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During the fall of 2022, Western support for defending Ukraine was achieving results that few had thought possible. A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive had pushed Russia out of Kharkiv, and it was on the verge of being forced out of Kherson too.

The successes were so rousing that President Joe Biden began to worry about Russia getting desperate and the potential risk of a nuclear escalation. In private remarks at a fundraiser, Biden reportedly said that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was the highest it had been since the Cuban missile crisis.

After news of the comments broke, 30 progressive Democrats issued a letter echoing Biden’s concerns and urging the administration to pair support for Ukraine’s successes with a “proactive diplomatic push” to seek a ceasefire. The signatories were unequivocal that they supported Biden’s commitment to Ukraine. A draft of the letter had even come in for criticism from the grassroots supports of diplomacy for its staunch support of sending billions in arms to Ukraine.

It all seemed very reasonable, especially amid talk of nuclear war.

The lawmakers were torn to shreds.

The mild-mannered letter from the Congressional Progressive Caucus provoked wild political attacks, recriminations, and resignations. Factions of progressives, liberals, and Democrats feuded on Twitter. Headlines and talk shows took up the issue. The anti-diplomacy voices won the day: The letter would eventually be retracted, with its supporters taking a huge political hit.

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House Progressives Float Diplomatic Path Toward Ending War in Ukraine, Get Annihilated, Quickly “Clarify”

Today, however, the war is stuck. The momentum has shifted. And tens of thousands more Ukrainians and Russians have lost their lives. And even members of the foreign policy establishment are coming to realize it.

“I think it’s safe to say that Ukraine is unable to generate the combat capability needed to achieve military victory, and right now the momentum on the battlefield, despite Ukraine’s push into the Kursk region of Russia, favors Russia,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and international affairs professor at Georgetown University. “Because of that reality, I think that the Ukrainians themselves and Ukraine’s supporters in the West need to have truthful, even if painful, conversations about how to end this war sooner rather than later.”

In 2022, the progressives had been pilloried and cowed. Today, they look more prescient than ever.

The Backlash

At the time of its release, the CPC’s letter provoked a furious backlash. Washington’s foreign policy establishment, and even members of the progressives’ own party, melted down.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., went as far as to accuse his fellow House Democrats of offering an “olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war.”

Brandon Friedman, a former Obama administration official, said that progressives had just given “Republicans, the Kremlin and Russian propaganda networks an absolute gift with this letter.”

Joe Cirincione, a Washington national security analyst and figure in the progressive foreign policy world, called the letter an “incoherent mishmash of contradictory positions based on an outdated analysis of the war.”

“It was written when the war was stalemated, released when Ukraine is winning,” said Cirincione, who resigned from the Quincy Institute over the think tank’s call for diplomatic talks. “Of course the positions don’t make sense.”

Within 24 hours, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the caucus chair, withdrew the letter and issued a “clarification statement.” Other signatories acted like they were walking the letter back, though they were merely reiterating the unequivocal support for Ukraine’s defense that the letter itself had made clear. (Many of the lawmakers involved did not respond to my requests for comment.)

In a nearly 900-word statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., blamed “unfortunate timing” and doubled down on the idea that the U.S. should help Ukraine fight until the end. “All champions of democracy over autocracy — whether they call themselves progressives, conservatives or liberals — should be doing whatever we can to ensure that Ukraine wins this just war as quickly as possible,” he said.

A few voices of reason emerged, as a few members of Congress held fast. Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, were among the few who publicly defended their call for diplomacy. “History shows that silencing debate in Congress about matters of war and peace never ends well,” Khanna said at the time.

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The Disturbing Groupthink Over the War in Ukraine

Even some former Obama officials were shocked by the response. Ben Rhodes criticized the “circular firing squad” against pro-diplomacy advocates on the left, saying there was “nothing objectionable in this letter whatsoever.”

Far from being an “outdated analysis,” as critics like Cirincione claimed, the letter’s strategy of using war successes to get a ceasefire seems today like it was far-sighted.

“Cycle of Persistent Violence”

Since the ill-fated letter, the war has ground on — with devastating results for the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is not in a position to win the war, nor does it have a stronger bargaining position in talks than it did in late 2022 when the CPC letter came out.

A New York Times report in August cited U.S. officials estimating the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. Ukraine has lost a fifth of its population to migration, and many able-bodied men have been killed, severely injured, or are currently fighting and out of the workforce. CNN reported this week that desertion is a major problem for Ukraine.

Despite the heavy toll, Ukraine lost territory to Russia over the course of 2023, and Russian advances have only gained steam since then.

Former CIA Russia analyst George Beebe said that the conflict has become a war of attrition, so Ukrainians are losing bargaining leverage by the day. “They’re going to need Western help” to strike a compromise settlement with Russia, he said, adding that it would take robust U.S. involvement.

Has it benefited Ukraine to keep fighting? “No, I don’t think so,” Beebe told me. “Actually, Ukraine has lost a lot more people. It is on a path toward becoming a failed state.”

Despite the criticisms, despite many of its members caving, the CPC letter had been on to something. Now, Washington is playing catch-up, with Ukraine bearing the brunt of the lack of U.S. foresight and no one standing to gain as much as empowered Vladimir Putin.

Though the controversy around the CPC letter was almost immediately memory-holed, it would only be a few weeks before it started to look like pro-diplomacy advocates would eventually be vindicated.

A Washington Post report revealed that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Ukraine to show that it’s open to negotiations. Gen. Mark Milley, the since-retired chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined the growing group of people advocating for diplomacy to end the war. Citing the lesson of World War I, where the failure to negotiate led to millions of unnecessary deaths, Milley called on Russia and Ukraine to “seize the moment” and consider peace talks that winter.

For all the purportedly pro-Ukraine motivations behind the meltdown over the ceasefire letter, it is Ukrainians themselves who have most acutely felt the pain of continued war.

Many Ukrainians seem to understand this better than backers in Washington: Ukraine’s government reportedly charged nearly 19,000 soldiers with abandoning their positions in just the first four months of 2024. The same could be said for conscripted Russians forced to serve under Putin’s authoritarian drive to win the war.

“There are no protections for conscientious objectors in Ukraine or in Russia through this war,” said Bridget Moix, the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a progressive group that supports diplomacy. “We have to look at how we can support other ways to end this war, other ways to protect civilians, other ways to find a solution out of the violence now. We’re in a cycle of persistent violence that’s costing tremendous lives on both sides.”

Reduced Leverage

Though Ukrainian and American leaders have come to terms with Ukraine’s reduced negotiating leverage, Washington national security elites have not reckoned with the stances they took earlier in the war. After experiencing what former State Department official-turned-commentator Tommy Vietor called a “strangely vicious controversy,” former proponents of diplomacy are now steering clear of the topic.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., one of the CPC members who signed the initial 2022 letter, disavowed it in October of that year.

“Timing in diplomacy is everything. I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then. I wouldn’t sign it today,” Jacobs wrote on X. “We have to continue supporting Ukraine economically and militarily to give them the leverage they need to end this war.”

Today, asked if Jacobs stands by her decision to withdraw support for the letter, her office replied, “Decisions about if and when to negotiate an end to this war are up to Ukraine. I have and will continue to support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.”

For some experts, there was a missed opportunity to stand firm behind the letter.

“We always say that it’s for the Ukrainians to decide, but really we make Ukrainian decisions possible by our support.”

“That was the moment to just sort of say, ‘OK, let’s split the baby here, and you’re going to be able to get this, and we’re going to be able to walk away and not have our infrastructure destroyed,’” said Keith Darden, a comparative politics professor at American University and Russia–Ukraine expert. “If you think about the destruction that’s been visited on Ukraine, both just sheer death toll and in the destruction of the power grid and infrastructure since that time, the fall of 2022, it’s just really tragic that there wasn’t more of a push made then.”

The negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in the early weeks of the Russian invasion — which were held predominantly in Turkey — were another chance to end the war, Darden said. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine had agreed on the outlines of a tentative agreement to halt the conflict. The U.S. and U.K. governments, however, worked to sabotage the deal and prolong the war, according to multiple reports.

By May 2022, Ukrainska Pravda, a pro-Western Ukrainian outlet, reported that former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the West would not support a peace deal even if Ukraine was ready to sign one. The West, Johnson said, preferred to fight Putin because he was less powerful than they thought.

“We always say that it’s for the Ukrainians to decide, but really we make Ukrainian decisions possible by our support,” Darden said. “Without our support, Ukrainians wouldn’t be in a position to make decisions — these things would be forced on them by Russian victory.”

The post Progressives Were Pilloried for Wanting to End the Ukraine War in 2022. Things Have Only Gotten Worse. appeared first on The Intercept.

Ivanti fixed a maximum severity flaw in its Endpoint Management software (EPM) that can let attackers achieve remote code execution on the core server

Ivanti Endpoint Management (EPM) software is a comprehensive solution designed to help organizations manage and secure their endpoint devices across various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, and IoT systems.

The software firm released security updates to address a maximum security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-29847, in its Endpoint Management software (EPM).

The vulnerability is a deserialization of untrusted data issue that resides in the agent portal, attackers can exploit the flaw to achieve remote code execution on the core server.

“Deserialization of untrusted data in the agent portal of Ivanti EPM before 2022 SU6, or the 2024 September update allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.” reads the advisory published by the company.

Ivanti also fixed multiple critical, medium and high-severity vulnerabilities that can be exploited to achieve unauthorized access to the EPM core server. 

Critical SQL injection vulnerabilities CVE-2024-32840, CVE-2024-32842, CVE-2024-32843, CVE-2024-32845, CVE-2024-32846, CVE-2024-32848, CVE-2024-34779, CVE-2024-34783, CVE-2024-34785 (CVSS scores of 9.1) could allow a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to execute arbitrary code on the core server.

The flaws impact Ivanti Endpoint Manager  versions 2024 and 2022 SU5 and earlier, the versions 2024 with Security Patch,  (Need to apply both July and September)2024 SU1 (To be released) and 2022 SU6 fixed the problems

The company is not aware of attacks in the wild exploiting the vulnerabilities in the advisory.

