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Guest post by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Molly Wallace, and Ned Dobos
Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid since the Russian invasion began one year ago. The international consensus seems to be that supporting Ukraine means financing its war effort. But a few dissenting voices have emerged of late, more ambivalent about the prudence—and ethics—of the current policy. Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a former advisor to the US Secretary of Defence, has warned that the choice of cure could turn out to be worse than the disease.
At least 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have already perished in the war. Thousands more have been injured, and millions have been displaced. MacGregor’s primary concern is that the bleeding will continue for as long as the fighting does. Russian forces advance, Ukrainian forces resist with violence, Russia responds with counter-violence, and the bodies continue to pile up. The Ukrainian state retains its sovereignty, but eventually we get to a point where, to quote MacGregor, “There are no longer any Ukrainians left!” This is hyperbole, of course, but that should not distract from the valid point MacGregor is making. States exist for the sake of their citizens, not the other way around. Therefore, if a given method of defending the state is causing its citizens to be killed or to flee en masse, that is a compelling reason to explore alternatives.
What is often overlooked about armed resistance is that, when it “works,” it does so by producing a mental rather than physical effect. Wars are won by breaking the enemy’s will to fight, not necessarily its ability to fight. Victory usually comes, if it comes, long before there are no enemy soldiers left; it comes when those soldiers who remain and/or their leaders are no longer motivated to fight, or in more extreme cases, when the soldiers are so demoralized that the leaders can no longer mount enough coercive pressure to make them continue fighting. Everything hinges on how the remaining members of the opponent group react to the destruction of their compatriots’ lives and their military or civilian infrastructure, not on the destruction itself.
Once we realize that the condition of surrender is not physical but psychological, it is only natural to wonder: Is there no way to change minds except through violence against bodies?
Nonviolent resistance is an alternative strategy for breaking the will of the aggressor. Protests and fraternization can engage the moral sentiments of the aggressor’s functionaries and citizenry, leading to a loss of popular support. Boycotts and blockades can alter the material cost-benefit equation of the aggression, so that it is no longer worth it. And nonviolent sabotage can directly diminish the aggressor’s capabilities by physically disabling military, transportation, or communications infrastructure.
Ukrainians have been engaged in various forms of such nonviolent resistance since the Russian invasion began. It took more visible forms at first—ordinary civilians demonstrating in Ukrainian colors or standing between Russian tanks and their towns—and has since shifted to less visible, more dispersed methods in response to Russian occupation and repression—graffiti, non-cooperation with Russian authorities, alternative communication, and governance institutions. There were even overtures to the Russian public and soldiers, eliciting responses from significant scientists, clerics, and journalists.
Unlike the militarized resistance, however, the nonviolent resistance has received no significant material support from the international community. Consider for example the Ukrainian government’s early offer of money and amnesty to Russian deserters, which circulated via SMS messages containing instructions on how and where to surrender and collect payment. According to The Times (UK), there was some initial uptake—a Russian soldier was photographed surrendering himself and his tank to Ukrainian forces in March, in exchange for cash and an offer of permanent resettlement in Ukraine. But consider what might have been.
Suppose the international community were to double the Ukrainian government’s offer of $50k per deserting soldier, as economist Bryan Caplan suggested. Desertion is a risky proposition, but for twice the payoff perhaps many more Russian soldiers might have considered the risk worth taking. Additionally, countries besides Ukraine could have offered Russian deserters amnesty and even citizenship within their own borders. This way deserters would need not worry about Russia eventually winning the war, occupying Ukraine, ousting its government, and taking its vengeance against them. The recent involvement of Wagner Group mercenaries on the Russian side only underscores the utility of economic incentives to alter the motivation of soldiers.
Of course, we cannot say for certain that a nonviolent approach will work. But we cannot say for certain that violence will work, either. So far it hasn’t.
If there are nonviolent ways to break Russia’s will to fight, why the reluctance to exploit them?
One possible reason is the widespread belief that nonviolence, although it can be effective, is not nearly as effective as military force. But this belief is more an a priori assumption than a rational conclusion based on an impartial appraisal of the evidence. Scientific research suggests that, during 1900–2006, nonviolent resistance outperformed violent resistance by a ratio of almost 2:1.
