Ukrainan konflikti/sota
tulikomento
Supreme Leader
Ryssältä ihan tasan tarkkaan harkittua se, että tuhotaan esim. kirkkoja, museoita, kirjastoja ym. Tai ryöstetään ne. Tarkoituksena on tuhota ukrainalainen kulttuuri ja ukrainalaisten kansallinen identiteetti. Neuvostoliitto teki aivan samoin koko olemassaolonsa ajan aina silloin kuin se päätti orjuuttaa muita kansoja.
Antares
Respected Leader
Yhdysvaltain 155mm laukausten tuotannon sanotaan olevan nyt 30 000 per kuukausi (JOS tämä olisi koko vuoden keskiarvoinen kuukausituotanto, mitä se ei ole, niin se tarkoittaisi 360 000 laukausta per vuosi):
𝗨𝗦 𝟭𝟱𝟱𝗺𝗺 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝟯𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬/𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵
This was disclosed to WSJ by Doug Bush, Assistant Secretary of Army for Acquisition.
Unfortunately, they also report that negotiations for 155mm ammo produced by Komatsu (Japan) under license from BAE (UK) to be exported to the UK, to backfill British Army stocks have failed.
https://wsj.com/world/as-ukraine-pl...shells-one-plan-to-send-more-fizzles-f78c02ab
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Tämän mukaan Euroopan aikaisempi ilmoitus "miljoona tykistön laukausta maaliskuuhun 2024 mennessä" tarkoitti 155mm JA 152mm laukauksia.
Nyt sanotaan että vuonna 2025 määrä ylittäisi 2 miljoonaa per vuosi.
Colby Badhwar kommentoi että tämä vaikuttaa maalitolppien siirrolta ja kieltämättä sellainen vaikutelma tuleekin: olin itsekin aikaisemmin siinä luulossa että määrä sisältäisi ainoastaan 155mm laukaukset. Toki aina on se riski että olen tulkinnut väärin sen mitä on sanottu, varsinkin jos asiaa ei ole ilmaistu ehdottoman tarkasti.
EU Internal Market Chief Thierry Breton reiterated that Europe will produce 1 million artillery shells/year by this March. However he says this includes both 155mm & 152mm, which is the 1st time I've heard this. In 2025 it will exceed 2 million/year.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=w1-xog6-tDM
This seems like the Europeans are moving the goalposts so that they can meet their targets they set for themselves.
𝗨𝗦 𝟭𝟱𝟱𝗺𝗺 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝟯𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬/𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵
This was disclosed to WSJ by Doug Bush, Assistant Secretary of Army for Acquisition.
Unfortunately, they also report that negotiations for 155mm ammo produced by Komatsu (Japan) under license from BAE (UK) to be exported to the UK, to backfill British Army stocks have failed.
https://wsj.com/world/as-ukraine-pl...shells-one-plan-to-send-more-fizzles-f78c02ab
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Tämän mukaan Euroopan aikaisempi ilmoitus "miljoona tykistön laukausta maaliskuuhun 2024 mennessä" tarkoitti 155mm JA 152mm laukauksia.
Nyt sanotaan että vuonna 2025 määrä ylittäisi 2 miljoonaa per vuosi.
Colby Badhwar kommentoi että tämä vaikuttaa maalitolppien siirrolta ja kieltämättä sellainen vaikutelma tuleekin: olin itsekin aikaisemmin siinä luulossa että määrä sisältäisi ainoastaan 155mm laukaukset. Toki aina on se riski että olen tulkinnut väärin sen mitä on sanottu, varsinkin jos asiaa ei ole ilmaistu ehdottoman tarkasti.
EU Internal Market Chief Thierry Breton reiterated that Europe will produce 1 million artillery shells/year by this March. However he says this includes both 155mm & 152mm, which is the 1st time I've heard this. In 2025 it will exceed 2 million/year.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=w1-xog6-tDM
This seems like the Europeans are moving the goalposts so that they can meet their targets they set for themselves.
Viimeksi muokattu:
Antares
Respected Leader
Toinen lainaus samasta artikkelista, tämän mukaan Yhdysvalloissa oltaisiin aikataulussa ja kapasiteetti olisi 80 000 laukausta per kuukausi "as soon as late 2024" (JOS tuo määrä oli keskiarvoinen kuukausituotanto, se tarkoittaisi 960 000 per vuosi):
Current Ukrainian needs are ~90k+. "The U.S. now produces some 30,000 155mm shells a month, and is on course to make up to 80,000 a month as soon as late 2024, Bush [the U.S. Army’s assistant secretary for acquisitions, logistics and technology] said.
https://wsj.com/world/as-ukraine-pl...shells-one-plan-to-send-more-fizzles-f78c02ab
Still, the U.S. is facing its own problems, with Congress yet to approve funding to send Ukraine further supplies of American weaponry.
"If anything keeps me awake at night it is that,‘ said Bush, referring to the budget delay. 'We need the money.‘
Antares
Respected Leader
GUR:n päällikkö Budanov kommentoinut Pohjois-Korean aseavun merkitystä (RBC-Ukraine artikkeli julkaistu 30.1.2024): LÄHDE
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Lyhyesti tiivistettynä:
1) hänen mukaansa Venäjällä olisi parhaillaan ongelmia tykistön laukausten sekä rakettien osalta (mainitaan 152mm ja 122mm sekä järjestelmät kuten "Hurricane", "Smerch" ja "Grad"). Käytetään sanaa "shortage" eli puute.
2) hän uskoo että syy Putinin vierailulle Pohjois-Koreaan on uuden asesopimuksen neuvotteleminen: ryssä antaisi ohjusteknologiaa ja saisi vastineeksi tykistön laukauksia, raketteja ja arvaisin kenties varasosia (mitä Pohjois-Korea kykeneekään valmistamaan)
3) Budanov sanoo että Pohjois-Korealla on vakavasti otettava kapasiteetti ja vaikka laatu on vaihtelevaa, määrät ovat silti suuria. JOS artikkelin käännös menee oikein, sen voisi tulkita että "Pohjois-Korea kykenee toimittamaan Venäjän tarvitsemat aseet" mikä on ympäripyöreästi todettu: se ei suoraan tarkoita että "kaikki tarvittavat aseet" vaan ennemminkin "aseita joita he tarvitsevat". ELI suomeksi sanottuna: ryssällä on pulaa / tarve suuremmille määrille tiettyjen tykistöaseiden osalta JA Pohjois-Korealla on kyky auttaa tässä asiassa eli kyky valmistaa näiden kaliiperien tykistön laukauksia ja raketteja. On siis loogista olettaa että Putin pyrkisi neuvottelemaan tästä.
Kysymys: miten tämä tulisi tulkita ryssän varastojen ja uustuotannon osalta? Varastot käymässä vähiin ja uustuotanto ei ole riittävää eikä sen kapasiteetin nostaminen ole joko onnistunut tai kasvu on liian hidasta tarpeeseen nähden? Useissa arvioissa on pohdittu että Venäjän tykistönlaukauksien vuosituotanto olisi 2 miljoonaa per vuosi, tosin jäänyt epäselväksi onko se pelkän uustuotannon määrä vai sisältääkö myös varastoista kunnostetut laukaukset. Olen olettanut että numero sisältäisi molemmat. JOS näin olisi niin varastojen ehtyessä jäljellä olisi pelkkä aito uustuotanto joka olisi pienempi määrää kuin tuo 2 miljoonaa per vuosi. Pohjois-Korea on toimittanut materiaalia jo kuukausien ajan ja tietääkseni toimitukset ovat jatkuneet näihin päiviin asti. Liekö niin että sopimus koski tiettyä määrää ja toimitusaikaa JA se olisi pikapuolin katkolla? Siitäkö syystä on tarve neuvotella uudesta sopimuksesta?
Toinen näkökulma: väitetysti ryssän tavoite vuodelle 2024 on Donetskin ja Luhanskin alueiden valtaaminen. Se ei onnistu ilman resursseja ja merkittävä tykistön ylivoima on sieltä tärkeimmästä päästä (ei silti ainoa ratkaiseva tekijä). Pohjois-Korean toimitukset voivat olla hyvin tärkeässä tai jopa ratkaisevassa roolissa tämän tavoitteen kannalta.
https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/voni-pratsyuyut-efektivnishe-budanov-vvazhae-1706629212.html
UAENRU
Photo: head of the GUR Kyrylo Budanov (Vitaly Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
AUTHOR: NATALIA KAVA
The Russian Federation is experiencing a shortage of artillery ammunition in the war in Ukraine. However, this may be affected by relations between the Russian Federation and North Korea.
