternative development model to the one proffered by Western states. The program also explored the origins of the U.S. and Chinese development models, the regional appeal of the “China model,” and U.S. policy recommendations aimed at curtailing Beijing’s increasing influence in the Middle East. The project focused on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates as case studies and used sources in English, Arabic, and Chinese. The project is based on field work in the Middle East and interviews with academics, businesspeople, Western embassy officials, expatriate consultants, and current and former foreign government officials.

The Economic Record Of Socialism -- China

Francis Menton

China has proudly proclaimed itself to be a Communist country ever since Mao Zedong came to power in the late 1940s. I understand the term “Communism” in the context of a country like China to mean a socialist (state-directed and controlled) economic system with the additional element of political repression allowing no dissent from official orthodoxy.

China’s economic history is a bit more complex than just 75 years of tightly-controlled socialism. Its economy languished (including the usual mass deaths and starvation) for the first 40 or so years of Communist rule. Next, under party leader Deng Xiaoping and successors from the mid-1980s for about 30+ years, China allowed a substantial private economy to emerge and flourish. During those years it experienced rapid economic growth, and in that very short period of time its economy became the second largest in the world after the U.S. (however, more like 70th place if ranked by per capita GDP). Then in 2013, current strongman Xi Jinping came to power. In the most recent decade under Xi’s rule, the political repression has been greatly ramped up, the central planners have reasserted their pre-eminence, and the private economy has been gradually strangled.

So how is China faring under its most recent regimen of tightly-controlled socialism, central planning, and state-directed investment? I’ve had several posts over the past couple of years tracking China’s progress, or lack thereof, for example here (from August 2023) and here (from May 2024). It’s time for another one, particularly given the relevance of China’s economic results to consideration of policies advocated by the candidates (particularly Harris) in our current election.

Israel’s pager attack has raised the stakes in the Middle East - Opinion

TOM FLETCHER

Civilians across the Middle East are braced once again against the increasing possibility of a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. After the devastation in Gaza, they anxiously watch the reckless high-stakes poker of hardliners who want to keep the region on the brink of war in order to keep themselves in power.

As every intelligence service is privately acknowledging, turning pagers and radios into lethal explosives was an audacious piece of tradecraft from Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. It hit Hizbollah’s command chain, communications and confidence. It is one of those moments in the Middle East that resonates beyond the immediate: it will be spoken about in hushed tones for years, perhaps decades. Social media makes the psychological impact even greater. Hizbollah is in shock, and seething. Its rank and file feel insecure.

The key question on the Hizbollah side is whether it absorbs this humiliating blow or hits back. It is probably a case of when, not if, it chooses to do so, alongside its threats of revenge for the assassinations of its leadership.

The key question on the Israeli side is whether this was a prelude to a serious land offensive, or just a psychological operation to degrade Hizbollah. I hear both explanations from the Israeli military, many of whom think it is only a question of when, not if, they launch a land invasion aimed at removing Hizbollah from the south of Lebanon and establishing some mirage of a “buffer zone”.

Have Hezbollah's Secret Communications Been Compromised?

Jordan King

Hezbollah's communication network may have been compromised in the recent pager and walkie-talkie attacks, experts said.

Pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, including two young children, before walkie-talkies blew up on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and wounding thousands.

Hezbollah believes both attacks were carried out by Israel, which is yet to make any official comment. Israel is suspected of infiltrating the supply chain of the devices.

But, while Hezbollah will be reeling from losing fighters to death and injury, the "psychological impact" of being intercepted will be "massive," national security and military analyst John Spencer said.

The veteran and current chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point told Newsweek: "There is always a way to bug, listen into something electronic. This is the significance of the operation.

"Hezbollah will have lost trust in all their equipment—'Will it blow up? Is Israel listening?' The psychological impact is massive. Especially since it wasn't just pagers. If it was Israel, they definitely sent a message."

Hezbollah’s Pagers and Walkie-Talkies Explode. Now What?

Michael Moynihan: Given Israel’s targeted attacks on Hezbollah over the past few days, are we looking at what’s going to become a hot war like we saw in 2006 or in the early ’80s?

