Indian Strategic Studies: 10/19/24

19 October 2024

The Islamization of Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus - Backed by Obama, Soros, Clintons

Keya Mukherjee

Bangladesh, a country being promptly being shifted towards Talibanization under Muhammad Yunus -- openly backed by Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Soros and the U.S. Democratic Party -- is experiencing a total nightmare. Pictured: Yunus at a press conference in Dhaka on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images)

Bangladesh, a country being promptly being shifted towards Talibanization under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus -- openly backed by Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Soros and the U.S. Democratic Party -- is experiencing a total nightmare.

Bangladesh's former leader, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was forced to flee on August 5, following a coup d'état. Now, Hindus in Bangladesh, who constitute a small minority of the population, are facing repeated threats and intimidation from Yunus's men – a thuggish gang of Islamists and jihadists from hardline Islamist groups such as Hizbut Tahrir and Hefazat-e-Islam. To the utter surprise of Hindus, Yunus's regime has asked them, during Muslim prayer times, to avoid playing musical instruments and refrain from activities that are a part of the Hindu Durga Puja festival celebrations, thereby interrupting the holiday.

Where Does Myanmar’s Junta Get Its Munitions? – Analysis

Nearly two dozen weapons factories are keeping Myanmar’s junta in the business of war, providing around half of the munitions the military regime has used in a years-long conflict against its own people, defectors said.

Most of the munitions used by the junta are made domestically. But it has obtained weapon manufacturing technologies from China and North Korea, and is approaching Russia to acquire new capabilities, said former Capt. Zin Yaw, who defected to the rebel side and now advises the Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, of public servants who resigned after the 2021 coup d’etat.

The military has long exerted influence over Myanmar, and has taken steps to ensure that it doesn’t lose that control, even in times when it does not rule outright. When the military’s influence wanes, it uses violence to achieve its goals, most recently in the February 2021 coup and subsequent bloody crackdown on dissent.

While public backlash to that seizure of power has rarely been as intense as during the last four years, the country’s armed opposition remains at a significant disadvantage due to the junta’s vast military complex.

Today’s Axis of Evil is bigger and more dangerous than ever

Joseph Bosco

Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently expressed mild but potentially consequential confusion regarding the nature and scope of America’s proclaimed enemies.

His most recent article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs states: “A small number of countries — principally Russia, with the partnership of Iran and North Korea, as well as China — are determined to alter the foundational principles of the international system….While these countries are not an axis, and the administration has been clear that it does not seek bloc confrontation, choices these revisionist powers are making mean we need to act decisively to prevent that outcome.”

But when Blinken was asked to address the volatile situation in the Middle East during his press conference in Laos last week, he said, “Unfortunately, what we have is, among other things, a so-called axis of resistance led by Iran that looks to create other fronts in different places.”

The “different places” he was referring to are Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the Red Sea and Israel itself. They are all locations where Iran and its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — are wreaking havoc.

Beijing’s Stimulus Package Comes Amid Growing Challenges

W.Y. Kwok

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held an unusual meeting on September 26 to “analyze the current economic situation and draw up plans for the next phase of economic work.” Politburo meetings related to economic work are usually held in April, July, and December each year. Analysts believe the unusual focus of the September meeting demonstrates the Party leadership’s heightened concern about the current economic situation (Xinhua, The Paper, September 26).

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping chaired the meeting, which acknowledged that while favorable economic conditions persist, “some new situations and challenges (一些新的情况和问题)” have emerged. For the first time since 2021, the need to “promote halting the fall and returning to stability in the real estate market (促进房地产市场止跌回稳)” was explicitly stated (The Paper, September 26).

This shift in policy comes against the backdrop of President Xi’s “Three Red Lines (三条红线)” policy, introduced in 2020. This policy set firm standards to restrict financing for real estate developers based on their debt-to-cash, equity, and assets ratios. Developers were divided into four tiers, each with different borrowing standards based on an assessment of their financial health. In 2022, fewer than 30 of the 100 listed real estate companies were on the right side of the three red lines, with another 30 crossing all three red lines, reaching the highest “red” tier (Sohu, May 4, 2022).