This was stated by the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, reports RBC-Ukraine with reference to the telethon.
Budanov reminded that smuggling of components for various types of weapons is legalized in the Russian Federation at the legislative level. It is because of this that the sanctions could not completely stop the Russian Federation's access to them.
However, Russia is also currently experiencing a shortage of artillery ammunition. In particular, we are talking about calibers 152 and 122. The Russian Federation also faced a shortage of rockets for multiple-launch rocket systems, such as "Hurricane", "Smerch" and "Grad".
Budanov is confident that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will negotiate further cooperation in missile technology during his visit to North Korea.
"Russia thinks that it is normal to transfer certain missile technologies to the DPRK. The DPRK will, of course, do a lot for these technologies. There are serious human resources and defense capabilities - they are not comparable to the capabilities of the Russian Federation. They work more efficiently than the Russians. Therefore, increasing the supply of artillery weapons it will definitely be," said the head of the GUR.
However, he noted that due to human resources and a large number of enterprises, the DPRK can fully provide the Russian Federation with artillery weapons.
"There are many people at enterprises there. In the DPRK, it's not a shame, they can show off like that. There are enough people and enterprises there. The weapons there are not modern, but the production volumes are serious. In fact, these are weapons of the last century - but the projectile - it will fly , with an error, but he will fly. We must admit it," he emphasized.
On January 4, the coordinator of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, said that Russia had purchased ballistic missiles from North Korea. They have already been used for attacks on Ukraine .
Recently, the White House also stated that the Russian occupiers will continue to fire ballistic missiles at Ukraine from North Korea . But the DPRK itself denies this.
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Ministry of Defense stated that North Korea actively supplied ammunition to the Russian Federation throughout the fall. According to the department's estimates, it is about a million artillery shells.
It also became known that Russian ships are being loaded in a North Korean port , as evidenced by satellite images shown by Great Britain.
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Read urgent and important messages about Russia's war against Ukraine on the RBC-Ukraine Telegram channel.
Budanov believes that the DPRK will be able to provide the Russian Federation with the necessary weapons
TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2024, 5:40 P.MUAENRU
Photo: head of the GUR Kyrylo Budanov (Vitaly Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
AUTHOR: NATALIA KAVA
The Russian Federation is experiencing a shortage of artillery ammunition in the war in Ukraine. However, this may be affected by relations between the Russian Federation and North Korea.
This was stated by the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, reports RBC-Ukraine with reference to the telethon.
Budanov reminded that smuggling of components for various types of weapons is legalized in the Russian Federation at the legislative level. It is because of this that the sanctions could not completely stop the Russian Federation's access to them.
However, Russia is also currently experiencing a shortage of artillery ammunition. In particular, we are talking about calibers 152 and 122. The Russian Federation also faced a shortage of rockets for multiple-launch rocket systems, such as "Hurricane", "Smerch" and "Grad".
Budanov is confident that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will negotiate further cooperation in missile technology during his visit to North Korea.
"Russia thinks that it is normal to transfer certain missile technologies to the DPRK. The DPRK will, of course, do a lot for these technologies. There are serious human resources and defense capabilities - they are not comparable to the capabilities of the Russian Federation. They work more efficiently than the Russians. Therefore, increasing the supply of artillery weapons it will definitely be," said the head of the GUR.
However, he noted that due to human resources and a large number of enterprises, the DPRK can fully provide the Russian Federation with artillery weapons.
"There are many people at enterprises there. In the DPRK, it's not a shame, they can show off like that. There are enough people and enterprises there. The weapons there are not modern, but the production volumes are serious. In fact, these are weapons of the last century - but the projectile - it will fly , with an error, but he will fly. We must admit it," he emphasized.
Military cooperation between the DPRK and Russia
On January 4, the coordinator of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, said that Russia had purchased ballistic missiles from North Korea. They have already been used for attacks on Ukraine .
Recently, the White House also stated that the Russian occupiers will continue to fire ballistic missiles at Ukraine from North Korea . But the DPRK itself denies this.
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Ministry of Defense stated that North Korea actively supplied ammunition to the Russian Federation throughout the fall. According to the department's estimates, it is about a million artillery shells.
It also became known that Russian ships are being loaded in a North Korean port , as evidenced by satellite images shown by Great Britain.
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Read urgent and important messages about Russia's war against Ukraine on the RBC-Ukraine Telegram channel.
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Lyhyesti tiivistettynä:
1) hänen mukaansa Venäjällä olisi parhaillaan ongelmia tykistön laukausten sekä rakettien osalta (mainitaan 152mm ja 122mm sekä järjestelmät kuten "Hurricane", "Smerch" ja "Grad"). Käytetään sanaa "shortage" eli puute.
2) hän uskoo että syy Putinin vierailulle Pohjois-Koreaan on uuden asesopimuksen neuvotteleminen: ryssä antaisi ohjusteknologiaa ja saisi vastineeksi tykistön laukauksia, raketteja ja arvaisin kenties varasosia (mitä Pohjois-Korea kykeneekään valmistamaan)
3) Budanov sanoo että Pohjois-Korealla on vakavasti otettava kapasiteetti ja vaikka laatu on vaihtelevaa, määrät ovat silti suuria. JOS artikkelin käännös menee oikein, sen voisi tulkita että "Pohjois-Korea kykenee toimittamaan Venäjän tarvitsemat aseet" mikä on ympäripyöreästi todettu: se ei suoraan tarkoita että "kaikki tarvittavat aseet" vaan ennemminkin "aseita joita he tarvitsevat". ELI suomeksi sanottuna: ryssällä on pulaa / tarve suuremmille määrille tiettyjen tykistöaseiden osalta JA Pohjois-Korealla on kyky auttaa tässä asiassa eli kyky valmistaa näiden kaliiperien tykistön laukauksia ja raketteja. On siis loogista olettaa että Putin pyrkisi neuvottelemaan tästä.
Kysymys: miten tämä tulisi tulkita ryssän varastojen ja uustuotannon osalta? Varastot käymässä vähiin ja uustuotanto ei ole riittävää eikä sen kapasiteetin nostaminen ole joko onnistunut tai kasvu on liian hidasta tarpeeseen nähden? Useissa arvioissa on pohdittu että Venäjän tykistönlaukauksien vuosituotanto olisi 2 miljoonaa per vuosi, tosin jäänyt epäselväksi onko se pelkän uustuotannon määrä vai sisältääkö myös varastoista kunnostetut laukaukset. Olen olettanut että numero sisältäisi molemmat. JOS näin olisi niin varastojen ehtyessä jäljellä olisi pelkkä aito uustuotanto joka olisi pienempi määrää kuin tuo 2 miljoonaa per vuosi. Pohjois-Korea on toimittanut materiaalia jo kuukausien ajan ja tietääkseni toimitukset ovat jatkuneet näihin päiviin asti. Liekö niin että sopimus koski tiettyä määrää ja toimitusaikaa JA se olisi pikapuolin katkolla? Siitäkö syystä on tarve neuvotella uudesta sopimuksesta?
Toinen näkökulma: väitetysti ryssän tavoite vuodelle 2024 on Donetskin ja Luhanskin alueiden valtaaminen. Se ei onnistu ilman resursseja ja merkittävä tykistön ylivoima on sieltä tärkeimmästä päästä (ei silti ainoa ratkaiseva tekijä). Pohjois-Korean toimitukset voivat olla hyvin tärkeässä tai jopa ratkaisevassa roolissa tämän tavoitteen kannalta.
Putinxyjlo
Eversti
olisiko tässä paras vaalimainos Stubbille ikinä 
taitaa ryzzälää vituttaa stubin lausunnot ydinaseista ja nato tukikohdista. Ydinaseet varmistaisi tukikohdat myös porkkananaaman ollessa pressana. Eikä siis senttiäkään sympatiaa kummallekkaan, onhan tämä kaksikko ryvettynyt jo aika tavalla, mutta silti pienempi paha lienee stubb, johtuen NATO myönteisyydestään.
www.is.fi
taitaa ryzzälää vituttaa stubin lausunnot ydinaseista ja nato tukikohdista. Ydinaseet varmistaisi tukikohdat myös porkkananaaman ollessa pressana. Eikä siis senttiäkään sympatiaa kummallekkaan, onhan tämä kaksikko ryvettynyt jo aika tavalla, mutta silti pienempi paha lienee stubb, johtuen NATO myönteisyydestään.