“We are not aware of any customers being exploited by these vulnerabilities at the time of disclosure.” concludes the advisory.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, SQL injection) 

On the presidential debate stage Tuesday, former President Donald Trump spewed reliably racist and lie-riddled diatribes about towns being taken over by “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, for her part, didn’t bother to counter the sentiment, the central ideological violence at the heart of Trump’s message. Harris, albeit in the predictably moderated tones of a Democratic border authoritarian, upheld the right-wing lie that immigration — the migration of poor people, that is — should be stopped.

Both candidates purported to offer diametrically opposed visions for the country’s future. When it came to immigration and the U.S. border, however, only one narrative was available throughout the night: Immigration is a social ill, if not a criminal endeavor, to be deterred as much as possible.

Harris upheld the right-wing lie that immigration — the migration of poor people, that is — should be stopped.

David Muir, the ABC news anchor and debate moderator, set the bleak, hyper-nationalist tone. He opened the discussion on immigration with a lengthy question posed to Harris.

“We know that illegal border crossings reached a record high in the Biden administration,” he said, noting that, since President Joe Biden “imposed tough asylum restrictions” last June, the numbers are down.

“Why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act?” he asked Harris. “And would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?”

This narrative of a “border crisis” was taken for granted from the jump — specifically, that it is a “crisis” for the U.S., not the desperate people who have fled their homes and must face brutal, unforgiving barriers to seek refuge here. Harris answered Muir accordingly, treating migration as a problem of criminality to be policed and fought.

“I’m the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings,” she said. “The United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported.” The bill, she noted, “would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border” and “allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl.”

The border bill in question was indeed one of the most draconian in recent memory. Harris’s only problem with the legislation, she said on Tuesday, was that Trump had allies in Congress kill it. Meanwhile, Biden’s executive order, cited approvingly by Muir, lowered crossing numbers because it effectively shuttered the southern border, even to asylum-seekers — an affront to international humanitarian law and, more to the point, an echo of Trump’s ban on asylum.

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The only characters in current migration narratives mentioned by the cable news host and the Democratic nominee were gang members, traffickers, fentanyl pushers, and “illegal” border crossers. Obscured totally from view: the hundreds of thousands of people risking their lives to cross the border to find safety and better lives in the wealthiest nation on Earth — a nation that bears significant historic responsibility for much of the political turmoil that has driven millions of people to flee violence, repression, economic devastation, and climate catastrophe in Northern Triangle countries, Haiti, and elsewhere in the first place.

Even typical liberal shibboleths about our “nation of immigrants” were absent on Tuesday night. So, too, was any reckoning with the deadly consequences of hardened border policy. As many as 80,000 people have reportedly died trying to cross into the U.S. through the Southern border in the last decade.

The reality in which a Democratic candidate would advocate for opening borders is, of course, a distant cry from our current cruel and nationalist political quagmire. Harris, the centrist Democratic candidate, does not even mention the economic and social interests served by welcoming migrant workers into the U.S., as the existing population ages and the need for workers, particularly in the care sector, only grows.

From an electoral point of view, too, centrists bending rightward — appealing to white resentment — has in the last decade only served to strengthen far-right leaders and parties, from Italy to France to Germany.

Immigrants, of course, should be welcomed as a point of ethical and humanitarian necessity — of global justice — not only in service of the U.S. economy or electoral maneuvering. As Tuesday’s debate made clear, however, that when it comes to border politics, inhumanity is a point of bipartisan agreement.

Border Rule Race to the Bottom

This race to the bottom on “law and order” border rule is not new. As I’ve previously noted, the Biden–Harris administration is not simply borrowing Republican talking points to appeal to disaffected conservatives. Harsh border policies have been the standard of Democratic administrations for three decades, dating back at least to Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House.

Clinton’s 1996 immigration laws significantly expanded the United States’ ability to detain and deport migrants with even minor criminal convictions. President Barak Obama relied, like Harris since, on the racist, classist narrative of only targeting “criminal” migrants and deported some 3 million people — earning the moniker “deporter in chief.”

Biden’s administration followed suit, shuttering the border this year; introducing a policy in early 2023 to immediately eject asylum-seekers from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua who cross the border without having previously applied for asylum in a third country; and overseeing the increased use of solitary confinement for thousands of detained migrants.

While Democrats will participate in this bigoted race to the bottom, it should not be lost on us that Republicans — especially Trump and his allies — will always win. Harris’s grim picture of gangs and trafficking was met by Trump’s obscene, unfounded repetition of the lie that immigrants from Haiti are stealing and eating people’s pets.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said, parroting a lie posted by vice presidential candidate JD Vance and other right-wing online grifters like Elon Musk about immigrants in Ohio. On the debate stage, Trump grew ever more outlandish: “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

The racist myth sits within a legacy of vile slander faced by Haitians in the West, ever since Haitians liberated themselves from the yoke of French colonialism in the world’s most renown successful revolt by enslaved people. Trump and his followers need not know the specific history of racist backlash to play into its violent afterlives.

Muir, the host, did note — in one of only a few mealy-mouthed fact checks — that, no, there were no credible reports of any such incident in Springfield. Yet when the stage is set to treat Black and other migrants of color as de facto criminals, neither Muir nor Harris, nor anyone involved in Tuesday’s performance — or in this entire election — is a bulwark to the dehumanization to which immigrants are subjected.

The rhetoric around the “border crisis,” from the far right to the liberal center, suggests that the pressure of global migration is bearing down on the U.S. This is hardly the case.

The overwhelming majority of displaced people in the world are internally displaced or in refugee camps near their countries of origin. By comparison to the United States’ so-called crisis, around 1.5 million Syrian refugees currently reside in Lebanon, where the total population is only 5.5 million.

I’m not suggesting that, even for a global superpower, it does not take resources and work to settle millions of newcomers into a country, but these are questions of resource distribution priorities. Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, the federal government has spent an estimated $409 billion on immigration enforcement agencies alone, and tens of billions more on deterrence strategies like barriers and walls.

Prioritizing the economic security of our collective lives, and the lives of those who enter the country, rather than “securing the border” through militarized violence, would see such sums better spent.

Correction: September 11, 2024, 11:57 a.m. ET
An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of ABC news anchor and moderator David Muir.

The post Kamala Harris Accepted Trump’s Racist Lie That Immigration Is Bad appeared first on The Intercept.

Today, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that Iran has delivered close range ballistic missiles (CRBMs) to Russia, which he expects Russian forces will use against Ukraine within a matter of weeks.

At the same time, the US Department of the Treasury announced the imposition of additional sanctions on Iranian and Russian individuals and entities, including Iran Air. These moves can hardly come as a surprise to Moscow and Tehran and will not serve to get either to change course. The real question is how the Iranian transfer of CRBMs to Russia will affect the Russia-Iran relationship. Specifically: Does Russia’s dependence on Iran, first for armed drones and now for CRBMs, give Tehran a degree of leverage over Moscow? And what would Tehran want to get from Moscow with that leverage?

Iran has long sought Su-35 fighter aircraft and S-400 air defense missile systems from Russia, according to reports, but Moscow has not yet delivered them. As Hanna Notte and Jim Lamson noted in a study published in August, there are many other Russian weapons systems and technologies that Tehran would like to receive. If any of these turn up in Iran, this will be seen as evidence that the transfer of CRBMs to Moscow is indeed a sign of increased Iranian leverage over Russia.

Moscow, though, will be loath to transfer weapons to Iran that would upset its ability to maintain good relations with Iran’s rivals, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which could in turn result in their turning closer to the United States and even Israel for support. Indeed, Iran itself might not want this to happen. Saudi-Russian cooperation in the OPEC+ format, which keeps world oil prices relatively higher, serves Iranian interests too. Both Russia and Iran have to sell their oil at a discount due to Western sanctions, but if the Saudis conclude that Russia has become Iran’s firm ally and so decide to increase oil production, the resulting lower oil prices would hurt both Moscow and Tehran. And they know that Riyadh has in the past been willing to flood the market and accept lower oil prices in order to hurt its rivals.

Further, while Tehran may want Moscow to transfer Su-35s, S-400s, and other weapons systems and technologies, receiving them immediately may not be the Iranian leadership’s primary goal. The Islamic Republic often does not take direct military action itself, but prefers to act through proxies, such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi and other Shia militia forces.

Tehran, then, may see Russia not so much as a great power but as another proxy, whose willingness to fight against a common enemy benefits Iran but allows it to avoid the costs of fighting that common enemy itself. Ukraine, of course, does not pose a threat to Iran. But to the extent that the United States and other Western countries devote attention and resources to supporting Ukraine, then they have less of these available for dealing with Iran.

Indeed, Tehran’s one great worry might be that Russia will lose its war with Ukraine, thus allowing the United States and its Western allies (as Tehran might fear) to concentrate on Iran. Transferring first armed drones and now CRBMs to Russia, then, may be seen as a good investment by Tehran whether it receives Russian weapons systems in return or not. This attitude would also be very much in keeping with how Iran prefers to support proxies that are fighting a common adversary rather than take on the fight itself.

Mark N. Katz is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and professor emeritus of government and politics at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

The post What does Iran get for sending ballistic missiles to Russia? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presided over his government’s largest wartime reshuffle in early September, with nine ministries getting new permanent leadership. As the news filtered into Western capitals, media and experts alike scrambled to make sense of the changes. Back in Kyiv, many lawmakers and analysts appeared relatively unmoved by the announcements, in contrast to the cheers and jeers that have come with previous shifts in Zelenskyy’s government.

Perhaps the most notable figure to resign was Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who had been a steady, passionate voice as Ukraine’s top diplomat for the last four years. Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna, another longtime minister, resigned from her post only to be quickly named as the new Justice Minister, replacing Denys Maliuska.

Oleksandr Kamyshin’s swift rise in government looks set to continue as he takes up a post as presidential advisor for strategic issues after resigning as Minister of Strategic Industries. He joins former Deputy Prime Minister for the Reintegration of Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk, who will be a new deputy in the Office of the President.

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The somewhat muted reaction in Ukraine to such a significant government shakeup reflects a number of factors. First, none of the cabinet changes came in the wake of a scandal or amid whispers of corruption. They appear to be purely a shift in personnel.

