thenation--2020-07-21--How Will US Warfare Survive the Pandemic?

On March 26th , the coronavirus accomplished what no foreign adversary has been able to do since the end of World War II : It forced an American aircraft carrier , the USS Theodore Roosevelt , to suspend patrol operations and shelter in port .
By the time that ship reached dock in Guam , hundreds of sailors had been infected with the disease and nearly the entire crew had to be evacuated .
As news of the crisis aboard the TR ( as the vessel is known ) became public , word came out that at least 40 other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ronald Reagan and the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd , were suffering from Covid-19 outbreaks .
None of these approached the scale of the TR and , by June , the Navy was again able to deploy most of those ships on delayed schedules and/or with reduced crews .
By then , however , it had become abundantly clear that the long-established US strategy of relying on large , heavily armed warships to project power and defeat foreign adversaries was no longer fully sustainable in a pandemic-stricken world .
Just as the Navy was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with large crews—typically packed into small spaces for extended periods of time—was quite literally proving a dead-end strategy ( one of the infected sailors on the TR died of complications from Covid-19 ) , the Army and Marine Corps were making a comparable discovery .
Their favored strategy of partnering with local forces in far-flung parts of the world like Iraq , Japan , Kuwait , and South Korea , where local safeguards against infectious disease couldn ’ t always be relied on ( or , as in Okinawa recently , Washington ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus-free status of American forces ) , was similarly flawed .
With US and allied troops increasingly forced to remain in isolation from each other , it is proving difficult to conduct the usual joint training-and-combat exercises and operations .
In the short term , American defense officials have responded to such setbacks with various stopgap measures , including sending nuclear-capable B-1 , B-2 , and B-52 bombers on long-range “ show-of-force ” missions over contested areas like the Baltic Sea ( think Russia ) or the South China Sea ( think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We have the capability and capacity to provide long-range fires anywhere , anytime , and can bring overwhelming firepower—even during the pandemic , ” insisted General Timothy Ray , commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command , after several such operations .
In another sign of tactical desperation , however , the Navy ordered the shattered crew of the TR out of lockdown in May so that the ship could participate in long-scheduled , China-threatening multi-carrier exercises in the western Pacific .
A third of its crew , however , had to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Guam .
“ We ’ re executing according to plan to return to sea and fighting through the virus is part of that , ” said the ship ’ s new captain , Carlos Sardiello , as the TR prepared to depart that Pacific island .
( He had been named captain on April 3rd after a letter the carrier ’ s previous skipper , Brett Crozier , wrote to superiors complaining of deteriorating shipboard health conditions was leaked to the media and the senior Navy leadership fired him . )
Such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now being undertaken by the Department of Defense , continue to provide the military with a sense of ongoing readiness , even aggressiveness , in a time of Covid-related restrictions .
Were the current pandemic to fade away in the not-too-distant future and life return to what once passed for normal , they might prove adequate .
Scientists are warning , however , that the coronavirus is likely to persist for a long time and that a vaccine—even if successfully developed—may not prove effective forever .
Moreover , many virologists believe that further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 , could be lurking on the horizon , meaning that there might never be a return to a pre-pandemic “ normal.
” That being the case , Pentagon officials have been forced to acknowledge that the military foundations of Washington ’ s global strategy—particularly , the forward deployment of combat forces in close cooperation with allied forces—may have become invalid .
In recognition of this harsh new reality , US strategists are beginning to devise an entirely new blueprint for future war , American-style : one that would end , or at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of overseas garrisons and large manned warships , relying instead on killer robots , a myriad of unmanned vessels , and offshore bases .
In fact , the Navy ’ s plans to replace large manned vessels with small , unmanned ones was only accelerated by the outbreak of the pandemic .
Several factors had already contributed to the trend : Modern warships like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and missile-armed cruisers had been growing ever more expensive to build .
The latest , the USS Gerald R. Ford , has cost a whopping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t work to specifications .
So even a profligately funded Pentagon can only afford to be constructing a few at a time .
They are also proving increasingly vulnerable to the sorts of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes being developed by powers like China , while , as events on the TR suggest , they ’ re natural breeding grounds for infectious diseases .
Until the disaster aboard theTheodore Roosevelt , most worrisome were those Chinese land-based , anti-ship weapons capable of striking American carriers and cruisers in distant parts of the Pacific Ocean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planners to consider the possibility of keeping their most prized assets far from China ’ s shores in any potential shooting war , lest they be instantly lost to enemy fire .
Rather than accept such a version of defeat before a battle even began , Navy officials had begun adopting a new strategy , sometimes called “ distributed maritime operations , ” in which smaller manned warships would , in the future , be accompanied into battle by large numbers of tiny , unmanned , missile-armed vessels , or maritime “ killer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Navy ’ s new thinking , the service ’ s surface warfare director , Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall , explained in 2019 that the future fleet , as designed , was to include “ 104 large surface combatants [ and ] 52 small surface combatants , ” adding , Think of this as an early public sign of the rise of naval robotic warfare , which is finally leaving dystopian futuristic fantasies for actual future battlefields .