PRC Positive Messaging Frames Successful Colonization in Xinjiang

Niva Yau

I have lost count of how many times foreign experts have asked me if Central Asians care about the abuses happening in Xinjiang. The Turkic territory, now part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is known locally as East Turkestan. Once part of Central Asia, the language of its people shares the same heritage as those of the wider region, and its food, culture, and religion are similarly inseparable.

What divides Xinjiang from Central Asia is not just the mountainous border but a colonization project that has continued, and in some cases accelerated, even as the rest of the region has begun to move in the opposite direction, decolonizing 30 years after independence from the Soviet Union. This background makes a huge difference. Transitional Central Asian states have not popularized, or even formed, a consensus over the many tragedies from the period of Soviet colonization. Despite an awareness of the PRC’s abuses on the other side of the border, these states have not made sense of them as colonial policies. Instead, they have been susceptible to the PRC’s positive messaging programs and shaping of the region’s information environment (Jamestown Perspectives, September 4).

It's Time to Either Fix Lebanon—Or Break It Up | Opinion

Dan Perry

Imagine two diplomats in smoke-filled rooms in wartime London and Paris, poring over maps of the Ottoman Empire. Mark Sykes, representing Britain, and François Georges-Picot, were not renowned cartographers nor great experts on the Middle East. But the clandestine map they signed in 1916, together with some agreements in the years that followed, created the unhelpful map of the Middle East today.

In essentially divided up the region into British and French protectorates (Russia, the other element in the Great War's "Triple Entente," imploded in civil war and lost its chance to control Istanbul). There was little concern for the realities on the ground—the tribes, religious communities, and ethnic groups that had been lorded over by the Ottomans.

The lines they sketched lumped diverse populations into hastily imagined nations. This is how we ended up with Iraq, a melding of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds who hate each other. That is why we have Syria, similarly a fake country which blew up in a ruinous civil war. Imperial machinations are why Jordan even exists—that had to do with offering compensation to a tribe that did not get handed Saudi Arabia.

What Iran is facing: Israeli strike power combines precision with mass

Bill Sweetman

On October 1, before Iran launched more than 180 missiles against Israel, an X user called @MossadIL posted a video of the Damavand power station. It’s a 2.9 GW combined-cycle natural-gas plant that is the largest of its type in the region and the main source of power to Tehran.

The implication was unsaid but unmistakable: ‘Nice power plant. Shame if anything happened to it.’

Even online trolling can sometimes have a germ of reality to it. On October 9, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said, ‘Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results.’

It’s the ability to deliver large numbers of fire-and-forget, accurate, small but lethal weapons that gives Israel’s leaders the ability to hold at risk a very large range of Iranian targets with controlled effects. They could be energy or transport infrastructure, military targets, such as bases and missile plants, or many other facilities. This includes a capability, as Gallant suggests, to achieve surprise.

Why Is Harris Obsessed With Iran?

Eldar Mamedov

The U.S. Vice President and the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, showed a worryingly shallow grasp of the nation’s national security challenges by calling Iran America’s “greatest adversary” in a Tuesday interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes. She elaborated that “Iran has American blood on its hands” and referred to the “200 ballistic missiles” it fired on Israel.

In a world of a great-power rivalry with the nuclear-armed peer competitors China and Russia, to present a remote Middle Eastern country—hobbled by a plethora of U.S. sanctions, highly vulnerable to alleged acts of sabotage by Israel, with literally no allies besides militias in a handful of failed states—as the main threat to the United States is entirely absurd. Even with its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, Iran is no threat to the U.S., which it has no capability and no interest to attack.

Rather, the only conceivable threat from Iran to the U.S. comes from the Iranian proxy groups in Syria and Iraq—it is in those countries where Iran, presumably, got its hands soaked in that American blood. The question that she ought to be asking is, Why are American troops still in those lands? With the boiling tensions between Israel and Iran, and the nearly unconditional support that the Biden administration is offering Israel, those U.S. soldiers have merely become targets for attacks by an array of pro-Iranian Shiite groups in Iraq and Syria, with no discernible upside for Washington.

Is Turkey Too Big to Fail or Too Small to Bail? - Opinion

Dr. David A. Grigorian

In the aftermath of the 50th anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus it is crucial to re-examine the policies that have allowed Turkey to act with impunity not just in relation to Cyprus, but more broadly. Turkey’s more recent malign activities across the greater Middle East and overtures toward Russia and Iran in my view make such an inquiry a necessary undertaking.

