Politics – Page 3 – The Freedomist

9 min read

War Economics in the Shadows

Michael Cessna June 13, 2025

Wars require money, in some form. Combatants have to buy weapons, ammunition, food, vehicles, fuel, spare parts, lay down bribes for intelligence and suborning various people, and medical supplies, along with just simple tools…and that’s before we talk about whether they actually pay their fightersd.

In the shadowy realm of contemporary warfare, the most destructive conflicts are increasingly those where the combatants get their war chests filled by distant, foreign capitals. From Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression to Yemen’s devastating civil war, proxy conflicts have become the preferred method of great power competition — offering what military strategists euphemistically call “quick, relatively cheap and low-risk options for the continuation of policy aims“.

Proxy warfare has evolved from Cold War-era confrontations into a sophisticated financial enterprise that operates through complex networks of state sponsors, shell companies, and illicit economic activities. As Foreign Policy columnist Emma Ashford observed, proxy wars have become a preferred method of great power competition, allowing major powers to exert influence while maintaining plausible deniability. Understanding the financial mechanisms that sustain these conflicts is crucial for comprehending modern geopolitical dynamics and developing effective countermeasures.

Yet behind every proxy war lies a complex economic ecosystem that determines not just who fights, but how long they can sustain the violence. Understanding these financial networks reveals uncomfortable truths about modern warfare: conflicts are increasingly about economic endurance rather than battlefield tactics, and the nations writing the checks often have more control over outcomes than the soldiers pulling triggers.

The State Funding Model: Direct Government Support

The most straightforward financing mechanism involves direct state funding of proxy forces. President Vladimir Putin’s extraordinary admission in June 2023 revealed that “the financing of the entire Wagner group was fully ensured by the State,” with the Russian Defense Ministry pouring nearly $1 billion into Wagner operations from May 2022 to May 2023. This disclosure shattered decades of Kremlin denials and provided unprecedented insight into how major powers fund their proxy operations.

No nation has perfected the economics of proxy warfare quite like Iran. Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” represents perhaps history’s most sophisticated proxy financing operation, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force managing an estimated budget exceeding $1 billion annually for terrorist financing. This staggering sum supports between 140,000 and 185,000 proxy fighters across Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen.

*Groups that are part of the “Axis of Resistance”. 2024 image via Kaliper1. CCA/2.5*

Iran represents perhaps the most systematic state-sponsored proxy financing network. The U.S. State Department estimated that Iran spent more than $16 billion supporting the Assad regime and its proxies between 2012 and 2020. In 2020 alone, Iran funneled more than $700 million to Hezbollah, while providing more than $100 million annually to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These massive transfers occur through Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF), which serves as Tehran’s primary mechanism for financing proxy operations across the Middle East.

The scale of Iran’s investment becomes clear when examining individual recipients. Hezbollah alone receives more than $700 million annually from Tehran, a sum that dwarfs the entire defense budgets of many small nations. As Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah candidly admitted in 2016: “Hezbollah’s budget, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Iran’s proxy economics operate on multiple levels simultaneously. Beyond direct cash transfers, Tehran provides weapons manufacturing capabilities, enabling proxies to achieve self-sufficiency while maintaining plausible deniability. In Syria, Iran helped organize, train, and fund over 100,000 Shia fighters, demonstrating how proxy economics can scale to conventional warfare levels when strategic interests demand it.

The sophistication of Iran’s financial network became apparent in 2016 when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly announced that “all of his organization’s funding comes directly from Iran,” emphasizing that “the budget of Hizbullah, its salaries, its expenses, its food, its drink, its weapons, and its missiles come from the Islamic Republic of Iran“. This funding bypasses traditional banking systems, with Nasrallah confirming that transfers occur directly, “not through banks and other financial institutions”.

The Iranian model reveals a crucial economic principle: proxy wars succeed when sponsors can provide “stable and ample funding” while maintaining political control over their assets. Tehran achieves this through what former CIA analyst Norman Roule describes as controlling “their weaponry, their funding and significant political relationships with their key leaders”.

Economic Integration and Development Funding

China has pioneered a more sophisticated approach through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which launched in 2013 with the Silk Road Fund’s $40 billion initial capital. While ostensibly focused on infrastructure development, analysts worry that the BRI could be a Trojan horse for China-led regional development and military expansion. The program’s dual-use potential becomes apparent through [debt-trap diplomacy, where China allegedly uses unsustainable loans to gain leverage over debtor governments.

A 2021 study analyzed over one hundred debt financing contracts China signed with foreign governments and found that the contracts often contain clauses that restrict restructuring with the Paris Club, providing Beijing with significant leverage over partner nations. This economic influence can be converted into military access, as demonstrated by China’s naval base in Djibouti, which many observers see as the first of many potential military expansions.

The Technology Transfer Economy

Modern proxy warfare increasingly revolves around technology transfer rather than simple arms sales. The Iran-North Korea weapons pipeline exemplifies this evolution, with both nations sharing ballistic missile technology, submarine designs, and nuclear expertise. Iran’s Shahab-3 missile closely resembles North Korea’s Hawasong-14, while satellite imagery suggests Iranian technical expertise contributed to North Korean missile silo construction.

This technological cooperation creates self-sustaining proxy economies. Rather than remaining dependent on foreign suppliers, proxies gradually develop indigenous capabilities. Iran has mastered this approach, transferring not just weapons but “the means of production and modification to enable independent manufacturing” to its proxy network.

The economic advantages are compelling. Technology transfer builds redundancy of supply, reduces shipping risks, enhances deniability, and creates local employment that strengthens proxy loyalty. For sponsors, it represents a long-term investment strategy that pays dividends far beyond any single conflict.

The Ukrainian Counter-Model: Coalition Economics

Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion illustrates a different proxy economic model—multilateral coalition funding. Rather than relying on a single sponsor, Ukraine has assembled a diverse funding coalition including the United States, European Union, individual NATO members, and unexpected participants like Japan and South Korea.

This approach offers both advantages and vulnerabilities. Coalition funding can provide massive resource flows — U.S. assistance alone has exceeded $350 billion according to various estimates. However, it also creates dependency on multiple political systems with different priorities and election cycles. As U.S. support becomes uncertain under changing administrations, the sustainability of coalition-funded proxy warfare faces its ultimate test.

Japan and South Korea’s involvement demonstrates how proxy economics extend beyond traditional security partnerships. Both nations provide substantial non-lethal aid while “replenishing U.S. weapons stocks, supplying the United States with artillery shells and thereby freeing up Washington’s ability to send shells to Ukraine.” This creates layered economic relationships where allies subsidize great power proxy warfare indirectly.

The Russian Adaptation: Sanctions and Substitution

Russia’s proxy economic strategy has evolved dramatically under international sanctions pressure. Traditional funding mechanisms disrupted, Moscow has increasingly relied on partnerships with China, Iran, and North Korea to sustain both its direct war effort and proxy relationships. China provides crucial economic support that enables Russia to withstand Western sanctions, while Iran supplies drones and North Korea provides ammunition and even troops.

This adaptation reveals how proxy economics adjust to pressure. When conventional funding channels close, sponsors develop alternative networks. Russia’s use of Wagner Group mercenaries represented an attempt to privatize proxy relationships, creating plausible deniability while maintaining operational control. The Wagner model failed primarily due to political rather than economic factors, but its brief success demonstrated the potential for corporate proxy structures.

Escalation Economics

Perhaps most concerning is how proxy war economics influence conflict escalation. Traditional deterrence theory assumes rational actors will avoid escalation due to increasing costs. However, proxy warfare inverts this logic. As former CIA analyst Norman Roule observes, Iran operates as “an arsonist that then subcontracts out to other arsonists”, empowering proxies with resources while maintaining strategic distance.

This creates moral hazard problems where proxies may escalate beyond their sponsor’s intentions, confident that economic support will continue. The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel exemplifies this dynamic—Iran provided the economic foundation enabling Hamas capability, but the timing and scale caught Tehran off-guard, demonstrating how proxy economics can enable conflicts that spiral beyond original parameters.

Resource Extraction and Illicit Trade

Proxy groups increasingly finance their operations through control of natural resources and illicit trade networks. The U.S. Treasury Department revealed in 2023 that Wagner Group entities in the Central African Republic, United Arab Emirates, and Russia engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund Wagner operations. These operations involve sophisticated shell company networks, with Wagner using companies like Midas and Diamville to convert CAR-origin gold into U.S. dollars.

The U.S. Treasury Department exposed a convoluted Iranian illicit financing scheme in 2018 where Hezbollah officials, working with Iranian operatives and Russian companies, facilitated shipment of millions of barrels of Iranian oil to the Assad regime. The Assad regime would then transfer hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to the IRGC-QF, which distributed funds to Hamas and Hezbollah. In one documented transaction, a Hezbollah official confirmed receipt of $63 million as part of this oil-for-terror scheme.

The Sustainability Question

Ultimately, proxy war economics succeed or fail based on sustainability. Iran’s model works because oil revenues provide consistent funding streams relatively insulated from international pressure. Coalition models like Ukraine’s support depend on sustained political will across multiple democracies—a more fragile foundation.

The economic lessons are clear: modern conflicts are won by whichever side can maintain funding longest, not necessarily whichever side fights best. This reality transforms strategy from tactical to economic, making treasury departments as important as defense ministries in determining conflict outcomes. As proxy wars become the dominant form of great power competition, understanding their economic foundations becomes essential for anticipating tomorrow’s conflicts—and their likely victors.

Private Sector and Diaspora Financing

Proxy organizations also tap into private funding sources and diaspora communities. Hezbollah has relied on funding from the Shi’ite Lebanese Diaspora in West Africa, the United States, and the Triple Frontier region along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. These networks often operate through legitimate businesses and charities that serve as fronts for money laundering operations.

The United States has sanctioned numerous charities and front companies for providing financial support to proxy groups, including the Holy Land Foundation, which was designated in 2001 for providing millions of dollars annually to Hamas. These sanctions have had limited effectiveness, as current U.S. sanctions have not significantly impacted Iran’s relationships with its proxies.

Banking and Financial System Exploitation

Modern proxy financing relies heavily on exploiting legitimate financial institutions. A C4ADS report on leaked Wagner documents showed that without legitimate financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase and HSBC as intermediaries, the Wagner Group would not have been able to establish a foothold in Africa. In 2017, the Sudanese Mining company Meroe Gold, acting as a shell company for Wagner, used JP Morgan Chase to process payments to sellers in China.

Iran has developed sophisticated methods to circumvent banking sanctions. The U.S. designated Bank Saderat in 2006 for facilitating transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars annually to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. However, new financial networks continuously emerge to replace sanctioned institutions.