Näin Venäjän mediassa kommentoidaan Suomen presidentinvaaleja
Venäläismedian mukaan Alexander Stubbia ja Pekka Haavistoa yhdistää Venäjä-vastaisuus, mutta Haavistolla olisi sen lisäksi myös ”henkilökohtaista kaunaa” Venäjää vastaan.
www.is.fi
Antares
Respected Leader
GUR:n päällikkö Budanov kommentoinut ryssän hyökkäyksen jatkumista / kulminoitumista ja sitä seuraavia tavoitteita (RBC-Ukraine artikkeli julkaistu 30.1.2024): LÄHDE
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Lyhyesti tiivistäen: Budanovin mukaan Venäjän hyökkäysoperaatio alkoi marraskuussa 2023 ja on jatkunut kahden ja puolen kuukauden ajan. Tulokset eivät ole olleet hyviä, tosin hän myöntää että Avdiivkan seudulla ryssä on onnistunut etenemään (jonkin verran). Hyökkäyksellä oli / on kuitenkin paljon kunnianhimoisemmat tavoitteet:
They wanted to quickly reach the barrier line along the Zherebets' River (річці Чорний Жеребець) in the Kharkiv region and reach the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As you understand, there is not even close to that.
Tämä hyökkäys jatkuu ja Budanovin arvion mukaan sen resurssit ovat ehtyneet jossain vaiheessa alkukeväästä 2024 (minun kommentti: kenties mutakauden alkaminen asettaa loogisen tauon hyökkäyksen jatkamiselle? Ei toki ole 100% varmaa, koska mutakausi ei vaikuta esim. kaupunkeihin tai asfalttitiestöön samalla tavoin kuin maastoon tai maaseutuun).
Lisäksi hän kommentoi että kuten missä tahansa pelissä, kun vihollinen on "tehnyt siirtonsa", sen jälkeen on "Ukrainan joukkojen vuoro tehdä oma siirtonsa" - miten tuon sitten haluaakaan tulkita.
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Zherebets' joki kartalla, aluksi tuntui hieman oudolta kun hän mainitsee "Kharkovan alueen" tämän yhteydessä mutta näköjään joki yltää Luhanskin ja Kharkovan alueiden rajalle joten sinänsä tämä olisi looginen tavoite ryssälle (kartan lähde: LINKKI)
https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/budanov-rozpoviv-koli-vicherpaetsya-nastup-1706629775.html
UAENRU
Archival photo: head of the State Government of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov (Vitaly Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
AUTHOR: DMYTRO BRASLAVSKYI
At the moment, the offensive operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine continues, but at the beginning of spring it will be completely exhausted.
This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the air of the national telethon.
"Not yet (the picture on the front is not clear - ed.). It is closer to spring. Now I can tell you that the offensive operation of the Russian Federation is currently underway," said Budanov.
According to Budanov, it began in November 2023 and has been going on for two and a half months. The head of intelligence added that it would be wrong to call the results of the offensive any great. However, he admitted that near Avdiivka in Donetsk region, there is a certain advance of the occupiers.
"But this is not what they were counting on. They wanted to quickly reach the barrier line along the Zherebets' River in the Kharkiv region and reach the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As you understand, there is not even close to that," Budanov said.
The head of intelligence added that the offensive is ongoing and will be completely exhausted sometime in early spring.
At the same time, Budanov added that, as per the rules of any game, when the enemy's move ends, the move of the Ukrainian troops will begin.
Since the beginning of October, Russian soldiers have continued active assaults in the Avdiivka area. They are trying to surround the city and occupy it.
At the same time, the Ukrainian defenders are holding the defense and inflicting huge losses on the enemy. According to Kirill Budanov, the head of the Ministry of Defense's GUR, the losses of the Russian occupiers in their attempts to capture Avdiivka have increased significantly recently. But he did not name specific numbers.
You can learn more about the situation on the front line in the RBC-Ukraine material.
Read urgent and important messages about Russia's war against Ukraine on the RBC-Ukraine Telegram channel .
Budanov told when the Russian offensive would end and what would await the enemy
UKRAINE, TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2024, 5:51 P.MUAENRU
Archival photo: head of the State Government of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov (Vitaly Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
AUTHOR: DMYTRO BRASLAVSKYI
At the moment, the offensive operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine continues, but at the beginning of spring it will be completely exhausted.
This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the air of the national telethon.
"Not yet (the picture on the front is not clear - ed.). It is closer to spring. Now I can tell you that the offensive operation of the Russian Federation is currently underway," said Budanov.
According to Budanov, it began in November 2023 and has been going on for two and a half months. The head of intelligence added that it would be wrong to call the results of the offensive any great. However, he admitted that near Avdiivka in Donetsk region, there is a certain advance of the occupiers.
What awaits the enemy in the spring
"But this is not what they were counting on. They wanted to quickly reach the barrier line along the Zherebets' River in the Kharkiv region and reach the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As you understand, there is not even close to that," Budanov said.
The head of intelligence added that the offensive is ongoing and will be completely exhausted sometime in early spring.
At the same time, Budanov added that, as per the rules of any game, when the enemy's move ends, the move of the Ukrainian troops will begin.
Battles for Avdiivka
Since the beginning of October, Russian soldiers have continued active assaults in the Avdiivka area. They are trying to surround the city and occupy it.
At the same time, the Ukrainian defenders are holding the defense and inflicting huge losses on the enemy. According to Kirill Budanov, the head of the Ministry of Defense's GUR, the losses of the Russian occupiers in their attempts to capture Avdiivka have increased significantly recently. But he did not name specific numbers.
You can learn more about the situation on the front line in the RBC-Ukraine material.
Read urgent and important messages about Russia's war against Ukraine on the RBC-Ukraine Telegram channel .
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Lyhyesti tiivistäen: Budanovin mukaan Venäjän hyökkäysoperaatio alkoi marraskuussa 2023 ja on jatkunut kahden ja puolen kuukauden ajan. Tulokset eivät ole olleet hyviä, tosin hän myöntää että Avdiivkan seudulla ryssä on onnistunut etenemään (jonkin verran). Hyökkäyksellä oli / on kuitenkin paljon kunnianhimoisemmat tavoitteet:
They wanted to quickly reach the barrier line along the Zherebets' River (річці Чорний Жеребець) in the Kharkiv region and reach the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As you understand, there is not even close to that.
Tämä hyökkäys jatkuu ja Budanovin arvion mukaan sen resurssit ovat ehtyneet jossain vaiheessa alkukeväästä 2024 (minun kommentti: kenties mutakauden alkaminen asettaa loogisen tauon hyökkäyksen jatkamiselle? Ei toki ole 100% varmaa, koska mutakausi ei vaikuta esim. kaupunkeihin tai asfalttitiestöön samalla tavoin kuin maastoon tai maaseutuun).
Lisäksi hän kommentoi että kuten missä tahansa pelissä, kun vihollinen on "tehnyt siirtonsa", sen jälkeen on "Ukrainan joukkojen vuoro tehdä oma siirtonsa" - miten tuon sitten haluaakaan tulkita.
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Zherebets' joki kartalla, aluksi tuntui hieman oudolta kun hän mainitsee "Kharkovan alueen" tämän yhteydessä mutta näköjään joki yltää Luhanskin ja Kharkovan alueiden rajalle joten sinänsä tämä olisi looginen tavoite ryssälle (kartan lähde: LINKKI)
Viimeksi muokattu:
Antares
Respected Leader
CIA:n johtaja William Burns on kirjoittanut ajatuksiaan monesta eri asiasta, mukaanlukien Ukrainan auttamisesta Foreign Affairs -julkaisun nettisivuilla (kirjoitus julkaistu 30.1.2024):
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/cia-spycraft-and-statecraft-william-burns
Burns testifying in the U.S. Senate, February 2021
For as long as countries have kept secrets from one another, they have tried to steal them from one another. Espionage has been and will remain an integral part of statecraft, even as its techniques continually evolve. America’s first spies spent the Revolutionary War using ciphers, clandestine courier networks, and invisible ink to correspond with each other and their foreign allies. In World War II, the emerging field of signals intelligence helped uncover Japanese war plans. During the early Cold War, the United States’ intelligence capabilities literally went into the stratosphere, with the advent of the U-2 and other high-altitude spy planes that could photograph Soviet military installations with impressive clarity.
