The good and bad of Gerasimov’s ‘promotion’

From: POLITICO's National Security Daily - Thursday Jan 12,2023 09:01 pm

Jan 12, 2023

By Alexander Ward, Matt Berg and Lawrence Ukenye

Valery Gerasimov attends a meeting.

Despite his early failures, which helped Ukraine gain the upper hand, Valery Gerasimov has been loyal to Vladimir Putin and told him what he wants to hear. | Mikhail Kuravlev/Pool Photo via AP

With help from Nahal Toosi and Phelim Kine

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The naming of VALERY GERASIMOV to lead Russian troops in Ukraine shows VLADIMIR PUTIN is flailing tactically and that Moscow could escalate its brutal war in the coming months.

Gerasimov’s is a promotion in name only (PINO?). Despite his early failures, which helped Ukraine gain the upper hand, Gerasimov has been loyal to Putin and told him what he wants to hear. That matters in the czar’s court, and so the chief of the general staff will now take over for SERGEY SUROVIKIN.

The demotion of “General Armageddon” is certainly not for cause, per RAND’s DARA MASSICOT. After getting the job in October, he has “consolidated positions, used resources better, had Putin's ear [and] is popular among the troops.” Even the outspoken Wagner Group chief YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN and pro-Russia milbloggers like him.

This may be Putin equivocating during a personal tug-of-war between Gerasimov and Surovikin, with the Kremlin boss currently favoring his sour-faced aide. But that could change quickly if battlefield results don’t shift in Russia’s favor.

“Putin is looking for effective tactics in the conditions of a ‘creeping’ loss. He is trying to reshuffle the pieces and is therefore giving chances to those who he finds persuasive. Today, Gerasimov turned out to be persuasive. Tomorrow it could be anybody else,” R. Politik’s TATIANA STANOVAYA tweeted.

In that sense, the Gerasimov announcement is good news for Ukraine. Putin is desperately reaching for whatever feels right at the moment. He’s aimless.

Unfortunately, the move also means that Gerasimov needs to impress — and fast — which could entice him to use even more force.

“He needs some kind of win or a career ends in ignominy. This may well suggest some kinds of escalation,” Mayak Intelligence’s MARK GALEOTTI tweeted. “Not the nuclear option, but more mobilisation or, arguably more militarily logical but politically dangerous, also deploying conscripts.” Russia has about 150,000 fresh “mobiks” who Gerasimov could throw into action.

Now we’re not in Putin’s head because we don’t like horror movies. But the move also suggests he’s trying to send a signal to the West: I’ll make all the changes I need to and outlast you. He may be banking on his singular resolve holding stronger than that of the collective West.

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The Inbox

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S “CONES”: Our own NAHAL TOOSI has obtained some hard-to-find data about U.S. diplomacy.

Americans who join the Foreign Service as generalists do so in certain categories known as cones: political, economic, consular, management and public diplomacy. But the State Department has not typically made public the breakdowns of how many people are in which cones. At Toosi’s request, department officials recently compiled some of the information.

In recent years, the State Department has tried to increase the focus on economic diplomacy to be more competitive with China. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN wants to have more economic officers as part of his department modernization plan. But as the numbers show, the political cone tends to dominate.

This data is as of Sept. 30. A few highlights:

— Of 8,079 generalists in the Foreign Service, 2,151 are in the political cone, while 1,512 are in the economic one. There are more people in the consular and public diplomacy cones than the economic one. Here’s a fuller chart that also includes a breakdown of people who enter the Foreign Service as specialists. Their roles range widely, from psychiatrist to diplomatic courier.

— The cone breakdowns of the senior Foreign Service — these are the top-ranked diplomats whom ambassadors are often drawn from — have been fairly consistent for the past two decades, with a little over a third coming from the political cone. Read the full chart.

— Of the 81 people tagged as “chiefs of mission” (which usually means they are an ambassador who leads an embassy), 43 came from the political cone; 18 from the economic cone; nine from the management cone; six from the public diplomacy cone; and five from the consular cone. (These numbers cover career diplomats, not political appointees given many plum ambassadorships.)

SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR BIDEN DOCS: Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND has appointed a special counsel — former U.S. attorney ROBERT HUR — to review the classified documents discovered in spaces used by President JOE BIDEN.

His legal team found more classified documents in a second location just days after it was revealed that secret papers were discovered in another Biden office, our own JONATHAN LEMIRE and OLIVIA OLANDER report.

Biden’s legal team announced Thursday that they found more classified documents in a storage space in the garage of his Delaware residence, per our own KELLY HOOPER.

The contents and nature of the documents were not immediately known, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

"As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents, classified materials seriously. I also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department's review," Biden told reporters Thursday.

RUSSIA FREES U.S. NAVY VETERAN:Russia has freed TAYLOR DUDLEY, a U.S. Navy veteran who had been detained for nearly a year, Matt reports.