Dexter Filkins: I don’t think either side wants a war. They’ve been very clear about that. Israelis don’t want it, and Hezbollah doesn’t want it. Hezbollah knows Lebanon would be destroyed in any kind of war like this. So they don’t want a war, but here we are. In that way, it feels like 1914. Nobody wants to go to war, but everybody’s getting closer and closer to the edge. As one side or the other ticks up the intensity of the firing, we just get closer to a full-on shooting match, which would be, I think it’s fair to say, apocalyptic for both countries.

MM: This is effectively a proxy war with Iran like the war in Gaza is, but it has a lot of local elements too. Hezbollah is essentially a creation of Iran, isn’t it?

DF: It really is. I think the best way to imagine Hezbollah is that it’s an Iranian aircraft carrier sitting off the coast of Israel. It’s created by Iran in the 1980s, paid for, trained, armed, equipped, directed, everything. When I was in Lebanon and I spent some time with guys in Hezbollah, they were completely clear about that. One of them, a senior commander in the field, said to me, “Iran controls every bullet we have.” He’d been to Iran several times. So that’s the best way to look at it, but you can see that when you look at it that way, it makes things much more complicated and much more dangerous.

A New Era in Sabotage: Turning Ordinary Devices Into Grenades, on a Mass Scale

David E. Sanger

When Israel and the United States joined forces 15 years ago to execute the defining cyberattack of a new age of conflict — a deviously ingenious effort to inject malicious code into Iran’s nuclear enrichment plants, sending them spinning out of control — the operation was reviewed by lawyers and policymakers to minimize the risk to ordinary civilians.

They decided to go ahead because the targeted equipment was deep underground. President Barack Obama was assured that the effects could be strictly contained. Even so, there were surprises: The secret computer code got out, and other actors amended the malware and turned it against a variety of targets.

Now, the presumed Israeli sabotage of hundreds or thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and other wireless devices used by Hezbollah has taken the murky art of electronic sabotage to new and frightening heights. This time the targeted devices were kept in trouser pockets, on belts, in the kitchen. Ordinary communication devices were turned into miniature grenades.

Hack of Hezbollah devices exposes dark corners of Asia supply chains

Tim Kelly, Casey Hall and Ben Blanchard

The lethal hack of Hezbollah's Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices' path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers may have few assurances about what they are getting.

While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say.

The response from the companies at the centre of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37 people and wounded about 3,000 in Lebanon this week has underlined difficulties in discerning how and when they were weaponised.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo put the blame on a Europe-based licensee of its pager, sparking investigations in Hungary, Bulgaria, Norway and Romania into the origins of the deadly device.

Japan's Icom (6820.T), opens new tab initially said it could not tell if the walkie-talkies bearing its name were real, in a market awash with fake products. It issued a statement on Friday saying it was highly unlikely that the exploded products were theirs.

Una nueva era del sabotaje: convertir dispositivos cotidianos en explosivos

David E. Sanger

Cuando Israel y Estados Unidos unieron sus fuerzas hace 15 años para llevar a cabo el ciberataque que definió una nueva era de conflictos —un ingenioso intento de inyectar código maligno en las plantas de enriquecimiento nuclear de Irán, dejándolas fuera de control—, la operación fue revisada por abogados y legisladores a fin de minimizar el riesgo para los civiles de a pie.

Decidieron llevarla a cabo porque los equipos atacados se encontraban bajo tierra. Se aseguró al presidente Barack Obama que los efectos podrían contenerse de manera estricta. Aun así, hubo sorpresas: el código informático secreto se difundió, y otros actores modificaron el programa maligno y lo usaron contra diversos objetivos.

Ahora, el presunto sabotaje israelí de cientos o miles de buscapersonas, radios de dos vías o walkie talkies y otros dispositivos inalámbricos utilizados por Hizbulá ha llevado el turbio arte del sabotaje electrónico a nuevas y aterradoras alturas. Esta vez, los dispositivos en cuestión estaban en los bolsillos de los pantalones, en el cinturón o en la cocina. Aparatos de comunicación normales se convirtieron en granadas en miniatura.