Government-to-Government Contracts

Some proxy financing occurs through legitimate government contracts that provide plausible cover for military support. Putin revealed that Wagner received contracts worth billions of rubles, including payments from governments who hired Wagner services, such as the Malian government, which reportedly paid Wagner more than $10 million each month. These arrangements allow both parties to maintain the fiction that the services being provided are purely commercial rather than military.

A Brave, New World

The financing of proxy warfare presents significant challenges for international security and governance. As noted by RAND Corporation analysts, geopolitical drivers of proxy warfare can often be self-reinforcing, with states able to develop proxy warfare capabilities very quickly, within a couple of years. The financial networks supporting these capabilities are equally adaptable, evolving new methods to circumvent sanctions and detection.

Recent developments suggest that proxy warfare financing will continue to evolve with the global financial system. Cryptocurrency, digital payment systems, and new forms of economic integration provide both opportunities and challenges for states seeking to fund proxy operations while maintaining deniability.

The complexity of modern proxy war financing reflects the broader evolution of international conflict, where economic warfare, information operations, and traditional military action converge in ways that challenge conventional approaches to conflict resolution and accountability. Understanding these financial mechanisms is essential for policymakers seeking to address the root causes of contemporary global instability.

…Money makes the world go ’round – it also helps to burn it.

*The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To*

Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret Army and the Cold War’s Hidden Front

7 min read

Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret Army and the Cold War’s Hidden Front

Michael Cessna June 6, 2025

In the shadowy world of Cold War espionage, few programs were as extensive — or as controversial — as Operation Gladio, NATO’s clandestine network of “stay-behind” forces designed to wage guerrilla warfare in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. What began as a reasonable defensive precaution evolved into a decades-long covert operation that would eventually raise profound questions about democratic oversight, government accountability, and the thin line between national security and state-sponsored terrorism.

Origins in Wartime Necessity

The concept of stay-behind forces emerged from the bitter lessons of World War II, when resistance movements across Nazi-occupied Europe demonstrated both the potential and the limitations of guerrilla warfare against occupying forces. As the Iron Curtain descended across Europe in the late 1940s, Western intelligence services faced a stark reality: the Red Army’s overwhelming conventional superiority meant that any Soviet invasion would likely overrun Western Europe’s conventional defenses within days.

*Soviet tanks near Odessa, April 1944. Red Army, USSR, photo. Public Domain.*

The solution, conceived jointly by the CIA and Britain’s MI6, was elegantly simple in theory: pre-position trained personnel, weapons caches, and communication equipment throughout Western Europe to serve as the nucleus of resistance movements should the worst occur. These stay-behind units would conduct sabotage operations, gather intelligence, and coordinate with NATO forces attempting to liberate occupied territory.

The formal structure began with the Western Union’s Clandestine Committee (WUCC) in 1948, which was subsequently integrated into NATO as the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC) in 1951. By 1958, NATO had established the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) to coordinate secret warfare operations across member nations.

Named after the double-edged gladius sword of Roman legionaries, Operation Gladio was officially established in 1956, though its roots stretched back to the immediate postwar period. The program’s existence was kept secret not only from the Soviet Union but from most Western European populations and even many of their elected officials.

The Network Expands

What made Gladio unique was its scope and sophistication. Unlike ad hoc resistance movements that formed spontaneously during wartime, these were professionally organized networks with carefully selected personnel, standardized equipment, and regular training exercises. Each participating NATO country maintained its own stay-behind organization: Gladio in Italy, Absalon in Denmark, P26 in Switzerland, ROC in Norway, I&O in the Netherlands, SDRA8 in Belgium, and similar networks in Germany, France, Austria, Greece, and Turkey.

The typical Gladio cell consisted of 10-15 individuals, often recruited from military special forces, intelligence services, or civilian volunteers with particular skills—radio operators, demolitions experts, former resistance fighters. These operatives underwent intensive training in sabotage techniques, covert communications, and survival skills, often at secret facilities in NATO countries or neutral territories.

Weapons caches were carefully concealed throughout the countryside—buried in forests, hidden in caves, stored in seemingly abandoned buildings, and secured in underground bunkers scattered across mountain locations. The arsenal was impressive and comprehensive: automatic weapons, explosives, pistols, ammunition, knives, navigation equipment, spy radios, guerrilla warfare manuals, specialized assassination weapons, and emergency supplies including brandy and chocolate. Cache discoveries as late as 1996 revealed the true scope of the program. In Italy alone, investigators discovered 622 hidden weapons dumps containing everything from machine guns to anti-tank rockets, demonstrating the massive scale of NATO’s secret preparations.

*American officer and French partisan crouch behind an auto during a street fight in a French city, 1944. US Army photo. Public Domain.*

According to former CIA Director William Colby, who oversaw Scandinavian operations, these networks required careful coordination with NATO planning, radio communications linked to potential government-in-exile locations, and specialized equipment secured from the CIA. The operation extended beyond traditional NATO boundaries, with CIA support for anti-communist movements in Ukraine and covert operations in the Baltic countries.

The Strategy Behind the Shadows

From a strategic perspective, Gladio represented a form of deterrence through promised resistance. Soviet military planners would have to factor in not just the immediate costs of conquering Western Europe, but the ongoing expense of occupying territories where trained guerrillas could strike at supply lines, assassination key collaborators, and gather intelligence for NATO counterattacks.

This strategy drew heavily from successful resistance operations during World War II, particularly the French Resistance and Yugoslav partisans, while attempting to avoid their primary weaknesses: poor coordination with Allied forces, inadequate equipment, and security vulnerabilities that led to mass arrests.

The program also served intelligence-gathering functions during peacetime. Stay-behind operatives were positioned to monitor communist activities, track potential collaborators, and maintain surveillance on strategic targets. This dual-purpose nature would later prove controversial when allegations emerged that some units engaged in domestic political surveillance beyond their official mandate.

The Italian Revelation and Gladio Exposed

The existence of these networks remained one of the Cold War’s most closely guarded secrets until 1990, when Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti revealed the existence of Gladio to the Italian Senate. His disclosure was prompted by the discovery of a 1959 document from Italy’s military intelligence service SIFAR, titled “The special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio,” which detailed the secret army’s NATO connections and CIA training.

Andreotti’s revelation described Gladio as “the Italian branch of an international network of secret stay-behind armies that existed in all countries of Western Europe.” The Italian press called it “the best kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II”.

The Strategy of Tension Controversy

The most controversial aspect of Operation Gladio involves allegations that stay-behind networks became entangled with domestic terrorism during Italy’s “Years of Lead” (1968-1982). This period saw over 14,000 politically motivated attacks, including bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings by both far-left groups like the Red Brigades and far-right organizations such as Ordine Nuovo.

Critics, particularly Swiss academic Daniele Ganser, argue that Gladio networks participated in a “strategy of tension” designed to prevent communist parties from gaining power by conducting false flag operations that could be blamed on left-wing groups. Key incidents cited include the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, which killed 17 people, and the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing that killed 85.

*The interior of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, Milan, after it was bombed in 1969. RAI photo. Public Domain.*

The strategy of tension theory suggests that right-wing terrorism was designed to create public fear and drive voters toward authoritarian solutions. As Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga observed about the Bologna bombing: “Unlike leftist terrorism, which strikes at the heart of the state through its representatives, right-wing terrorism prefers acts such as massacres because acts of extreme violence promote panic and impulsive reactions”.

International Response and Investigations

Following Gladio’s exposure, the European Parliament passed a resolution on November 22, 1990, condemning “the clandestine creation of manipulative and operational networks” and calling for full investigation into these secret organizations. The resolution specifically protested “the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network”.

However, only Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland conducted parliamentary investigations into their respective networks. The George H.W. Bush administration refused to comment on the revelations, maintaining official silence about U.S. involvement.

Global Implications

While Gladio focused on Europe, the United States simultaneously developed similar programs worldwide. In Asia, the CIA created stay-behind networks in countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. In Latin America, comparable programs supported anti-communist forces throughout the region.

These operations reflected a fundamental Cold War reality: the nuclear stalemate meant that much of the actual conflict would be fought through proxies, covert operations, and what would later be termed “hybrid warfare.” Stay-behind networks represented the defensive complement to more aggressive covert operations like the Bay of Pigs invasion or support for Afghan mujahideen.

The philosophical underpinning was straightforward: democratic governments had not just the right but the obligation to prepare for scenarios where normal constitutional processes might be suspended by foreign occupation. The question that would later haunt these programs was whether such extraordinary measures could be contained within democratic norms during peacetime, or whether they inevitably created parallel power structures accountable to no one.

The legacy of Operation Gladio continues to influence contemporary debates about government surveillance, covert operations, and the balance between security and transparency in democratic societies.

The Historical Debate

The true nature and extent of Gladio’s activities remain subjects of intense historical debate. The U.S. State Department has acknowledged the existence of NATO stay-behind efforts and Italy’s Gladio specifically, confirming their purpose as resistance preparation against potential Soviet aggression. However, American officials firmly deny any U.S. involvement in terrorism, characterizing allegations of false flag operations as Cold War-era Soviet disinformation.

Critics of the conspiracy theories point to the reliance on questionable documents, particularly the alleged U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B, which the State Department claims is a Soviet forgery designed to discredit American intelligence operations.

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

Operation Gladio’s legacy extends far beyond its Cold War origins. The revelations fundamentally altered public understanding of post-war European history, demonstrating how deeply intelligence operations could penetrate democratic societies. The networks were never called upon to resist Soviet invasion, as the threat they were designed to counter ultimately never materialized.

The operation raises enduring questions about the balance between national security and democratic oversight, the accountability of intelligence agencies, and the potential for covert operations to exceed their original mandates. Whether Gladio remained purely a defensive contingency or evolved into something more sinister continues to divide historians and fuel conspiracy theories decades after its exposure.

What remains undisputed is that NATO and Western intelligence agencies maintained extensive secret networks throughout the Cold War, equipped with weapons and trained in unconventional warfare, operating largely outside democratic oversight. The full truth about their activities may never be completely known, ensuring that Operation Gladio remains one of the Cold War’s most intriguing and controversial legacies.

…The real question is: Are these networks still out there, on their own?

Somalia Is Unraveling: Al-Shabaab’s Siege of Mogadishu and the Specter of State Collapse

10 min read

Somalia Is Unraveling: Al-Shabaab’s Siege of Mogadishu and the Specter of State Collapse

Michael Cessna May 30, 2025

Introduction

The ancient nation of Somalia occupied a pivotal position in the ancient Indian Ocean trading network during Roman times, serving as a crucial intermediary between the Mediterranean world and the riches of Asia. The Somali coast, known to classical geographers as part of the “Land of Punt” and later “Barbarikon“, provided essential ports of call for merchants navigating the monsoon winds between Roman Egypt and India.