Dudley, a 35-year-old Michigan resident, was visiting Poland for a music concert in April and was detained by Russian border police after crossing the border into Kaliningrad.

There’s no indication yet that Dudley’s release was part of an exchange deal with the U.S., but the move comes after Russia freed WNBA star BRITTNEY GRINER last month after being detained for almost a year.

CAMPBELL TALKS UP CLOSER U.S.-INDIA SECURITY TIES:The Biden administration wants to lure India into playing a more robust role in Indo-Pacific security cooperation, our own PHELIM KINE writes in.

India is already a member of the Quad — an informal geopolitical grouping that also includes the U.S., Australia and Japan focused on countering China's rising economic, diplomatic and military power. But unlike Tokyo and Seoul, India lacks long-standing defense and security ties with the U.S.

“It's within our interests to see India playing an ever-larger responsible role in almost everything that we're doing … that includes working more together as partners on the security side,” KURT CAMPBELL , the National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, said during a discussion with South Korean and Philippine ambassadors at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

IT’S THURSDAY:Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and mberg@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @mattberg33.

While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @magmill95, @ericgeller, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco and @Lawrence_Ukenye.

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Flashpoints

NUCLEAR PLAN?: South Korea would consider developing its own nuclear arsenal or ask the U.S. to reinstall its own nukes on the Korean Peninsula if threats from North Korea continued, The New York Times' CHOE SANG-HUN reports.

South Korean President YOON SUK YEOL emphasized that the announcement wasn't a change in official policy and that Seoul would currently prioritize strengthening its defense partnership with the U.S.

The U.S. removed nukes deployed within the country in 1991 as part of arms reduction efforts. PATRICK CRONIN , Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, believes that while the development is significant, South Korea will still aggressively pursue other methods of deterrence before considering nuclear weapons.

“President Yoon said that he's pursuing six lines of effort short of redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons or acquiring nuclear weapons,” Cronin told NatSec Daily. “So he's looking at focusing on alliances, military drills, including introducing contingency plans in these tabletop exercises that we're going to do with them for the first time to deal with nuclear weapons.”

TAIWAN INVASION SOON? NOT LIKELY: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said he doubts that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent, our own LARA SELIGMAN and Phelim report.

That’s even factoring in increased aggression from China in recent weeks, such as the deployment of warplanes and navy vessels near Taiwan, Austin said at a press conference alongside Blinken and their Japanese counterparts on Wednesday.

At the same event, the officials formally announced that the United States will station an upgraded Marine Corps unit with the ability to fire anti-ship missiles in Okinawa to deter China.

Keystrokes

RUSSIA RAMPS UP CYBERATTACKS: After widespread failures on Ukraine’s battlefield, Russians are increasing cyberattacks on civilian services such as electricity and internet — a new offensive designed to break the will of everyday citizens and turn the tide of the war, our own MAGGIE MILLER reports.

While Russia has relied more on missile strikes than cyber weapons to accomplish its goals in Ukraine, the attacks against energy, government and transportation infrastructure groups show that cyberattacks are still a key part of Moscow’s overall strategy to break the will of Ukrainians.

“The longer Russia wages this war, the harder it is going to be on those Ukrainian people and the more vulnerable they’ll be to destructive cyberattacks against the critical infrastructure,” ROB JOYCE , the director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said in an interview. “I’m concerned that the Russian actors will increasingly look to amplify the things they’re doing with kinetic effects in that space.”

SEEDS OF CYBERCRIME: An increasingly unstable financial situation and record inflation in Turkey is pushing young people to engage in cybercrime and “patriotic hacking,” according to a new report from Recorded Future.

Researchers detailed the activity of two Turkish hacktivist collectives, multiple crime actors and three Turkish language ransomware variants. They also warned that “patriotic hackers continue their defacement operations targeting countries they perceive to be ‘enemies’ of Turkey.”

The Complex

UFO REPORTS:The rate of reporting of UFOs is increasing, the U.S. intelligence community assessed in a report released Thursday, Bryan Bender and Kelly Garrity report.

In total, 510 “unidentified aerial phenomena” observed in protected airspace or near sensitive facilities have been compiled as of August of last year, according to the report to Congress.

Of those, 366 were gathered since a preliminary assessment was published in 2021 — an increase attributed to a “reduced stigma” around reporting, and a better understanding of the intelligence and safety threats that the phenomena may pose.

Of the 366 new reports, 26 are characterized as drones; 163 as balloon or balloon-like entities; and six attributed to clutter.

CHIP WAR: U.S. efforts to bolster domestic semiconductor production could also prevent China from obtaining chips needed to field advanced weapons systems, including those involving artificial intelligence, Defense News' BRYANT HARRIS reports.