Maybe our desire to see wrongdoers not simply thwarted but punished explains the preference for violence here. Perhaps our sense of justice recoils at the thought of paying Russian combatants to desert, instead of making them suffer for what they have done—though this stance ignores the coercion and manipulation that Putin’s government has used against its own armed forces.
In any case, surely what matters most in all this is the welfare of the Ukrainian people. The reality is that massively financing the war effort has produced a state of attrition with no end in sight. Persisting with the current policy regardless, expecting things to change while the casualties mount, is a combination of delusion and depravity. We should now turn the spotlight onto those Ukrainians who—despite the loud calls for military weaponry—have been steadily engaged in various forms of nonviolent resistance and defense since the invasion. Their actions deserve more support—both moral and material—than the international community has so far provided.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos is a reader (associate professor) in politics and international relations at Loughborough University, and his publications are listed on his website. Ned Dobos is a senior lecturer in international and political studies at UNSW Canberra, and author of Ethics, Security, and the War Machine: The True Cost of the Military. Molly Wallace is adjunct assistant professor in conflict resolution at Portland State University, senior contributing editor at the Peace Science Digest, and author of Security without Weapons: Rethinking Violence, Nonviolent Action, and Civilian Protection. The three of them are the editors of the new Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence.
A Tarleton State University doctoral student and U.S. Army veteran Nicole Burkett has recently been named the inaugural recipient of the U.S. Army Women’s Foundation’s 6888th Scholarship, The Flash Today reported.Nicole Burkett
The $2,500 award is in honor of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion – nicknamed the “Six Triple Eight” – a Women’s Army Corps (WAC) regiment of 855 women, primarily Black but some Hispanic, who deployed during WWII to sort and route millions of pieces of unprocessed mail the Army could not get to front-line troops.
The 6888th – the only all-female unit in Army history – was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in March 2022.
Burkett’s scholarly work traces the trajectory of Black women in the military. Pursuing an Ed.D. in educational leadership with an emphasis on higher education, Burkett wants to advocate for unheard voices and share stories of the vulnerable and underrepresented.
“As women veterans, sometimes we are not considered ‘real veterans’ because it is a mostly male-dominated organization,” Burkett said. “Additionally, as a Black woman in the military, you are sometimes seen as a commodity because of what you can do and not as a person because of who you are. Combat exposure has a way of changing your mindset to survive and also detach you from those you love.
“There is a preponderance of research about male veterans and some about women veterans; however, there is limited research about Black women veterans and even less about combat Black women veterans. In a growing culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, these stories have to be shared. The goal is to help more understand and see them as real people, not commodities.”
During her 24 years in the military, Burkett was stationed in countries including Korea, Japan, and Afghanistan.
Burkett holds three degrees, including a degree in healthcare administration and public administration with an emphasis on human resources. She also holds an associate degree in supply chain logistics.
Two Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCATs) – Crossville and McMinnville – have earned VETS Campus certification, signaling commitment to efforts to help veterans succeed academically.
The 2014 Tennessee Veterans Education Transition Support (VETS) Act – which established the VETS Campus program – requires schools to meet a set of seven programs, requirements, and qualifications to be certified by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
Such requirements include efforts such as mentoring and support programs; assessments of prior learning that gives academic credit to veterans for training and experience from military service; annual surveys of student veterans’ perspectives and needs; and special orientation programs.
“We’re delighted that TCAT Crossville and TCAT McMinnville have achieved this important milestone and made their campuses even more welcoming to our veterans than ever,” said Regina Watkins, director of veteran enrollment and benefits in the College System of Tennessee’s Office of Student Success. “It is an honor to have veterans at our institutions. We have a duty to serve them as they served us.”
These two recent certifications mean that 17 colleges in the College System of Tennessee are VETS campuses. The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) and the Office of Student Success aim to get all TBR colleges certified by the end of 2023.
The U.S. Air Force has eased body fat restrictions for recruits as of April 1, The New York Post reported. The percentage of body fat allowed has increased from 20% to 26% BMI (Body Mass Index) for males and 28% to 36% for females. These changes will allow up to 100 more recruits to join the Air Force a month.