Somali traders controlled access to valuable aromatic resins, particularly frankincense and myrrh, which were harvested from the Boswellia and Commiphora trees, respectively, both of which are native to the region. These precious commodities were in enormous demand throughout the Roman Empire for religious ceremonies, medical applications, and luxury consumption. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a first-century maritime trading manual, describes numerous Somali ports including Malao, Mundus, and Mosylon, detailing the goods available and trading protocols.

*Map of the routes of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE). 2007 map by PHGCOM. CCA/4.0*

Beyond aromatics, Somalia served as a transshipment point for goods flowing between Africa’s interior and Asian markets. Gold, ivory, and exotic animals from the African hinterland passed through Somali ports en route to Roman and Indian merchants, while manufactured goods, textiles, and spices from India and Southeast Asia were distributed along the East African coast. This strategic position made Somali city-states wealthy intermediaries in a trade network that connected three continents and sustained the luxury economy of the Roman Empire.

Somalia’s Italian Colonial Years (1889-1960)

Somalia’s Italian colonial period began in the 1880’s when Italy gradually secured much of the territory through a series of protection treaties, with formal control established in 1889 when the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II and Italy signed the Treaty of Wuchale. In 1885, Italy obtained commercial advantages in the area from the sultan of Zanzibar and in 1889 concluded agreements with the sultans of Obbia and Caluula, who placed their territories under Italy’s protection.

Unlike other European colonial powers, Italy initially struggled to establish effective control over the vast, arid territory. Starting in the 1890s, the Bimaal and Wa’dan revolts near Merca marked the beginning of Somali resistance to Italian expansion, coinciding with the rise of the anti-colonial Dervish movement in the north. The most dramatic upheaval occurred in British Somaliland, where the uprising led by Mohammed ibn Abdullah Hassan (known to the British as the Mad Mullah) took two decades to suppress.

The colonial administration focused primarily on the southern agricultural regions, establishing banana and cotton plantations along the Shebelle and Juba rivers. Effective Italian control remained largely limited to the coastal areas until the early 1920s, and by the end of 1927, following a two-year military campaign against Somali rebels, Rome finally asserted authority over the entirety of Italian Somaliland.

Italian rule intensified under Fascist governance after 1922. A new era of conflict began in Somalia in 1923 with the arrival of the first governor appointed by Mussolini, when a vigorous policy was adopted to develop and extend Italian imperial interests. Under the first fascist governor Cesare Maria De Vecchi (1923–1928), the colonial state planned ambitious policies of agricultural and infrastructural expansion, with the goal of preparing for the military conquest of neighboring Ethiopia.

In 1936, the region was integrated into Italian East Africa as the Somalia Governorate, which lasted until Italy’s loss of the region in 1941 during the East African campaign of World War II. By February 1942, most of Italian Somaliland had been captured by the British, and Italian Somalia was under British administration until 1949.

Following the war, Italian Somaliland became a United Nations trusteeship known as the Trust Territory of Somalia under Italian administration from 1950 to 1960, with legislative elections held in 1956 and 1959. On November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending that Italian Somaliland be placed under an international trusteeship system for 10 years, with Italy as the administering authority, followed by independence.

On July 1, 1960, the Trust Territory of Somalia united with former British Somaliland to form the Somali Republic, with Mogadishu as the nation’s capital. The Italian colonial legacy left lasting impacts on Somali society, including architectural influences visible in Mogadishu today, agricultural techniques, administrative structures, and the Italian language, which was an official language during the Fiduciary Mandate and in the first years of independence, with the majority of Somalis having some understanding of the language by 1952.

The Fall of Siad Barre

Beginning with the 1969 seizure of power by Siad Barre, the country spent some twenty-one years under his iron-fisted dictatorship, until growing resistance to his military junta during the 1980s, eventually boiling over into all-out civil war. From 1988 to 1990, the Somali Armed Forces engaged in combat against various armed rebel groups, including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in the northeast, the Somali National Movement in the northwest, and the United Somali Congress in the south.

*Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, c.1970. Public Domain.*

The rebellion effectively began in 1978 following a failed coup d’état, when Barre began using his special forces, the “Red Berets,” to attack clan-based dissident groups opposed to his regime. The regime’s brutality intensified in 1988 with systematic human rights abuses and genocide against the Isaaq clan, resulting in up to 200,000 civilians killed and 500,000 refugees fleeing to Ethiopia.

In response to these humanitarian abuses, Western aid donors cut funding to the Somali regime, resulting in a rapid “retreat of the state,” accompanied by severe devaluation of the Somali Shilling and mass military desertion. On January 27, 1991, pressure from the United Somali Congress and other groups ultimately forced President Barre to flee Somalia, ending his dictatorship and plunging the country into civil war.

Operation Gothic Serpent and the Battle of Mogadishu

Following the United States’ 1992 intervention in Somalia in “Operation Provide Comfort“, to protect food distribution to the population, a shift began under the newly-elected Clinton administration, in mid-1993. This shift led to the United States leading what became known as “UNOSOM II” (United Nations Operation in Somalia II), an ill-advised attempt at forcible “nation-building“, with foregin nations attempting to impose “peace and unity” in an internally-warring nation at gunpoint.

Operation Gothic Serpent, launched in August 1993, represented the United States’ most significant military intervention in Somalia during the height of the civil war. The operation aimed to capture faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid, whose forces had killed 24 Pakistani peacekeepers and were disrupting humanitarian aid distribution.

The mission culminated in the October 3-4, 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, when U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force operators attempted to capture key Aidid lieutenants in the city center. The operation went catastrophically wrong when two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades, trapping American forces in hostile territory.

*Members of Task Force Ranger under fire in Somalia, October 3, 1993 — the Battle of Mogadishu. U.S. Army Rangers Photo. Public Domain.*

During the 15-hour firefight that followed, 18 American soldiers were killed and 73 wounded, while Somali casualties numbered in the hundreds. The graphic images of dead American servicemen being dragged through Mogadishu’s streets shocked the American public and led directly to U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in March 1994.

The incident profoundly influenced U.S. foreign policy for years, contributing to American reluctance to intervene in subsequent humanitarian crises, including the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The battle became emblematic of the challenges facing international intervention in failed states.

The Return of the Terror State

Somalia now stands on the precipice of complete state collapse as Al-Shabaab militants have encircled the capital of Mogadishu in what analysts are calling the most serious threat to the government since the height of the civil war in the 1990’s. The terrorist organization’s lightning offensive, launched in February 2025, has shattered the fragile gains made by international forces over the past decade and returned the specter of jihadist control to the Horn of Africa.

*VBIED attack by Al-Shabaab on base controlled by Ethiopian security forces, 2022. Al-Kataib Media Foundation. Public Domain.*

The scale of Al-Shabaab’s resurgence cannot be overstated. From launching coordinated attacks across multiple provinces to capturing strategic towns within 30 kilometers of Mogadishu, the group has demonstrated a tactical sophistication and operational capability that has caught both the Somali government and international partners off guard. What began as seemingly isolated assaults on February 20, 2025, has evolved into a systematic campaign to strangle the capital and force the collapse of the federal government.

The terrorists have employed a multi-pronged strategy combining conventional military tactics with asymmetric warfare, utilizing car bombs, infiltration operations, and terror attacks to maximize psychological impact while minimizing their own exposure to counterstrikes. Their capture of Adan Yabaal on April 16th marked a particular turning point, as this strategic town had served as a crucial staging area for government counteroffensives.

A Regional Terror Network

Al-Shabaab’s current offensive represents more than a localized insurgency; it exemplifies the group’s evolution into a transnational terrorist organization capable of projecting power far beyond Somalia’s borders. This transformation was starkly illustrated in the January 15, 2019 attack on Nairobi’s DusitD2 hotel complex, which demonstrated Al-Shabaab’s expanding operational reach and recruitment capabilities.

The DusitD2 attack, marking the rise of “Obiwan Nairobi“, was particularly significant as it marked a strategic shift in Al-Shabaab’s methodology. Unlike previous operations that relied heavily on ethnic Somali operatives, the five-man terrorist cell that carried out the Nairobi assault included Kenyan nationals of non-Somali descent, including a suicide bomber from the coastal city of Mombasa. The 20-hour siege resulted in 21 deaths and 28 injuries, representing Kenya’s worst terrorist attack in four years.

What made the DusitD2 attack particularly alarming for counterterrorism officials was the extensive planning involved. Security footage revealed that Al-Shabaab operatives had been conducting surveillance of the target since at least December 2016, demonstrating a level of operational security and long-term planning that suggested significant organizational sophistication. The attack also revealed the group’s ability to recruit from within Kenya’s security establishment, as one of the attackers was identified as the son of a Kenyan military officer.

The Collapse of International Strategy

The current crisis exposes the fundamental failure of the international community’s approach to Somalia over the past two decades. The transition from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), and subsequently to the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), has created critical security gaps that Al-Shabaab has ruthlessly exploited.

The timing of Al-Shabaab’s offensive was no coincidence. Launched just weeks after the ATMIS-to-AUSSOM transition on January 1, 2025, the attacks capitalized on coordination problems, reduced troop levels, and uncertain funding for the new mission. The group’s ability to “launch around 50 percent more attacks per month in 2025 compared to its 2024 average” demonstrates how effectively they have exploited this institutional vulnerability.

Compounding these challenges is the reduction in U.S. support under the Trump administration. American assistance to Somalia’s elite Danab special forces has been curtailed, including the cessation of salary supplements that had doubled soldiers’ pay from $200 to $400 per month. This has severely impacted morale and combat effectiveness of the only units that had previously proven capable of matching Al-Shabaab in direct confrontation.

The Siege Strategy

Al-Shabaab’s current approach reflects lessons learned from recent insurgent successes worldwide, particularly the Taliban’s 2021 conquest of Afghanistan and the Syrian opposition’s rapid advance on Damascus in 2024. Rather than attempting a direct assault on Mogadishu that would allow government forces to concentrate their remaining strengths, the terrorists have opted for a siege strategy designed to slowly strangle the capital.

By controlling the major roads and supply routes into Mogadishu, Al-Shabaab can gradually increase pressure on the city’s three million inhabitants while conducting a psychological warfare campaign through bombings, mortar attacks, and assassination attempts. The March 18th bombing of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s motorcade, which killed four people while narrowly missing the president himself, exemplifies this strategy of creating a climate of terror while systematically degrading government capabilities ([source]()).

International Response and Turkish Gambit

As traditional Western partners have reduced their commitments, Somalia has increasingly turned to Turkey for military assistance. Ankara has announced plans to nearly triple its deployment to 800 soldiers, including 300 commandos and 200 drone operators, while also securing lucrative contracts for port and airport operations in Mogadishu. This represents a significant shift in regional power dynamics as Turkey seeks to expand its influence in the Horn of Africa.