In October, the Commerce Department announced a series of export controls, one of which prohibits firms such as Taiwan’s TSMC from producing some of its most advanced chips in China. The administration later added more than 20 Chinese companies to the export control list in December.

Efforts to curtail Chinese access to sophisticated semiconductors have become a flashpoint in light of mounting tensions between Beijing and Taiwan, which dominates advanced chip manufacturing.

JOIN NEXT TUESDAY TO HEAR FROM MAYORS AROUND AMERICA: 2022 brought in a new class of mayors leading “majority minority” cities, reshaping who is at the nation’s power tables and what their priorities are. Join POLITICO to hear from local leaders on how they’re responding to being tested by unequal Covid-19 outcomes, upticks in hate crimes, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, inflation and a potential recession. REGISTER HERE.

On the Hill

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY –– GALLAGHER AND MILLEY CHAT:Gen. MARK MILLEY, the Joint Chiefs chair, finally got to speak with Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.), who will lead the House China Committee. Their initially planned conversation couldn’t happen while lawmakers awaited to be sworn in during the speakership fight, delaying Gallagher’s ability to review or discuss classified information.

“I’m glad to hear the Chairman say the CCP is by far our most significant near, mid, and long-term geo-political challenge and I welcome the announcement of expanded USMC access in the Ryukyus,” Gallagher told NatSec Daily in a statement. ”While I remain concerned about the Department's prioritization of Indo-Pacom requirements and the absence of a coherent shipbuilding plan, I stand ready to work with the Chairman to ensure DoD moves with a sense of urgency to enhance near-term deterrence.”

“General Milley will work closely with Chairman Gallagher to apply energy and focus toward maintaining readiness and modernizing the force. We are the most lethal and effective military in the world because of people like Gallagher, and others, who understand innovation is a priority,” said Col. DAVE BUTLER, Milley’s spokesperson.

Lawmakers voted 365-65 on Tuesday to set up the panel Gallagher will lead.

REVOKE BOLSONARO’S VISA: Nearly 50 House Democrats wrote to Biden today requesting that he revoke former Brazilian President JAIR BOLSONARO’s visa to stay in the U.S.

“We must not allow Mr. Bolsonaro or any other former Brazilian officials to take refuge in the United States to escape justice for any crimes they may have committed when in office, and we should cooperate fully with any investigation by the Brazilian government into their actions, if requested,” wrote the members, including Rep. GREGORY MEEKS (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Brazilian authorities are investigating the causes of the Jan. 8 attack by thousands of Bolsonaro supporters on government facilities. Some lawmakers, including letter signatories Rep. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-Texas) and RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.), have urged the U.S. to extradite the former president back to his home country. But an extradition can’t happen without a legitimate request from Brasilia.

Broadsides

TRUMP SECRET NUCLEAR PLAN: Former President DONALD TRUMP discussed the idea of dropping a nuke on North Korea and blaming it on another country in 2017, NBC News’ REBECCA SHABAD reports.

That’s according to a new excerpt from a book by the New York Times’ MICHAEL SCHMIDT, detailing key events during the Trump administration. Trump’s alleged comments came as tension between Pyongyang and Washington escalated, which alarmed then-White House chief of staff JOHN KELLY.

Soon after Kelly began his post, Trump’s rhetoric behind closed doors about taking action against North Korea started to concern him, Schmidt writes, citing dozens of interviews on background with former Trump administration officials and those who worked with Kelly. The chief of staff tried to dissuade Trump from using a nuclear weapon and brought top military leaders to the White House to explain how such a move would lead to war.

Transitions

— MARIA LUIZA VIOTTI will be Brazil’s new ambassador to the U.S., the first woman to represent her country in Washington. She was Brazil’s chief envoy to Germany and the UN and served as UN Secretary General ANTONIO GUTERRES’ chief of staff.

— Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. CHARLIE “TUNA” MOORE has joined Vanderbilt University to work on its future of conflict initiative and serve as a distinguished professor. Moore previously led day-to-day operations at U.S. Cyber Command.

What to Read

— JANUSZ BUGAJSKI, POLITICO: The benefits of Russia’s coming disintegration

— Rep. JOE COURTNEY, Breaking Defense: To make AUKUS work, Congress should look to the past

— JENNIFER RUBIN, The Washington Post: So Republicans want to look tough on China? Here’s how they can start.

Tomorrow Today

— The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10 a.m.: Operating in a Hostile Media Environment in Venezuela

— The Brookings Institution, 10:30 a.m.: The ghost at the feast: America and the collapse of world order, 1900-1941

— The Hoover Institution, 2 p.m.: America’s Famine Relief Mission In Soviet Russia At 100: Shifting Views From Lenin To Putin

Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at award@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter.

Thanks to our editor, Dave Brown, who would only promote us if it led to our downfall.

We also thank our producer, Kierra Frazier, who should be promoted to lead this newsletter.

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