The new body fat standards are part of several the Air Force initiatives to appeal to more candidates without lowering the branch’s standards, Air Force Recruiting Service spokeswoman Leslie Brown said.
“The Air Force is looking to open the aperture on qualifying a broader pool of young Americans for service in the Air Force. These changes bring the Air Force in line with DOD (the Department of Defense) policy,” Brown said.
The military has been facing issues with recruitment given national body weight trends. One out of three adults ages 17-24 is too overweight to enlist, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.. And since 2018, 71% of U.S. adults are not eligible to enlist due to weight, level of education, or criminal record.
“The military has experienced increasing difficulty in recruiting soldiers as a result of physical inactivity, obesity, and malnutrition among our nation’s youth. Not addressing these issues now will impact our future national security,” retired Army Lt. General Mark Hertling said.
To note, of U.S. active-duty service members, 19% of military personnel were reported to be obese in 2020, according to the CDC. It costs the DOD almost $1.5 billion annually to address obesity-related healthcare costs of service members and their families, including replacing military personnel removed from service due to their weight.
Col. John P. Lloyd, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) North Atlantic Division (NAD), signed the updated Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE) program management plan April 6.Col. John P. Lloyd
AMIE is a diversity-promoting non-profit that USACE has been partnered with since 1996.
“The update to the AMIE program management plan shows a continued top-down commitment from NAD,” said Keysha Cutts, AMIE enterprise program manager and program manager with the military integration division at the South Atlantic Division. “This will serve as the enterprise template for the other divisions to actively recommit and reengage.”
The update focuses on campus engagement and presence, incorporates human resources best practices, and includes partnership alliance goals.
“Diversity in the workforce brings diversity of thought,” Lloyd said. “We need people who can relate and have the engineering background to solve problems in all types of communities. This partnership takes all of us to work, and I thank everyone for dedicating their time outside of their regular duties to do this. I look forward to seeing the good work we do and the great engineers we can support and work with.”
The U.S. military is facing a recruitment crisis. It is so severe that in September, Senator Thom Thillis referred to an “inflection point” for the voluntary-force model, threatening over a half century of precedent. In 2022, the Army failed to meet its recruitment goals across the board: active duty, reserves, and National Guard were thousands of personnel below target. The Navy met its recruiting quota for enlisted personnel, but not for officers. The Air Force met its recruiting quota for active duty, but not the reserves or National Guard. The Marine Corps barely hit its targets for active duty and reserves.
There are a few theories about the causes of this recruiting predicament, which is at its worst since the post-Vietnam era. Direct causes might be record-low unemployment rates, COVID-era restrictions that limited recruiters’ access to the public, and an increase in both mental and physical health problems among young people. The Public Interest Fellowship’s Garrett Exner, a former Marines special operations officer, points to cultural shifts in American schooling, such as lower standards and refusal to subject students to any kind of adversity. Stuart Scheller, the outspoken Marine veteran and author, blames poor military leadership and misdirected shifts in financial incentives for servicemen.
While these hypotheses probably have some degree of truth, they do not explain why some services are better at recruiting than others: the Marine Corps, after all, made all its quotas, while the Army didn’t meet any of its recruiting goals. The Marine Corps’s success is surprising for many reasons: it has the highest physical fitness standards for retention—significantly higher than that of the Navy and Air Force, and a reputation for physical and psychological duress that eclipses the other services. Moreover, the military occupational specialties (career specialties) available to Marine recruits are dwarfed by the Army’s, which casts the widest net for competencies among the services. At a time when obesity alone prohibits a shocking percentage of American young people from serving, the Marine Corps’s recruiting performance is especially puzzling.
An explanation for the military’s recruitment challenges (and the Marine Corps’s comparative success) goes deeper than trends in the labor market. Ultimately, the civic honor on which voluntary service depends has quietly been eroding some time, and it is being replaced by an ethos of individual self-fulfillment. Tragically, different parts of the military have absorbed this mentality to different degrees. Recent recruiting ads—one by the Marines and one by the Army—offer glimpses into these broader cultural shifts and the challenges that they pose to the U.S. military.
Ultimately, the civic honor on which voluntary service depends has quietly been eroding some time, and it is being replaced by an ethos of individual self-fulfillment.