Second, Zelenskyy had long telegraphed plans for a major government shakeup. Speaking to Italian media in February 2024, he said “a reset” was necessary. “I have something serious in mind, which is not about a single person but about the direction of the country’s leadership,” he commented. At the time, observers fixated on the “single person” reference, assuming he was talking about Ukraine’s highly regarded military commander Valeriy Zaluzhny, who was subsequently removed and appointed Ukrainian ambassador to Great Britain.

Crucially, none of the changes in the recent reshuffle directly involve the military or the economy. Replacing the minister of defense or economy would have set off alarm bells among Ukraine’s Western partners, but those positions look stable. The closest person to the battlefield was Kamyshin, who leaves Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries with a revamped and highly effective drone program in place.

The new blood leading these ministries is not all that new, either. Instead, Zelenskyy appears to be promoting trusted cadres, assigning others new or enhanced portfolios, offering acting ministers permanent gigs, and, in the case of former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, giving some a deserved break after years of strenuous work.

Publicly at least, Ukraine’s Western partners took the personnel changes in stride. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other foreign ministers thanked Kuleba for his work and dedication. The European Union offered a suitably bland reaction, calling the shakeup Ukraine’s “internal matter” and expressing hopes to “continue very good cooperation” with Kyiv.

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The two most interesting newcomers are new Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and Oleksiy Kuleba, the incoming Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities and Territories Development.

Sybiha moves from the Office of the President back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he has spent much of his government career. He previously served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Türkiye and at the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland, both senior diplomatic posts working with two of Ukraine’s most important neighbors. Zelenskyy will be hoping Sybiha’s experience and strong relationship with presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak make him an efficient liaison between Kyiv and its many partners.

Kuleba takes over a large ministry formed by the merger of the Ministry for the Reintegration of Occupied Territories and the Ministry of Community Development, Territories, and Infrastructure, which had been led by Oleksandr Kubrakov until his dismissal in May. Some outlets reported that Kuleba’s ministry will soon be split in two, with one ministry set to focus on reconstruction and development, while the other concentrates on infrastructure. That may be a sensible move ahead of what could be another harsh winter of Russian assaults on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. Kuleba’s previous job was head of regional policy in the Office of the President, working closely with Yermak.

The most controversial personnel decision to emerge from the recent flurry of changes in Kyiv was the firing of Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi. He is widely credited with having worked miracles as head of Ukraine’s state-owned electrical grid operator, most significantly leading the country’s disconnection from the Russian grid in February 2022, months ahead of schedule. Kudrytskyi was seen as a real reformer in Western capitals, leading to significant alarm over his dismissal. Two members of Ukrenergo’s supervisory board resigned in protest, calling Kudrytskyi’s firing “politically motivated.”

Overall, Zelenskyy appears to be shuffling the deck rather than choosing a new set of cards. It is unlikely the nine new ministers will produce dramatic changes in government policy, but they may offer new impetus as Ukraine heads toward its third winter of full-scale war. Kyiv’s whole-of-government approach to the country’s defense has been largely effective so far; Zelenskyy may be betting these tweaks will maintain Ukraine’s edge.

Andrew D’Anieri is a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Sep 5, 2024

Too many still view Ukraine through the prism of Russian imperialism

By
Olesya Khromeychuk

Far too many Western newspaper editors, academics, and cultural commentators continue to view Ukraine through the distorting lens of Russian imperialism, writes Olesya Khromeychuk.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert
Sep 1, 2024

Key Ukrainian front line city evacuates as Russian offensive gains pace

By
Maria Avdeeva

Evacuation efforts are accelerating in Pokrovsk as Russian troops draw closer amid fears the city will soon become the latest in a growing list of Ukrainian urban centers reduced to rubble by Putin’s invading army, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert
Aug 21, 2024

Invasion? What invasion? Putin is downplaying Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

By
Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to downplay Ukraine’s invasion of Russia have severely dented his strongman image and make a mockery of the West’s escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Policy

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post Ukraine’s biggest wartime government shakeup prompts muted reaction in Kyiv appeared first on Atlantic Council.

When Vladimir Putin first began the invasion of Ukraine with the seizure of Crimea, he did so using troops without identifying insignia and was careful to hide his attack behind a veil of deniability, however implausible. Ten years later, the Russian dictator now routinely threatens Western leaders with nuclear apocalypse if they dare to disrupt his methodical destruction of Europe’s largest nation. This dramatic escalation in Russian aggression is the bitter fruit of a decade spent trying to avoid provoking Putin rather than confronting the Kremlin.

In 2014, the West chose not to impose any significant costs on Russia for the occupation of Crimea and the subsequent invasion of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. At the time, many preferred to pursue a business as usual approach, strengthening trade ties with Moscow and constructing new gas pipelines to deepen Europe’s energy dependence on the Kremlin. Unsurprisingly, Putin interpreted this timidity as a tacit green light to continue, safe in the knowledge that performative Western outrage was unlikely to translate into action. The stage was thus set for the largest European invasion since World War II.

Since February 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has transformed the geopolitical landscape, but it has so far failed to convince Western leaders of the need to abandon their failed policies of escalation management. Instead, the international response to Russia’s invasion has been hampered at every turn by delays and indecisiveness, with Kyiv’s partners denying the country vital weapons and imposing absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. As a result, the Ukrainian military currently finds itself forced to fight an existential war with one hand tied behind its back.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

We have been here before, of course. In the 1930s, Western leaders responded to the challenge of an increasingly aggressive Nazi Germany by seeking to appease Adolf Hitler with a series of concessions. The architects of appeasement have come to be viewed as fools and cowards, but in fact they were mostly honorable men who believed it was their sacred duty to prevent another world war. The majority of today’s escalation managers are doubtless driven by similarly noble intentions. However, it should be painfully clear to them by now that escalation management is the appeasement of the modern era and is steadily creating the conditions for the global conflict they aim to avert.

Like Hitler before him, Putin makes no secret of his expansionist goals and imperial ambitions. Indeed, the Kremlin dictator likes nothing better than discussing his sense of historical mission. He is notorious for delivering rambling lectures on Russian history, and has often delved into the distant past to justify his contemporary geopolitical grievances. Ukraine is a favorite topic, with Putin frequently questioning the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood and referring to entire regions of Ukraine as “historically Russian lands.” Few were surprised in summer 2022 when he compared the current invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great.

Nor is Putin’s historical revisionism limited to the reconquest of Ukraine. He has often lamented modern Russia’s retreat from empire and has referred to the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as the “disintegration of historical Russia.” At its greatest extent, the Russian Empire stretched far beyond today’s Ukrainian borders and featured a long list of additional countries including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the whole of Central Asia. Many of these states could be at risk of suffering Ukraine’s fate if the current invasion is allowed to succeed.

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While there can be little doubt regarding the scale of Putin’s revisionist ambitions, some skeptics still question whether he possesses the military capabilities to achieve his goals. This is shortsighted. The invasion of Ukraine may have exposed the limitations of the Russian army, but it has also revealed the weakness of the West. This disastrous lack of Western resolve is visibly emboldening the Kremlin and may yet persuade Putin that he can risk going further without triggering an overwhelming Western response.

In recent months, Putin has begun testing NATO with occasional drone incursions across the border into Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states. So far, he has received minimal push back. This gray zone aggression is just one small part of an escalating Russian hybrid war being waged throughout the Western world that includes a dizzying array of disinformation operations, cyber attacks, weaponized corruption, sabotage, and support for extremist political movements of all kinds. Although many policymakers in Western capitals are still reluctant to admit it, Russia evidently believes it is already at war with the West and is acting accordingly.

Back in the Russian Federation itself, there are ample indications that Putin is preparing the domestic front for a long war. He has placed the entire Russian economy on a wartime footing, and has instructed his vast propaganda apparatus to preach holy war against the West. On the international stage, he is consolidating an authoritarian axis of like-minded nations such as China, Iran, and North Korea, all of whom share his stated goal of overturning the current world order. While it is impossible to anticipate exactly what Putin might do next if he succeeds in Ukraine, the idea that he will simply stop is dangerously delusional.

There was a time when such delusions regarding the revanchist nature of Putin’s Russia could be excused. Not anymore. Since 2022, the Kremlin has embarked on a path of open hostility toward the entire Western world, with each successive attempt to appease Putin merely serving to encourage bolder acts of aggression. In this climate of confrontation, compromising with the Kremlin will not bring peace. On the contrary, any territorial concessions in Ukraine would be viewed by Moscow as a victory and used to justify more war.

Before it is too late, the West must recognize the necessity of speaking to Putin in the only language he understands: The language of strength. This means committing fully and unambiguously to Ukrainian victory. More specifically, it means lifting the restrictions that currently protect Russia from attack, and supplying Ukraine with enough weapons to actually win. Putin sees international relations as a zero sum game and believes he has the upper hand over opponents who have revealed their fundamental weakness. By continuing to signal their fear of escalation, Western leaders now risk repeating the mistakes of the 1930s and provoking the wider war they so desperately seek to prevent.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Sep 1, 2024

Key Ukrainian front line city evacuates as Russian offensive gains pace

By
Maria Avdeeva

Evacuation efforts are accelerating in Pokrovsk as Russian troops draw closer amid fears the city will soon become the latest in a growing list of Ukrainian urban centers reduced to rubble by Putin’s invading army, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert
Aug 21, 2024

Invasion? What invasion? Putin is downplaying Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

By
Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to downplay Ukraine’s invasion of Russia have severely dented his strongman image and make a mockery of the West’s escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Policy

UkraineAlert
Sep 5, 2024

Too many still view Ukraine through the prism of Russian imperialism

By
Olesya Khromeychuk

Far too many Western newspaper editors, academics, and cultural commentators continue to view Ukraine through the distorting lens of Russian imperialism, writes Olesya Khromeychuk.

Civil Society
Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post Escalation management is the appeasement of the 21st century appeared first on Atlantic Council.

When Kamala Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash last month, Bash asked a question: “Would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.” 

Harris sidestepped the question, talked about a ceasefire, and ultimately said that she would not change course from the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel as its war on Gaza enters its 11th month. 