The simple stars etched on the memorial wall at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, honor the 140 agency officers who gave their lives serving their country. The memorial offers an enduring reminder of countless acts of courage. Yet those instances of heroism and the CIA’s many quiet successes remain far less well known to the American public than the mistakes that have sometimes marred the agency’s history. The defining test for intelligence has always been to anticipate and help policymakers navigate profound shifts in the international landscape—the plastic moments that come along only a few times each century.
As President Joe Biden has reiterated, the United States faces one of those rare moments today, as consequential as the dawn of the Cold War or the post-9/11 period. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism pose daunting geopolitical challenges in a world of intense strategic competition in which the United States no longer enjoys uncontested primacy and in which existential climate threats are mounting. Complicating matters further is a revolution in technology even more sweeping than the Industrial Revolution or the beginning of the nuclear age. From microchips to artificial intelligence to quantum computing, emerging technologies are transforming the world, including the profession of intelligence. In many ways, these developments make the CIA’s job harder than ever, giving adversaries powerful new tools to confuse us, evade us, and spy on us.
And yet as much as the world is changing, espionage remains an interplay between humans and technology. There will continue to be secrets that only humans can collect and clandestine operations that only humans can conduct. Technological advances, particularly in signals intelligence, have not made such human operations irrelevant, as some have predicted, but have instead revolutionized their practice. To be an effective twenty-first-century intelligence service, the CIA must blend a mastery of emerging technologies with the people-to-people skills and individual daring that have always been at the heart of our profession. That means equipping operations officers with the tools and tradecraft to conduct espionage in a world of constant technological surveillance—and equipping analysts with sophisticated artificial intelligence models that can digest mammoth amounts of open-source and clandestinely acquired information so that they can make their best human judgments.
At the same time, what the CIA does with the intelligence it gathers is also changing. “Strategic declassification,” the intentional public disclosure of certain secrets to undercut rivals and rally allies, has become an even more powerful tool for policymakers. Using it doesn’t mean recklessly jeopardizing the sources or methods used to collect the intelligence, but it does mean judiciously resisting the reflexive urge to keep everything classified. The U.S. intelligence community is also learning the increasing value of intelligence diplomacy, gaining a new understanding of how its efforts to bolster allies and counter foes can support policymakers.
This is a time of historic challenges for the CIA and the entire intelligence profession, with geopolitical and technological shifts posing as big a test as we’ve ever faced. Success will depend on blending traditional human intelligence with emerging technologies in creative ways. It will require, in other words, adapting to a world where the only safe prediction about change is that it will accelerate.
Putin’s war has already been a failure for Russia on many levels. His original goal of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved foolish and illusory. His military has suffered immense damage. At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out. All this is a direct result of Ukrainian soldiers’ valor and skill, backed up by Western support. Meanwhile, Russia’s economy is suffering long-term setbacks, and the country is sealing its fate as China’s economic vassal. Putin’s overblown ambitions have backfired in another way, too: they have prompted NATO to grow larger and stronger.
Although Putin’s repressive grip does not seem likely to weaken anytime soon, his war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his power at home. The short-lived mutiny launched last June by the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a glimpse at some of the dysfunction lurking behind Putin’s carefully polished image of control. For a leader who painstakingly crafted a reputation as the arbiter of order, Putin looked detached and indecisive as Prigozhin’s ragtag mutineers made their way up the road to Moscow. For many in the Russian elite, the question was not so much whether the emperor had no clothes as why he was taking so long to get dressed. The ultimate apostle of payback, Putin eventually settled his score with Prigozhin, who was killed in a suspicious plane crash two months to the day after starting his rebellion. But Prigozhin’s biting critique of the lies and military misjudgments at the core of Putin’s war, and of the corruption at the heart of the Russian political system, will not soon disappear.
This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine, a test of staying power whose consequences will go well beyond the country’s heroic struggle to sustain its freedom and independence. As Putin regenerates Russia’s defense production—with critical components from China, as well as weaponry and munitions from Iran and North Korea—he continues to bet that time is on his side, that he can grind down Ukraine and wear down its Western supporters. Ukraine’s challenge is to puncture Putin’s arrogance and demonstrate the high cost for Russia of continued conflict, not just by making progress on the frontlines but also by launching deeper strikes behind them and making steady gains in the Black Sea. In this environment, Putin might engage again in nuclear saber-rattling, and it would be foolish to dismiss escalatory risks entirely. But it would be equally foolish to be unnecessarily intimidated by them.
The key to success lies in preserving Western aid for Ukraine. At less than five percent of the U.S. defense budget, it is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry. Keeping the arms flowing will put Ukraine in a stronger position if an opportunity for serious negotiations emerges. It offers a chance to ensure a long-term win for Ukraine and a strategic loss for Russia; Ukraine could safeguard its sovereignty and rebuild, while Russia would be left to deal with the enduring costs of Putin’s folly. For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions.
So, too, however, is the impact of Western solidarity on Xi’s calculus about the risks of using force against Taiwan, which elected a new president, Lai Ching-te, in January. For Xi, a man inclined to see the United States as a fading power, American leadership on Ukraine has surely come as a surprise. The United States’ willingness to inflict and absorb economic pain to counter Putin’s aggression—and its ability to rally its allies to do the same—powerfully contradicted Beijing’s belief that America was in terminal decline. Closer to Chinese shores, the resilience of the American network of allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific has had a sobering effect on Beijing’s thinking. One of the surest ways to rekindle Chinese perceptions of American fecklessness and stoke Chinese aggressiveness would be to abandon support for Ukraine. Continued material backing for Ukraine doesn’t come at the expense of Taiwan; it sends an important message of U.S. resolve that helps Taiwan.
Competition with China is taking place against the backdrop of thick economic interdependence and commercial ties between it and the United States. Such connections have served the two countries and the rest of the world remarkably well, but they have also created critical vulnerabilities and serious risks for American security and prosperity. The COVID-19 pandemic made clear to every government the danger of being dependent on any one country for life-saving medical supplies, just as Russia’s war in Ukraine has made clear to Europe the risks of being dependent on one country for energy. In today’s world, no country wants to find itself at the mercy of a single supplier of critical minerals and technologies—especially if that supplier is intent on weaponizing those dependencies. As American policymakers have argued, the best answer is to sensibly “de-risk” and diversify—securing the United States’ supply chains, protecting its technological edge, and investing in its industrial capacity.
In this volatile, divided world, the weight of the “hedging middle” is growing. Democracies and autocracies, developed economies and developing ones, and countries across the global South are increasingly intent on diversifying their relationships to maximize their options. They see little benefit and plenty of risk in sticking to monogamous geopolitical relationships with either the United States or China. More countries are likely to be attracted to an “open” geopolitical relationship status (or at least an “it’s complicated” one), following the United States’ lead on some issues while cultivating relations with China. And if past is precedent, Washington ought to be attentive to rivalries between the growing number of middle powers, which have historically helped spark collisions between major ones.
I have spent much of the last four decades working in and on the Middle East, and I have rarely seen it more tangled or explosive. Winding down the intense Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip, meeting the deep humanitarian needs of suffering Palestinian civilians, freeing hostages, preventing the spread of conflict to other fronts in the region, and shaping a workable approach for the “day after” in Gaza are all incredibly difficult problems. So is resurrecting hope for a durable peace that ensures Israel’s security as well as Palestinian statehood and takes advantage of historic opportunities for normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Hard as it may be to imagine those possibilities amid the current crisis, it is even harder to imagine getting out of the crisis without pursuing them seriously.
Key to Israel’s—and the region’s—security is dealing with Iran. The Iranian regime has been emboldened by the crisis and seems ready to fight to its last regional proxy, all while expanding its nuclear program and enabling Russian aggression. In the months after October 7, the Houthis, the Yemeni rebel group allied with Iran, began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, and the risks of escalation on other fronts persist.
The United States is not exclusively responsible for resolving any of the Middle East’s vexing problems. But none of them can be managed, let alone solved, without active U.S. leadership.