Which Purpose?
“Battle to Belong” is an online recruitment ad for the Marines that depicts young Americans’ sense of alienation and nihilism with splendid accuracy. It was released on YouTube in September 2020, after months of COVID-era lockdowns and mere weeks after the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Teens were spending an average of nearly eight hours a day on screens outside of their Zoom classroom time. At the time of this writing in February 2023, the ad had over three hundred fifty thousand views on YouTube.
“Battle to Belong” opens with a young man walking down an urban street littered with advertisements and floating widgets. “Searching for meaning in a relentless world,” begins the baritone narrator, “Always connected, but somehow alone.” These words establish that meaning is the object of the protagonist’s search and that a fog of empty, virtual relationships obscures his goal. Then, a malevolent digital clone of the protagonist stops him in his path. “Trapped by illusion,” the narrator continues, as the clone offers our protagonist virtual distractions and a menacing look. Shouting, the young man lunges through the hologram clone and falls into the mud at Marine Corps boot camp. “We offer another path where the battle to belong begins.” As the music swells and the protagonist completes the grueling training, the voice continues, “Awakened by a calling, united by purpose, defined by the cause you fight for. No one can ever take away what it means to be among the few, the proud, the Marines.”
This commercial defies expectation in two significant ways. First, it fully acknowledges America’s social decline, and presents the Marines as a way out of that decline. Other advertisements, on the other hand, tend to suggest protection of the homeland as the compelling reason for enlisting. Instead, this Marine Corps commercial presents contemporary American life as culturally indistinct, gray, and alienating. Service offers an escape from home, not a fight to defend it.
Second, and relatedly, its argument for joining the military makes no explicit reference to the official Marine Corps mission—“the protection of our Nation and the advancement of its ideals.” Instead, the Marine Corps is attractive because it provides a purpose at all. Its uses words like “path,” “calling,” “purpose,” and “cause,” but it leaves the specific goal undefined, an afterthought. The incentive to join the Marine Corps is not to serve or accomplish an end, but merely to belong.
The case the ad makes for joining the Marines is brilliant: it presents fundamental human needs, purpose and belonging, both of which are currently unfulfilled. It offers respite to potential recruits who feel desperately lonely and purposeless, not only because COVID restrictions abolished their everyday work and social lives, but also because the Internet encourages the cultivation of a shallow and harmful parallel identity. The Marine Corps obviously understands the corrosive effects of digital media. The young man’s hologram version of himself is clearly a threat to his well-being.
Yet the ad’s unwillingness to define military service in patriotic instead of purely psychological terms leaves undesirable possibilities open. If the purpose of service is to pursue a feeling of belonging, who cares what the purported aim of it is? Is the current population of recruits unable to grasp the moral value of the mission? Do they find it unworthy?
The case the ad makes for joining the Marines is brilliant: it presents fundamental human needs, purpose and belonging, both of which are currently unfulfilled.
Serve Yourself
If the 2020 Marine Corps ad can be faulted for mild banality, the Army’s YouTube ad, “Emma: The Calling”, shamelessly presents the Army as one among many morally equivalent paths for self-fulfillment. The ad has many millions more views than “Battle to Belong,” despite being released almost a year later. But its reception was so poor the Army turned off the video’s comment section. Even Senator Ted Cruz responded, saying “Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea. …”
“The Calling” depicts a real soldier, Cpl. Emma Malonelord, who works with the Patriot Missile Defense System. Despite the gravity of Malonelord’s occupation, the ad employs colorful, visually inoffensive, and almost playful cartoons. Malonelord’s narration heightens this discordance:
“It begins in California, with a little girl raised by two moms. Although I had a fairly typical childhood, … I also marched for equality. I like to think I’ve been defending freedom from an early age.” After describing the arduous recovery of one of her mothers from paralysis and her parents’ wedding, she tells us that she graduated top of her class from high school and joined other “strong women” at her UC Davis sorority. She continues:
But as graduation approached, I began feeling I had been handed so much in life—a sorority girl stereotype. Sure, I had spent my life around inspiring women, but what had I really achieved on my own? … I needed my own adventures, my own challenge. And after meeting with an Army recruiter, I found it. A way to prove my inner strength, and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way.