Pager and walkie-talkie attacks ‘will go down in history of irregular warfare’

Josh Layton

The synchronised detonation of pagers and hand-held radios thought to have been obtained by Hezbollah has left at least 20 people dead and 450 injured, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Some of the walkie-talkies blew up at or near funerals which were being held yesterday for those killed in the first round of blasts on Tuesday.

Alberto Fernandez, vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), described Hezbollah as being ‘brutally exposed’ by the ‘unprecedented’ attack.

‘It was an astonishing operation, one that will go down in the history of irregular warfare and technology in military operations,’ he said.

‘There is no full clarity yet but it seems that the Israelis were able to intercept a shipment intended for Hezbollah operatives, tamper with the pagers, adding some explosives to the device and then remotely detonate them, perhaps by raising the temperature of the lithium battery causing the pager to explode.’

In the Shadow of War: The Promise and Peril of Covert Action

Jeff Rogg

The world just witnessed one of the most remarkable intelligence operations in history. A flood of reports have claimed that Israel sabotaged pagers used by the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and detonated them simultaneously, killing several and wounding hundreds or even thousands of its operatives. Hezbollah has vowed retaliation, but the sophisticated nature of the attack and its effects on Hezbollah’s communications, command and control, and morale have severely shaken the organization. Quickly lost in the accusations, threats, and uncertainty following the operation is the fact that Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for it. That is because it falls under a special, secret category of statecraft known as covert action.

Covert action is an operation in which the role of the sponsor is supposed to remain hidden or unacknowledged. Put another way, it creates “plausible deniability,” which allows governments to deny their knowledge of—or participation in—covert operations. States typically employ covert action in situations where they cannot accomplish their goals through overt measures or where the risk of taking credit for an operation is too great. Covert action is especially valuable when states conduct operations that could otherwise be seen as acts of war, such as deadly attacks within the sovereign borders of another state.

Failed Machismo: Israel’s Pager Killings – OpEd

Binoy Kampmark

With each ludicrously diabolical move, Israel’s security and military services are proving that they will broaden the conflict ignited when Hamas breached the country’s vaunted security defences on October 7. Notions such as ceasefire and peace are terms of nonsense and babble before the next grand push towards apocalyptic recognition.

The pager killings in Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17 that left almost 3000 people injured and 12 dead were just another facet of this move. On September 18, a number of walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah were also detonated, killing 14. (The combined death toll continues to rise.)

In keeping with the small script that always accompanies such operations, the coordinated measure to detonate thousands of deadly pagers had Mossad’s fingerprints over it, though never officially accepted as such. It featured the use of the Apollo AR924 pager, adopted by Hezbollah as a substitute for smartphone technology long compromised by Israeli surveillance.

The group had ordered 5,000 beepers made by the Taiwanese Gold Apollo manufacturer in the early spring, most likely via BAC Consulting, a Hungarian-based company licensed to use the trademark. According to a Reuters report, citing a “senior Lebanese source”, these had been modified “at the production level.” Mossad had “injected a board inside the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with a device or scanner.”

Explosive Pager, Walkie-Talkie Attacks Were ‘Severe Blow,’ Hezbollah Chief Says

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Thursday that this week’s deadly explosive attacks in Lebanon on the militant group’s communications devices were a “severe blow,” while contending that Israel had crossed a “red line” in carrying out the operation.

The attacks killed at least 32 people and wounded an additional 3,000 as unsuspecting Hezbollah militants and others answered messages on their pagers and tried to carry on conversations on their walkie-talkies, only to have them explode in their hands.

The attacks, on Tuesday and Wednesday, were widely believed to be carried out by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being involved.

“Yes, we were subjected to a huge and severe blow,” Nasrallah said. “The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines.”

As usual, Nasrallah spoke by video from an undisclosed location. Iran-backed Hezbollah has typically convened a rally for supporters to watch his speeches on a big screen, but this time it did not.