*The new terminal of Aden Abdulle International Airport built by Turkish companies in Mogadishu, Somalia. January 25, 2015 AMISOM Photo by Ilyas Ahmed. CC0/1.0 Universal Public Domain.*

However, Turkey’s intervention faces the same fundamental challenges that have plagued international efforts in Somalia for decades: the inability of foreign forces to address the underlying governance failures that have made the country vulnerable to extremist exploitation in the first place.

The Looming Catastrophe

Current trajectory suggests Somalia is heading toward a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. With nearly 6 million people already requiring humanitarian assistance and 4.6 million facing acute food insecurity, the collapse of government control in Mogadishu would create a crisis that could destabilize the entire Horn of Africa.

Al-Shabaab’s vision extends far beyond Somalia’s borders. The group has never concealed its ambition to establish a caliphate encompassing all of East Africa, making their current advance on Mogadishu not just a threat to Somalia but to regional stability. With their demonstrated capability to conduct sophisticated attacks like the DusitD2 operation and their growing recruitment networks across the region, Al-Shabaab’s success in Somalia could serve as a launching pad for expanded terrorism throughout East Africa.

The international community faces a closing window to prevent a complete collapse of the Somali state. Without decisive action to reinforce Mogadishu’s defenses and address the fundamental governance challenges that have enabled Al-Shabaab’s rise, the world may soon witness the emergence of the first jihadist-controlled capital in Africa since the Taliban’s return to Kabul.

Somalia may now be a failed state, but the global community is at least trying to backstop the country…for the moment. But, in the current calculus of war around the world, the possibility of Somalia collapsing to Al-Shabaab, like Afghanistan to the Taliban, the possibility exists of a return to the “old days” of Somali piracy, up until 2012. This time, however, there are no easy answers for Western nations who rely on commercial vessels passing Somalia, but who – unlike post-2012 – are unable to juggle all the necessary theaters, making ignoring Somalia a very attractive, short-term proposition, in spite of the potential levels of economic damage.

This is also known as “whistling past the graveyard.”

The Digital Lifeline Under Threat

5 min read

The Digital Lifeline Under Threat

Michael Cessna February 28, 2025

With all the craziness of the last six weeks, it’s easy to become enraptured by all the “glitz-bang-pow“, and to lose track of the truly important things…like internet access, for example.

Much of the crucial digital lifelines of the modern global economy lie largely unseen and unprotected beneath the oceans. Submarine cables — bundled fiber-optic threads wrapped in layers of protective materials — carry an estimated 99% of international data traffic, representing an estimated $10 trillion in daily financial transactions. Clearly, these cables are vital components of any national infrastructure…and, just as clearly, they are very high-priority targets in any war scenario. Despite their critical importance, these cables remain surprisingly vulnerable to both accidental damage and deliberate sabotage, creating an asymmetric vulnerability that security experts increasingly view as a critical national security concern.

Recent incidents have highlighted this vulnerability. In late 2023, and again in late 2024, multiple cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged within weeks of each other, including the Svalbard cable connecting Norway’s remote Arctic research station to the mainland. While officials initially cited “technical problems,” subsequent investigations pointed to deliberate actions, with suspicion falling on Russian vessels that had been tracked in proximity to the damaged sections. Similar incidents have occurred in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, where the timing and pattern of damage suggested coordinated action rather than accidental encounters with ship anchors or fishing equipment…which, given the immediate impacts, should be surprising to no one, as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.

The security implications extend far beyond temporary internet disruptions. Major financial centers like London, New York, and Singapore depend on millisecond-level transmission speeds for trading operations, with even brief outages potentially causing billions in economic damage. Military communications, intelligence sharing between allies, and diplomatic channels all rely on these same physical pathways, creating a strategic vulnerability that potential adversaries have clearly recognized.

Unlike traditional military targets, undersea cables present adversaries with an ideal gray-zone target. Damage can be plausibly denied as accidental, attribution is extremely difficult, and repairs can take weeks depending on the location and conditions. This provides hostile actors with the ability to cause significant disruption while remaining below the threshold of activities that would trigger conventional military responses.

The technical challenge of defending these cables is substantial. The global submarine cable network spans over 750,000 miles, often in international waters beyond territorial jurisdiction. Cable routes are publicly documented for maritime safety, making their locations easily accessible to potential saboteurs. Monitoring such vast distances presents an almost impossible surveillance challenge, especially in deep ocean areas where depths exceed 3,000 meters.

*The “CS Dependable”, cable layer ship with a modern stern sheave design. Picture taken at the Port of Astoria, Oregon, 2006. CCA/3.0. Photo by Nsandel.*

Of course, this has been happening since undersea cables were first laid in the 19th Century, most notably when the United States cut Spanish telegraph cables in both Cuba and the Philippines theaters of the Spanish-American War. During World War I, one of Britain’s first and most significant strategic moves came just hours after declaring war in August 1914, when the cable ship “CS Alert” severed Germany’s five transatlantic cables near the English Channel. This operation, codenamed Operation Telekom, effectively cut Germany’s direct communication links with the Americas and much of the world. Britain simultaneously took control of most neutral cable stations, forcing German diplomatic and military communications onto easily intercepted wireless channels or through cables that passed through British-controlled territory.

The British established “Room 40“, a specialized naval intelligence unit that interceded and decoded German messages, providing critical intelligence. The most famous success came with the interception and decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram in 1917, which revealed Germany’s attempt to entice Mexico into attacking the United States — a diplomatic catastrophe that helped bring America into the war.

In World War II, Britain expanded these capabilities with Operation ‘Cutting’. The Royal Navy again targeted German undersea cables, but added sophisticated tapping operations. Combined with the codebreaking work at Bletchley Park, these undersea operations provided crucial intelligence on German naval movements, particularly U-boat operations, significantly contributing to Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Modern cable attacks no longer require crude methods like physical cutting. Advanced submersibles can quickly and silently install tapping devices without severing cables, allowing for collection without detection. Both the Russian and Chinese navies are known to operate specialized submarines and surface ships equipped for undersea operations near critical cable infrastructure, including the Yantar, a Russian “research vessel” observed loitering near critical cable junctions in the Atlantic.

These strategic vulnerabilities are magnified by the concentration of key connection points. Cable landing stations — where submarine cables connect to terrestrial networks — represent critical sea-based chokepoints, with certain locations in Egypt, Malaysia, and Sicily serving as hubs for dozens of major cables. A modern, coordinated attack on multiple landing stations could severely disrupt global connectivity in ways that would overwhelm the limited redundancy built into the system.

Despite the growing awareness of these vulnerabilities, international legal protections remain inadequate. The 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables provides limited safeguards, while the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea only offers general provisions against deliberate damage. Enforcement mechanisms are virtually non-existent in international waters, creating a legal gray zone that mirrors the operational one.

As tensions rise between major powers, enhancing resilience against cable disruption has become an urgent security priority. Proposed measures include increased naval patrols near critical infrastructure, enhanced monitoring through seabed sensors, diversification of cable routes, and hardening of physical infrastructure. However, the scale of the challenge means complete protection remains impossible, leaving this critical infrastructure as a persistent vulnerability in an increasingly contested global environment.

One thing people frequently fail to understand – an outgrowth of the increasing sociological separation of the civilian and military spheres – is that naval warfare is far more than dramatic gun battles at sea, determined amphibious assaults, and exciting launches of fighter planes from the decks of aircraft carriers.”War“, as such, has been a term too frequently applied outside of its true domain, diluting public understanding of its implications: Sure, “war” is scary and destructive in general, but there are plenty of avenues of attack that are certainly not part of the ‘war on poverty’. This is why the Imperial Japanese Navy shelled a beach in Santa Barbara, California in 1942…which came as a hell of a surprise to local residents, and which had some very unforeseen consequences that succeeded in damaging the United States – not enough to win the war, but enough to instill distrust, the more people thought about it.

People concerned for not only their physical, but financial, security, need to start relearning how militaries think, because while the civilian may not care much about warfare, warfare cares very much about you.

The Century Circle – Japan Returns to Carrier Operations

7 min read

The Century Circle – Japan Returns to Carrier Operations

Michael Cessna February 21, 2025

As February of 2025 winds down, with all the manufactured hysteria from the political and social extreme-Left in the United States, and an increasingly nervous European Union facing the reality that the Trump administration is serious about not playing ‘patty-cake’ with them anymore, and with the increasingly dire situation in Central Africa, an observer could be forgiven for thinking that Asia is a calm reflecting pool…but things are stirring, and as angry as most states are at Communist Chinese posturing in the South China Sea, a different dragon has been stirring, that is worrying – or should be worrying – every nation in the region.

At the end of World War 2, the victorious American occupiers imposed a new constitution on Japan that “renounced war”. While certainly understandable, given the events of World War 2 in the Pacific, the notion of “renouncing war as a sovereign right of the state” was a creature mostly of Douglas MacArthur’s unbelievable ego. The end result was that the United States was forced to anchor defending Japan as a core concept of its strategy for the next six decades.

*Map of Japanese offensive in Southeast Asia in 1941. United States Military Academy Department of History. Public Domain.*

Restricted by Article 9 of its constitution, Japan maintained nothing more than a well-armed coast guard and a tiny army. This tiny “self defense force” (the “JSDF”), created only in 1954, was barely large enough to maintain internal order and disaster relief, much less actually “defend” the island nation against large and aggressive states like the USSR and Communist China…that was the job of the United States, because it was the US that hamstrung the Japanese state from effectively defending itself.

For most of the Cold War, this situation remained the status quo. Fortunately, no serious test of Japan’s defenses – or the US plan for the same – occurred. But, as the “Global War On Terror” (the “GWOT”) began to wind down with the end of George W. Bush Presidency and the ascension of Barack Obama, Tokyo suddenly noticed that the United States had become very lukewarm about it’s own defenses, and that there seemed to be a real reluctance in Washington to care very much about the defense of Asia. To be sure, there was a lot of talk about “pivoting towards China“, but there was not a lot of action. As recruiting numbers began falling in the post-GWOT period, the US Navy had to lay up more and more ships, as there were too few sailors to crew all the ships the Navy knew that it needed.

Because of these post-GWOT developments, Japanese leaders watched with increasing alarm as the United States seemed to increasingly care very little, in any real sense, about its long-time ally in the Philippines having to face off against the massive Chinese Communist state – and if the US was seemingly willing to abandon the Philippines to more than lip-service, what did that imply for Japan?

The only answer for Japan was rearmament.

But…What about Article 9? A large segment of the Japanese population – well-versed in the abuses and horrors of the Imperial military’s Shogun-like rule during the war years – were adamantly, even hysterically, opposed to any kind of change to Article 9. But Tokyo, not having any other options, began to take steps to rearm.

The Japanese Army and Air Force are, for the most part, capable and effective forces, if far too small for their missions. The Army is relatively easy to expand, while the Air Force would take more time, but still can expand in a viable timeframe. But the real problem was the Japanese Navy.