The Army ad pitches two ideas in ways that may have the reverse effect of that intended. First and more laudably, “The Calling” posits that one should join the Army to defend equality and freedom. But in presenting gay marriage as the paramount manifestations of these principles, the commercial immediately alienates potential recruits with traditional values or reasonable ethical concerns.
It’s as though her friends’ expensive (if challenging) personal experiences and her military service are all morally equivalent activities on the path to finding themselves.
Its second and far less commendable assertion is that one should join the Army to prove oneself a strong woman. This argument begins hopefully enough with the phrase “I had been handed so much in life.” A generous interpretation of Malonelord’s statement is that it’s an expression of gratitude to America and her desire to give back. But it becomes clear that this isn’t what Malonelord means: she goes on to compare her dearth of accomplishments at graduation to the activities of her fellow sorority sisters, who, she reports, climbed Everest and studied abroad in Italy. It’s as though her friends’ expensive (if challenging) personal experiences and her military service are all morally equivalent activities on the path to finding themselves.
To Malonelord, and by extension, to the Army, service is an avenue to “shatter stereotypes,” flex one’s personal capabilities, and compare favorably to others, rather than a morally resonant act of personal sacrifice to serve one’s nation. This attention-seeking outlook recalls the online narcissism that “Battle to Belong” so incisively rejects.
The Oath
Contemporary recruitment messaging is troubling. America’s military must draw on cultural reservoirs that prize self-sacrifice and the honor due to country. After all, The Oath of Enlistment speaks of bearing faith and allegiance, recognizes a higher power, and insists on selfless service to the Constitution against her enemies. All recruitment efforts must ultimately attempt to persuade young Americans to take this oath at possible risk of life and limb, and the near-certain prospect of fear, physical strain, boredom, and homesickness.
Of course, people join the military for a variety of reasons and serve honorably once they join. The opportunities to improve oneself, through access to education and medical benefits, to escape poverty, and to file for naturalization are among the multitude of incentives that service members pursue. Every American owes a debt of gratitude to all service members, whatever their initial incentives for joining.
While some may find the Marine Corps’s call to belong compelling, this draw will not sustain the personnel needs of the entire armed services; after all, all kinds of careers, activities, and communities can give people the same sense of fulfillment.
Yet low recruitment rates and these commercials’ reluctance to mention the stated purpose of the military suggest that the reservoir of virtues on which voluntary service depends is running dry. A nation that is habitually excoriated by its political and intellectual leaders for such things as “perpetuating the unbearable human cost of systemic racism”, demonstrating “arrogance” in foreign affairs, wrongfully occupying ancestral land, and failing to address “the destructive nature of a system that is fueled by uncontrolled greed” (capitalism), while hesitating to celebrate its contributions to humanity, will inevitably struggle to rouse a genuine sense of duty from its youth.
To succeed at drawing in recruits, the military doesn’t necessarily need to make the oath’s normative content its central message, as it once did. The Marine Corps’s focus on the foundational human need for belonging is effective because it describes the transcendent value of character and self-sacrifice and carefully avoids the true yet controversial claim that America and its principles are their worthy beneficiaries.
Nonetheless, it’s alarming that the military must resort to generic appeals to meaning and belonging in order to recruit successfully. America’s national security is contingent on an all-volunteer force. While some may find the Marine Corps’s call to belong compelling, this draw will not sustain the personnel needs of the entire armed services; after all, all kinds of careers, activities, and communities can give people the same sense of fulfillment. Recruiters rely on Americans who believe in the moral preeminence of the United States and its constitutional principles. Our institutions—especially schools—must instill and embrace these truths: America’s national security cannot wait.
The United States supported a coup in Honduras in 2009. Fast forward a dozen years, and the Latin American country finally escaped the repressive thumb of far-right administrations when a leftist president — and the country’s first female head of state — was elected. She promised reform, including as it pertains to the mining sector, which has devastated portions of the country’s environment and used horrific violence to suppress its opponents. As Jared Olson details, however, hope soon faded:
They blocked the road with boulders and palm fronds. They unraveled a long canvas sign, bringing the vehicles to a stop — a traffic jam that would end up stretching for miles. Drivers stepped out into the oppressive August humidity, annoyed but not unaccustomed to this practice, one of the only ways poor Hondurans can get the outside world’s attention. Several dozen people, their faces wrapped in T-shirts or bandannas, some wielding rusty machetes, had closed off the only highway on the northern coast. It was the first protest against the Pinares mine — and the government’s failure to rein in its operations — since Castro came to power eight months before.