In the Navy ’ s version of this altered landscape , large numbers of unmanned vessels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will roam the world ’ s oceans , reporting periodically via electronic means to human operators ashore or on designated command ships .
They may , however , operate for long periods on their own or in robotic “ wolf packs.
” Such a vision has now been embraced by the senior Pentagon leadership , which sees the rapid procurement and deployment of such robotic vessels as the surest way of achieving the Navy ’ s ( and President Trump ’ s ) goal of a fleet of 355 ships at a time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemics , and mounting foreign threats .
“ I think one of the ways you get [ to the 355-ship level ] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [ vessels ] , which over time can be unmanned , ” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper typically said in February .
To begin to implement such an audacious plan , that very month the Pentagon requested $ 938 million for the next two fiscal years to procure three prototype large unmanned surface vessels ( LUSVs ) and another $ 56 million for the initial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( MUSV ) .
If such efforts prove successful , the Navy wants another $ 2.1 billion from 2023 through 2025 to procure seven deployable LUSVs and one prototype MUSV .
Naval officials have , however , revealed little about the design or ultimate functioning of such robot warships .
All that service ’ s 2021 budget request says is that Based on isolated reports in the military trade press , the most that can be known about such future ( and futuristic ) ships , is that they will resemble miniature destroyers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no crew quarters but a large array of guided missiles and anti-submarine weapons .
Such vessels will also be equipped with sophisticated computer systems enabling them to operate autonomously for long periods of time and—under circumstances yet to be clarified—take offensive action on their own or in coordination with other unmanned vessels .
The future deployment of robot warships on the high seas raises troubling questions .
To what degree , for instance , will they be able to choose targets on their own for attack and annihilation ?
The Navy has yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question , provoking disquiet among arms control and human rights advocates who fear that such ships could “ go rogue ” and start or escalate a conflict on their own .
And that ’ s obviously a potential problem in a world of recurring pandemics where killer robots could prove the only types of ships the Navy dares deploy in large numbers .
When it comes to the prospect of recurring pandemics , the ground combat forces of the Army and Marine Corps face a comparable dilemma .
Ever since the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has called for US forces to “ fight forward ” —that is , on or near enemy territory rather than anywhere near the United States .
This , in turn , has meant maintaining military alliances with numerous countries around the world so that American forces can be based on their soil , resulting in hundreds of US military bases globally .
In wartime , moreover , US strategy assumes that many of these countries will provide troops for joint operations against a common enemy .
To fight the Soviets in Europe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ garrisons throughout Western Europe ; to fight communism in Asia , it established military ties with Japan , South Korea , South Vietnam , the Philippines , and other local powers , acquiring scores of bases there as well .
When Afghanistan , Iran , Iraq , and Islamic terrorism became major targets of its military operations , the Pentagon forged ties with and acquired bases in Afghanistan , Bahrain , Djibouti , Iraq , Kuwait , Oman , Saudi Arabia , and the United Arab Emirates , among other places .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offers numerous advantages for an imperial power .
In time of war , for example , there ’ s no need to transport American troops ( with all their heavy equipment ) into the combat zone from bases thousands of miles away .
However , in a world of recurring pandemics , such a vision is fast becoming a potentially unsustainable nightmare .
To begin with , it ’ s almost impossible to isolate thousands of US soldiers and their families ( who often accompany them on long-term deployments ) from surrounding populations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As a result , any viral outbreak outside base gates is likely to find its way inside and any outbreak on the base is likely to head in the opposite direction .
This , in fact , occurred at numerous overseas facilities this spring .
Camp Humphreys in South Korea , for example , was locked down after four military dependents , four American contractors , and four South Korean employees became infected with Covid-19 .
It was the same on several bases in Japan and on the island of Okinawa when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and , more recently , when US military personnel at five bases there were found to have Covid-19 ) .
Add in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait , not to speak of the fact that , in Europe , some 2,600 American soldiers have been placed in quarantine after suspected exposure to Covid-19 .
( And , if the US military is anxious about all this in other countries , think about how America ’ s allies feel at a moment when Donald Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global coronavirus pandemic . )
A world of recurring pandemics will make it nearly impossible for US forces to work side-by-side with their foreign counterparts , especially in poorer nations that lack adequate health and sanitation facilities .
This is already true in Iraq and Afghanistan , where the coronavirus is thought to have spread widely among friendly local forces and American soldiers have been ordered to suspend joint training missions with them .
A return to the pre-Covid world appears increasingly unlikely , so the search is now on big time for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marine combat operations in the years to come .
As with the Navy , this search actually began before the outbreak of the coronavirus , but has gained fresh urgency in its wake .
To insulate ground operations from the dangers of a pandemic-stricken planet , the two services are exploring a similar operating model : Instead of deploying large , heavily-armed troop contingents close to enemy borders , they hope to station small , highly mobile forces on US-controlled islands or at other reasonably remote locations , where they can fire long-range @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relative impunity .
To further reduce the risk of illness or casualties , such forces will , over time , be augmented on the front lines by ever more “ unmanned ” creations , including armed machines—again those “ killer robots ” —designed to perform the duties of ordinary soldiers .