Naval forces are tremendously expensive entities, no matter their fighting capabilities. Building a force to significantly augment – or replace – the US Navy, even at a low level, required an entirely new take on Japan’s naval strategy…because that would require aircraft carriers, something Japan has not operated at any level since 1945.

Beginning in 2010, however, Japan began to do just that.

Japan’s recent transformation of its Izumo-class “helicopter destroyers” into aircraft carriers capable of operating F-35B strike fighters marks a significant shift in both Japanese defense policy and regional power dynamics. This development, while technically maintaining Japan’s constitutionally-mandated defensive posture, represents the country’s first carrier capability since World War II.

And, given the potential of carrier warfare – which Japan was the first to actually demonstrate – this naturally concerns any state within the range of Japanese shipping.

The modified Izumo and Kaga, each displacing around 24,000 tons, make them considerably smaller than America’s supercarriers but align with a growing trend toward light carriers, both among Asian navies and in other navies worldwide. The vessels’ new capability to operate F-35Bs provides Japan with significant power projection abilities, particularly valuable given the country’s island geography and increasing regional tensions.

More importantly, this capability serves as a “training test bed” for modern Japanese naval officers to relearn those skills that disappeared after 1945.

This naval evolution reflects the reality of Japan’s post-2010 strategic environment. China’s rapidly expanding naval capabilities, including the start of construction on multiple aircraft carriers, as well as attempts at building artificial island bases, have altered the maritime balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. North Korea’s continued missile development and nuclear program add another layer of complexity to these challenges.

The Indo-Pacific Region. Red circle/oval roughly depicts the Indian Ocean region. Blue circle/oval covers the Pacific region. Green oval covers ASEAN. Yellow overlay covers the Indo Pacific. 2020 image from Eric Gaba. CCA/4.0 International

The carriers also represent a significant psychological shift. Post-war Japan has deliberately avoided capabilities that could be seen as offensive weapons, especially aircraft carriers, but including both strategic bombers and long-range missiles. The decision to operate carriers, even if designated as “multi-purpose escort ships,” signals Japan’s growing comfort with maintaining military capabilities well beyond strictly defensive systems.

However, these vessels serve multiple roles beyond power projection. Their ability to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations proved valuable during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. In an era of increasing natural disasters and climate-related challenges, this flexibility adds significant value to Japan’s maritime capabilities.

The international reaction has been notably mixed. While the United States strongly supports Japan’s military modernization, China has previously expressed concern about what it perceives as Japanese remilitarization. Other regional nations, particularly those with historical grievances against Japan, watch these developments carefully, though many quietly welcome a stronger Japanese presence as a counterbalance to growing Chinese influence.

From a technical perspective, the F-35B’s capabilities significantly enhance these ships’ effectiveness, although the numbers the carriers can operate are very small. The aircraft’s stealth characteristics and advanced sensors, combined with its ability to operate from austere locations, provide Japan with new options for defending its remote island chains and maintaining maritime awareness across vast oceanic areas.

The carriers also enable closer integration with allied forces, particularly the U.S. Marine Corps and British Royal Navy, which operate similar F-35B aircraft. This interoperability enhances Japan’s ability to participate in multinational operations and strengthens its strategic partnerships beyond the U.S. alliance.

Japan’s perspective on its role in World War II, however, remains a source of both internal debate and international tension. Unlike Germany’s direct confrontation with its Nazi past, Japan’s approach to its wartime history has been more nuanced and, at times, contradictory.

The mainstream Japanese narrative acknowledges the war’s devastating impact while often framing Japan as both aggressor and victim. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the firebombing of major cities, feature prominently in Japanese collective memory. However, discussions of Japan’s own wartime actions, particularly in China, Korea, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia, tend to be more muted in public discourse.

This selective historical memory manifests in ongoing controversies, such as debates over history textbooks’ treatment of events like the Nanjing Massacre or the comfort women issue. Official apologies have been made by various Japanese governments, but these are sometimes undermined by statements from individual politicians or visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are among those honored.

Younger generations of Japanese increasingly view the war through a different lens, focusing more on its lessons for peace and Japan’s postwar achievements. However, rising regional tensions, particularly with China, have led to renewed interest in military history and debates about Japan’s proper role in international security.

Although the Japanese government’s position generally emphasizes Japan’s post-war commitment to peace while avoiding detailed examination of wartime conduct, neighboring countries are very worried that the dragon of the Kanto Plain is reawakening, which is a thing all those states fear.

This current situation is almost a textbook care of “unintended consequences”, as a different path than a self-aggrandizing imposition of idiotic Utopianism would likely have made this step of Japanese rearmament more palatable to a nervous region.

Actions have consequences, and those consequences are usually very visible, if one cares enough to look ahead, and act responsibly.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Wayne P Hughes Jr. USN (Ret.) (2018), Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations, Third Edition
Julian Thompson (1994), Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict
Thomas Ricks (2012), The Generals
James F. Dunnigan (2003), How To Make War, 4^th Edition
James F. Dunnigan (1991), Shooting Blanks

The Special Forces Crisis: When Shortcuts Create Casualties

7 min read

The Special Forces Crisis: When Shortcuts Create Casualties

Michael Cessna November 29, 2024

The United States Army Special Forces faces a growing crisis that threatens the effectiveness of America’s elite military units. The drive to maintain special operations forces (SOF) numbers through direct recruitment programs has led to concerning patterns of casualties and reduced operational effectiveness, highlighting the dangers of shortcuts in developing elite warriors. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of generalization in the numbers that follow, because of the classified nature of Special Operations in general, but the trend is there.

The Traditional Path

Historically, becoming a Special Forces operator involved a carefully structured progression. Candidates typically served 3-5 years in conventional military units before applying to Special Forces training. This traditional pathway provided several crucial elements.

Older candidates tended to have developed their own knowledge of what physical training and development strategies worked best for them, more formulaic Army methods aside. This enabled them to understand how their bodies reacted to physical stress, which usually lowered the possibility of physical injuries. It also allowed a “leveling-off” in a soldier’s physical maturation, which also helped reduce injuries.

*Group of Soldiers from ARVN with SFC Norman A. Doney, 5th S.F. Group, Vietnam, September 1968. United States Army Heritage and Education Center. Public Domain.*

This also allowed the SF candidate to gain valuable experience in stress management, leadership, and technical skills. Likewise, the experience gained as a “regular” soldier provided a deeper understanding of military psychology and culture, providing valuable experience in how operations are typically run, with a “bottom-up” view that would offer the candidate vital experience in understanding the challenges they would face when isolated on operations.

The resulting teams of “Operators” were very well situated to a wide array of “unconventional” tasks, ranging from “deep” reconnaissance, to what is now termed “direct action missions”, to embedding as liaison teams with Coalition units during Operation Desert Storm, to acting in their original mission, by training “partner nation” forces, either from scratch or by refining their existing training.

In this older model, the candidate with three to five years of experience before entering Special Forces also allowed the members of the “Operational Detachment Alpha” (ODA) teams (the famous “A-Teams”) to have both a primary Military Occupational Specialty coming in through the door, but would also allow for them having acquired “side” experience, through which they could obtain secondary or “alternate” specialty training in diverse and unrelated field, meaning that a 12-man ODA actually had up to twenty-four (or more) technical specialties at hand, including backups, within their team.

The Rush to Fill Ranks

Following the 9/11 attacks, the demands on special operations units throughout the United States military structure led to a serious manpower shortage, as – despite (if not “because of”) battlefield successes – the existing special forces units quickly began to experience manning shortages, as casualties mounted and operational teams were exhausted by the rapid pace of operations. This would lead to the creation of programs to rapidly bring in fresh recruits to fill the gaps.

In the US Army’s case, this became the “18X (Special Forces Candidate)” program, allowing civilians to directly enlist into Special Forces training. The idea was that a candidate who met all the basic educational and fitness requirements for Army Special Forces could be enlisted and “fast-tracked” to SF training, running through Army Basic Training, A.I.T., then on to parachute training, before being sent to the actual Special Forces training. The result was physcally fit, highly motivated operators, who had “checked off” all the requisite boxes, but who lacked the depth of experience of those who had come before them. The result was something more akin to “elite assault infantry”, something more akin to the US Army Rangers, rather than “Special Forces”.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of the Rangers – but that concept is not the same thing as Army Special Forces…What follows is by no means an indictment of the candidates themselves, but of the wider Army command structure, who should have known better.

While the 18X program helped meet the immediate personnel needs for Army Special Forces, they have revealed some serious problems:

Physical Casualties
– Higher rates of training injuries
– Increased long-term physical damage
– More frequent stress fractures
– Earlier career-ending injuries
Psychological Impact
– Elevated PTSD rates
– Higher frequency of “burnout”
– Reduced stress tolerance
– Shorter operational careers
Operational Limitations
– Decreased mission flexibility
– Limited tactical understanding
– Reduced cross-unit coordination
– Compromised team effectiveness

The Experience Gap

As noted above, veterans of conventional units brought crucial life experiences into their Special Forces careers that direct-enlistment recruits simply lack, because they have not had the time to learn and experience those life lessons that their predecessors had.

Going straight from training to high-intensity “operational” status is functionally sending out people who know how to pull a trigger, not someone who understands the nuances of how to react to their surroundings, nor how to deal with the stresses of everything going completely wrong at the first shots. Special Forces have to be able to switch instantly from shooting people, to working with survivors in the immediate area, as well as how to calmly and rationally coordinate with foreign military and police units in the aftermath, whether those are from the country the SF team is operating in, or from allied nations. These functions require both maturity and humility, which can only be developed over time – time that the 18X program cannot impart.

The Historical Record

The 77th Infantry Division’s World War 2 experience provides a damning historical precedent that the Army seemingly ignored when creating the 18X program. The 77th’s success – with its higher average age of 35 and consequently more mature decision-making abilities – demonstrated clear advantages in the complex, high-intensity combat of the Pacific theater. Despite facing some of the war’s most challenging battlefield conditions, the division’s older, more experienced from civilian life soldiers generally suffered lower casualty rates than younger-aged units in the same actions.

*77th Infantry division troops during the Battle of Okinawa, May, 1945. US Army Archives. Public Domain.*

This historical data – especially in light of the history of Special Forces operations from the 1950’s to the 1990’s – should have served as a clear warning against the 18X program’s entire premise. If older, more experienced soldiers performed better in conventional warfare, it follows that rushing young, inexperienced recruits directly into the even more complex and demanding world of special operations would be problematic, at the very least. The Army had empirical evidence from the 77th, reinforced from Vietnam to Desert Storm, that maturity and life experience were crucial force multipliers in challenging combat environments, especially for Special Forces, yet chose to disregard these lessons when designing the 18X program. The resulting higher casualty rates among direct-entry special operations personnel represent a preventable tragedy.