This new landscape presents particular challenges for an organization focused on human intelligence. In a world in which the United States’ principal rivals—China and Russia—are led by personalistic autocrats operating within small and insular circles of advisers, gaining insight into leaders’ intentions is both more important and more difficult than ever.
Just as 9/11 ushered in a new era for the CIA, so did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m deeply proud of the work that the CIA and our intelligence partners have done to assist the president and senior U.S. policymakers—and especially the Ukrainians themselves—to thwart Putin. Together, we provided early and accurate warning of the coming invasion. That knowledge also enabled the president to decide to send me to Moscow to warn Putin and his advisers in November 2021 about the consequences of the attack we knew they were planning. Convinced that their window for dominating Ukraine was closing and that the upcoming winter offered a favorable opportunity, they were unmoved and unapologetic—badly overestimating their own position and underestimating Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve.
Good intelligence has since helped the president mobilize and sustain a strong coalition of countries in support of Ukraine. It has also helped Ukraine defend itself with remarkable bravery and perseverance. The president has also made creative use of strategic declassification. Before the invasion, the administration, along with the British government, exposed Russian plans for “false flag” operations that were designed to pin blame on Ukrainians and provide a pretext for Russian military action. These and subsequent disclosures have denied Putin the false narratives that I have watched him so often weaponize in the past. They have put him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on the back foot. And they have bolstered both Ukraine and the coalition supporting it.
Biden and Burns speaking in front of the memorial wall at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, July 2022
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Meanwhile, disaffection with the war is continuing to gnaw away at the Russian leadership and the Russian people, beneath the thick surface of state propaganda and repression. That undercurrent of disaffection is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA. We’re not letting it go to waste.
While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat, and over the past two years, the CIA has been reorganizing itself to reflect that priority. We have started by acknowledging an organizational fact I learned long ago: priorities aren’t real unless budgets reflect them. Accordingly, the CIA has committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations, and analysis around the world—more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget focused on China over just the last two years. We’re hiring and training more Mandarin speakers while stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.
The CIA has a dozen or so “mission centers,” issue-specific groups that bring together officers from across the agencies’ various directorates. In 2021, we set up a new mission center focused exclusively on China. The only single-country mission center, it provides a central mechanism for coordinating work on China, a job that extends today to every corner of the CIA. And we’re also quietly strengthening intelligence channels to our counterparts in Beijing, an important means of helping policymakers avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and inadvertent collisions between the United States and China.
Even as China and Russia consume much of the CIA’s attention, the agency can’t afford to neglect other challenges, from counterterrorism to regional instability. The successful U.S. strike in Afghanistan in July 2022 against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of al Qaeda, demonstrated that the CIA remains sharply focused on—and retains significant capabilities to combat—terrorist threats. The CIA is also devoting substantial resources to help fight the invasion of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. And familiar regional challenges loom, not just in places long considered strategically important, such as North Korea and the South China Sea, but also in parts of the world whose geopolitical significance will only grow in the years ahead, such as Latin America and Africa.
The CIA’s in-house scientific and technological talent remains superb. The agency has developed warehouses’ worth of spy gadgetry over the years, my favorite being the Cold War camera designed to look and hover like a dragonfly. The revolution in artificial intelligence, and the avalanche of open-source information alongside what we collect clandestinely, creates historic new opportunities for the CIA’s analysts. We’re developing new AI tools to help digest all that material faster and more efficiently, freeing officers to focus on what they do best: providing reasoned judgments and insights on what matters most to policymakers and what means most for American interests. AI won’t replace human analysts, but it is already empowering them.
Another priority in this new era is to deepen the CIA’s unmatched network of intelligence partnerships around the world, an asset the United States’ lonelier rivals currently lack. The CIA’s ability to benefit from its partners—from their collection, their expertise, their perspectives, and their capacity to operate more easily in many places than the agency can—is critical to its success. Just as diplomacy depends on revitalizing these old and new partnerships, so does intelligence. At its core, the intelligence profession is about human interactions, and there is no substitute for direct contact to strengthen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest adversaries, and cultivate everyone in between. In more than 50 overseas trips in nearly three years as director, I’ve run the gamut of those relationships.
Sometimes, it’s more convenient for intelligence officers to deal with historic enemies in situations in which diplomatic contact might connote formal recognition. That’s why the president sent me to Kabul in late August of 2021 to engage with the Taliban leadership just before the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Sometimes, the CIA’s relationships in complicated parts of the world can offer practical possibilities, as in the ongoing negotiations with Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and Hamas over a humanitarian cease-fire and the release of hostages from Gaza. Sometimes, such ties can provide discreet ballast in relationships full of political ups and downs. And sometimes, intelligence diplomacy can encourage a convergence of interests and quietly support the efforts of U.S. diplomats and policymakers.
We’ve streamlined our recruiting process for new officers. It now takes a quarter of the time it took two years ago to move from application to final offer and security clearance. These improvements have contributed to a surge of interest in the CIA. In 2023, we had more applicants than in any year since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We’re also working hard to diversify our workforce, reaching historic highs in 2023 in terms of the number of women and minority officers hired, as well as the number promoted into the agency’s most senior ranks.
By necessity, CIA officers operate in the shadows, usually out of sight and out of mind; the risks they take and the sacrifices they make are rarely well understood. At a moment when trust in the United States’ public institutions is often in short supply, the CIA remains a resolutely apolitical institution, bound by the oath I and everyone else at the agency have taken to defend the Constitution and by our obligations under the law.
CIA officers are also bound together by a sense of community, and by a deep, shared commitment to public service at this crucial moment in American history. They know the truth in the advice I got many years ago from my father, who had a distinguished military career. As I was wrestling with what to do with my professional life, he sent me a handwritten note: “Nothing can make you prouder than to serve your country with honor.” That helped launch me into a long and fortunate career in government, first in the Foreign Service and now at the CIA. I’ve never regretted the choice I made. I take enormous pride in serving with thousands of other CIA officers who feel the same about theirs—and are rising to the challenge of a new era.
Spycraft and Statecraft
Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition
By William J. Burns
January 30, 2024Burns testifying in the U.S. Senate, February 2021
For as long as countries have kept secrets from one another, they have tried to steal them from one another. Espionage has been and will remain an integral part of statecraft, even as its techniques continually evolve. America’s first spies spent the Revolutionary War using ciphers, clandestine courier networks, and invisible ink to correspond with each other and their foreign allies. In World War II, the emerging field of signals intelligence helped uncover Japanese war plans. During the early Cold War, the United States’ intelligence capabilities literally went into the stratosphere, with the advent of the U-2 and other high-altitude spy planes that could photograph Soviet military installations with impressive clarity.
The simple stars etched on the memorial wall at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, honor the 140 agency officers who gave their lives serving their country. The memorial offers an enduring reminder of countless acts of courage. Yet those instances of heroism and the CIA’s many quiet successes remain far less well known to the American public than the mistakes that have sometimes marred the agency’s history. The defining test for intelligence has always been to anticipate and help policymakers navigate profound shifts in the international landscape—the plastic moments that come along only a few times each century.
As President Joe Biden has reiterated, the United States faces one of those rare moments today, as consequential as the dawn of the Cold War or the post-9/11 period. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism pose daunting geopolitical challenges in a world of intense strategic competition in which the United States no longer enjoys uncontested primacy and in which existential climate threats are mounting. Complicating matters further is a revolution in technology even more sweeping than the Industrial Revolution or the beginning of the nuclear age. From microchips to artificial intelligence to quantum computing, emerging technologies are transforming the world, including the profession of intelligence. In many ways, these developments make the CIA’s job harder than ever, giving adversaries powerful new tools to confuse us, evade us, and spy on us.
And yet as much as the world is changing, espionage remains an interplay between humans and technology. There will continue to be secrets that only humans can collect and clandestine operations that only humans can conduct. Technological advances, particularly in signals intelligence, have not made such human operations irrelevant, as some have predicted, but have instead revolutionized their practice. To be an effective twenty-first-century intelligence service, the CIA must blend a mastery of emerging technologies with the people-to-people skills and individual daring that have always been at the heart of our profession. That means equipping operations officers with the tools and tradecraft to conduct espionage in a world of constant technological surveillance—and equipping analysts with sophisticated artificial intelligence models that can digest mammoth amounts of open-source and clandestinely acquired information so that they can make their best human judgments.