The Marine Corps ’ version of this future combat model was first spelled out in Force Design 2030 , a document released by Corps commandant General David Berger in the pandemic month of March 2020 .
Asserting that the Marines ’ existing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tomorrow , he called for a radical restructuring of the force to eliminate heavy , human-operated weapons like tanks and instead increase mobility and long-range firepower with a variety of missiles and what he assumes will be a proliferation of unmanned systems .
“ Operating under the assumption that we will not receive additional resources , ” he wrote , “ we must divest certain existing capabilities and capacities to free resources for essential new capabilities.
” Among those “ new capabilities ” that he considers crucial : additional unmanned aerial systems , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from ship , from shore , and [ be ] able to employ both [ intelligence- ] collection and lethal payloads.
” In its own long-range planning , the Army is placing an even greater reliance on creating a force of robots , or at least “ optionally manned ” systems .
Anticipating a future of heavily-armed adversaries engaging US forces in high-intensity warfare , it ’ s seeking to reduce troop exposure to enemy fire by designing all future combat-assault systems , including tanks , troop-carriers , and helicopters , to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dictate .
The Army ’ s next-generation infantry assault weapon , for instance , has been dubbed an optionally manned fighting vehicle ( OMFV ) .
As its name suggests , it is intended to operate with or without onboard human operators .
The Army is also procuring a robotic utility vehicle , the squad multipurpose equipment transport ( SMET ) , intended to carry 1,000 pounds of supplies and ammunition .
Looking further into the future , that service has also begun development of a robotic combat vehicle ( RCV ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is also speeding the development of long-range artillery and missile systems that will make attacks on enemy positions from well behind the front lines ever more central to any future battle with a major enemy .
These include the extended range cannon artillery , an upgraded Paladin-armored howitzer with an extra-long barrel and supercharged propellant that should be able to hit targets 40 miles away , and the even more advanced precision strike missile ( PrSM ) , a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of at least 310 miles .
Many analysts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PrSM will be able to strike at far greater distances than that , putting critical enemy targets—air bases , radar sites , command centers—at risk from launch sites far to the rear of American forces .
In case of war with China , this could mean firing missiles from friendly partner-nations like Japan or US-controlled Pacific islands like Guam .
Indeed , this possibility has alarmed Air Force supporters who fear that the Army is usurping the sorts of long-range strike missions traditionally assigned to combat aircraft .
All these plans and programs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military to continue performing its traditional missions of power projection and war-fighting in a radically altered world .
Seen from that perspective , measures like removing sailors from crowded warships , downsizing US garrisons in distant lands , and replacing human combatants with robotic ones might seem sensible .
But , looked at from what might be called the vantage point of comprehensive security—or the advancement of all aspects of American safety and well-being—they appear staggeringly myopic .
If the scientists are right and the coronavirus will linger for a long period and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be followed by other pandemics of equal or greater magnitude , the true future threats to American security could be microbiological ( and economic ) , not military .
After all , the current pandemic has already killed more Americans than died in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined , while triggering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression .
Imagine , then , what a more lethal pandemic might do .
The country ’ s armed forces may still have an important role to play in such an environment—providing , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vital infrastructure—but fighting never-ending wars in distant lands and projecting power globally should not rank high when it comes to where taxpayer dollars go for “ security ” in such challenging times .
One thing is inescapable : As the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt indicates , the US military must reconsider how it arms and structures its forces and give serious thought to alternative models of organization .
But focusing enormous resources on the replacement of pre-Covid ships and tanks with post-Covid killer robots for endless rounds of foreign wars is hardly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is , sadly , something highly robotic about such military thinking when it comes to this changing world of ours .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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On March 26th, the coronavirus accomplished what no foreign adversary has been able to do since the end of World War II: It forced an American aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to suspend patrol operations and shelter in port. By the time that ship reached dock in Guam, hundreds of sailors had been infected with the disease and nearly the entire crew had to be evacuated. As news of the crisis aboard the TR (as the vessel is known) became public, word came out that at least 40 other US warships, including the carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd, were suffering from Covid-19 outbreaks. None of these approached the scale of the TR and, by June, the Navy was again able to deploy most of those ships on delayed schedules and/or with reduced crews. By then, however, it had become abundantly clear that the long-established US strategy of relying on large, heavily armed warships to project power and defeat foreign adversaries was no longer fully sustainable in a pandemic-stricken world.
Just as the Navy was learning that its preference for big ships with large crews—typically packed into small spaces for extended periods of time—was quite literally proving a dead-end strategy (one of the infected sailors on the TR died of complications from Covid-19), the Army and Marine Corps were making a comparable discovery. Their favored strategy of partnering with local forces in far-flung parts of the world like Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, and South Korea, where local safeguards against infectious disease couldn’t always be relied on (or, as in Okinawa recently, Washington’s allies couldn’t count on the virus-free status of American forces), was similarly flawed. With US and allied troops increasingly forced to remain in isolation from each other, it is proving difficult to conduct the usual joint training-and-combat exercises and operations.