The core of the problem may be in the mindset of policymakers in Washington, which was eloquently—if only a bit frivolously—described by a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman at a recent event at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Turkey.

In his remarks, Ambassador Edelman described Turkey as “too big to fail”, an idiom often used in the context of financial institutions, particularly banks, emphasizing the implicit insurance granted to large banks by financial regulators and supervisors, adversely affecting banks’ behavior. I realized after the event that such a mindset—drawing a parallel between banks and sovereign states—may inadvertently exaggerate the “too big to fail” problem in finance and beyond.

Hezbollah Running Out Of Money Amid Israeli Bombardment

Michael Lipin

Lebanese militia Hezbollah is running out of money, researchers tell VOA, as a weekslong Israeli offensive against the Iran-backed group disrupts three of its key sources of cash.

U.S. and Lebanon-based researchers and U.S. Treasury Department reports identify Hezbollah’s main cash source as Al-Qard al-Hasan, or AQAH, a Lebanese quasi-banking institution operated by the U.S.-designated terror group without a government banking license. The researchers say the group’s other cash sources include Lebanon’s insolvent but licensed commercial banks and arrivals of cash-bearing planes at Beirut’s airport.

The Israeli military escalated its attacks on Hezbollah leaders and facilities last month, after 11 months of limiting its responses to the militia’s daily attacks on northern Israel in support of Hamas. The Palestinian terror group, also backed by Iran, invaded southern Israel from Gaza last October, sparking a fierce Israeli response.

Hezbollah founded AQAH in 1982 as a charitable institution providing interest-free loans to needy Lebanese, primarily fellow Shiites, according to Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, or ITIC, a nongovernmental research group of Israeli intelligence community veterans.

Missiles (Like Revenge) Can Go Both Ways – OpEd

James E. Jennings

It may come as a surprise to people in Israel and the US who continue to cheer the unprecedented year-long devastation inflicted on Gaza and South Lebanon, that—like revenge—missiles and bombs can go both ways.

So far, Israel’s US-supplied “Iron Dome” anti-missile system has worked splendidly, destroying or deflecting a high percentage of enemy attacks from Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran. For several reasons that success rate appears to be lessening day by day. Looking into the future, some military analysts see a different picture.

So do folk tales and received wisdom from throughout human history, ranging from Aesop’s Fables, essentially teaching that “What goes around comes around;” to Confucian wisdom: “When you plot revenge, dig two graves.”

Israel was born in 1948 using mostly volunteer paramilitary troop units equipped with Uzi submachine guns ranged against the weakly organized Arab League and Palestinian irregulars using old Enfield rifles. Later, with planes, tanks, and bombs supplied by Western arms manufacturers, Israeli forces destroyed huge Arab armies in Syria and Egypt with blitzkrieg air attacks and massive conventional tank formations in the Sinai Desert and Golan Heights.

The Russo-Ukrainian War: Protracted Warfare Implications for the U.S. Army

Charles McEnany & Colonel Daniel S. Roper, USA, Ret.

Introduction

In its third year since the 2022 invasion, the Russo-Ukrainian War shows few clear signs of abating. What many assumed would be a short, decisive war has become a test of endurance and adaptation. The U.S. Army is studying the conflict as it “continuously transforms” for large-scale combat operations (LSCO).1

Building on AUSA Spotlight 23-1, The Russia-Ukraine War One Year In: Implications for the U.S. Army,2 this paper analyzes the war through three interconnected lenses: protracted conflict, the dynamic character of warfare and military transformation. These lenses focus on trends in the Russo-Ukrainian War relevant to U.S. Army transformation for protracted LSCO.

The paper provides one or more observations that discuss critical features of the Russo-Ukrainian War for each lens.

Each observation is linked with one or more implication(s). Implications suggest actions that the U.S. Army, DoD and Congress can take to close gaps in the U.S. ability to deter or prevail in LSCO (Figure 2). These implications identify the significance of land power trends and challenges as the U.S. joint force transforms to remain effective across regions and against various potential adversaries. Some implications discuss how observations from Ukraine could be relevant to war with China in the Indo-Pacific, DoD’s priority theater.