At the same time, what the CIA does with the intelligence it gathers is also changing. “Strategic declassification,” the intentional public disclosure of certain secrets to undercut rivals and rally allies, has become an even more powerful tool for policymakers. Using it doesn’t mean recklessly jeopardizing the sources or methods used to collect the intelligence, but it does mean judiciously resisting the reflexive urge to keep everything classified. The U.S. intelligence community is also learning the increasing value of intelligence diplomacy, gaining a new understanding of how its efforts to bolster allies and counter foes can support policymakers.
This is a time of historic challenges for the CIA and the entire intelligence profession, with geopolitical and technological shifts posing as big a test as we’ve ever faced. Success will depend on blending traditional human intelligence with emerging technologies in creative ways. It will require, in other words, adapting to a world where the only safe prediction about change is that it will accelerate.
PUTIN UNBOUND
The post–Cold War era came to a definitive end the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. I have spent much of the past two decades trying to understand the combustible combination of grievance, ambition, and insecurity that Russian President Vladimir Putin embodies. One thing I have learned is that it is always a mistake to underestimate his fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices. Without that control, he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a great power or for him to be a great Russian leader. That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, from its one-dimensional economy to its inflated military prowess to its corrupt political system. Putin’s invasion has also prompted breathtaking determination and resolve from the Ukrainian people. I have seen their courage firsthand on frequent wartime trips to Ukraine, punctuated by Russian air raids and vivid images of Ukrainian battlefield tenacity and ingenuity.Putin’s war has already been a failure for Russia on many levels. His original goal of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved foolish and illusory. His military has suffered immense damage. At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out. All this is a direct result of Ukrainian soldiers’ valor and skill, backed up by Western support. Meanwhile, Russia’s economy is suffering long-term setbacks, and the country is sealing its fate as China’s economic vassal. Putin’s overblown ambitions have backfired in another way, too: they have prompted NATO to grow larger and stronger.
Although Putin’s repressive grip does not seem likely to weaken anytime soon, his war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his power at home. The short-lived mutiny launched last June by the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a glimpse at some of the dysfunction lurking behind Putin’s carefully polished image of control. For a leader who painstakingly crafted a reputation as the arbiter of order, Putin looked detached and indecisive as Prigozhin’s ragtag mutineers made their way up the road to Moscow. For many in the Russian elite, the question was not so much whether the emperor had no clothes as why he was taking so long to get dressed. The ultimate apostle of payback, Putin eventually settled his score with Prigozhin, who was killed in a suspicious plane crash two months to the day after starting his rebellion. But Prigozhin’s biting critique of the lies and military misjudgments at the core of Putin’s war, and of the corruption at the heart of the Russian political system, will not soon disappear.
This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine, a test of staying power whose consequences will go well beyond the country’s heroic struggle to sustain its freedom and independence. As Putin regenerates Russia’s defense production—with critical components from China, as well as weaponry and munitions from Iran and North Korea—he continues to bet that time is on his side, that he can grind down Ukraine and wear down its Western supporters. Ukraine’s challenge is to puncture Putin’s arrogance and demonstrate the high cost for Russia of continued conflict, not just by making progress on the frontlines but also by launching deeper strikes behind them and making steady gains in the Black Sea. In this environment, Putin might engage again in nuclear saber-rattling, and it would be foolish to dismiss escalatory risks entirely. But it would be equally foolish to be unnecessarily intimidated by them.
The key to success lies in preserving Western aid for Ukraine. At less than five percent of the U.S. defense budget, it is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry. Keeping the arms flowing will put Ukraine in a stronger position if an opportunity for serious negotiations emerges. It offers a chance to ensure a long-term win for Ukraine and a strategic loss for Russia; Ukraine could safeguard its sovereignty and rebuild, while Russia would be left to deal with the enduring costs of Putin’s folly. For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions.
XI’S POWER PLAY
No one is watching U.S. support for Ukraine more closely than Chinese leaders. China remains the only U.S. rival with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so. The country’s economic transformation over the past five decades has been extraordinary. It is one for which the Chinese people deserve great credit and one that the rest of the world has broadly supported in the belief that a prosperous China is a global good. The issue is not China’s rise in itself but the threatening actions that increasingly accompany it. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has begun his third presidential term with more power than any of his predecessors since Mao Zedong. Rather than use that power to reinforce and revitalize the international system that enabled China’s transformation, Xi is seeking to rewrite it. In the intelligence profession, we study carefully what leaders say. But we pay even more attention to what they do. Xi’s growing repression at home and his aggressiveness abroad, from his “no limits” partnership with Putin to his threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, are impossible to ignore.So, too, however, is the impact of Western solidarity on Xi’s calculus about the risks of using force against Taiwan, which elected a new president, Lai Ching-te, in January. For Xi, a man inclined to see the United States as a fading power, American leadership on Ukraine has surely come as a surprise. The United States’ willingness to inflict and absorb economic pain to counter Putin’s aggression—and its ability to rally its allies to do the same—powerfully contradicted Beijing’s belief that America was in terminal decline. Closer to Chinese shores, the resilience of the American network of allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific has had a sobering effect on Beijing’s thinking. One of the surest ways to rekindle Chinese perceptions of American fecklessness and stoke Chinese aggressiveness would be to abandon support for Ukraine. Continued material backing for Ukraine doesn’t come at the expense of Taiwan; it sends an important message of U.S. resolve that helps Taiwan.
Competition with China is taking place against the backdrop of thick economic interdependence and commercial ties between it and the United States. Such connections have served the two countries and the rest of the world remarkably well, but they have also created critical vulnerabilities and serious risks for American security and prosperity. The COVID-19 pandemic made clear to every government the danger of being dependent on any one country for life-saving medical supplies, just as Russia’s war in Ukraine has made clear to Europe the risks of being dependent on one country for energy. In today’s world, no country wants to find itself at the mercy of a single supplier of critical minerals and technologies—especially if that supplier is intent on weaponizing those dependencies. As American policymakers have argued, the best answer is to sensibly “de-risk” and diversify—securing the United States’ supply chains, protecting its technological edge, and investing in its industrial capacity.
In this volatile, divided world, the weight of the “hedging middle” is growing. Democracies and autocracies, developed economies and developing ones, and countries across the global South are increasingly intent on diversifying their relationships to maximize their options. They see little benefit and plenty of risk in sticking to monogamous geopolitical relationships with either the United States or China. More countries are likely to be attracted to an “open” geopolitical relationship status (or at least an “it’s complicated” one), following the United States’ lead on some issues while cultivating relations with China. And if past is precedent, Washington ought to be attentive to rivalries between the growing number of middle powers, which have historically helped spark collisions between major ones.
A FAMILIAR ENTANGLEMENT
The crisis precipitated by Hamas’s butchery in Israel on October 7, 2023, is a painful reminder of the complexity of the choices that the Middle East continues to pose for the United States. Competition with China will remain Washington’s highest priority, but that doesn’t mean it can evade other challenges. It means only that the United States has to navigate with care and discipline, avoid overreach, and use its influence wisely.I have spent much of the last four decades working in and on the Middle East, and I have rarely seen it more tangled or explosive. Winding down the intense Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip, meeting the deep humanitarian needs of suffering Palestinian civilians, freeing hostages, preventing the spread of conflict to other fronts in the region, and shaping a workable approach for the “day after” in Gaza are all incredibly difficult problems. So is resurrecting hope for a durable peace that ensures Israel’s security as well as Palestinian statehood and takes advantage of historic opportunities for normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Hard as it may be to imagine those possibilities amid the current crisis, it is even harder to imagine getting out of the crisis without pursuing them seriously.
Key to Israel’s—and the region’s—security is dealing with Iran. The Iranian regime has been emboldened by the crisis and seems ready to fight to its last regional proxy, all while expanding its nuclear program and enabling Russian aggression. In the months after October 7, the Houthis, the Yemeni rebel group allied with Iran, began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, and the risks of escalation on other fronts persist.
The United States is not exclusively responsible for resolving any of the Middle East’s vexing problems. But none of them can be managed, let alone solved, without active U.S. leadership.