Statistical Reality

Recent studies indicate troubling trends among direct-entry special operators. Over 75% of musculoskeletal injuries among Special Forces are preventable. Unfortunately, the reality is that data collection for these kinds of statistical studies is extremely hazy in quality.

The real story lies in the fact that the 18X program is still in force as an active recruitment tool, indicating that either the US Army is having serious problems attracting applicants to one of its premier “Tier 1” formations (which would not be surprising, given the Army’s well known recruiting woes), or that the 18X program still needs to run, in order to keep the numbers flowing in.

Neither offers a comforting picture.

The Cost of Shortcuts

The financial and operational costs of these programs are significant: Higher washout rates – whether from medical, emotional or psychological reasons – waste contentious budget monies, and make teams harder to form, train and deploy.

This also makes operational deployments much more expensive, overall, while limiting the capabilities of the units deployed, due a general lack of experience, and an increase in the requirements for already heavily strained support operations.

The whole combines into a toxic soup that lowers morale, degrades mission capabilities, and results in frantic attempts by inexperienced political leadership to find workaround solutions that, frankly, aren’t.

U.S. soldiers load a simulated casualty on a UH-60 Black Hawk during a medical evacuation at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif., May 17, 2011. Photo credit: Technical Sgt Chris Hibben, US Army. Public Domain.

Conclusion

The United States desperately needs an effective special operations establishment. While highly capable at their missions, the Rangers are not suited to replace Army Special Forces. But Army SF is locked into a vicious cycle, where they need to maintain numbers for operations, but have serious problems (not all of their own making) with bringing in fresh candidates. That may change in the next few years, but there is little light in this tunnel.

The effectiveness of America’s special operations forces depends on finding the right balance between meeting personnel needs and maintaining the high standards that make these units elite…but, much more telling, is the need for coherent leadership at the top of both the military and civilian establishments.

The reality of history is that the regular military services have long detested the very idea of “elite” formations, despite their demonstrated capabilities. In the civilian quarter, the highly toxic nature of civilian politics in the United States means that few serious veterans want anything to do with the civilian leadership establishment in any way, leading to an increasingly wide divergence in understanding of what military forces require to operate, nor of their true capabilities.

There are no easy answers to this last problem, but something needs to be done to fix it, because there is an ogre lurking in the background, that no one wants to see come back into reality.

Why Yemen Is Destroying The West

6 min read

Why Yemen Is Destroying The West

Michael Cessna November 15, 2024

Wars cannot end, until the enemy is defeated, and there is no stomach in the West for the necessary operations…

With the reelection of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States, even as Progressive, Left-wing pundits around the world launched into publicly televised hysterical meltdowns (that were subdued, compared to those of the many programmed victims of their psychological manipulations of the last few decades), heads of state around the world – the sane ones, at least – broadcast their congratulations to Trump.

In the Middle East, this was also true, for the most part. However, in both Iran and Yemen, reactions were mixed. Neither state is particularly happy about Trump’s victory, as both know that Trump is a diehard supporter of Israel, far more so than the ineffectual and vacillating Democrat administration of Joe Biden has been. This bodes ill for Trump’s immediate foreign policy options.

Since October 19, 2023, the Shi’a Muslim Houthi faction in Yemen has “done a yeoman’s work” in supporting the Hamas terrorist group that attacked and slaughtered defenseless civilians – including pregnant women – in their October 7th invasion of southern Israel that year.

While Yemen is physically separated from Israel and Gaza by a very considerable distance, one could be forgiven for assuming that the Houthis would only be able to offer kind words to Hamas. However, this is the 21st Century, and the Houthis are being supported by the Shi’a Muslim mullahs ruling Iran, to the north…and who have supplied the Houthis with not only Iran-designed derivatives of the ancient Soviet SCUD missiles, but with anti-ship missiles as well.

And it is that last group of weapons that is going to present Donald Trump with his most serious challenge, the first of a series of messes left for him to clean up, much as he found in 2017, when he had to pick up the pieces of Barack Obama’s eight-year long “bombing-fest”.

This time, though, Trump will have a far harder time. Trump’s first administration, as hard as Liberal news organs try to deny it, was marked as being the first Presidency in living memory to have not resulted in the United States becoming embroiled in any new military conflicts – every military action during the “Trump Years” of 2017-2021 were part of conflicts he inherited from Barack Obama.

The US and Western militaries in general, have been critically weakened as a result of the staggering incompetence of the last four years of mismanagement from Washington and NATO capitals. The aloof and disconnected-from-reality “ivory tower” political elites in the West have floundered as their intricate “house of cards” strategies for global dominance have collapsed, as those people they discounted as backwards, uneducated “camel jockeys”, simply declined to play by the script those elites had written for them.

Their first stumble was pushing Vladimir Putin’s Russia into invading Ukraine – the Western elites never imagined that Putin would actually invade – they assumed that he would either meekly acquiesce, or that he would launch a new Cold War, one that would boost the elites’ defense industry stock portfolios into orbit (literally)…The notion that Putin would actually commit to massive, “main force” combat on a scale not seen since 1990-1991 was never on their “bingo cards”.

Next came Africa, as local state armies – usually led by Western-trained officers (sparking delightfully daft conspiracy ravings from Left-wing talking heads) – in the “Coup Belt” of the Sahel Region decided that tossing out Western – primarily French – influence for good, via military action, was worth the risk. The elites were left slack-jawed to discover that what they had considered their racial and cultural inferiors had had enough of their paternalistic ravings, and told them to get out. So “uppity” has Africa gotten, that the Ugandan government publicly and messily refused to bend the knee to the United States over imposing visa restrictions on its officials over the country’s anti-LGBTQ policies – and had to watch as most African countries lined up behind the Central African state. Then, the Sahel nation of Niger – one of the most recent “Coup Belt” states – non-too politely told the US State and Defense departments to ‘pound sand’ over what they described as threats to the country if they did not immediately restore the corrupt government installed by French corporations – then told them that the DoD to remove the $100 million drone operations base at Agadez…To paraphrase a certain comic book-cum-movie character: “…Not a good plan, America…”

And then, there is Ukraine. It does not matter in the slightest, whether you support Ukraine, or Russia, or neither. That is literally irrelevant. All that matters, are three things:

Despite obscene amounts of Western monetary and material support, Ukraine is losing the war. Deal with it.
The nuclear saber rattling from both sides has brought the world closer to and intentional nuclear exchange than at any time in history.
The United States and NATO defense establishments have demonstrated their categorical inability to supply even basic war materials – this is not Star Trek, and there are no replicators here

To this context, we must add the fact that North Korea – which was at least willing to listen to Trump, at some level – smelled weakness in Washington, and moved swiftly to capitalize on that weakness. (NB: The Freedomist covered this on its monthly subscription side, as well.)

…Which brings us back to Yemen.

*Yemeni civil war map. Houthi areas are in green. February, 2024. Map credit: Ali Zifan. CCA/4.0 International.*

Yemen is a truly ancient nation, with its recorded history stretching back at least 7,000 years, with much of that history revolving around the sea. Like most of the states and people’s in the region, Yemenis of all tribes and religious sects understand one of the core truisms of warfare: “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” (Attributed to Admiral Horatio Nelson.)

While some modern naval pundits have tried to dismiss this wisdom in the modern day – much as their recent ancestors though that “capabilities based planning” was a better idea than traditional strategic thinking – the current effort by Yemen’s Houthis has proven how true it really is, if one has the ability to think about warfare on multiple levels.

The Houthis have no defined “fort” to fight – the operate their missiles as a kind of “shell game”, shuttling them around the countryside, much as the original US strategy for the Minuteman Missile system of the 1980’s. That idea works, as sea-launched land-attack missiles have trouble finding those targets.

As a result, Houthi missiles fired into the Bab al Mandeb Strait have seriously damaged both world commerce, as well as local economies, with traffic through the Suez Canal dropping by c.65% overall, and with port calls to Red Sea ports falling by a staggering 85%. Naval missile attacks have done little to even slow the rates of attack in the region, much less stop them…because they can’t.

Added to this, has been the recent escalation in the Israel-Hamas war, first with the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah launching multiple attacks into northern Israel, with the Israeli’s hitting back just as hard, if not harder.

Iran responded to these events by attacking Israel, several times. Now, as of November 15, 2024, Israel has attacked another Iranian nuclear facility.

But…What does this have to do with Yemen?

In fact, very little, at least at first glance. The problem is that Yemen is a fantastic foil for Iran against the United States and its allies: it forces Israel and those Western powers hostile to Iran to split their forces between theaters, while limiting their ability to shift naval forces. At the same time, the Houthis – and thus, Iran – have been able to critically damage the commercial system that the West depends on, and all without Iran becoming directly involved.

This situation has no solution, other than a very messy, and very bloody “boots on the ground” invasion of the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen…by Trump…With all that implies, given the last twenty-five years of war.

This is because neither the Houthis, nor the Iranians, are willing to actually negotiate any sort of peace agreement, unless Israel agrees to undue everything it has done in reply to Hamas and Hezbollah…Which is simply not going to happen.

Because of the failures of the Biden administration, small but hostile powers states have launched wars because they saw the weaknesses of the United States and the West, and sought to capitalize on that weakness…and they know that Trump will not be able to fix those problems before the 2026 mid-term elections in the US.

If one were a conspiracy theorist, one could almost think that this was a deliberate ploy to undermine a Trump victory.

But that’s just crazy-talk.

Right?

North Korea: Changing the Calculus through Incompetence

6 min read

North Korea: Changing the Calculus through Incompetence

Michael Cessna November 1, 2024

North Korea’s Strategic Pivot: Abandoning Reunification for Military Partnership

Amid the hysteria of the 2024 US Presidential election – seen by many on the world as a pivotal event in the world’s direction for the next generation, at least – there is an increasing amount of talk concerning North Korea’s increasingly militant actions. Most alarming among these is its deployment of combat troops to Ukraine, to aid the Russian war effort there, as that conflict grins through its third year.

The failure of the 2019 Hanoi Summit between then-US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un marked more than just another setback in US-DPRK relations. It represented a crucial turning point in North Korea’s strategic outlook, leading to its current role as a military supplier to Russia and its apparent abandonment of the long-held dream of peaceful reunification with South Korea.

The reasons for these cascading failures go back as far as 2003, and are the result of a warped view of ‘realpolitik‘, driven by open and naked profit motives which are completely divorced from reality.

The Shadow of History

Since its formal organization in 1948, the totalitarian Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or DPRK) has been responsible for not simply fomenting wars, but some of the worst, and longest-running, human rights abuses in modern history.

The Pyongyang government’s abysmal mismanagement of the nation has resulted in a brutal prison state, routinely wracked by famines, and whose industrial base remains firmly in the 1970’s, if that. In addition, North Korean intelligence has been routinely kidnapping Japanese citizens since the 1970’s, to train their foreign intelligence operatives (i.e., “spies”) how to act as citizens of western countries.