Combating Terrorism Center (CTC)CTC Sentinel, October 2024, v. 17, no. 9

The October 7 Attack: An Assessment of the Intelligence Failings

A View from the CT Foxhole: Christopher O’Leary, Former FBI Counterterrorism Senior Executive and Director of Hostage Recovery

A Draw Is a Win: The Houthis After One Year of War

Tehran’s Tactical Knockout: Weaponized Pharmaceutical-Based Agents

The War of Maps? Spatial (Mis)Representations Of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the Digital Context

Ekatarina Mikhailova, Alina Mozolevska, Mela Žuljević, Sofia Gavrilova, Sabine von Löwis, Iaroslav Boretskii, Tim Wenzel

Introduction

In the context of conflict, existing signs and symbols tend to acquire new meanings (Kaschuba, 2000; Lambert, 2023). As has been shown elsewhere (see e.g., Kolstø, 2016; Luxmoore, 2019; Marandici, 2023), the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war has already had a major impact on both identities and symbols in the war-affected areas and beyond. This essay attempts to decipher the new meanings and functions that the map of Ukraine has acquired since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The essay argues that since 2014, and even more so since 2022, the map of Ukraine has become present in the everyday life of Ukrainian citizens in a new way. This change occurred due to maps of Ukraine being instrumentalised as an information envelope1 containing diverse messages sent by various actors to Ukrainian citizens, as well as from Ukrainian citizens to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and to the international community. To demonstrate this, the essay discusses a selection of maps produced and map-related activities carried out in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023.

After a year of war, Hamas is militarily weakened — but far from ‘eliminated’

One year after the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza, following Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow of “complete victory” and the “elimination” of Hamas as a threat to Israel1 remains unfulfilled. While Israeli officials claim that Hamas no longer exists as a military force in Gaza, ACLED data show that Hamas still retains some operational capabilities and continues to engage with Israeli forces across the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Hamas has also escalated its military activities in the West Bank. With the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently having shifted focus to confronting Hezbollah in the north and no ceasefire in Gaza in sight, Hamas continues to remain a significant actor in Palestine despite its now-diminished military capabilities and the significant humanitarian toll on Palestinians in Gaza.

Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine

Marc Santora

It was a familiar and vexing problem: Russian soldiers were using the dense cover of tree lines to prepare to storm the Ukrainian trenches.

“We used a lot of resources to try and drive them out and destroy them,” said Capt. Viacheslav, 30, the commander of the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade’s strike drone company known as “Dovbush’s Hornets.”

But they could not do so, he said in an interview last month.

So they gave a new weapon a newer twist, attaching thermite-spewing canisters to drones and creating a weapon capable of spitting out molten metal that burns at 4,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Soldiers call them “dragon drones.”

Thermite — which was developed a century ago to weld railroad tracks — is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide. When ignited, it produces a self-sustaining reaction that makes it almost impossible to extinguish.

Complete Victory in Gaza Is Not in Israel’s Grasp

David P. Goldman

Israel cannot “win” the Gaza war, that is, eradicate Hamas and impose a stable and satisfactory political settlement on the territory, because its American alliance makes victory unattainable. The Biden Administration provided a $14 billion supplemental aid package for Israel, but it also withheld ammunition shipments and twisted Israel’s arm to accept ceasefires that effectively nullify its efforts to extirpate Hamas from Gaza. It has countenanced a vast increase in Iran’s oil exports, indirectly strengthening Hezbollah and other Iranian auxiliaries. Most of all, Washington promoted Qatar’s role as “mediator” while Qatar continues to host Hamas leaders, including individuals under U.S. indictment as terrorists.

The new Cold War with China and Russia constrains Israel’s leverage over Iran. As long as China continues to buy Iran’s oil and sell it industrial goods, there is little that the West can do to undermine it. Russia’s military cooperation with Iran, although constrained by the exigency of the Ukraine war, limits Western maneuvering room. Most of all, Israel faces the decline of American influence in the region and the growing influence of its competitors.