SPIES LIKE US
Geopolitical competition and uncertainty—not to mention shared challenges such as climate change and unprecedented technological advances such as artificial intelligence—make for a fiendishly complicated international landscape. The imperative for the CIA is to transform its approach to intelligence to keep pace with this rapidly transforming world. The CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community—led by Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence—are working hard to meet this moment with the urgency and creativity it requires.This new landscape presents particular challenges for an organization focused on human intelligence. In a world in which the United States’ principal rivals—China and Russia—are led by personalistic autocrats operating within small and insular circles of advisers, gaining insight into leaders’ intentions is both more important and more difficult than ever.
Just as 9/11 ushered in a new era for the CIA, so did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m deeply proud of the work that the CIA and our intelligence partners have done to assist the president and senior U.S. policymakers—and especially the Ukrainians themselves—to thwart Putin. Together, we provided early and accurate warning of the coming invasion. That knowledge also enabled the president to decide to send me to Moscow to warn Putin and his advisers in November 2021 about the consequences of the attack we knew they were planning. Convinced that their window for dominating Ukraine was closing and that the upcoming winter offered a favorable opportunity, they were unmoved and unapologetic—badly overestimating their own position and underestimating Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve.
Good intelligence has since helped the president mobilize and sustain a strong coalition of countries in support of Ukraine. It has also helped Ukraine defend itself with remarkable bravery and perseverance. The president has also made creative use of strategic declassification. Before the invasion, the administration, along with the British government, exposed Russian plans for “false flag” operations that were designed to pin blame on Ukrainians and provide a pretext for Russian military action. These and subsequent disclosures have denied Putin the false narratives that I have watched him so often weaponize in the past. They have put him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on the back foot. And they have bolstered both Ukraine and the coalition supporting it.
Biden and Burns speaking in front of the memorial wall at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, July 2022
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Meanwhile, disaffection with the war is continuing to gnaw away at the Russian leadership and the Russian people, beneath the thick surface of state propaganda and repression. That undercurrent of disaffection is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA. We’re not letting it go to waste.
While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat, and over the past two years, the CIA has been reorganizing itself to reflect that priority. We have started by acknowledging an organizational fact I learned long ago: priorities aren’t real unless budgets reflect them. Accordingly, the CIA has committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations, and analysis around the world—more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget focused on China over just the last two years. We’re hiring and training more Mandarin speakers while stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.
The CIA has a dozen or so “mission centers,” issue-specific groups that bring together officers from across the agencies’ various directorates. In 2021, we set up a new mission center focused exclusively on China. The only single-country mission center, it provides a central mechanism for coordinating work on China, a job that extends today to every corner of the CIA. And we’re also quietly strengthening intelligence channels to our counterparts in Beijing, an important means of helping policymakers avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and inadvertent collisions between the United States and China.
Even as China and Russia consume much of the CIA’s attention, the agency can’t afford to neglect other challenges, from counterterrorism to regional instability. The successful U.S. strike in Afghanistan in July 2022 against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of al Qaeda, demonstrated that the CIA remains sharply focused on—and retains significant capabilities to combat—terrorist threats. The CIA is also devoting substantial resources to help fight the invasion of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. And familiar regional challenges loom, not just in places long considered strategically important, such as North Korea and the South China Sea, but also in parts of the world whose geopolitical significance will only grow in the years ahead, such as Latin America and Africa.
SMARTER SPIES
Meanwhile, we’re transforming our approach to emerging technology. The CIA has been working to blend high-tech tools with age-old techniques for collecting intelligence from individuals—human intelligence, or HUMINT. Technology is, of course, making many aspects of spycraft harder than ever. In an era of smart cities, with video cameras on every street and facial recognition technology increasingly ubiquitous, spying has become much harder. For a CIA officer working overseas in a hostile country, meeting sources who are risking their own safety to offer valuable information, constant surveillance poses an acute threat. But the same technology that sometimes works against the CIA—whether it’s the mining of big data to expose patterns in the agency’s activities or massive camera networks that can track an operative’s every move—can also be made to work for it and against others. The CIA is racing against its rivals to put emerging technologies to use. The agency has appointed its first chief technology officer. And it has established another new mission center focused on building better partnerships with the private sector, where American innovation offers a significant competitive advantage.The CIA’s in-house scientific and technological talent remains superb. The agency has developed warehouses’ worth of spy gadgetry over the years, my favorite being the Cold War camera designed to look and hover like a dragonfly. The revolution in artificial intelligence, and the avalanche of open-source information alongside what we collect clandestinely, creates historic new opportunities for the CIA’s analysts. We’re developing new AI tools to help digest all that material faster and more efficiently, freeing officers to focus on what they do best: providing reasoned judgments and insights on what matters most to policymakers and what means most for American interests. AI won’t replace human analysts, but it is already empowering them.
Another priority in this new era is to deepen the CIA’s unmatched network of intelligence partnerships around the world, an asset the United States’ lonelier rivals currently lack. The CIA’s ability to benefit from its partners—from their collection, their expertise, their perspectives, and their capacity to operate more easily in many places than the agency can—is critical to its success. Just as diplomacy depends on revitalizing these old and new partnerships, so does intelligence. At its core, the intelligence profession is about human interactions, and there is no substitute for direct contact to strengthen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest adversaries, and cultivate everyone in between. In more than 50 overseas trips in nearly three years as director, I’ve run the gamut of those relationships.
Sometimes, it’s more convenient for intelligence officers to deal with historic enemies in situations in which diplomatic contact might connote formal recognition. That’s why the president sent me to Kabul in late August of 2021 to engage with the Taliban leadership just before the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Sometimes, the CIA’s relationships in complicated parts of the world can offer practical possibilities, as in the ongoing negotiations with Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and Hamas over a humanitarian cease-fire and the release of hostages from Gaza. Sometimes, such ties can provide discreet ballast in relationships full of political ups and downs. And sometimes, intelligence diplomacy can encourage a convergence of interests and quietly support the efforts of U.S. diplomats and policymakers.
IN THE SHADOWS
Every day, as I read through cables from stations around the world, travel to foreign capitals, or speak with colleagues at headquarters, I’m reminded of the skill and courage of CIA officers, as well as the unrelenting challenges they face. They are doing hard jobs in hard places. Especially since 9/11, they have been operating at an incredibly fast tempo. Indeed, taking care of the CIA’s mission in this new and daunting era depends on taking care of our people. That’s why the CIA has strengthened its medical resources at headquarters and in the field; improved programs for families, remote workers, and two-career couples; and explored more flexible career paths, especially for technologists, so that officers can move into the private sector and later return to the agency.We’ve streamlined our recruiting process for new officers. It now takes a quarter of the time it took two years ago to move from application to final offer and security clearance. These improvements have contributed to a surge of interest in the CIA. In 2023, we had more applicants than in any year since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We’re also working hard to diversify our workforce, reaching historic highs in 2023 in terms of the number of women and minority officers hired, as well as the number promoted into the agency’s most senior ranks.
By necessity, CIA officers operate in the shadows, usually out of sight and out of mind; the risks they take and the sacrifices they make are rarely well understood. At a moment when trust in the United States’ public institutions is often in short supply, the CIA remains a resolutely apolitical institution, bound by the oath I and everyone else at the agency have taken to defend the Constitution and by our obligations under the law.
CIA officers are also bound together by a sense of community, and by a deep, shared commitment to public service at this crucial moment in American history. They know the truth in the advice I got many years ago from my father, who had a distinguished military career. As I was wrestling with what to do with my professional life, he sent me a handwritten note: “Nothing can make you prouder than to serve your country with honor.” That helped launch me into a long and fortunate career in government, first in the Foreign Service and now at the CIA. I’ve never regretted the choice I made. I take enormous pride in serving with thousands of other CIA officers who feel the same about theirs—and are rising to the challenge of a new era.
- WILLIAM J. BURNS is Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Viimeksi muokattu:
J0h1F
Ylipäällikkö
Niinpä. Muistuttaisin vain näiden kahden vanhan, kulttuurihistoriallisesti erittäin merkittävän kirkkomme kohtalosta:
Jotka olivat tällaiset ennen ryssää:
(vanha tuomiokirkko sen alkuperäisessä, Porvoon tuomiokirkkoa muistuttavassa asussaan aikana ennen isoavihaa, josta ei ole valokuvia; ennen sotaa ollut katto oli paljon alkuperäistä matalampi, eikä sisäkattoa ollut holvattu samalla tavalla kuin aiemman korkeamman katonharjan aikaan).