Iranian hackers sent stolen Trump campaign information to people associated with Biden campaign

Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez and Sean Lyngaas

Iranian hackers sent unsolicited information they stole from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to people who were affiliated with Joe Biden’s campaign over the summer, federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a joint statement that in late June and early July, Iranian malicious cyber actors “sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.”

There is no indication that Biden’s staff ever replied, the statement says.

A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said that “a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails.”

“We have cooperated with the appropriate law enforcement authorities since we were made aware that individuals associated with the then-Biden campaign were among the intended victims of this foreign influence operation,” said Morgan Finkelstein, national security spokesperson for the Harris campaign.

Why Hezbollah and Israel Can’t Make a Deal

Hussein Ibish

At about 3:30 on a seemingly normal, relatively calm Tuesday afternoon, all hell suddenly broke loose across Lebanon. Pagers belonging to fighters, operatives, allies, and associates of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia suddenly exploded, injuring at least 2,750 people, including civilians, and killing 12, including two children. The details of the operation are still unfolding, but Israel is almost certainly behind the detonations, making them one of the most audacious acts of sabotage ever conducted.

The attack demonstrated, not for the first time, the extraordinary degree of Israel’s penetration into Iran and its Arab allies. Just since January, Israel has assassinated the Hamas operative Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at a guesthouse in Tehran, and the Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr, again in Beirut. But the pager explosions mark an escalation, specifically, of the conflict that has been building between Israel and Hezbollah since October 8.

That day, following Hamas’s attack on Israel, Hezbollah fired rockets across the Lebanon-Israel border in a rather pro forma show of solidarity with the Palestinian extremists. But to Hamas’s disappointment, Hezbollah did not immediately ramp up its attacks beyond what had become routine across that border for more than two decades. In fact, Israel has been largely responsible for the escalation of conflict near the border over the months that followed, for reasons that are not impossible to discern. Hezbollah’s interests, however, are a bit more opaque, and have set the group against both a wider war and the terms of a negotiated peace.

Russia Faces Significant Future Deficit in Officers Corps

Pavel Luzin

On September 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the number of personnel in the Russian Armed Forces should be increased to 1.5 million people—180,000 more troops than the number reported in December 2023 (Kremlin.ru, September 16). This personnel goal, however, was announced as early as December 2022 by then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. This time around, it is mainly related more to budgetary issues rather than to the actual number of soldiers and officers the Kremlin seeks to have in its armed forces (Kremlin.ru, December 21, 2022; see EDM, January 6, 2023). A larger military means Moscow can justify and ensure increased military spending for a longer period. As a result, the Russian national defense budget for 2025–26 will likely grow. Nevertheless, this raises the question of Russia’s capacity to actually increase the number of its armed forces, not only on paper. As the “long war” continues and Russia accumulates more casualties, the Kremlin will be forced to find other sources of manpower to fuel its war machine.

The most challenging obstacle in this endeavor is the lack of low- and mid-ranking military officers in the Russian military. The Russian High Command has been trying to increase recruitment in military colleges, institutes, universities, and academies since the second half of the 2010s. These tactics alone, however, will not solve the manpower issue for the foreseeable future (The Moscow Times, April 17, 2019). Thus, the Russian military leadership is trying to recruit more future officers from among the students at civil universities and among the existing contracted soldiers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) (The Moscow Times, April 25, 2023). For a time, the Kremlin also increased the number of military schools for kids and teenagers (The Moscow Times, September 13). Currently, the number of officers in the Russian Armed Forces is growing primarily because of the “partial” mobilization regime still in place. The Kremlin, nonetheless, aims to build armed forces that can be quickly expanded, similar to the Soviet army of the 20th century.

First Steps Towards Realising Integration as a Service

Dr Sidharth Kaushal

Introduction

This report is based on the discussions which occurred during a one-day workshop held in September 2023 at RUSI’s headquarters in London, attended by a range of representatives from defence companies and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). None of the comments in this report are attributable. The purpose of the workshop was to identify early opportunities to set the conditions for integration across the joint force. The workshop examined where and how the MoD, the armed services and, especially, UK Strategic Command (StratCom) and its new Integration Design Authority (IDA) can achieve immediate results to galvanise the broader effort to deliver the stated aspiration of providing ‘integration as a service’.