Israel faces internal as well as external obstacles to victory. The Israeli army neglected the training of Israel’s reservists; according to media reports, the average number of days served by Israeli reservists fell to only 2 million a year in 2022, down from an average of 10 million in the 1990s. Only 120,000 of the country’s 490,000 reserves spent more than 20 days a year on duty in 2022. Israel’s military leaders concentrated on high-tech weaponry and special forces rather than infantry, partly due to advice from their U.S. counterparts. In consequences, the Gaza campaign has been constrained by shortages of manpower and training issues.

The rise and fall of Macronomics

Giorgio Leali

When Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017, he was hailed as the business-friendly former Rothschild banker who would turn France into a world-beating investment destination by slashing public spending and lowering taxes.

Seven years later, the French president’s economic credentials are in the dock.

Thursday's eye-watering budget adjustment — €19.4 billion in tax increases and €41.3 billion in spending cuts — is a stark sign that France's money management has veered off the rails on Macron's watch.

The president's political opponents are relishing his sudden fall from grace on fiscal helmsmanship — and are sharpening their knives.

Traditionally, Macron always sought to score political points by styling himself as the adult in the room on economic files. In this year's parliamentary election campaign, he slammed both far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon and far-right leader Marine Le Pen as irresponsible profligates who would topple France into the financial abyss.

Russia’s illicit Starlink terminals help power its advance in Ukraine

Alex Horton, Serhii Korolchuk & Eva Dou

Russian forces have become deadlier and more agile with the help of illicit Starlink terminals, allowing them to use satellite internet to enhance coordination during assaults, fly more drone sorties and batter Ukrainian troops with accurate artillery fire despite U.S. efforts to stop the flow of technology.

The terminals, which give commanders live battlefield views with drones and secure communication between soldiers, are subject to prohibitions that outlaw many U.S. electronics from reaching Moscow. Yet there is a burgeoning black market of Starlinks bringing the terminals to Russians on the front, and their proliferation has been an important factor in Russia’s recent gains during its offensive, Ukrainian soldiers said.

Tens of thousands of Starlink dishes form the backbone of Ukraine’s military network, fueling devices vital to fighting a digital war — one of the few advantages Kyiv has against Moscow’s bigger, if less modernized, force. Six Ukrainian soldiers and officers from different units across the Donetsk region told The Washington Post that Russia has closed the technology gap, making its forces more cohesive and boosting the number and precision of attacks.

Seven Reflections of a “Red Commander” What I’ve Learned from Playing the Adversary in Department of Defense Wargames

Ian M. Sullivan

It is the spring of 20XX, and the U.S. joint force is engaged in a major war against a peer competitor. Earlier in the conflict, the enemy seized a critical piece of terrain, and the U.S. National Command Authority (NCA) ordered the joint force to take it back. This required a massive joint force entry operation (JFEO), arguably the most difficult of joint operations to complete. But the joint force was game. It assembled the largest maritime assault force—both amphibious assault ships loaded with Marines and transports carrying Army formations—since the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. It required deft planning to organize, mass, and eventually converge the force over the great expanse of the ocean. Yet the joint force, or “Blue Force,” did so and was ready to strike.

As the Blue plan unfolded, all seemed on track. Forces were moving, and joint and combined combat power was ready to support the JFEO. But it was at this time that an old, often ignored military maxim came into play—the enemy gets a vote. And their vote mattered.

Taking advantage of their own sophisticated capabilities and an approach to war that was designed with Blue in mind, the enemy “Red” Force quickly engaged elements of the invasion force at range, well before the joint force could bring its full combat power to bear. Focusing largely on the amphibious assault ships, which have a critical “over the beach” capability, the Red antiaccess/area denial forces came into play. Shore-based ballistic and cruise missiles—some hypersonic—airlaunched systems, and maritime strike assets converged in a massive, multidomain blow, which caused critical damage to the amphibious fleet. The amphibious ships never made it to the invasion beaches. This left the transport ships carrying the Army formations to carry on to the target; however, lacking the over-the-beach capabilities of the amphibious ships, they needed to land in a functioning port to unload the Army forces.

First Anniversary of Hamas Attack Against Israel on October 7th, 2023: An Intelligence Repor

Executive Summary

This report analyses at the situation one year after the Hamas attacks on Israel, which occurred on October 7th, 2023. The report highlights the continuous risks in the area, such as the role of Hezbollah, Iran’s engagement, and the emergence of terrorist organisations like the Islamic State.