In the short term, American defense officials have responded to such setbacks with various stopgap measures, including sending nuclear-capable B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers on long-range “show-of-force” missions over contested areas like the Baltic Sea (think Russia) or the South China Sea (think China, of course). “We have the capability and capacity to provide long-range fires anywhere, anytime, and can bring overwhelming firepower—even during the pandemic,” insisted General Timothy Ray, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, after several such operations.
In another sign of tactical desperation, however, the Navy ordered the shattered crew of the TR out of lockdown in May so that the ship could participate in long-scheduled, China-threatening multi-carrier exercises in the western Pacific. A third of its crew, however, had to be left in hospitals or in quarantine on Guam. “We’re executing according to plan to return to sea and fighting through the virus is part of that,” said the ship’s new captain, Carlos Sardiello, as the TR prepared to depart that Pacific island. (He had been named captain on April 3rd after a letter the carrier’s previous skipper, Brett Crozier, wrote to superiors complaining of deteriorating shipboard health conditions was leaked to the media and the senior Navy leadership fired him.) Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Such stopgap measures, and others like them now being undertaken by the Department of Defense, continue to provide the military with a sense of ongoing readiness, even aggressiveness, in a time of Covid-related restrictions. Were the current pandemic to fade away in the not-too-distant future and life return to what once passed for normal, they might prove adequate. Scientists are warning, however, that the coronavirus is likely to persist for a long time and that a vaccine—even if successfully developed—may not prove effective forever. Moreover, many virologists believe that further pandemics, potentially even more lethal than Covid-19, could be lurking on the horizon, meaning that there might never be a return to a pre-pandemic “normal.”
That being the case, Pentagon officials have been forced to acknowledge that the military foundations of Washington’s global strategy—particularly, the forward deployment of combat forces in close cooperation with allied forces—may have become invalid. In recognition of this harsh new reality, US strategists are beginning to devise an entirely new blueprint for future war, American-style: one that would end, or at least greatly reduce, a dependence on hundreds of overseas garrisons and large manned warships, relying instead on killer robots, a myriad of unmanned vessels, and offshore bases.
Ships Without Sailors
In fact, the Navy’s plans to replace large manned vessels with small, unmanned ones was only accelerated by the outbreak of the pandemic. Several factors had already contributed to the trend: Modern warships like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and missile-armed cruisers had been growing ever more expensive to build. The latest, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has cost a whopping $13.2 billion and still doesn’t work to specifications. So even a profligately funded Pentagon can only afford to be constructing a few at a time. They are also proving increasingly vulnerable to the sorts of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes being developed by powers like China, while, as events on the TR suggest, they’re natural breeding grounds for infectious diseases. Current Issue View our current issue
Until the disaster aboard theTheodore Roosevelt, most worrisome were those Chinese land-based, anti-ship weapons capable of striking American carriers and cruisers in distant parts of the Pacific Ocean. This development had already forced naval planners to consider the possibility of keeping their most prized assets far from China’s shores in any potential shooting war, lest they be instantly lost to enemy fire. Rather than accept such a version of defeat before a battle even began, Navy officials had begun adopting a new strategy, sometimes called “distributed maritime operations,” in which smaller manned warships would, in the future, be accompanied into battle by large numbers of tiny, unmanned, missile-armed vessels, or maritime “killer robots.”
In a reflection of the Navy’s new thinking, the service’s surface warfare director, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, explained in 2019 that the future fleet, as designed, was to include “104 large surface combatants [and] 52 small surface combatants,” adding,
That’s a little upside down. Should I push out here and have more small platforms? I think the future fleet architecture study has intimated “yes,” and our war gaming shows there is value in that.… And when I look at the force, I think: Where can we use unmanned so that I can push it to a smaller platform?
Think of this as an early public sign of the rise of naval robotic warfare, which is finally leaving dystopian futuristic fantasies for actual future battlefields. In the Navy’s version of this altered landscape, large numbers of unmanned vessels (both surface ships and submarines) will roam the world’s oceans, reporting periodically via electronic means to human operators ashore or on designated command ships. They may, however, operate for long periods on their own or in robotic “wolf packs.”
Such a vision has now been embraced by the senior Pentagon leadership, which sees the rapid procurement and deployment of such robotic vessels as the surest way of achieving the Navy’s (and President Trump’s) goal of a fleet of 355 ships at a time of potentially static defense budgets, recurring pandemics, and mounting foreign threats. “I think one of the ways you get [to the 355-ship level] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [vessels], which over time can be unmanned,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper typically said in February.
We can go with lightly manned ships.… You can build them so they’re optionally manned and then, depending on the scenario or the technology, at some point in time they can go unmanned.… That would allow us to get our numbers up quickly, and I believe that we can get to 355, if not higher, by 2030.
To begin to implement such an audacious plan, that very month the Pentagon requested $938 million for the next two fiscal years to procure three prototype large unmanned surface vessels (LUSVs) and another $56 million for the initial development of a medium-sized unmanned surface vessel (MUSV). If such efforts prove successful, the Navy wants another $2.1 billion from 2023 through 2025 to procure seven deployable LUSVs and one prototype MUSV.