Things weren’t going well. That Castro’s campaign promises might not only go unfulfilled but betrayed was made clear that afternoon last August when, as a light rain fell, a truck of military police forced its way through the jeering crowd of protesters and past their blockade — to deliver drums of gasoline to the mine.
Since their creation in 2013, the military police have racked up a reputation for torture and extrajudicial killings as a part of its brutal Mano Dura, or iron fist, strategy against gangs. Though it earned them a modicum of popularity among those living in gang-controlled slums, they also became notorious for their indiscriminate violence against protesters, as well as the security they provided for extractive projects. They’ve faced accusations of working as gunmen in the drug trade and selling their services as assassins-for-hire. The unit was pushed by Juan Orlando Hernández, now facing trial in the United States for drug trafficking, while he was president of the Honduran congress, in his attempt to give the military power over the police — his “Praetorian Guard,” in the words of one critic.
Castro had been a critic of the unit before her election. But after a series of high-profile massacres last summer, she decided that — promises to demilitarize notwithstanding — the unit would be kept on the streets. And here they were, providing gasoline and armed security to a mining project mired in controversy and blood.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
On Thursday, the US State Department issued a "Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy," calling for ethical and responsible deployment of AI in military operations among nations that develop them. The document sets out 12 best practices for the development of military AI capabilities and emphasizes human accountability.
The declaration coincides with the US taking part in an international summit on responsible use of military AI in The Hague, Netherlands. Reuters called the conference "the first of its kind." At the summit, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins said, "We invite all states to join us in implementing international norms, as it pertains to military development and use of AI" and autonomous weapons.
In a preamble, the US declaration outlines that an increasing number of countries are developing military AI capabilities that may include the use of autonomous systems. This trend has raised concerns about the potential risks of using such technologies, especially when it comes to complying with international humanitarian law.
Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn, Carla Martinez Machain, and Andrew Stravers. 2022. Beyond the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion, Oxford University Press. Paperback (use code ASFLYQ6 for 30% off), ebook
U.S. military deployments — particularly the individual troops involved — anchor American influence abroad, and for many foreign populations they are the face of U.S. global power. That face isn’t always welcome. U.S. service members commit crimes, cause deadly accidents, and become embroiled in corruption scandals. We find that despite these (and other) sources of friction between U.S. deployments and their host countries, the everyday activities of U.S. service members in overseas communities on balance enhance U.S. “soft power” and generate support for their military mission.
For over seventy years, the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members on foreign soil has profoundly shaped global politics. While other countries have stationed their forces on the territory of other sovereign states — including the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation — the United States enjoyed an unparalleled political infrastructure for global force projection.
That may change as the People’s Republic of China continues to look for opportunities to expand its own overseas military presence. If current trends continue, Washington will increasingly need to convince host-state civilians to support a U.S. military presence over alternative suitors.
The book is the product of three years of intensive research. We spent several weeks in countries that host U.S. military personnel and visited a variety of military installations. We conducted annual surveys over three years across 14 countries — with a final pool of about 42,000 respondents. We interviewed journalists, activists, politicians, diplomats, and U.S. service members in six host countries. We gathered many different perspectives on topics ranging from geopolitics and great-power competition to everyday life with the U.S. military as neighbors
Each of us spent most of our careers trying to better understand the upsides and downsides of U.S. overseas deployments. With support from the Minerva Research Initiative and Army Research Office, we were able to work together to collect crucial data for answering the questions we address in this book. The book is a follow-up to an earlier article where we were able to draw some initial inferences after we completed the first wave of our survey. We also had many exciting and illuminating stories from our three years of fieldwork that a book format allows us to discuss in greater detail.
The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted our fieldwork in Japan and South Korea. Even though we conducted remote interviews, we would have preferred to conduct the same kind of in-country research that we did in Europe and South America.