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

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

Microelectronics: Macro Impacts from Competition to Crisis

Lt Gen Mark Weatherington

Introduction

The United States military fields a wide range of incredibly sophisticated and capable weapon systems to foster peace and global security. However the operating effectiveness of most of these systems relies on a host of small components called microelectronics, which are manufactured and supplied through a supply chain centered on the Pacific and increasingly in China. Disruption of this fragile microelectronics ecosystem would devastate our weapon systems and prove daunting to our military forces and their readiness before or during a crisis.

Microelectronics are the small electronic devices that bring many of our modern conveniences to life. Most people first think of the semiconductors and integrated circuits in their personal computer or cellular phone, but there is a remarkable diversity in the types of microelectronics and how they are used. The basic building block starts with transistors, essentially on-off switches, that can change the characteristics and performance of a device to create processors, RF sensors, memory devices, and more. Few of us likely appreciate that a modern automobile or advanced aircraft requires thousands of individual microelectronics to function.

Artillery in Present and Future High-Intensity Operations

Elio Calcagno, Bryan Clark, Sam Cranny-Evans, Alessandro Marrone, Nicolò Murgia & Eugenio Po

The status of artillery capabilities in NATO militaries, particularly European ones, has been deeply influenced, and in many ways hindered, by the protracted absence of an immediate threat of conflict with a peer-level adversary, at least until the Russian occupation of Crimea. Indeed, for decades since the end of the Cold War, most Western armed forces have focused their planning on expeditionary deployments such as counterinsurgency (COIN), counter-terrorism, crisis management, peacekeeping and stability operations against technically inferior adversaries, where air supremacy was almost always a given where artillery could not reach. In fact, such was the level of air dominance achieved, that in many cases artillery was not even deployed.

On the modern battlefield, the ability to effectively deliver artillery-based firepower in offensive and defensive operations alike is of the utmost importance. In such a context, “traditional”, barrelled artillery such as field guns, howitzers and mortars play a massive role, as demonstrated in the Ukraine conflict. Yet this instrument cannot fulfil its true potential without being inserted into a wider array of capabilities which includes longer range systems generally known as long-range fires (LRF). Such systems, which can include longer-range guided rockets as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, can have a significant advantage relative to traditional artillery weapons in terms of range and precision. While LRFs should not be seen as merely a more advanced solution to the same requirements that are set for gun artillery capabilities, they add a crucial layer to an army’s fire potential and work best in concert with solid artillery capabilities.

A Two-State Solution That Can Work

Omar M. Dajani and Limor Yehuda

In July, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war in Gaza and the future of the Middle East. Afterward, Harris stressed her commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians—in her words, “the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve.” She is hardly alone in this sentiment. Across the world, leaders continue to pledge support for a two-state solution, arguing that it provides direction and momentum to efforts to end the war and eventually rebuild Gaza. In a long-awaited cease-fire resolution, passed in June, the UN Security Council again committed itself to “the vision of the two-State solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.”

For anyone paying attention to what is happening on the ground, however, these statements feel detached from reality. Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners have pledged not to allow the creation of a Palestinian state. Even Netanyahu’s leading opponents are wary of the idea, aware of polls that show Israelis are overwhelmingly opposed. Israel does not want to give up control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and it is not willing to relocate hundreds of thousands of settlers or erect a physical border dividing Jerusalem. Perhaps that is why, in private conversations, almost no one we talk to—not other analysts, diplomats, or policymakers—actually believes that the long-imagined two-state solution is attainable. As Harris herself acknowledged after her meeting in July, “Right now, it is hard to conceive of that prospect.”

Army embraces Ukraine-style warfare with new all-drone unit

SAM SKOVE

Staff Sgt. David Meyer peered intently into the screen of his hand-held drone controller, sweat slowly beading through his face paint in the 100-degree heat.