Naval officials have, however, revealed little about the design or ultimate functioning of such robot warships. All that service’s 2021 budget request says is that
the unmanned surface vessel (USV) is a reconfigurable, multi-mission vessel designed to provide low cost, high endurance, reconfigurable ships able to accommodate various payloads for unmanned missions and augment the Navy’s manned surface force.
Based on isolated reports in the military trade press, the most that can be known about such future (and futuristic) ships, is that they will resemble miniature destroyers, perhaps 200 feet long, with no crew quarters but a large array of guided missiles and anti-submarine weapons. Such vessels will also be equipped with sophisticated computer systems enabling them to operate autonomously for long periods of time and—under circumstances yet to be clarified—take offensive action on their own or in coordination with other unmanned vessels.
The future deployment of robot warships on the high seas raises troubling questions. To what degree, for instance, will they be able to choose targets on their own for attack and annihilation? The Navy has yet to provide an adequate answer to this question, provoking disquiet among arms control and human rights advocates who fear that such ships could “go rogue” and start or escalate a conflict on their own. And that’s obviously a potential problem in a world of recurring pandemics where killer robots could prove the only types of ships the Navy dares deploy in large numbers.
Fighting From Afar
When it comes to the prospect of recurring pandemics, the ground combat forces of the Army and Marine Corps face a comparable dilemma.
Ever since the end of World War II, American military strategy has called for US forces to “fight forward”—that is, on or near enemy territory rather than anywhere near the United States. This, in turn, has meant maintaining military alliances with numerous countries around the world so that American forces can be based on their soil, resulting in hundreds of US military bases globally. In wartime, moreover, US strategy assumes that many of these countries will provide troops for joint operations against a common enemy. To fight the Soviets in Europe, the United States created NATO and acquired garrisons throughout Western Europe; to fight communism in Asia, it established military ties with Japan, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, and other local powers, acquiring scores of bases there as well. When Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Islamic terrorism became major targets of its military operations, the Pentagon forged ties with and acquired bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, among other places.
In a pandemic-free world, such a strategy offers numerous advantages for an imperial power. In time of war, for example, there’s no need to transport American troops (with all their heavy equipment) into the combat zone from bases thousands of miles away. However, in a world of recurring pandemics, such a vision is fast becoming a potentially unsustainable nightmare.
To begin with, it’s almost impossible to isolate thousands of US soldiers and their families (who often accompany them on long-term deployments) from surrounding populations (or those populations from them). As a result, any viral outbreak outside base gates is likely to find its way inside and any outbreak on the base is likely to head in the opposite direction. This, in fact, occurred at numerous overseas facilities this spring. Camp Humphreys in South Korea, for example, was locked down after four military dependents, four American contractors, and four South Korean employees became infected with Covid-19. It was the same on several bases in Japan and on the island of Okinawa when Japanese employees tested positive for the virus (and, more recently, when US military personnel at five bases there were found to have Covid-19). Add in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, not to speak of the fact that, in Europe, some 2,600 American soldiers have been placed in quarantine after suspected exposure to Covid-19. (And, if the US military is anxious about all this in other countries, think about how America’s allies feel at a moment when Donald Trump’s America has become the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic.)
A world of recurring pandemics will make it nearly impossible for US forces to work side-by-side with their foreign counterparts, especially in poorer nations that lack adequate health and sanitation facilities. This is already true in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the coronavirus is thought to have spread widely among friendly local forces and American soldiers have been ordered to suspend joint training missions with them.
A return to the pre-Covid world appears increasingly unlikely, so the search is now on big time for a new guiding strategy for Army and Marine combat operations in the years to come. As with the Navy, this search actually began before the outbreak of the coronavirus, but has gained fresh urgency in its wake.
To insulate ground operations from the dangers of a pandemic-stricken planet, the two services are exploring a similar operating model: Instead of deploying large, heavily-armed troop contingents close to enemy borders, they hope to station small, highly mobile forces on US-controlled islands or at other reasonably remote locations, where they can fire long-range ballistic missiles at vital enemy assets with relative impunity. To further reduce the risk of illness or casualties, such forces will, over time, be augmented on the front lines by ever more “unmanned” creations, including armed machines—again those “killer robots”—designed to perform the duties of ordinary soldiers.
The Marine Corps’ version of this future combat model was first spelled out in Force Design 2030, a document released by Corps commandant General David Berger in the pandemic month of March 2020. Asserting that the Marines’ existing structure was unsuited to the world of tomorrow, he called for a radical restructuring of the force to eliminate heavy, human-operated weapons like tanks and instead increase mobility and long-range firepower with a variety of missiles and what he assumes will be a proliferation of unmanned systems. “Operating under the assumption that we will not receive additional resources,” he wrote, “we must divest certain existing capabilities and capacities to free resources for essential new capabilities.” Among those “new capabilities” that he considers crucial: additional unmanned aerial systems, or drones, that “can operate from ship, from shore, and [be] able to employ both [intelligence-]collection and lethal payloads.”