But polls of the American voting population show that she’s ignoring more than just the “progressive left”: A majority of voters support ending arms transfers to Israel, and support for an arms embargo is growing.

“The reality is that the public is far more in favor of stopping arms sales to Israel than opposed,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington D.C., told The Intercept. He pointed to a June poll from CBS that showed 61 percent of all Americans said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and nearly 40 percent of Republicans. 

Poll results have been consistent for months. 

Since the start of the war in Gaza, a majority of Americans have expressed support for some form of restrictions on the U.S. sending weapons to Israel in repeated public surveys. Americans are even more overwhelmingly in favor of a ceasefire.

Among the most consistent string of polls on the issue of weapons transfers to Israel has come from CBS News, which partnered with YouGov to carry out its survey. About two weeks after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, as Israel’s bombardment had already killed more than 2,000 civilians in Gaza, a CBS poll of more than 1,800 Americans found that 52 percent of American adults said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel. The totals included large majorities among both Democrats and independents, and 43 percent of Republicans. 

In April, CBS News/YouGov asked the same question in a new poll and found that an even larger number of Americans (60 percent), including 68 percent of Democrats, said they felt the U.S. should not send arms to Israel. The poll was conducted days after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in a clearly marked World Central Kitchen convoy. 

And in June, when more than 30,000 Palestinians were killed and as Israel continued its operations in Rafah where many of Gaza civilians had been sheltering, spurring the “All Eyes on Rafah” social media campaign, a third CBS News poll seemingly solidified Americans’ opposition to military aid to Israel with 61 percent of American adults calling for a halt on weapons transfers to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats.

Stopping arms transfers also polls highly in key swing states, according to recent polls.

A poll published this week by the libertarian think tank Cato Institute found that the majority of likely voters in some Rust Belt swing states are in favor of conditioning military aid to Israel or are against sending aid altogether. The tallies showed 61 percent in Wisconsin expressing support, along with 56 percent in Michigan and 51 percent in Pennsylvania.

Another poll from August, commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project and conducted by YouGov, showed that a majority of voters in Pennsylvania (57 percent), and a significant share of voters in swing states Arizona (44 percent) and Georgia (34 percent), said they would more likely vote for Harris if the U.S. withholds arms to Israel. 

An additional swing-state focused poll earlier this year, commissioned by Americans for Justice in Palestine Action and conducted by YouGov in May, also found 2 in 5 Democrats and independents in Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota said that an immediate and permanent ceasefire and conditioning of aid to Israel would make them more likely to vote for then-candidate Joe Biden.

“This is not a ‘progressive left’ issue — the vast majority of Democrats support ending arms sales to Israel,” Munayyer said. “This is a mainstream position, as I think it should be for any sensible person watching what is happening in Gaza, that we should not continue funding this, we should not continue supporting this.”

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Despite the popularity of cutting Israel off from American weapons, the Biden administration has continued to pump billions in military aid, including thousands of 2,000-pound bombs, to Israel, approving a $20 billion weapons package just last month. His administration has ignored calls from Democratic senators to halt aid, as well as credible evidence of human rights violations committed by the Israeli military. Biden briefly halted transfer of munitions in May as Israel prepared for an offensive in Rafah where 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge, but later reversed his position after pressure from the pro-Israel lobby within the party. At the Democratic National Convention, party officials denied a main-stage speaker slot from more than 200 “Uncommitted” delegates and ceasefire delegates committed to Harris who are in favor of an arms embargo. Harris’s CNN interview seemingly dampened the cautious optimism of those who hoped for her to depart from her boss’s policies. 

Even with the renewed energy from across the Democratic party since Biden dropped out of the race, Harris continues to be in a dead heat with former President Donald Trump. This week’s New York Times and Siena College national poll had 47 percent of likely voters supporting Harris, with Trump garnering 48. Both candidates are expected to be asked about their approach on the war in Gaza during Tuesday’s highly anticipated debate on ABC.

The most commonly cited U.S. law by proponents of an arms embargo has been the Leahy law, enacted in 1997, which prohibits the State Department from sending military aid to any foreign security force that is found to violate human rights law. Also, in March, a group of Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., cited the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which prohibits military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid. They were responding to evidence and allegations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet had been interrupting U.S. humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. 

The polling data has accumulated for many months. A poll from left-wing think tank Data for Progress, showed in December that 63 percent of voters agreed that military aid should be conditioned on whether Israel meets the U.S. standard for human rights. In March, 52 percent of Americans said that Biden should halt weapons transfers to Israel, according to a poll by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

In June, another Data for Progress poll found that a majority of Americans (53 percent) supported withdrawing military aid from Israel if the country does not accept a ceasefire deal. Seventy percent of Democrats and 53 percent of swing voters supported the measure. The poll was conducted about one month after Netanyahu had rejected a ceasefire deal, even after Hamas had accepted its terms. 

A poll of more than 2,000 Americans taken by the Arab American Institute in the period between the Republican and Democratic national conventions in late July and early August showed that support for Harris would grow from 44 to 49 percent if she were to suspend arms shipments and withhold diplomatic support for Israel until there was a ceasefire and withdrawal of forces from Gaza. 

More recently, an August poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that a majority (53 percent) of Americans, including 68 percent of Democrats, believe the U.S. should restrict military aid to Israel so it cannot use the aid in military operations against Palestinians. An earlier July poll from the Chicago-based think tank found that such support for restricting military aid was more favorable among people of color, including respondents who were Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. The August poll did however find that 60 percent of Americans would support military aid to Israel until the hostages taken by Hamas are freed. 

Support for a ceasefire was considered a controversial demand among U.S. lawmakers for months but has now become a regular talking point among Democratic leaders, though critics say it’s often used to deflect from U.S. responsibility for the ongoing war on Gaza. Since the beginning of the year, it has also been consistently popular among Americans. As early as January, an Associated Press poll found that half of Americans felt Israel had gone too far in its war, including 63 percent of Democrats. 

The June Data for Progress poll showed the majority of Americans (64 percent) supported a permanent ceasefire deal and an Economist/YouGov poll in May found that same number in support of a ceasefire. The August Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll said the majority of Americans should pressure Israel into a ceasefire deal, with a plurality of respondents saying the U.S. should reduce arms shipments to do so. 

A series of Gallup polls that showed Americans’ attitudes toward Israel’s military operations in Gaza also show a gradual progression toward disapproval for the war. While in November, 50 percent of Americans said they support Israel’s war in Gaza, among that total were 63 percent of Democrats who expressed disapproval. About four months later, Americans had shifted with the majority (55 percent) saying they disapproved of Israel’s operations, according to a March Gallup poll. Although a June Gallup poll showed disapproval dropping to 48 percent, opposition to the war stood firm among Democrats (77 percent) and independents (66 percent).

An outlier among polls that asked Americans about sending arms to Israel was a March survey from the Pew Research Center, which found that only 35 percent of Americans were opposed to military aid. However, the poll also showed a plurality of Democrats (44 percent) opposed military aid to Israel and a majority of liberals (54 percent). 

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom broke from the U.S. and announced it would ban some of its weapons transfers to Israel. However, the number is minimal, suspending 30 of its 350 arms licenses. Other countries to suspend military support to Israel include Italy, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and Spain, which also banned ships from carrying weapons to Israel from docking in its ports. 

After Harris’s CNN interview, Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser for Sanders, told The Intercept that the issue of restricting arms to Israel did not begin with October 7 but has been a popular move within the party for much longer.

“This is not new, this is not a radical departure — this is a consistent trend we’ve seen for years among Democratic voters,” Duss said.

Before October 7, concerns largely centered around Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, continued settlement expansion, and evidence of human rights violations by the Israeli military in the occupied territory. In 2020, then candidates for president Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Julian Castro at least signaled support or interest in conditioning aid so that it wouldn’t support further annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.

And on the 2020 election night, J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbyist group, conducted a poll that showed 57 percent of American Jews would want to restrict military aid to ensure it cannot be spent on annexation. In 2021, J Street also backed a Democrat-backed bill that would have prevented aid to Israel to be used on human rights abuses of Palestinians, destruction of Palestinian property, or displacement of Palestinians from their land.

“I’m not saying everyone should just make their policy decisions based on what the polling says on any given date,” Duss said. “But this is a consistent trend, this is what Democrats clearly think.”

The post Most Americans Want to Stop Arming Israel. Politicians Don’t Care. appeared first on The Intercept.

Voluntary certifications used by companies to tout their green credentials are not fully in line with a new European Union law banning the trade of goods linked to forest destruction, according to a new academic study.

Producers and traders of timber, palm oil and other forestry or agricultural commodities often use so-called green labels to show customers and shareholders that their operations and products do not harm the environment or violate human rights.

However, a study recently published in the Forest Policy and Economics journal found that some sustainability certification schemes awarding such labels “fell short in providing a comprehensive prohibition of deforestation and forest degradation.” The study cautioned companies not to rely on the schemes to prove compliance with the upcoming EU Deforestation Regulation.

The EUDR will go into effect at the end of 2024, requiring most European companies importing certain commodities to be able to prove the products did not originate from deforested land or contribute to forest degradation.

As part of the study, researchers at the University of Padova, in Italy, compared the requirements imposed by the new law with the standards five organizations used to certify the sustainability of timber, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber and cocoa. Their study did not cover beef because there is no related voluntary certification scheme, the researchers said.

The EUDR makes clear that voluntary sustainability certifications are not mandatory nor sufficient to prove compliance.

Some trade organizations have urged lawmakers to recognize the schemes but the study raises questions about the industry’s position, likening the green labels to “marketing tools” that should be used in tandem with stricter legal requirements.

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The “voluntary initiatives can provide on-the-ground information periodically assessed by an independent third party” and “facilitate the implementation of the EUDR,” the study said, but companies “must be cautious when incorporating these schemes into their due diligence systems.”

For instance, the researchers found that certification organizations don’t require companies to precisely geolocate the land where commodities originate from, allow deforestation and conversion of natural forests in some cases, and are lenient toward companies that violate voluntary standards.

“The evidence collected suggests that conducting deforestation, forest degradation, or non-compliance with legislation, does not result in certificate suspension, cancelation [or] withdraw,” the study said.