The ongoing tensions raise concerns about future escalations, with potential outcomes varying from diplomatic resolutions to large-scale warfare.

Based on public sources and earlier reports from SpecialEurasia, it covers the main events, highlighting Israel’s military actions, intelligence operations, and the wider effects on the Middle East.

Hamas-Israel Conflict and Middle East Geopolitics:

Background Information

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel, exposing significant gaps in Tel Aviv’s defence and intelligence systems. The attack resulted in the abduction of over 200 hostages and over 1,100 Israeli casualties. Consequently, Tel Aviv started a military operation in the Gaza Strip to rescue the hostages and dismantle Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Russia Redeploys 50,000 Troops To Kursk Counter-Offensive Push

Lottie McGrath AND John Feng

Russia has redeployed 50,000 troops to the Kursk region as part of efforts to push back Kyiv forces in the area, weakening Moscow's military presence in Ukraine.

In September, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced that Russia had begun counter-offensive actions in the Kursk region to respond to the surprise cross-border incursion of the area launched by Kyiv on August 6.

In a documentary film shown by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on October 10, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi said that 50,000 Russian troops had been transferred from other fronts, where they had been conducting offensive operations in Ukraine.

"We know that about 50,000 troops from other areas have been redeployed to the Kursk front," said Syrskyi.

Ukraine Is Already Striking Deep Inside Russia

Michael Weiss & James Rushton

When the arsenal in Toropets detonated, the blast was so large it registered as a small earthquake and some eyewitnesses likened it to a small nuclear explosion. On the night of Sept. 17, the 107th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, a military facility about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border in the region of Tver, was struck by around 100 Ukrainian drones, destroying some of Russia’s most advanced rockets and air defense interceptors, and possibly newly arrived North Korean ballistic missiles. Three days later, another large-scale Ukrainian drone strike hit the Tikhoretsk Munitions Storage Facility in the southern Krasnodar region, a main distribution depot of Russian munitions sourced from North Korea. Well over 200 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the attack resulted in another huge fireball. That same night, more drones sailed into the directorate’s 23rd Arsenal, again in Tver, igniting the facility.

In a matter of days, munitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars had been destroyed. Estonian military intelligence estimates that the bombing of the 107th Arsenal destroyed two to three months’ worth of munitions alone.

These were the latest sorties of Kyiv’s fleet of homemade unmanned aerial bombs, which over the past few months have immolated air bases, fuel depots, oil refineries and ammunition stockpiles, all of them well inside Russian territory.

The case for giving Ukraine long-range striking power in Russia

William Courtney and John Hoehn

Ukraine’s innovative drones are damaging forces and war-supporting industry across western and southern Russia. In a visit to the White House on Sept. 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for more help for long-range strikes. He received modest assistance. President Joe Biden said the U.S. would provide the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), an unpowered glide bomb with a range of over 60 miles.

Ukraine had wanted more. It has repeatedly sought permission to use U.S.-built Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles for long-range strikes deep in Russia. They have a range of up to 190 miles and, with their speed, are better able to hit mobile targets. Prior to Zelenskyy’s visit, there were hints the U.S. might provide Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM). Unlike ATACMS missiles, these missiles are abundant in the U.S. arsenal, and their stealth capability make them more effective at hitting defended targets.

One year after Oct. 7, 2023, attack: The evolution of misinformation about Israel and GazaIsrae

Maria Briceño & Sara Swann

One year ago, on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. The attack triggered the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, and a year of misinformation.

Images and videos that have been altered or taken out of context flooded social media platforms, distorting reality. Some social media users tried to downplay the casualties, claiming "crisis actors" were being employed. Other posts mischaracterized the U.S.’ involvement in the conflict.

Experts said in times of crisis, especially at the onset, there is often an information vacuum that misinformation fills.

"Everybody wants to know the truth, but there's limited information that's out there, and that creates an opportunity for others to exploit this," said Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist specializing in disinformation and violent extremism at Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank.

This war’s highly polarized nature has also fanned the flames of misinformation, Helmus said.