In its own long-range planning, the Army is placing an even greater reliance on creating a force of robots, or at least “optionally manned” systems. Anticipating a future of heavily-armed adversaries engaging US forces in high-intensity warfare, it’s seeking to reduce troop exposure to enemy fire by designing all future combat-assault systems, including tanks, troop-carriers, and helicopters, to be either human-occupied or robotically self-directed as circumstances dictate. The Army’s next-generation infantry assault weapon, for instance, has been dubbed an optionally manned fighting vehicle (OMFV). As its name suggests, it is intended to operate with or without onboard human operators. The Army is also procuring a robotic utility vehicle, the squad multipurpose equipment transport (SMET), intended to carry 1,000 pounds of supplies and ammunition. Looking further into the future, that service has also begun development of a robotic combat vehicle (RCV), or a self-driving tank.
The Army is also speeding the development of long-range artillery and missile systems that will make attacks on enemy positions from well behind the front lines ever more central to any future battle with a major enemy. These include the extended range cannon artillery, an upgraded Paladin-armored howitzer with an extra-long barrel and supercharged propellant that should be able to hit targets 40 miles away, and the even more advanced precision strike missile (PrSM), a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of at least 310 miles.
Many analysts, in fact, believe that the PrSM will be able to strike at far greater distances than that, putting critical enemy targets—air bases, radar sites, command centers—at risk from launch sites far to the rear of American forces. In case of war with China, this could mean firing missiles from friendly partner-nations like Japan or US-controlled Pacific islands like Guam. Indeed, this possibility has alarmed Air Force supporters who fear that the Army is usurping the sorts of long-range strike missions traditionally assigned to combat aircraft.
A Genuine Strategic Redesign
All these plans and programs are being promoted to enable the US military to continue performing its traditional missions of power projection and war-fighting in a radically altered world. Seen from that perspective, measures like removing sailors from crowded warships, downsizing US garrisons in distant lands, and replacing human combatants with robotic ones might seem sensible. But, looked at from what might be called the vantage point of comprehensive security—or the advancement of all aspects of American safety and well-being—they appear staggeringly myopic.
If the scientists are right and the coronavirus will linger for a long period and, in the decades to come, be followed by other pandemics of equal or greater magnitude, the true future threats to American security could be microbiological (and economic), not military. After all, the current pandemic has already killed more Americans than died in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, while triggering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Imagine, then, what a more lethal pandemic might do. The country’s armed forces may still have an important role to play in such an environment—providing, for example, emergency medical assistance and protecting vital infrastructure—but fighting never-ending wars in distant lands and projecting power globally should not rank high when it comes to where taxpayer dollars go for “security” in such challenging times.
One thing is inescapable: As the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt indicates, the US military must reconsider how it arms and structures its forces and give serious thought to alternative models of organization. But focusing enormous resources on the replacement of pre-Covid ships and tanks with post-Covid killer robots for endless rounds of foreign wars is hardly in America’s ultimate security interest. There is, sadly, something highly robotic about such military thinking when it comes to this changing world of ours.


thenation--2020-07-21--John Lewis’s Fight for Justice Continues With Miracle Boyd

The nation is mourning the death of John Lewis , the sharecropper ’ s son who rose to become a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC ) , a hero to the Black freedom movement , and a respected member of the US House of Representatives .
Yet I cringe at so many of the hollow tributes that ignore Lewis ’ s real legacy and the unfinished agenda of the struggle that shaped him .
Some of the most gut-wrenching scenes of the civil rights movement occurred on Bloody Sunday in March 1965 , when state troopers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma , Ala. Harrowing photos of a trooper beating Lewis on the ground are a part of a powerful historical archive often displayed to demonstrate “ how far we have come.
” And there has indeed been progress .
But as recent uprisings against racism , triggered by the police and vigilante murders of George Floyd , Breonna Taylor , Ahmaud Arbery , Tony McDade , and others make clear , the battle is far from won .
Only a few hours after Lewis died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ image of a teenage Black girl bloodied in downtown Chicago during a protest .
A police officer had punched her in the face , knocking out a front tooth .
Crying , holding her busted lip , the young girl—whose parents , with great hope in their hearts , named Miracle—could easily have been one of the Selma protesters .
Brave , bold , idealistic , and determined , she is one of thousands of 21st century racial justice freedom fighters who have flooded the streets in every corner of this nation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has described as likely the largest protest movement in history .
Miracle Boyd and more than 1,000 others filled the streets of Chicago on Friday night , and like the Bloody Sunday protesters over half a century ago , they were protesting both the symbols and the substance of American racism .
An alliance of Indigenous and Black activists in Chicago—BYP100 , Let Us Breathe Collective , and CHI-Nations Youth Council—had come together to insist that the City remove a memorial to the racist plunderer Christopher Columbus .
The statue is a hovering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ land and that Black , brown , and Indigenous residents don ’ t feel we belong in a place that pays homage to people who captured and murdered our ancestors .
It is a reasonable and righteous demand .