The researchers’ findings add to reporting by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and others exposing flaws in a lightly regulated sustainability industry that overlooks environmental harm and human rights violations when granting sustainability certifications.

In 2023, ICIJ’s Deforestation Inc. investigation revealed that certification firms frequently validate products linked to deforestation, logging in conflict zones and other abuses. Certification helped the firms’ clients produce and promote teak yacht decks, high-end furniture and other products in markets around the world.

An ICIJ analysis of records in at least 50 countries showed that, since 1998, more than 340 certified companies in the forest products industry were accused of environmental crimes or other wrongdoing by local communities, environmental groups, and government agencies, among others. About 50 of those firms held sustainability certificates at the time they were fined or convicted by a government agency.

‘Responsibility to keep their promises’

The researchers examined five well-known voluntary certification schemes including Forest Stewardship Council for wood, Rainforest Alliance for cocoa and coffee, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and others. They then analyzed whether the schemes required products to be deforestation-free and have traceable supply chains, as well as whether the schemes themselves were transparent about their methods of certification and enforcement.

Mauro Masiero, one of the authors of the study, told ICIJ that he found it “surprising” that, with the exception of the FSC, most of the schemes examined in the study have some flaws in monitoring the way non-certified materials enter the supply chain of certified products.

The researchers found that “there is an inherent risk that products managed under such traceability systems are associated with deforestation and non-compliance with legislation.”

The EU law requires national authorities to conduct regular checks and act swiftly against companies that don’t comply; penalties include fines of at least 4% of a company’s annual turnover.

According to Masiero, effective enforcement of the regulation will be key to its success. Though sustainability certifications remain voluntary, he said that national authorities in some EU states may still  view the certifications as indicators of compliance with the law. Masiero noted there were previoulsy “disparities” in the way the old European timber regulation was implemented across countries, with some having less strict controls than others.

Voluntary forest certification organizations, such as the FSC, were founded in the 1990s after environmentalists and regulators failed to agree on an international legal framework for forest conservation. Since then, more than a dozen such organizations and many affiliated programs have been established around the world — each with its own criteria and label.

Experts say that in countries where deforestation is widespread and forestry governance is weak, such as Brazil, voluntary certification can be a better alternative to poorly enforced laws on forest management and supply chains.

However, as more brands became willing to pay for green certifications, some organizations relaxed their standards, and the process became less effective, auditors and forestry experts told ICIJ.

According to Earthsight, an international environmental charity that has long warned about the flaws in the sustainability certification sector, the University of Padova study the first independent examination of “the interplay between these schemes and the EUDR.”

Voluntary certification schemes should not be taken as gospel, Masiero said. “We are aware that there may be mistakes or conditions that can be improved. It is important to acknowledge that and intervene whenever possible,” he said.

The researchers acknowledged that some certification organizations were seeking to change their standards to align with the new EU law, and said that the study will continue.

Masiero warned that consumers should be aware of what green labels mean as well as their limitations. “At the same time, these labels have the responsibility to keep their promises,” he said.

Introduction

The purpose and composition of the United States’ homeland and regional missile defenses has long been the subject of a divisive public debate. In 1973, just a year after the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed, noted strategic forces scholars Bernard and Fawn Brodie wrote that the “whole ABM question touched off so intense and emotional a debate in this country as to be virtually without precedent on any issue of weaponry.¹ This debate continued through the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the passage of the 1999 National Missile Defense Act, the George W. Bush administration’s subsequent withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and has now received renewed attention in the recently released report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.²

The primary point of contention in this debate—besides the cost and effectiveness of missile defense programs—has been the reaction of the United States’ main nuclear-armed strategic rivals, Russia and China. Critics have argued that US defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) could generate an arms-race dynamic either by forcing adversaries to increase their nuclear arsenals or by engendering fears of a US preemptive first strike, which could indirectly create crises.³ Similar statements have been expressed by Russian and Chinese officials, who have leveraged complaints that US ballistic missile defenses undermine the efficacy of their states’ nuclear deterrents and therefore their security.⁴

This paper focuses on strategic ballistic missile defense (BMD), defined as systems of interceptors, sensors, and supporting infrastructure designed to defeat medium- to intercontinental- range ballistic missiles, especially those carrying nuclear warheads. This definition preferences medium-range ballistic (MRBMs), intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), and ICBMs, as opposed to short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for several reasons. While these latter systems can certainly have strategic implications due to their range, precision, and ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, they can be defeated by far less sophisticated air defense systems which may not necessarily be designed specifically for a missile defense role. Developing the capability to intercept long-range ballistic missiles represents a far greater technical barrier and indicates a clearer interest in strategic defense by a given state. This paper will, however, address systems with limited capability against long-range ballistic missiles as a technological steppingstone in strategic BMD.

Often missing from this debate is the context of Russian and Chinese efforts to develop their own strategic missile defense systems, their reasons for doing so, and the implications for US strategy. There is a need for more open-source treatments of both countries’ missile defense programs, especially as their development has accelerated and even begun deployment in recent years.⁵ This research annex follows Matthew R. Costlow and Robert M. Soofer’s paper, US Homeland Missile Defense: Room for Expanded Roles, and seeks to inform debates about missile defense policy by placing arguments that US ballistic missile defenses are uniquely destabilizing in the context of efforts by Russia and China to deploy similar systems.⁶

Russia

Introduction

This section outlines the historical missile defense programs of the Soviet Union, the current development by the Russian Federation, and the broader trends in Russian thinking on missile defense. Of particular note are the A-135 anti-ballistic missile systems around Moscow and new mobile missile defense systems such as the S-500. With regard to doctrine, Russia orients its air and missile defense strategy around defeating a US-led aerospace strike campaign that Moscow believes could include a full spectrum of threats from aircraft to strategic missiles. 

Doctrine

The defense of the homeland against strategic air and missile attack has featured heavily in Russian military planning and doctrine since the early Cold War. This focus likely emerged from the experience of suffering massed German air attacks in World War 2 and continued into the twenty-first century due to a perceived advantage of the United States in the air and space domains.⁷ During the 1950s and 1960s, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) sought to defend its airspace against US strategic bombers by deploying hundreds of early generation surface-to-air (SAM) missile batteries across its territory. Later, with the advent of ICBMs, the USSR developed a missile defense system around Moscow. The Soviet Union’s primary goals in developing strategic defenses were to protect party leadership, prevent a decapitation of nuclear command and control, and limit damage in a strategic exchange.⁸ It also likely saw a need to compete technologically with the United States for reputational reasons, especially after the highly public announcement of the SDI in 1983.⁹ 

Since 1991, following observation of US air campaigns, Russian doctrine has emphasized the need to defend against complex threats in the air and space domain, especially a massed aircraft and missile attack by the United States and NATO that would incapacitate Russian military and civilian leadership.¹⁰ To integrate Russia’s capabilities across these domains, then Russian president Dimitry Medvedev authorized the creation of the Aerospace Defense Forces in 2011, which was ultimately merged with the Russian Air Force in 2015 to form the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). This move demonstrated the Russian military’s focus on developing an integrated approach to a wide array of offensive long-range strikes, including strategic nuclear attack, as well as conventional aircraft, cruise, and ballistic missile defense. Russian military analysts often cite the US pursuit of concepts such as Conventional Prompt Strike as indicative of the need to address strategic missile attacks across the nuclear and conventional spectrum.¹¹ The VKS is organized into several “Air Force and Air Defense Armies,” including both aviation and ground-based elements, with one typically being subordinated to each Military District of Russia.¹² These armies provide aerospace domain awareness to, and are coordinated by, military and political leadership through the National Defense Management Center, which serves as the primary command-and-control center for the Russian Ministry of Defense and General Staff.¹³

Moscow’s thinking on missile defense prioritizes protecting Russian leadership, critical command and control, and nuclear forces, with BMD capabilities being a critical component. In the Russian Defense Ministry journal, Военное Мысль (Military Thought), Mikhail N. Kumakshev and Aleksandr V. Kravtsov write: “The main direction of further development of the ПРО [missile defenses] of the Russian Federation is the creation of a layered system covering not only the high levels of leadership, but also the positions of the СЯС [strategic nuclear forces].”¹⁴ Furthermore, the Russian Ministry of Defense has officially stated that: 

The main purpose of the missile defense system is to deter threats of use of missile weapons against Russia and to ensure the protection of state and military facilities, groups of troops, administrative and industrial centers, environmentally hazardous facilities and the civilian population from missile attacks.”¹⁵

While this definition is expansive, the relative ordering of priorities is indicative of the weight placed on protecting civil-military leadership. Furthermore, the US Department of Defense assesses that “Russia is developing a layered missile defense to enhance its anti-access/area denial capabilities, preserve its nuclear deterrent, and ensure regime survival.”¹⁶ While defending political leadership and nuclear forces are clearly the primary roles for missile defenses, developing this technology may also have broader benefits from the perspective of the Russian government. It may view its own development of BMD capabilities as necessary not only to keep pace with the United States and NATO allies technologically, but also to defend against possible future contingencies involving Iran, China, North Korea, or even non-state actors.¹⁷

Historical capability development 

The Soviet Union’s development of BMD began with the experimental “System A,” which was developed and tested between 1957 and 1961 at the Sary-Shagan test site in Soviet Kazakhstan. This served as a proof of concept for the possibility of a missile defense system, and Sary-Shagan continues to serve as the main test area for new missile defense technology.¹⁸ The experiments with System A led to the deployment of the Soviet Union’s first early warning radar network. These also influenced the decision to develop the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system designed to protect Moscow over various other prospective BMD projects. The A-35 system became operational fitfully, with various phases being completed between 1967 and 1972; however, ultimately, it did not live up to the expectations of Soviet leaders, helping spur the signing of the ABM Treaty.¹⁹