However, in two critical area’s, the almost obscenely resource-rich North Korea has spared no expense: its nuclear weapons and space launch programs.

While derided by many for their technological backwardness, poor national management, and cultural isolation, in these two critical areas, North Korean capabilities are nothing to be laughed at.

Bolton’s astoundingly bad judgement is what caused Trump’s failure in Hanoi, a decision-tree so bad, it could be seen as a deliberate act of sedition. North Korea’s nuclear strategy has been fundamentally shaped by the fate of other authoritarian leaders who gave up their WMD programs. The overthrow and subsequent deaths of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (2003) and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya (2011), among others, provided “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un with compelling evidence that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantee of regime survival.

The Hanoi Disaster

The 2019 Hanoi Summit failed largely because of fundamentally different expectations. The Trump administration, abysmally advised by the hysterical chickenhawk, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, then-US President Donald Trump was led to believe that North Korea could be “persuaded” to follow a “Libya model” of denuclearization. This profound misreading of Kim’s priorities doomed the talks before they began.

Kim arrived in Hanoi seeking a gradual approach: partial denuclearization in exchange for significant sanctions relief. The American position – complete denuclearization before any meaningful sanctions relief – was a non-starter for a regime that had learned harsh lessons from history: Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s youthful leader, is well aware of the vicious, gruesome and bloodthirsty cackle of then- (2011) US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi: “We Came, We Saw, He Died”…after the Libyan dictator had completely caved to Western pressure to abandon his “weapons of mass destruction” programs nerly a decade before, only to have the United States and NATO openly destroy his regime. Muammar Gadaffi was one of the foulest excuses for a human being in modern history, but the West made an agreement with him, then happily broke it at the first opportunity.

Kim Jong Un may be a lot of things, but an idiot, he most certainly is not.

Strategic Reassessment

The Hanoi summit’s collapse triggered a comprehensive reassessment in Pyongyang of North Korea’s strategic position:

Nuclear Strategy
– Nuclear weapons development needed to be accelerated
– Its missile testing program needed rapid expansion
– It needed to publicly acknowledge its nuclear status
Diplomatic Posture
– Reduced emphasis on US negotiations
– Strengthened ties with China and Russia
– Dismissal of South Korean outreach
Economic Planning
– Increased focus on self-reliance
– Development of sanctions-resistant trade
– Military industry expansion

The Russian Connection

North Korea’s military-industrial complex, while technologically stalled in the 1970’s for the most part, maintains a massive production capacity for basic weapons systems. Its ability to manufacture artillery ammunition using Soviet-era specifications has made it an ideal supplier for Russia’s war effort, allowing Russian industry the ability to slow its own production to refine and retool, even as western arms industries remain stalled in their production of the same supplies. This partnership offers multiple benefits to Pyongyang:

Economic Advantages
– Hard currency earnings
– Technology transfer opportunities
– Sanctions circumvention
Military Benefits
– Combat experience for troops
– Modern battlefield observations
– Testing of equipment in actual combat
Strategic Gains
– Stronger ties with a permanent UN Security Council member
– Reduced international isolation
– Leverage against US pressure

Of these points, the second – giving its troops modern combat experience – is the most valuable to North korea in the short term. It it very difficult for a military that has not actually fought a war in decades to know what new tools and techniques it should try to implement; armed forces around the world are notoriously conservative (to the point of being hidebound) for a reason, although rarely to the level of North Korea.

Whatever the reality of the fighting in Ukraine, “blooding” North Korean troops there could give them a significant advantage over their South Korean adversaries in a future fight, as South Korean troops have not had any experience in the kind of war currently being fought in Ukraine, despite having a significant technological advantage over their northern opposition.

Abandoning Reunification

The shift away from even theoretical peaceful reunification represents a significant change in North Korean policy. Since the Korean War armistice in 1953, both Korea’s have maintained reunification as an official goal, though with vastly different visions of how it would occur.

This policy shift serves several purposes:

Solidifies Kim’s domestic position
Justifies increased militarization
Enables closer alignment with Russia and China
Reduces diplomatic constraints on aggressive actions

After a string of public failures to successfully get a satellite into orbit, Pyongyang finally managed to get a reconnaissance satellite, the “Malligyong-1” into orbit (rather like the original US and Soviet launch attempts).

The successful satellite launches demonstrate North Korea’s growing mastery of several critical ICBM technologies, particularly multi-stage rocket separation and long-range guidance systems. The primary technical hurdle remaining for effective ICBM capability is reentry vehicle technology – protecting a nuclear warhead during its hypersonic return through the atmosphere. Russian assistance in this area likely on Kim’s shopping list for providing weapons and troops to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, as Russia possesses some of the world’s most advanced reentry technologies.

*Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, 2024. Public Domain Photo from the Government of North Korea.*

By early 2024, North Korea had already demonstrated progress in multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) development through tests of the Hwasong-17 ICBM, which appears designed to carry multiple warheads. Their March 2024 test of a new solid-fuel ICBM suggested further advances in this capability. MIRV technology would allow a single missile to carry multiple nuclear warheads, each capable of hitting different targets. This dramatically increases both first-strike capability and the ability to overwhelm missile defense systems.

The combination of proven satellite launch capabilities, potential Russian reentry assistance, and advancing MIRV technology could enable North Korea to deploy a credible nuclear triad system, fundamentally altering the strategic balance in Northeast Asia.

Regional Implications

This strategic realignment has profound implications for Northeast Asian security:

South Korea
– Increased military tension
– Reduced diplomatic options
– Stronger US alliance imperative
Japan
– Enhanced missile defense urgency
– Strengthened US security ties
– Increased military spending justification
China
– Complicated regional balance
– Reduced influence over DPRK
– New strategic calculations needed

The acquisition by North Korea of a credible strategic nuclear capability would represent a catastrophic shift of world power.

Looking Forward

North Korea’s evolution from a state theoretically seeking peaceful reunification to an active military supplier in global conflicts represents a significant shift in Northeast Asian security dynamics. This transformation, rooted in the failures (whether accidental or deliberate) of past diplomatic initiatives and Kim Jong Un’s determination to ensure the survival of his regime, suggests a more militarily active and less diplomatically constrained North Korea in the years ahead.

As this article goes to press, the United States is some four days away from the 2024 Presidential election. There is no way to know what will happen if Donald Trump wins on November 5th – but the outcome of a Harris victory is starkly and painfully clear, because any response they make to Kim’s new course will be either completely incoherent, or wildly overblown.

Choose wisely.

Britain’s “Lost Decade” Economic Disaster & Its Impact On Global Security

5 min read

Britain’s “Lost Decade” Economic Disaster & Its Impact On Global Security

Michael Cessna October 25, 2024

The United Kingdom’s descent from its position as a leading global financial center into economic turmoil represents one of the most dramatic shifts in modern economic history. While the roots of this decline can be traced to the 2008 global financial crisis, the combined shocks of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Britain’s steadfast support of Ukraine has accelerated what many analysts now term Britain’s “Lost Decade.”

The Foundation Cracks: 2008-2016

The 2008 financial crisis hit London particularly hard, given its out sized role in global banking and finance. While other nations gradually recovered, Britain’s recovery was notably sluggish. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s austerity measures, implemented under Prime Minister David Cameron, may have prevented a sovereign debt crisis (while some 70 potential defaults currently exist), but came at the cost of reduced public services and infrastructure investment.

During this period, Britain’s armed forces faced significant budget cuts. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review disastrously led to significant reductions in personnel, the early retirement of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, and the scrapping of the Harrier jump-jet fleet. These decisions would later impact Britain’s ability to project power globally.

Brexit: The Self-Inflicted – With Help – Wound

The 2016 Brexit referendum marked a crucial turning point. The vote to leave the European Union triggered immediate economic consequences: the pound sterling plummeted, investment decisions were frozen, and London’s position as Europe’s financial capital began to erode. Major financial institutions started relocating operations to Dublin, Frankfurt, and Paris.

The protracted Brexit negotiations created years of uncertainty, depressing business investment and complicating trade relationships. The eventual Trade and Cooperation Agreement, while avoiding a “no-deal” scenario, still resulted in significant new barriers to trade with Britain’s largest market.

The reality was that Britain’s trade was significantly undermined by the European Union’s bitter and petty actions, as that body did not was to lose the major tax revenues that Britain was contributing, at a time when the EU was a whole was still reeling from the 2008 crisis. The “better option”, from the EU’s perspective, was to make it as hard for Britain as possible to “go it alone”.

What made these effects far worse, were a series of bungling failures by successive governments in London, from both sides of the political aisle. These poorly-considered actions have functionally flat-lined the British economy…and things are not improving.

Pandemic Paralysis

COVID-19 struck Britain particularly hard, both in human and economic terms. The UK experienced one of Europe’s highest death rates and deepest economic contractions. The government’s pandemic response, while unprecedented in scale, added substantially to national debt. The furlough scheme, while preventing mass unemployment, cost hundreds of billions of pounds.

The pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing economic weaknesses. Supply chain disruptions, combined with Brexit-related complications, led to shortages and inflation. The National Health Service, already strained by years of austerity, faced enormous pressure.

And, despite the government trying to “cook the books” by “revising” economic numbers, the British economy has still not recovered.

Ukraine Support and Energy Crisis

Britain’s robust support for Ukraine, while strategically important, has come at a significant economic cost. Military aid, combined with sanctions against Russia, contributed to spiraling energy costs and inflation. The situation has forced difficult choices between domestic spending and international commitments.

The energy crisis has highlighted Britain’s vulnerability to global supply shocks. Despite North Sea oil and gas resources, years of under-investment in energy infrastructure and storage capacity left the country exposed to price volatility.

Successive governments in London have learned the US government’s model of “borrow ’til you crash”, piling on mountains of debt to support Kiev’s flagging hopes of survival, as ‘victory’ is very much a malleable terms.

Impact on Global Security

Britain’s economic challenges have resulted in drastic and cascading effects on global security:

Reduced Military Capability: Budget constraints have limited Britain’s ability to modernize its armed forces and maintain its traditional role in global security operations, something even the new Left-wing government of PM Keir Starmer could not ignore.
NATO Implications: While Britain continues to meet NATO’s 2% GDP defense spending target, the declining value of the pound means this represents less actual military capability.
Diplomatic Influence: Economic weakness has diminished Britain’s ‘soft power‘ and ability to influence global events through economic leverages.
Intelligence Capabilities: Budget pressures have affected Britain’s renowned intelligence services, potentially impacting the “Five Eyes Alliance“.

Recruitment Crisis and Cultural Shift

The British military’s recruitment challenges reflect deeper societal changes. Traditional sources of military recruitment – working-class communities with strong patriotic traditions – have been eroded by demographic shifts, changing cultural attitudes and recently, the stunningly draconian response of the Starmer government to a sudden spate of riots initially linked – albeit wrongly – to racial violence. The Armed Forces’ 2022-23 recruitment targets were missed by approximately 40%, marking the worst recruitment crisis since the end of conscription in 1960, although recruiting numbers in the United Kingdom have been dropping steadily since at least 2010.

