This Means War

Is China preparing to invade Taiwan? It is certainly a matter of CCP policy that Taiwan will be reintegrated into mainland China – by diplomacy or force – at some stage before the centenary of the People's Republic of China in 2049. Peter talks to Dr Peter Layton, Visiting fellow at Griffin Asia Institute, about this, as well as the most recent Taiwan crisis, PLA doctrine and fighting capability, and the Chinese need to be respected. As a primer to forthcoming episodes on China's military ambitions, preparations for war, and the evolution of their military, this episode also examines what lessons Beijing, Nanjing and Hainan might be learning from Russia's invasion of Ukraine: turns out these might not be so different from the lessons that Allied nations might also want to learn (spoiler: reinforcement of their own latest doctrine might not be real lessons however).

It has only taken one year from the Western withdrawal out of Afghanistan for that country to descend once more into a fractured society – 90% of who live below the poverty line – with a plethora of factions fighting for power, and an equally numerous set of foreign states vying for influence and resources in an all too familiar game of one-upmanship. Violence has also returned with frightening predictability. What is actually going on in Afghanistan today, specifically with regard to India, China, Pakistan, and Iran? Peter is joined by Indian soldier-scholar Anant Mishra to try and make sense of it all. Don't expect simplicity or clarity.

Deciding to go to war, to support a war, or even which war to engage with should not be an easy decision. It should be complex: informed and debated. That wasn't the case for the majority of countries which have been overtly supporting Ukraine in 2022, but it might well have been in the Kremlin. That doesn't make either party right. Peter talks to veteran diplomat, soldier, politician, traveller, adventurer and aid worker Rory Stewart about why some wars garner political interest (and others don't); about why chance, narratives and strong voices in the Cabinet room culminate in moments that make investment in conflict happen; about why strategy, signalling and diplomacy are absent in preventing wars from starting in the first place; and, about how ending wars is such a difficult conversation to have.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has matured considerably since the early 2000s. More data sources, better data bases, lower costs, increasing automation and processing all provide a wealth of data for analysts to get hold of. But exploiting all those sources requires a skilled team of tenacious people to provide the answers that are being sought, but also in checking that the veracity of the data. Peter talks to James Byrne, Director of the Open Source Intelligence and Analysis (OSIA) Research Group about constructing teams for OSINT work, the technicalities of OSINT, dealing with data overload, spoofing and fooling OSINT systems, and the future of Open Source Intelligence.

Professor Michael Clarke joins Peter to talk about the 10 day old Ukrainian counter offensives against Russia. In proving they can do more than "just not losing a war slowly", the Ukrainian actions in Kherson (a strategic counter offensive), Kharkiv and Izyum (both smaller but important tactical pushes) are posing significant challenges for the Russian military and their political leadership. And this means that the deployment of the Russian Third Army Corps sometime early in 2023 might have to look very different from what Moscow had been planning.

Nick Reynolds has just returned from Ukraine again and talks to Peter about his experiences and insights after 6 months of war with Russia. From the implications of electronic warfare, the training for combined arms manoeuvre (in order to conduct the politically-necessary but militarily-viable offensive), to kill chains, passive drone operations, and information operations, the lessons from this war also cover more traditional – but critically important – facets of conventional combat power: sniping, dismounted close combat skills, and land mine usage. Predictions on the use of biological and chemical weapons by Russian forces in this theatre round out a wide ranging conversation on the trajectory of the war.

Supporting a war conducted by others shouldn't be measured on financial aid committed. A better metric would actually be the percentage of the requirement actually fulfilled; on that measure, the report card for Western leaders supporting Ukraine is not good. As Ukraine talks up the idea of offensive operations against Russia, Peter talks to Lt Gen (rtd) Ben Hodges about what a counter offensive might look like, whether Western support will endure, and what lessons we should start to be thinking about from the on-going war in Ukraine.

If you look at Russian actions in different regions of the world, their strategies differ considerably. This covers economic policies as well as foreign policy activities and military ones. From Africa to the Rimland, Moscow signals their intentions clearly, watches for reactions and then executes pretty nuanced plans. Nowhere is this clearer than in the different approaches Russia has been taking in the Arctic and Ukraine over the past 15 years. In this episode Peter is joined by Professor Katarzyna Zysk, from Norway's Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo, to talk about duality, rationality, logic, and pragmatism in Russia's national security decision-making. While there is an idea of muddling through in the Kremlin there is more depth at the organisational level than Western analysts give credit for. This has significant implications for discussions on things like regime change and ceasefires. Don't expect Moscow to stop behaving like Russia anytime soon; with or without Vladimir Putin at the helm.

Between 2004 and 2014, NATO armies coerced the militaries and special forces of Georgia and Ukraine into a doctrine and design built around Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist operations. When this met the Russians in 2008 and 2014 respectively, these forces failed. Dramatically. Today, Ukraine's special forces are performing with dogged determination and expertise – in spite of what the West taught them. Dr Sandor Fabian argues that if today's special forces want to learn about how to conduct successful operations against a larger conventional military power, they need to look to the Taliban, ISIS, Hezbollah, North Korea and Iran for inspiration: Western militaries have been teaching SF from smaller states the wrong stuff, and forcing them into a shape and form that simply won't work for them. He and Peter discuss the differences in force design that states require, in everything from equipment and training, to education and doctrine.

A now frozen but forgotten conflict in Georgia dating from 2008 was the result of a Russian invasion and occupation of two large regions: it was a stark warning of Moscow's imperial plans that went ignored by Western leaders. Fourteen years after the ceasefire was established, Russia continues to wage war on Georgia with tools other than uniformed troops and high explosives. Peter talks to Natia Suskuria from the RISS in Tbilisi about what it feels like to live under the threat of renewed invasion from Russian military forces, and what lessons Georgia has learned from recent events in Ukraine. The greatest risk seems to be not from Russia but rather, once again, by Western powers failing to recognise the opportunities and risks of their own actions.