In 1989, the A-35 system was upgraded and replaced with the A-135 system, which was based around the Don-2N radar; sixty-eight short-range, endoatmospheric 53T6 “Gazelle” interceptors; and sixteen 51T6 “Gorgon” long-range, exoatmospheric interceptors, both armed with nuclear warheads.²⁰These warheads were likely enhanced-radiation weapons, or neutron bombs, designed to use the radiation from their detonations to cause nearby incoming warheads to undergo partial fission and fail to detonate. In 1985, before the deployment of the A-135 system, Soviet official Vitalii Leonidovich Kataev described its capability as providing protection from “1-2 modern ICBMs and up to 35 Pershing 2-type intermediate-range missiles.”²¹ Kataev also described a planned A-235 follow-on system, which would be effective against eight to twelve ICBMs. The use of enhanced-radiation weapons for BMD suggests that this system was primarily for the protection of military and political leadership in the city’s center, given that these systems’ detonations could spread dangerous radiation across much of the countryside and outskirts of Moscow itself.²²

In the 1980s, due to concern about the increasing accuracy of US ICBMs and intermediate-range weapons, the Soviet Union also experimented with developing terminal defenses to increase the survivability of its missile silos. These terminal defenses involved launching a canister of metal balls or rods above the silos to disrupt an incoming reentry vehicle.“²³ These projects, alternatively referred to as “Sambo,” “Mozyr,” or “Active Defense Complex,” were cancelled after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, but there is some indication that the Russian government may be considering resuming development of a similar capability.²⁴ In the 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, also continued to upgrade its network of national SAM sites, including deploying the S-300 (SA-10) air defense system, with some early versions having limited terminal defense capabilities against MRBMs.²⁵ One notable aspect of the Soviet Union’s and later Russia’s approach to building missile defenses was a tendency to develop and deploy systems with initially relatively limited capabilities that could later be upgraded over time or abandoned if progress proved unfeasible.²⁶ As discussed below, this pattern appears to hold true today, either by design or due to the capacity limitations of the Russian defense industry. 

Current capabilities & future development 

Today, Russia deploys several systems that can provide layered missile defense across its territory. The A-135 system deployed around Moscow is currently Russia’s only system designed specifically to defend against ICBMs. The system is based around the Don-2N radar, which receives data from Russia’s wider early warning system.²⁷ The Don-2N provides targeting data for the sixty-eight silo-based 53T6 “Gazelle” endoatmospheric interceptors, which are based at five sites around Moscow. As noted previously, the system was originally composed of both endo- and exoatmospheric interceptors; however, the sixteen 51T6 “Gorgon” exoatmospheric interceptors were retired between 2006 and 2007.²⁸ The Gazelle interceptors were, until recently, equipped exclusively with nuclear warheads. As such, they likely suffered from the drawback that these warheads were stored separately from the missiles, reducing their readiness.²⁹ The A-135 is operated by the 1st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army of the VKS, which is responsible for the air defense of the Moscow region.³⁰

According to interviews with Col. Andrei Cheburin, the commander of the missile defense wing of the VKS, and retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a former chief of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, Russia is reportedly embarking on a process of overhauling the entire A-135 system.³¹ This redesigned system has been referred to as A-235 and, while it is unclear if this structure is still reflective of current Russian planning, it was described as including three layers of defense: 

• A long-range exoatmospheric interceptor (replacing the 51T6) with an intercept range of 1,500 km and altitude of 800 km; 

• A medium-range interceptor with a range and altitude of 1,000 km and 120 km, respectively; and 

• A short-range interceptor with a maximum range and altitude of 350 km and 40-50 km, respectively.³²

This plan also includes an upgrade of the Don-2N radars and the Elbrus-2 battle-management computer associated with the system, as well as the activation of the Razvyazka space monitoring radar.³³ In 2018, Russia began deploying the short-range missile envisioned in this plan, an upgraded version of the Gazelle interceptors termed the PRS-1M/53T6M, which can reportedly use either a conventional warhead or a nuclear one.³⁴ These missiles are reported to have the 350 km range described above and have either replaced the previous generation of interceptors or are deployed alongside them in the formerly mothballed 51T6 silos.³⁵ If the range reported for these interceptors is to be believed, then they could provide some capability to defend the Russian ICBM sites of the 28^th Rocket Division headquartered in Kozelsk and 54^th Rocket Division in Teykovo (some 200 km southwest and northeast of Moscow, respectively).³⁶

Russia is also reportedly still developing the long-range exoatmospheric midcourse defense component of the A-235 system, which will be the successor to the 51T6.³⁷ While it is unclear what systems will specifically fill that role, the PL-19 “Nudol” direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon, which Russia tested in November of 2021, may be the basis of the interceptor that will eventually fill that role.³⁸ In the 2021 test, the PL-19 impacted a defunct Soviet satellite at an altitude of around 480 km, placing it within the described range for the A-235 exoatmospheric interceptor.³⁹ There is also evidence of a program for a midcourse interceptor referred to as “Aerostat,” being developed by the same company, Almaz-Antey, but with a different subcontractor than the PL-19.⁴⁰

The other recent development in Russian missile defenses is the first deployment of the S-500 missile system, which was delivered to the 1^st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army (tasked with the defense of the Moscow area) in 2021.⁴¹ The S-500 is Russia’s latest mobile air and missile defense system, and is designed to target IRBMs, early warning aircraft, and satellites in low-Earth orbit.⁴² In February of 2024, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had successfully tested the weapon against a hypersonic target representative of an ICBM reentry vehicle.⁴³ The system was previously tested at a range of 481 km and has a claimed flight ceiling of 100-200 km, which may indicate that it fills the medium-range role envisioned for the A-235 project.⁴⁴ As currently deployed, it will complement the A-135 system and, in the future, could provide regional terminal ICBM defense across Russia or form the basis of a future sea-based missile defense capability.⁴⁵ The S-500 is designed to use the new 77N6 family of interceptors when engaging ballistic missiles that likely have a kinetic energy hit-to-kill warhead, which is more effective against ballistic missile targets than the blast-fragmentation warheads of interceptors used by the S-400 and S-300 variants.⁴⁶ However, the first operational version of the S-500 reportedly has reduced capabilities, and the further ten units which were slated for production in 2022 have not yet been delivered.⁴⁷ Members of the Russian defense industry have already begun discussing a planned upgrade, the S-550, which will be solely optimized for missile defense and be more capable against ICBMs.⁴⁸ Despite setbacks to the S-500, there have been several proposals for a national mobile nonstrategic missile defense system composed of S-500s, S-400s, and S-300VMs to protect cities and industrial centers from regional missile attacks.⁴⁹ One other notable Russian strategic capability is “Peresvet,” a mobile, high-powered laser system designed to blind imaging satellites in orbit. Peresvet has been based near mobile ICBM bases, such as the one at Teykovo, suggesting that it is intended to inhibit targeting of those missiles.⁵⁰ Peresvet could also potentially be used to prevent adversaries from tracking mobile BMD systems, like the S-500. 

Russia fields a number of systems, including the S-400 as well as the S-300 PMU-2 and S-300VM variants, that have some capability against MRBMs but are primarily designed to defend against airbreathing cruise missiles, aircraft, and SRBMs.⁵¹ The VKS had an estimated 584 S-300 launchers of various types and over 248 S-400 launchers in inventory before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.⁵² Furthermore, the S-300F variant is integrated into many Russian Navy surface combatants, with newer ships being equipped with the “Redut” air defense system that shares the same 9M96E interceptors with fragmentation warheads as the S-400.⁵³

The Russian VKS is also in the process of modernizing its space-based early warning and ground-based tracking capabilities. The current Soviet-era “Oko” early warning satellite constellation is slated to be replaced by the Единая космическая система (EKS) [Unified Space System] often referred to as “Kupol.” The system was planned to be completed by 2020; however, currently only six of the ten highly elliptical orbit “Tundra” satellites for the constellation have been placed in orbit, and none of the planned geostationary satellites have been launched.⁵⁴ Experts have attributed the lengthy timeline to production delays caused by sanctions and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.⁵⁵ Russia’s ground-based radar modernization has fared better, with nine 77Ya6 “Voronezh” radar early warning and tracking sites having been constructed around Russia’s borders and five 69Ya6 “Rezonans” radar systems deployed within the Arctic Circle specifically to monitor ICBM launches.⁵⁶ In late May 2024, two Voronezh radar sites were targeted in attacks by Ukrainian UAVs, raising concerns about potential escalation risks by some experts. ⁵⁷

One bottleneck in Russia’s ability to produce advanced capabilities is the capacity of its defense industry, particularly Almaz-Antey, which produces most of its air defense systems. Almaz-Antey has struggled with meeting delivery dates and production quantities in the past, and it can only be assumed that these problems will increase due to export restrictions on critical components resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.⁵⁸ It is also worth noting that, following the invasion, Ukraine has launched several attacks on the Moscow region with various types of UAVs. Although these attacks were not officially acknowledged by the Ukrainian government, they raise questions about the effectiveness of Moscow’s air defenses against small, low-flying targets. In March of 2023, then Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the air and missile defenses of Moscow would be upgraded by the end of the year, likely referencing the threats of drones and cruise missiles, rather than ballistic missiles.⁵⁹

While relatively effective against Ukrainian aircraft, Russian tactical air and missile defense systems seem to have a mixed record in combat since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. So far, Russia has claimed interception of approximately a dozen Ukrainian Soviet-era Tochka-U SRBMs; however, Ukraine has also used the same missile for several successful strikes, including sinking a Russian landing ship in the opening months of the war.⁶⁰ More recently, Ukraine has used US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) SRBMs in several successful strikes, including a pair of attacks on airfields, which destroyed approximately fourteen Russian helicopters.⁶¹ Russia has claimed to have shot down three US-supplied ATACMS SRBMs in a coordinated strike; however, this claim has been disputed with evidence that some of the missiles reached their target.⁶² Regardless, Russian effectiveness against ATACMS missiles will likely increase, even if slowly, over the course of the conflict, as Russia trains air defense crews to address the threat.⁶³

Despite a mixed record in Ukraine and severe resource constraints due to sanctions, Russia is moving to develop more advanced missile defense systems and modernize existing ones. Key metrics for assessing Russian progress will be further development of a midcourse interceptor, confirmation of a hit-to-kill capability for the existing Moscow defense system, or wider deployment of the S-500. 