Viimeksi muokattu:
Jonkin verran oppositiotyyppistä mielialaa esiintyy ja julkisesti tuodaan esille, jopa sotilaalta. Leonid Ivashov (kenraalieversti ja historiasta väitellyt tohtori) on se tyyppi joka sodan alussa julkisesti vastusti toimepidettä. Potkittiin kai ulos upseerien yhdistyksestä.
Mutta ei se ikkunasta ole pudonnut. Muutama tunti sitten tuli YouTubeen video jossa toistaa että sota pitäisi lopettaa. On sen verran vanha että uskaltaa sanoa.
Video on venäjänkielinen vaikka otsikko englanniksi:
IVASHOV: THE WAR MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY
Ei siinä tosin mielenkiintoista informaatiota ole.
Mutta ei se ikkunasta ole pudonnut. Muutama tunti sitten tuli YouTubeen video jossa toistaa että sota pitäisi lopettaa. On sen verran vanha että uskaltaa sanoa.
Video on venäjänkielinen vaikka otsikko englanniksi:
IVASHOV: THE WAR MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY
Ei siinä tosin mielenkiintoista informaatiota ole.
Antares
Respected Leader
Väitetysti Venäjällä olisi jonkinlaisia ongelmia internetin kanssa:
Many channels report of a massive failure of the Russian internet. Especially people in major cities such as Moscow trying to connect to .ru domains report that no sides are loading.
Almost all mobile providers and operators are affected.
Source: https://t.me/breakingmash/51303
-
HUOM: usein yhteyksiin liittyvät katkot ovat jääneet lyhyiksi, mutta tällä kertaa moni tuntuu korostavan ongelmien laajuutta eli koskevat useita eri internet-sivuja, hyvin merkittäviä sellaisia.
Viitatun breakingmash-telegram kanavan viesteissä pohditaan, onko tällä yhteyttä uutisoituun auringon purkaukseen eli hiukkaset osuvat maapallon magneettikenttään ja aiheuttavat monenlaista sähkömagneettista haittaa.
Hyvin mahdollista, ainakin ajankohta osuu yhteen sen kanssa.
Toki auringon tuoreimman purkauksen syyttäminen internetin katkeamisesta on helppo selitys - vika voi olla jossain muuallakin, jopa sabotaasia.
-
MUOKKAUS: tässä lähde jossa kerrotaan Auringon viime päivien "säätilanne" jotta ei ole pelkästään ryssän sanomisten varassa:
https://watchers.news/2024/01/30/s2-moderate-solar-radiation-storm-following-m6-7-solar-flare/
Many channels report of a massive failure of the Russian internet. Especially people in major cities such as Moscow trying to connect to .ru domains report that no sides are loading.
Almost all mobile providers and operators are affected.
Source: https://t.me/breakingmash/51303
How's it going, RC? A radiation storm has hit the Earth: a strong geomagnetic storm with a power of up to 7–8 points is possible.
Expect interference with the radio (condolences to taxi drivers and fans of Anna Asti), the Internet and all other gadgets that operate on radio frequencies. And in the polar latitudes there is interference in navigation.
https://t.me/breakingmash/51299
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The massive failure that we wrote about just above has arrived. True, the ".ru" domain broke down here. Whether radiation is involved is a mystery.
There are websites of marketplaces, mobile operators, banking and taxi applications, gaming services and all the other things you are familiar with.
https://t.me/breakingmash/51303
Expect interference with the radio (condolences to taxi drivers and fans of Anna Asti), the Internet and all other gadgets that operate on radio frequencies. And in the polar latitudes there is interference in navigation.
https://t.me/breakingmash/51299
-
The massive failure that we wrote about just above has arrived. True, the ".ru" domain broke down here. Whether radiation is involved is a mystery.
There are websites of marketplaces, mobile operators, banking and taxi applications, gaming services and all the other things you are familiar with.
https://t.me/breakingmash/51303
-
HUOM: usein yhteyksiin liittyvät katkot ovat jääneet lyhyiksi, mutta tällä kertaa moni tuntuu korostavan ongelmien laajuutta eli koskevat useita eri internet-sivuja, hyvin merkittäviä sellaisia.
Viitatun breakingmash-telegram kanavan viesteissä pohditaan, onko tällä yhteyttä uutisoituun auringon purkaukseen eli hiukkaset osuvat maapallon magneettikenttään ja aiheuttavat monenlaista sähkömagneettista haittaa.
Hyvin mahdollista, ainakin ajankohta osuu yhteen sen kanssa.
Toki auringon tuoreimman purkauksen syyttäminen internetin katkeamisesta on helppo selitys - vika voi olla jossain muuallakin, jopa sabotaasia.
-
MUOKKAUS: tässä lähde jossa kerrotaan Auringon viime päivien "säätilanne" jotta ei ole pelkästään ryssän sanomisten varassa:
https://watchers.news/2024/01/30/s2-moderate-solar-radiation-storm-following-m6-7-solar-flare/
Viimeksi muokattu:
Venäjän keskusvaalilautakunnan ilmoitus puten omaisuudesta:
-kämppä Pietarissa
-autotalli
- Volga 2kp, vm 1960 ja 1965
- lada Niva 2009
-peräkärry
-palkkaa saatu 6 vuoden aikana 752 000 taalaa.
Tässäpä varmaan yksi Ukrainan valloitusaikeiden juurisyitä, köyhän maan köyhän presidentin kateus, vaatimattomasti on putte mammonaa haalinut. /s
-kämppä Pietarissa
-autotalli
- Volga 2kp, vm 1960 ja 1965
- lada Niva 2009
-peräkärry
-palkkaa saatu 6 vuoden aikana 752 000 taalaa.
Tässäpä varmaan yksi Ukrainan valloitusaikeiden juurisyitä, köyhän maan köyhän presidentin kateus, vaatimattomasti on putte mammonaa haalinut. /s
ddude
Majuri
Monelle tuttu General SVR kanava on tunnettu lennokkaista huhuistaan.
Nyt omaan silmään pisti asia jossa ovat oikeassa.
Tarinan mukaan Patrushev olisi osallistunut kokoukseen jossa mietittiin operaatiota Baltiassa hajaannuksen saamiseksi Natossa.
Totesivat että USA:n johtaja on heikoimmillaan sataan vuoteen, ja päättivät aikaistaa operaatiota elokuun loppuun mennessä.
Huhua tai ei niin USA asiassa ovat kyllä oikeassa.
Nyt omaan silmään pisti asia jossa ovat oikeassa.
Tarinan mukaan Patrushev olisi osallistunut kokoukseen jossa mietittiin operaatiota Baltiassa hajaannuksen saamiseksi Natossa.
Totesivat että USA:n johtaja on heikoimmillaan sataan vuoteen, ja päättivät aikaistaa operaatiota elokuun loppuun mennessä.
Huhua tai ei niin USA asiassa ovat kyllä oikeassa.
Erkki
Ylipäällikkö
Ja minä kun luulin, että se oli myynyt Volgan ja peräkärryn, koska jostainhan se oli ylimääräistä rahaa saanut, kun esiintyi silloin taannoin niissä kymppitonnien merkkivaatteissa.
Maidan
Respected Leader
Jotkut ajattelee näin, mutta mitä itse tutustunut aiheseen, alkuun oli hieman kansallismielinen, ja mitä itse ymmärrän on tervettä ja sallittua kansallismieltä ja on sairasta, mitä nähty Putlerin esimerkkinä, mutta ei Navalnyn. Navalnyi uransa alussa oli parissa kohdassa sanonut rumasti, yhden kerran georgialaisista ja toisen takzhikeista, molemmissa tapauksessa kritiikin yhteydessä, joka ihan piti paikkansakin. Ei tämän enempää.
Hänen muka paha sanominen Ukrainasta väkisin revittiin kontekstista. Se joka lukenut sanasta sanaan koko tekstin, jota hän puhunut, ei nähnyt mitään siellä. Kysymys Navalnylle oli esitetetty valmiiksi sellaiseksi, että mitä tahansa oli kysytty, vastaus oli enemmän tai vähämmän huono.
En usko että halusi kalifatin kalifatin tilalle.
Ukrainalaisen Neptune-ohjuksen raato ajatunut Asovanmeren rannalle Taganrokin lähistöllä. Tärkein eli nokassa olevat sensorit ja muu elektroniikka näyttää onneksi jääneen pohjaan.