We also know more now than we did when we started. We would change some of the questions we asked; if we could do it all over again, we would have conduct survey experiments to understand our core arguments better. We also would like to run surveys in some of the specific areas that are most affected by the U.S. presence, such as Okinawa in Japan or Ramstein-Miesenbach in Germany. We would also have liked to better explore the uncertainty around our prediction models.
The process was atypically smooth. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to publish the book in the Bridging the Gap series at Oxford University Press. The Bridging the Gap and Oxford editors were easy to work with and supportive throughout the process. The reviewers were positive and offered constructive criticism that helped shape a better end product.
Elon Musk's SpaceX may be willing to supply Ukraine with Starlink service as it repels the Russian invasion, but it's not thrilled with every use of the satellite internet technology. Operating chief Gwynne Shotwell tells guests at a Federal Aviation Administration conference that SpaceX objects to reported uses of Starlink to control military drones. While the company doesn't mind troops using satellite broadband for communication, it doesn't mean for the platform to be used for "offensive purposes," Shotwell says.
The executive adds that SpaceX can limit Ukraine's ability to use Starlink with combat drones, and has already done so. The company hasn't explained how it curbs use in the field.
Ukraine says it's not alarmed. National security council secretary Oleksiy Danilov tells The Washington Post the country doesn't rely solely on Starlink for military operations, and may only need to "change the means of attack" in some cases. Interior ministry advisor Anton Gerahchenko, meanwhile, argues that Ukraine "liberate[s]" rather than attacking, and that Starlink has saved "hundreds of thousands of lives."
Starlink has proved important to life in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began last year. The country uses the service to connect civilians, government agencies and military units that can't rely on terrestrial internet access. For drones, this could let Ukraine coordinate reconnaissance flights, long-distance targeting and bomb attacks.
SpaceX has a contentious relationship with Ukraine. The firm was quick to provide Starlink terminals soon after the war began, albeit with US government help. Musk complained that it was becoming too expensive to fund service indefinitely, but changed his mind soon after. And while Ukraine struck a deal in December to get thousands more terminals with EU assistance, that came just weeks after a steep price hike.
Ukrainian servicemen operate UAVs in Donetsk front
DONETSK OBLAST, UKRAINE - FEBRUARY 8: A Ukrainian serviceman prepares to operate an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on February 08, 2023. (Photo by Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The government of Guam has appointed a Commission on Decolonization, but U.S. control means that all of the island’s options, including the status quo, have substantial downsides.
Enlarge (credit: Andrea Nissotti / EyeEm)
On Saturday afternoon, US jets intercepted the Chinese surveillance balloon as it was leaving the continental US. Live footage of the event shows contrails of aircraft approaching the balloon, followed by a puff of smoke that may indicate the explosion of some ordnance near the balloon's envelope—a reporter is heard saying "they just shot it" in the video embedded below. The envelope clearly loses structural integrity shortly afterwards as it plunges towards the ocean. Reportedly, the events took place near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Here's video of it being shot down near Myrtle Beach via Katie Herrmann #ChineseSpyBalloon pic.twitter.com/KmT9rL2bR7
— Brad Panovich (@wxbrad) February 4, 2023
Shortly afterwards, the US Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement attributed to its Secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, that confirmed the interception was performed by US fighter jets on the order of President Biden. The DOD identifies the hardware as a "high altitude surveillance balloon," and says that the President authorized shooting it down as early as Wednesday. The military, however, determined that this could not be done without posing a risk to US citizens, either due to debris from the balloon itself, or from the ordnance used to destroy it.
As a result, the military waited until the balloon was far enough offshore to no longer pose a risk to land, but close enough that it would fall within US territorial waters, ensuring that the country would be the first to recover any hardware that survived the plunge into the sea. Secretary Austin also thanked Canada for its assistance in tracking and intercepting the balloon through the countries' cooperative North American defense organization, NORAD.
Over at The Nib, Sam Wallman has created an illustrated history of the Pinkerton Agency — the original "private eyes," a nearly 200-year-old American corporation that essentially pioneered the privatization of domestic military intelligent services, most often weaponized against the working class. — Read the rest
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