China 

This section details the history of China’s development of missile defenses and its ongoing programs. Given the relatively recent nature of China’s missile defense capabilities, this section assesses China’s possible motivations for developing strategic BMD rather than attempting to describe its doctrine. Special attention is also paid to the overlap of China’s BMD development and its ASAT program. 

History

Despite only recently beginning to deploy missile defenses, China’s interest in the technology dates back to the 1960s. In 1964, Mao Zedong ordered the commencement of Project 640, an effort to develop the technology necessary for a BMD system, including research into kinetic kill vehicles, high-powered lasers, as well as early warning and tracking radars.⁶⁴ This research may have been prompted by observation of US and Soviet missile defense developments, as well as a fear that the United States might consider a preemptive attack to eliminate China’s nascent nuclear deterrent.⁶⁵ Early Chinese nuclear planners were preoccupied with the survivability of their forces and the credibility of their retaliatory capabilities, a theme that would persist into the twenty-first century.⁶⁶ As will be discussed later, missile defense may be one possible solution to this survivability problem. Project 640 was hampered by technological challenges and the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution and ultimately ended without deploying any operational systems.⁶⁷ However, the project laid the groundwork for future Chinese missile defense and ASAT capabilities. 

The announcement of the SDI by then US president Ronald Reagan in 1983 prompted renewed Chinese research into missile defense, and particularly space-based technology, under Project 863 launched by then Chinese president Deng Xiaoping.⁶⁸ From this point onward, Chinese research of missile defense technology occurred in parallel with its development of counterspace capabilities designed to neutralize possible US space-based defenses resulting from the SDI. In the 1990s and early 2000s, China repeatedly voiced opposition to US national missile defense development.⁶⁹ China was also outspokenly critical of US-led theater missile defense projects in East Asia, such as the sale of the Patriot system to Taiwan in 1997, participation of Japan in the Aegis BMD program in 2003, and the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea in 2016, which China viewed as undermining its strategic deterrent and, potentially, its coercive leverage over Taiwan.⁷⁰ However, in the mid-1990s, the Central Military Commission initiated a ten-year program to develop an indigenous missile defense capability, including interceptors and early warning satellites.⁷¹ This development may have been spurred by Chinese observation of the 1991 Gulf War and the vulnerability of Iraq to a coordinated US air and missile strike campaign.⁷² At this time, China was heavily reliant on Russia for advanced radars and air defense capabilities and purchased the S-300PMU in 1991 as well as the S-300F naval variant in 2002, which would form the basis of its own domestic production.⁷³

In 2001, China introduced the HQ-9 SAM system, which is derived from the S-300 and forms the basis for a family of Chinese air and missile defense systems, including those with some limited capability against SRBMs and MRBMs.⁷⁴ During the 2000s, China continued its development of ASAT weapons, including conducting a destructive direct-ascent test in 2007 at an altitude of 863 km with an interceptor designated SC-19 by US intelligence and believed to be based on its DF-21 MRBM.⁷⁵ Since then, China has continued to expand its ASAT capabilities and, in 2010, claimed to test a midcourse BMD interceptor, as will be further detailed below. China has also gained greater technology independence from Russia over the last decade; however, it has continued to take advantage of Russian technical experience and purchase Russian-designed systems. In 2014, China purchased the S-400, which began delivery in 2018.⁷⁶ China also announced its cooperation with Moscow on developing its space-based early warning system which, as will be discussed later, has been at least partially successful.⁷⁷

Rationale for developing ballistic missile defenses 

Compared to sources on Russian missile defense, there is less public information on Chinese doctrine regarding missile defense; however, it is possible to draw some conclusions from the available evidence. China has strong incentives to develop nonstrategic air and missile defenses to help defend its airspace from hostile attack and allow it to project power into the Pacific. However, China’s interest in strategic ballistic missile defense and its associated technologies likely stems from several related objectives. The list below relies heavily on research conducted by Bruce W. MacDonald and Charles D. Ferguson in 2015, for which they interviewed Chinese experts and officials regarding various rationales for developing BMD.⁷⁸

The most likely drivers of China’s BMD development include: 

• Enhancing the progress of, and providing international legitimacy for, its ASAT weapons program. 

• Providing limited defenses of key objects such as political leadership, command and control, and nuclear forces against preemptive attack by the United States and possibly Russia. 

• Providing a more robust defense against Indian intermediate-range and ICBM class missiles.  

• Gaining further understanding of the nature and vulnerabilities of US BMD technology and operations. 

• Demonstrating international technological achievement and competitiveness. 

Over the past decades, China has demonstrated a commitment to the development of ASAT systems, including kinetic interceptors, as a key part of its strategy for prevailing in a possible conflict with the United States.⁷⁹ The technology for kinetic ASAT weapons overlaps significantly with strategic BMD, as both capabilities involve intercepting high-speed objects at various altitudes outside the Earth’s atmosphere.⁸⁰ Strategic BMD development may be a natural offshoot of China’s efforts to enhance its ASAT capability or an effort to gain additional utility from its research investments. However, Chinese and Russian destructive ASAT testing has drawn international condemnation and provided the United States an avenue to push for limitations and bans on such systems.⁸¹ Therefore, BMD may serve as a useful cover for tests of systems privately envisioned as having a primarily ASAT role. For example, in 2014, China conducted what it claimed was a missile interception test; however, the US Department of State later assessed that it was intended as a test of an ASAT weapon.⁸² One result of China’s incentive to misrepresent is that it is difficult to categorize claimed Chinese BMD tests or determine whether systems in development are primarily intended for BMD or ASAT roles. 

China may also be interested in strategic BMD as one solution to long-standing concerns about its resilience to a first strike by the United States or Russia and the growing sophistication of India’s nuclear arsenal. While a defense against the United States or Russia would only be very limited for the foreseeable future, China may view it as beneficial for complicating a possible strike on Beijing or its ICBM silos.⁸³ Noted expert on Chinese nuclear forces Tong Zhao has suggested that one explanation for the relatively dense arrangement of China’s newly constructed ICBM silos could be to facilitate a possible area defense for those weapons.⁸⁴ Other possible targets to be defended might include military command and control locations during an ongoing conflict or critical infrastructure, such as the Three Gorges Dam.⁸⁵  

Another driver of Chinese interest in strategic BMD could be the increasing range and capability of Indian ballistic missiles.⁸⁶ In 2014, India deployed a small number of Agni-III IRBMs capable of striking the majority of China and is developing an improved Agni-IV IRBM with even greater range.⁸⁷ India also recently successfully tested its developmental Agni-V ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.⁸⁸ Given increased tensions with India, it would be hard to believe that Chinese decisionmakers are not concerned about the potential for India to hold any Chinese target at risk with a new generation of ballistic missiles. However, India will likely deploy a far smaller number of delivery vehicles with nuclear warheads compared to the United States or Russia, making a more comprehensive Chinese BMD shield a potentially attractive goal. 

China may wish to develop strategic BMD as part of a broader technology development strategy beyond the immediate benefits of a BMD capability. Given its outspoken concern over US missile defense capabilities on strategic stability and interest in defeating them, China may hope to gain a greater understanding of how BMD operations are conducted and the limitations of the technology through its own research and development.⁸⁹ Chinese experts have argued that, as long-range strike missiles become increasingly sophisticated and proliferated, it is necessary for China to be competitive in all areas of advanced air and missile defense technology.⁹⁰ As such, achieving an ICBM midcourse intercept capability would be a strong signal of Chinese military technology parity with the United States.  

Finally, Chinese development of the necessary sensor architecture for BMD could complement its interest in the capability to adopt a launch-on-warning (LOW) nuclear posture.⁹¹ The ability to detect and accurately characterize an incoming missile attack is a necessary prerequisite of both a LOW posture and a strategic BMD capability. As noted below, China is actively expanding its number of ground-based large, phased-array radars and has recently launched satellites for missile detection. In MacDonald and Ferguson’s study, they noted that “a Chinese move to deploy early warning satellites would be a significant indicator of greater interest in BMD deployment.”⁹² If China does choose to deploy strategic BMD, it will be notable which People’s Liberation Army (PLA) branch is responsible for its operation. The most likely candidates are the PLA Strategic Support Force, which is responsible for counterspace capabilities, or the PLA Air Force, which operates China’s ground-based air defense.⁹³ 

Current capabilities & future development 

Since 2010, China has been actively developing a ground-based midcourse interceptor, with the first tests occurring in 2010, 2013, and 2014. While these early tests may have been primarily oriented around ASAT capabilities, China’s latest interceptor, designated the Dong Neng-3 (DN-3), has undergone recent successful BMD tests in 2018, 2021, and 2023.⁹⁴ The DN-3 is a hit-to-kill interceptor that has been used to intercept a target DF-21 MRBM and has been compared to the US Standard Missile-3.⁹⁵ It has yet to be tested against an ICBM-class target, but the US Department of Defense assesses that the DN-3 will “form the upper-layer of a multi-tiered missile defense.”⁹⁶ The DN-3 may be a variant of earlier Chinese ASAT weapons, iterations of which have been occasionally referred to as DN-1 and DN-2.⁹⁷ China has also tested the HQ-19, a kinetic interceptor derived from the HQ-9, which has the capability to intercept ballistic missiles with a range of 3,000 km in their midcourse and terminal flight stage and has been called “roughly analogous to the US [THAAD] system.”⁹⁸ The HQ-19 has not yet publicly been deployed and is presumed not to have the capability to defeat an ICBM-class target; however, it could possibly be adapted to do so in the future. ⁹⁹ Notably, China has also expressed interest in purchasing the S-500 system from Russia, which would likely be complementary to the HQ-19.¹⁰⁰ Furthermore, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is reportedly planning to develop the HQ-26, a midcourse interceptor designed to defend against IRBMs, which will eventually be installed on its Type 055 destroyers.¹⁰¹

These systems are complemented by China’s arsenal of SAMs, primarily designed to defeat aircraft and cruise missiles but with residual SRBM defense capability. China has deployed the HQ-9 to contested islands in the South China Sea and has developed a naval variant, which is integrated into a number of PLAN surface ships.¹⁰² Finally, China also fields a number of Russian SAM systems with capabilities to defend against SRBMs, including the S-300 PMU-2 and the S-400.¹⁰³

China’s lack of early warning sensors represents the largest gap in its missile defense architecture.¹⁰⁴ To fill this gap, China is undertaking several initiatives. As noted previously, Russia has signaled that it may aid China in developing satellites for ballistic missile launch detection. This partnership seems to have been successful as the US Department of Defense assesses that “As of 2022, [China] likely has at least three early warning satellites in orbit.”¹⁰⁵ China is also building additional ground-based large phased-array radars to provide coverage of Japan, Russia, and the Korean Peninsula, as well as for space observation.¹⁰⁶ Finally, the PLAN plans to develop a new naval radar system to be integrated into its surface combatants that could support a sea-based BMD capability.¹⁰⁷

China is moving quickly to develop various types of missile defense technology including strategic BMD. The defining feature of its BMD development, however, is its overlap with ASAT testing, an area which likely is a greater priority than missile defense.¹⁰⁸ One of the key enablers of China’s progress is its ability to rely on Russian technology and expertise both in developing its interceptors and sensor architecture. While China has made large strides in exoatmospheric interception with hit-to-kill technology, it still has to develop a robust sensing and data processing system as well as trained personnel to create a true capability. 