This recruitment crisis stems from multiple factors. Economic uncertainty has paradoxically reduced rather than increased military recruitment, as potential recruits seek more stable civilian careers. More significantly, surveys indicate a growing disconnect between younger Britons and traditional concepts of national service. The proportion of young people expressing “pride in being British” has declined significantly, particularly in urban areas, leading to even Left-leaning pundits to suggest that the British Left needs to “re-embrace patriotism”.

The military has attempted to address this through modernized recruitment campaigns, often focusing on personal development and technical skills rather than patriotic duty. However, these efforts have met with mixed success, as they compete against private sector opportunities and what military leaders describe as an “individualistic zeitgeist” among younger generations.

This staffing crisis has forced difficult choices about force structure and capabilities, significantly limiting Britain’s ability to maintain its global military commitments.

Economic Indicators

The scale of Britain’s economic challenges is reflected in key indicators:

Persistent low productivity growth
Declining real wages
Rising income inequality
Chronic trade deficits
High government debt-to-GDP ratio
Weakening pound sterling
Reduced foreign direct investment

Looking Forward

Britain’s path to economic recovery remains uncertain. The country retains significant advantages: a highly skilled workforce, world-class universities, and leadership in sectors like fintech and renewable energy. However, structural challenges persist:

Aging infrastructure
Regional economic disparities
Skills shortages in key sectors
Housing market instability
Trade relationship uncertainties
Energy security concerns

The implications of these issues for global security will depend largely on Britain’s ability to navigate these challenges while maintaining its international commitments and modernizing its military capabilities.

The real problem for British security, however, remains the same as in the United States Armed Forces: an increasing percentage of the primary recruiting demographic – the “under-30” age group – simply do not see the point in volunteering to serve their country in the military, if at all, as it seemingly offers no opportunities over the civilian world, and has demonstrated (as in the United States and Canada) a staggeringly callous attitude towards treating the long-term impacts of combat on the country’s veterans…And, also as in the United States, if this trend is not reversed, the alternatives are not things any government wants to consider.

Cryptocurrency and Conflict Financing – Reshaping the Economics of Modern Warfare

6 min read

Cryptocurrency and Conflict Financing – Reshaping the Economics of Modern Warfare

Michael Cessna September 6, 2024

In the shadowy world of conflict financing, a new player has emerged: cryptocurrency. As digital currencies like Bitcoin – once derided by many as useless money pits – increasingly gain mainstream acceptance, they are also becoming a tool for those operating outside the law, including insurgent groups, terrorist organizations, and sanctioned states. This technological shift is reshaping the economics of modern warfare and challenging traditional methods of tracking and interdicting illicit funds. Money makes serious violent conflicts and wars possible, and cryptocurrencies are increasingly the preferred go-to for all non-state actors in conflicts…and major nations are not far behind.

The Rise of Crypto in Conflict Zones

Cryptocurrency’s key features – decentralization, anonymity, and borderless transactions – make it an attractive option for groups operating in conflict zones. Unlike traditional banking systems, which can be easily monitored and controlled by governments, cryptocurrencies offer a degree of financial autonomy that’s unprecedented in the digital age. It also holds the potential to radically expand the democratization of warfare, a subject we touched on last week.

In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of cryptocurrency being used in conflict zones. In 2019, Hamas – the militant group controlling Gaza, responsible for the October 7, 2023 assault into Israel – turned to Bitcoin to solicit donations, bypassing international restrictions on its financing. Similarly, in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, both sides have leveraged cryptocurrencies: volunteers supporting Ukrainian forces have raised over $200 million in crypto donations, while some Russian-backed separatist groups have also turned to digital currencies to evade sanctions.

Terrorism Financing Goes Digital

The shift from traditional financing methods to cryptocurrency is particularly evident in terrorism financing. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups have increasingly turned to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to fund their operations. These groups often use social media platforms to solicit donations, providing Bitcoin addresses where supporters can send funds anonymously.

The ease of creating online fundraising campaigns with cryptocurrency has led to a new phenomenon: the crowdfunding of terror. In 2019, a website linked to Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria raised Bitcoin donations for weapons and training. The campaign, which ran on the dark web, promised donors anonymity and the ability to support jihad from anywhere in the world.

This has extended into Asia, as well, as extensive NFT networks have been employed to both raise and transfer cryptocurrencies into fungible cash. Part of this fallout comes in the form of Afghanistan coming to the fore as a clearinghouse for crypto transfers to terror groups, as the lax controls of the ruling Taliban – who returned to power after the bungled and disastrous withdrawal of United States forces from the country in 2021 by the Biden-Harris administration – effectively closing off surveillance and enforcement efforts within the pariah state.

Challenges for Law Enforcement

This new landscape of crypto-enabled conflict financing poses significant challenges for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Tracking and intercepting cryptocurrency transactions is a complex task, requiring specialized skills and technologies that many agencies are still developing. A major part of this is the reality of the “dark web“, and its associated “darknet markets“. Outside of cryptocurrency transfers, these markets allow all manner of criminal activity, including human trafficking and child pornography, as well as illicit drug trades, all of which terror groups have no issue leveraging such tools.

The catch for law enforcement and intelligence agencies in tracking terrorists and other criminals through the “dark web” lays in the fact that although the core operating principle of the ‘dark web’ – so-called “onion routing” – was developed and patented by the US Navy in 1998, the very nature of the system developed to secure US military and government communications networks means that forcing access remotely is virtually impossible. In fact, the arrest by the FBI of the founder and main operator of the notorious “Silk Road” darknet market in 2013 (which led to his life sentence in 2015) did not involve traditional methods of hacking, but involved an agent infiltrating the “Silk Road” site as an administrator, and using “social engineering” techniques to narrow down Ulbricht’s location, and using his personal security mistakes to finally locate him…”Hacking” really had nothing to do with the takedown of the “Silk Road“, because it cannot be taken down by conventional methods of “hack-attack“.

The pseudonymous nature of most blockchain transactions using the “non-fungible token” protocol that makes cryptocurrencies viable, provides a veneer of anonymity, though it’s not impenetrable. Agencies like the FBI have had some success in tracing Bitcoin transactions related to ransomware attacks and other cybercrimes. However, newer “privacy coins” like Monero offer even greater anonymity, making them increasingly popular among those seeking to avoid detection.

Legal and jurisdictional issues further complicate matters. As cryptocurrency transactions usually cross international borders, questions are raised concerning which agencies have authority to investigate and prosecute any “criminal activity” based on a computer physically located in their countries, not least because a specific instance of criminal activity in one country is not necessarily such in another country, as was demonstrated in 2012, when Hungarian scam artists attempted to run an insurance fraud scheme in the wake of the Costa Concordia disaster. The lack of consistent regulations across countries creates loopholes that bad actors can exploit.

The Humanitarian Dilemma

Interestingly, the same features that make cryptocurrencies attractive for illicit financing also make them valuable for delivering humanitarian aid to conflict zones. In areas where traditional banking systems have broken down, or where governments restrict the flow of funds, cryptocurrencies can provide a lifeline for aid organizations.

For example, during Venezuela’s economic crisis, some aid groups turned to cryptocurrency to deliver assistance, bypassing the country’s dysfunctional financial system and strict currency controls. Similarly, in Afghanistan, some NGOs have explored using cryptocurrencies to continue operations after the Taliban takeover restricted traditional financial channels.

However, this humanitarian use of cryptocurrencies presents its own risks. The same channels used to deliver aid could potentially be exploited by militant groups to divert funds. This creates a complex balancing act for aid organizations and regulators alike, not least as crypto-financing is increasingly being seen as a negative, since it is a “hidden” method of finance.

Looking to the Future

As cryptocurrencies continue to evolve, so too will their impact on conflict financing. The development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the increasing sophistication of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms will likely create new opportunities and challenges in this space.

Regulators and international bodies are scrambling to keep up. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, has issued guidelines for regulating virtual assets. However, the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen, especially given the rapid pace of technological change in the crypto world.

The impact of cryptocurrencies on global power dynamics is also worth considering. As digital currencies potentially weaken the effectiveness of economic sanctions, traditional forms of financial warfare may become less potent. This could lead to a shift in how nations project power and influence on the global stage.

Conclusion

The rise of cryptocurrency in conflict financing represents a significant shift in the landscape of modern warfare. While it offers new opportunities for bad actors to fund their activities, it also presents potential benefits in terms of delivering aid and fostering financial inclusion in unstable regions.

As we move forward, the challenge will be to develop adaptive policies and technologies that can mitigate the risks of crypto-enabled conflict financing while preserving the innovative potential of blockchain technology. This will require unprecedented cooperation between governments, financial institutions, and the tech sector.

The genie of cryptocurrency is out of the bottle, and its impact on conflict financing is here to stay. The responses to this challenge will shape the future of global security in the digital age.

The State Funding Model: Direct Government Support

Economic Integration and Development Funding

The Technology Transfer Economy

The Ukrainian Counter-Model: Coalition Economics

The Russian Adaptation: Sanctions and Substitution

Escalation Economics

Resource Extraction and Illicit Trade

The Sustainability Question

Private Sector and Diaspora Financing

Banking and Financial System Exploitation

Government-to-Government Contracts

A Brave, New World

Origins in Wartime Necessity

The Network Expands

The Strategy Behind the Shadows

The Italian Revelation and Gladio Exposed

The Strategy of Tension Controversy

International Response and Investigations

Global Implications

The Historical Debate

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

Introduction

Somalia’s Italian Colonial Years (1889-1960)

The Fall of Siad Barre

Operation Gothic Serpent and the Battle of Mogadishu

The Return of the Terror State

A Regional Terror Network

The Collapse of International Strategy

The Siege Strategy

International Response and Turkish Gambit

The Looming Catastrophe

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

The Traditional Path

The Rush to Fill Ranks

The Experience Gap

The Historical Record

Statistical Reality

The Cost of Shortcuts

Conclusion

North Korea’s Strategic Pivot: Abandoning Reunification for Military Partnership

The Shadow of History

The Hanoi Disaster

Strategic Reassessment

The Russian Connection

Abandoning Reunification

Regional Implications

Looking Forward

The Foundation Cracks: 2008-2016

Brexit: The Self-Inflicted – With Help – Wound

Pandemic Paralysis

Ukraine Support and Energy Crisis

Impact on Global Security

Recruitment Crisis and Cultural Shift

Economic Indicators

Looking Forward

The Rise of Crypto in Conflict Zones

Terrorism Financing Goes Digital

Challenges for Law Enforcement

The Humanitarian Dilemma

Looking to the Future

Conclusion

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