Columbus ’ s crimes against humanity are notorious : slavery , torture , kidnapping , genocide , and land theft .
The protesters met with another form of violence : police , who beat and pepper-sprayed them , and detained many for the night .
When police beat Lewis and his fellow protesters in1965 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Confederate war hero and Ku Klux Klan member Edmund Pettus .
Southern politicians were willing to ride roughshod over the violent suppression of Black citizens in the shadows of monuments to white supremacy .
The resonant symbolism , then and now , is as powerful as it is painful .
Those who criticize young activists today as too radical or impatient should remember the John Lewis of 1963 .
He was the youngest speaker at the historic march on Washington , at the age of 23 .
And the elder civil rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comrades in SNCC as militant hotheads .
In Lewis ’ s original speech , he criticized President John F. Kennedy ’ s civil rights bill as “ too little , too late , ” and accused him of trying to “ take the revolution out of the streets and put it into the courts.
” Lewis called patience “ a dirty nasty word , ” and said Black people were “ tired of being beaten by police.
” He called for mass protests across the country : “ Get in and stay in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ village , and every hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes , until the revolution is complete.
” Those words made a lot of people nervous , and the night before the speech , A. Philip Randolph and others persuaded Lewis to tone it down .
But that was the sentiment of the Black youth leaders that Lewis represented in 1963 .
If Black youth were tired then , they are really fed up now .
Miracle ’ s generation is even more impatient than Lewis ’ s—and with good reason .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , their schools defunded and militarized , and many of their peers are in jail , dead , or languishing in poverty-wage jobs .
And as a result , their vision of freedom is large and growing .
SNCC itself kept expanding its struggle from the lunch counter sit-ins in 1960 to its role in the dangerous Freedom Rides in 1961 to helping to midwife the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 to its historic and controversial stand against the Vietnam War in 1966 .
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ differences with the young militants in SNCC , but by the end of his life in 1968 , King and SNCC had similar priorities .
Their shared view was not a narrow call for integration .
King warned eloquently in his April 4 , 1967 , speech in Riverside Church , exactly one year before his assassination , of the triple evils of militarism , racism , and poverty .
The Movement for Black Lives nationally and the work of organizers like Miracle Boyd have picked up where King , SNCC , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different , but the challenges are still state violence in its many forms , white supremacist polices , and extreme poverty amid extreme wealth .
A low-wage essential worker , recent graduate of Chicago ’ s beleaguered public schools , and resident of one of Chicago ’ s underserved South Side communities , Boyd has many battles to fight , and she sees them as interconnected .
“ People deserve better than this , ” she insisted in a recent interview .
This simple conclusion motivates her activism as one of the leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leads a dual campaign against police in the schools and community-based violence fueled by lack of jobs and services .
In a CBS interview with Gayle King six weeks before his death , Lewis reflected on this current generation of activists with pride and hopefulness .
“ We ’ re on our way to greater change , ” he said .
This uprising , he added , “ is so much more massive and more inclusive.
” Looking back on his 23-year-old self , maybe he knew a miracle was rising .

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The nation is mourning the death of John Lewis, the sharecropper’s son who rose to become a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a hero to the Black freedom movement, and a respected member of the US House of Representatives.
Yet I cringe at so many of the hollow tributes that ignore Lewis’s real legacy and the unfinished agenda of the struggle that shaped him.
Some of the most gut-wrenching scenes of the civil rights movement occurred on Bloody Sunday in March 1965, when state troopers battered and bloodied protesters as they tried to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Harrowing photos of a trooper beating Lewis on the ground are a part of a powerful historical archive often displayed to demonstrate “how far we have come.” And there has indeed been progress. But as recent uprisings against racism, triggered by the police and vigilante murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and others make clear, the battle is far from won.
Only a few hours after Lewis died on Friday, another gut-wrenching image emerged—the image of a teenage Black girl bloodied in downtown Chicago during a protest. A police officer had punched her in the face, knocking out a front tooth. Crying, holding her busted lip, the young girl—whose parents, with great hope in their hearts, named Miracle—could easily have been one of the Selma protesters. Brave, bold, idealistic, and determined, she is one of thousands of 21st century racial justice freedom fighters who have flooded the streets in every corner of this nation, making this what The New York Times has described as likely the largest protest movement in history.