Implications and conclusion 

Comparison with US capabilities 

The United States’ BMD capabilities remain more advanced than those of Russia or China. While both Russia and China are developing the capabilities for midcourse interception of ICBMs, only the United States deploys both the interceptors and sensors to achieve a degree of BMD coverage over its entire territory in the form of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. Furthermore, only the United States maintains a sea-based midcourse defense and missile tracking capability through the Aegis BMD system. Both Russia and China, however, are actively pursuing parity. China’s midcourse interception capability is being actively tested and Russia has development plans for a similar system. Both countries also aim to match the US THAAD system with the Russian S-500 system and Chinese HQ-19 designed for high-altitude terminal defense. The United States, Russia, and China are also all carrying out programs to update their early warning and tracking capabilities. The United States is embarking on an ambitious plan to modernize its space-based tracking for a wide variety of threats, such as hypersonic glide vehicles.¹⁰⁹ Russia is also recapitalizing its space-based early warning satellites and ground-based radars but faces serious resource and sanction constraints. China is moving quickly to improve its early warning system but is still far from a comprehensive architecture.

The United States, unlike Russia and China, does not deploy significant ground-based defenses on its homeland territory, aside from the GMD system. Other than a THAAD deployment on Guam and cruise missile defense of the national capital area, the United States typically does not deploy terminal defenses near domestic military facilities or critical infrastructure.¹¹⁰ In contrast, both Russia and China deploy a larger number and wider variety of ground-based area air and missile defense systems than the United States. Russia has deployed the S-400 and S-300 systems at military facilities, including those in Kaliningrad, Belarus, Crimea, and the Arctic Circle. China deploys several varieties of air and missile defense systems around Beijing and near military facilities, including basing the HQ-9 at its contested border with India and on artificial islands in the South China Sea.¹¹¹

Strategic and operational use cases 

Ground-based air defenses remain central to Russian and Chinese military thought. Unlike the United States, Russia and China have historically relied on SAMs for homeland defense. Russia and China have clear incentives to develop advanced nonstrategic air and missile defenses systems such as the S-400 and HQ-9. These systems are primarily aimed at denying the United States and its allies and partners the ability to operate aircraft or launch cruise missiles near Russian or Chinese territory.¹¹² As the United States begins to develop longer-range conventional ballistic missiles over the next decade, such as the Precision Strike Missile, the ability of Russian and Chinese systems to defeat these threats will become increasingly operationally relevant. Furthermore, Russia and China likely view US conventional precision-strike capabilities as having strategic deterrence implications. The United States has previously signaled that it would consider responding to limited nuclear escalation with a massed conventional precision-strike campaign.¹¹³ Russia and China may fear that, under various scenarios, US conventional munitions could be used to target their political and military leadership, command-and-control systems, and/or nuclear forces.¹¹⁴ Therefore, systems that might be referred to as nonstrategic or tactical could have strategic significance. 

Russia and China share many motivations for developing strategic BMD systems but emphasize different applications in their approach. Russia’s A-135 system defense of Moscow likely has the primary goals of providing a degree of protection for political and military leadership in case of nuclear attack and also complicating US targeting of the Moscow region. However, if the system’s planned modernization is completed, it could also provide a degree of defense for several Russian ICBM bases in the region. Furthermore, systems like Peresvet and the S-500 can serve as protection for mobile ICBMs. These capabilities coincide with the overarching program of nuclear modernization which Russia has undertaken to increase the survivability and effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent. China may also see a role for strategic BMD in defending its strategic forces and political leadership. China’s pursuit of the capability is intertwined with its development of sophisticated ASAT capabilities. China may frequently label tests of ASATs as BMD efforts. Russia’s PL-19 Nudol system has also been referred to as both an ASAT and BMD system. In fact, most exoatmospheric missile defense systems are at least theoretically usable as ASAT weapons, although the reverse is not always true. This dual functionality likely makes these systems a more attractive investment for Russia and China. 

The most troubling possible use case of missile defenses for Russia and China is to provide a backstop to nuclear aggression against the United States or its allies and partners. While this option is not discussed in Russian or Chinese doctrine, in a conflict, either country might consider using nuclear weapons in a limited manner to coerce war termination and rely on missile defenses to deny a proportionately limited US response. In this case, Russia or China would gamble that the United States would be unwilling to consider a response that would be guaranteed to overcome any missile defenses as doing so would require using a large enough number of weapons to risk provoking a strategic exchange.¹¹⁵

On a positive note, Russian and Chinese development of limited missile defenses could also produce stabilizing effects and create opportunities for arms control agreements. When developing plans for missile defense capabilities, the defender is forced to consider the lowest possible efficacy of their system while the attacker is forced to plan for the highest possible level in order to create a worst-case scenario assessment.¹¹⁶ This means that the attacker may be deterred from conducting a limited strike, for fear it would fail, even while the defender might not be fully confident they could defeat it. This condition could contribute to strategic stability by disincentivizing either side to take provocative actions. This effect primarily applies to a limited system, as opposed to an effort to create a comprehensive defense, as the attacker still has recourse to an overwhelming strike to maintain its deterrent. To the extent that limited missile defenses can reassure Russian and Chinese leaders that they need not fear a decapitating first strike by the United States, they could support crisis stability and reduce the need for Russia and China to expand the size of their nuclear arsenals to ensure survivability. Furthermore, a more robust understanding of missile defense capabilities could moderate Russian and Chinese fears of US missile defense systems, such as their claim that US SM-3 missiles could intercept their ICBMs. Finally, a demonstrated Russian or Chinese strategic BMD could reopen avenues for arms control negotiations on missile defense or strategic forces more broadly. The United States has not been willing in the past to put its own missile defense capabilities on the negotiating table, but, as the United States would have an interest in limiting deployment by Russia or China, it might be possible for all three parties to reach a reciprocal agreement. 

In conclusion, both Russia and China have far greater missile defense capabilities and ongoing development programs than are often acknowledged and are pursuing closer parity with the United States. BMD will likely become a feature of the strategic relationship between the three countries, which could have both positive and negative implications for US national security. Understanding Russian and Chinese reasons for developing this capability can yield insights into their broader defense priorities. 

Table 1: US, Russian, and Chinese Strategic ballistic missile defense systems 

Table 2: US, Russian, and Chinese Nonstrategic ballistic missile defense systems 

Former staff

Jacob Mezey

Former Program Assistant

Forward Defense
Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy
Missile Defense

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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After reading about the recent cybersecurity research by Richard Fang, Rohan Bindu, Akul Gupta and Daniel Kang, I had questions. While initially impressed that ChatGPT 4 can exploit the vast majority of one-day vulnerabilities, I started thinking about what the results really mean in the grand scheme of cybersecurity. Most importantly, I wondered how a human cybersecurity professional’s results for the same tasks would compare.

To get some answers, I talked with Shanchieh Yang, Director of Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Global Cybersecurity Institute. He had actually pondered the same questions I did after reading the research.

What are your thoughts on the research study?

Yang: I think that the 87% may be an overstatement, and I think it would be very helpful to the community if the authors shared more details about their experiments and code, as they’d be very helpful for the community to look at it. I look at large language models (LLMs) as a co-pilot for hacking because you have to give them some human instruction, provide some options and ask for user feedback. In my opinion, an LLM is more of an educational training tool instead of asking LRM to hack automatically. I also wondered if the study referred to anonymous, meaning with no human intervention at all.

Compared to even six months ago, LLMs are pretty powerful in providing guidance on how a human can exploit a vulnerability, such as recommending tools, giving commands and even a step-by-step process. They are reasonably accurate but not necessarily 100% of the time. In this study, one-day refers to what could be a pretty big bucket to a vulnerability that’s very similar to past vulnerabilities or totally new malware where the source code is not similar to anything the hackers have seen before. In that case, there isn’t much an LLM can do against the vulnerability because it requires human understanding in trying to break into something new.

The results also depend on whether the vulnerability is a web service, SQL server, print server or router. There are so many different computing vulnerabilities out there. In my opinion, claiming 87% is an overstatement because it also depends on how many times the authors tried. If I’m reviewing this as a paper, I would reject the claim because there is too much generalization.

If you timed a group cybersecurity professional to an LLM agent head-to-head against a target with unknown but existing vulnerabilities, such as a newly released Hack the Box or Try Me Hack, who would complete the hack the fastest?

The experts — the people who are actually world-class hackers, ethical hackers, white hackers — they would beat the LLMs. They have a lot of tools under their belts. They have seen this before. And they are pretty quick. The problem is that an LLM is a machine, meaning that even the most state-of-the-art models will not give you the comments unless you break the guardrail. With an LLM, the results really depend on the prompts that were used. Because the researchers didn’t share the code, we don’t know what was actually used.

Any other thoughts on the research?

Yang: I would like the community to understand that responsible dissemination is very important — reporting something not just to get people to cite you or to talk about your stuff, but be responsible. Sharing the experiment, sharing the code, but also sharing what could be done.

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