Somewhere below his quadcopter, an allied unit was under attack by Geronimo, the highly skilled force that plays the enemy in weeks-long wargames at the U.S. Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center here.

Meyer suspected the Geronimo troops of trying to trick his side into burning through its ammo. Then they’d melt back into the forest to strike again elsewhere. It’s the sort of game that comes naturally to Geronimo, whose home-team status gives them an unmatched knowledge of the training area’s 250,000 acres of pine forest.

This time, they may have underestimated their opponent.

Meyer was part of the new Lethal Unmanned Systems platoon, one of the Army’s first formations dedicated entirely to operating short-range reconnaissance drones. If Meyer’s drones could find Geronimo, they could bring the fire of an attached platoon of 81mm mortars and turn the opposition's raid into a disaster.

Doctors and first responders are among those who still use pager

LAURIE KELLMAN AND SARAH PARVINI

The small plastic box that beeped and flashed numbers was a lifeline to Laurie Dove in 1993. Pregnant with her first baby in a house beyond any town in rural Kansas, Dove used the little black device to keep in touch with her husband as he delivered medical supplies. He carried one, too. They had a code.

“If I really needed something I would text ‘9-1-1.’ That meant anything from, ‘I’m going to labor right now’ to ‘I really need to get ahold of you,’” she recalls. “It was our version of texting. I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers. It was important.”

Beepers and all they symbolized — connection to each other or, in the 1980s, to drugs — went the way of answering machines decades ago when smartphones wiped them from popular culture. They resurfaced in tragic form Tuesday when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously in Lebanon, killing at least a dozen people and injuring thousands in a mysterious, multiday attack as Israel declared a new phase of its war on Hezbollah.

In many photos, blood marks the spot where pagers tend to be clipped — to a belt, in a pocket, near a hand — in graphic reminders of just how intimately people still hold those devices and the links — or vulnerability — they enable.

Air Force’s information warfare hub seeks high-tech sensors, AI tools

Courtney Albon

The Air Force needs higher-tech tools and sensors that can monitor networks for signs of malware and sort through the millions of alerts it receives each day indicating potential compromises, according to the leader of the service’s cyber enterprise.

The Air Force’s information warfare organization, 16th Air Force, has been working over the last year to better partner with industry, academia and other government agencies to meet those high-tech requirements through an effort called the Phoenix Initiative.

The team — which is charged with integrating cyber, electronic warfare, information operations and ISR — convened a summit in August 2023 to talk through its highest priority gaps and technology needs. It then led a months-long deep dive to identify its most important mission sets and consider the most significant vulnerabilities and dependencies within those missions.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley, who took the helm as commander of 16th Air Force in August, told Defense News the organization identified targeting, cybersecurity and its Distributed Common Ground System enterprise — which provides key ISR analysis and exploitation — as its highest priority missions.

Leaving No One Behind: A Commitment That Matters Beyond the Military

Tim Gallaudet

This Friday Americans across the country will honor National Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) Recognition Day. A year ago on that day, I attended a wreath-laying ceremony and film screening at the United States Navy Memorial in Washington D.C. to recognize our nation’s POWs and MIAs. Speaking at the event was Commander (ret.) Everett Alvarez, Jr., the first pilot captured and held as a POW in the Vietnam War. He stated that America’s commitment to return all POWs home helped him endure the eight and a half years of imprisonment and torture that he endured while held captive by the North Vietnamese at the infamous prison dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton.”

Major General (ret.) Kelly McKeague, who serves as the director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) within the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) also attended the event, where he described his mission at DPAA as one aimed at providing the fullest possible accounting for our MIA personnel to their families and the nation — a mission he rightly characterized as “sacred.”

America’s military is exceptional in keeping its obligation to leave no one behind, whether with combat search and rescue or the repatriation of POWs and MIAs. Regarding the latter, nearly 82,000 Americans are still considered missing: 72,598 from World War II, 7,580 from the Korean War, 1,587 from Vietnam, 126 from the Cold War and six from other conflicts since 1991.

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