Miracle Boyd and more than 1,000 others filled the streets of Chicago on Friday night, and like the Bloody Sunday protesters over half a century ago, they were protesting both the symbols and the substance of American racism. An alliance of Indigenous and Black activists in Chicago—BYP100, Let Us Breathe Collective, and CHI-Nations Youth Council—had come together to insist that the City remove a memorial to the racist plunderer Christopher Columbus. The statue is a hovering reminder that Chicago exists on stolen Indigenous land and that Black, brown, and Indigenous residents don’t feel we belong in a place that pays homage to people who captured and murdered our ancestors. It is a reasonable and righteous demand. Columbus’s crimes against humanity are notorious: slavery, torture, kidnapping, genocide, and land theft. The protesters met with another form of violence: police, who beat and pepper-sprayed them, and detained many for the night. When police beat Lewis and his fellow protesters in1965, it was on a bridge named after Confederate war hero and Ku Klux Klan member Edmund Pettus. Southern politicians were willing to ride roughshod over the violent suppression of Black citizens in the shadows of monuments to white supremacy. The resonant symbolism, then and now, is as powerful as it is painful. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Those who criticize young activists today as too radical or impatient should remember the John Lewis of 1963. He was the youngest speaker at the historic march on Washington, at the age of 23. And the elder civil rights and labor establishment viewed Lewis and his comrades in SNCC as militant hotheads. In Lewis’s original speech, he criticized President John F. Kennedy’s civil rights bill as “too little, too late,” and accused him of trying to “take the revolution out of the streets and put it into the courts.” Lewis called patience “a dirty nasty word,” and said Black people were “tired of being beaten by police.” He called for mass protests across the country: “Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village, and every hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution is complete.” Those words made a lot of people nervous, and the night before the speech, A. Philip Randolph and others persuaded Lewis to tone it down. But that was the sentiment of the Black youth leaders that Lewis represented in 1963.
If Black youth were tired then, they are really fed up now. Miracle’s generation is even more impatient than Lewis’s—and with good reason. Their neighborhoods have been stripped of resources, their schools defunded and militarized, and many of their peers are in jail, dead, or languishing in poverty-wage jobs. And as a result, their vision of freedom is large and growing. SNCC itself kept expanding its struggle from the lunch counter sit-ins in 1960 to its role in the dangerous Freedom Rides in 1961 to helping to midwife the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 to its historic and controversial stand against the Vietnam War in 1966. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had more than his share of philosophical debates and tactical differences with the young militants in SNCC, but by the end of his life in 1968, King and SNCC had similar priorities. Their shared view was not a narrow call for integration. King warned eloquently in his April 4, 1967, speech in Riverside Church, exactly one year before his assassination, of the triple evils of militarism, racism, and poverty. The Movement for Black Lives nationally and the work of organizers like Miracle Boyd have picked up where King, SNCC, and Lewis left off. The circumstances are different, but the challenges are still state violence in its many forms, white supremacist polices, and extreme poverty amid extreme wealth.
A low-wage essential worker, recent graduate of Chicago’s beleaguered public schools, and resident of one of Chicago’s underserved South Side communities, Boyd has many battles to fight, and she sees them as interconnected. “People deserve better than this,” she insisted in a recent interview. This simple conclusion motivates her activism as one of the leaders of GoodKids MadCity, a group that leads a dual campaign against police in the schools and community-based violence fueled by lack of jobs and services. In a CBS interview with Gayle King six weeks before his death, Lewis reflected on this current generation of activists with pride and hopefulness. “We’re on our way to greater change,” he said. This uprising, he added, “is so much more massive and more inclusive.” Looking back on his 23-year-old self, maybe he knew a miracle was rising.


Canada’s Nazi Monuments

“ Graffiti on monument commemorating Nazi SS division being investigated as a hate crime by police.
” Ordinarily , you ’ d assume a headline about Nazis as victims came from The Onion ( and indeed , they ’ ve been prescient on this ) .
But it ’ s 2020 ; we ’ re well down the rabbit hole of the American president who calls neo-Nazis “ good people , ” and this all-too-real article is from the Ottawa Citizen , a major Canadian newspaper .
Indeed , the news that Canada has a monument commemorating Third Reich soldiers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nesting doll of progressively shocking facts .
First , Canada has not one but several memorials to Nazi collaborators .
Second , even though Canada , like the United States , is in the midst of a reckoning about statues to monsters , the chances of Ottawa ’ s doing anything , even speaking out , on this are next to none .
Finally , Canadian-Jewish organizations—people you might think have an interest in denouncing monuments celebrating butchers of Jews—have been distinctly silent about this .
That ’ s both stunning and unsurprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Nazi collaborators ended up in Canada—a nation that lost over 45,000 men fighting against the Nazis—is both dark and complex , involving geopolitics , historical revisionism , propaganda , anti-Semitism , and the quiet continuation of a war that for most people ended 75 years ago .
The story about Jewish organizations appeasing Holocaust distortion is far simpler .
It ’ s a story about silence .
And cowardice .
An “ Unfortunate ” Tribute to the SS The monument in question is a cenotaph honoring members of the SS Galichina division @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s military branch whose long list of war crimes includes the Holocaust .
The pillar , which is located in a Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville , Ontario , was vandalized with the words “ Nazi war monument ” sometime around June 21 .
Early in the investigation , the police classified the vandalism as a “ hate crime , ” meaning the SS members are the ones who were victims of hate here .
In response to David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen , the Halton Regional police spokesman stated , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group.
” The fact that the “ identifiable group ” in question is an SS division didn ’ t seem to matter .
After Pugliese ’ s article gained traction , the Halton Regional police department apologized , stating that the incident has been reclassified as simple vandalism .
The police chief added an admirable tweet , saying , “ The most unfortunate part of all this is that any such monument would exist in the first place.
” It is , indeed unfortunate , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 14th Waffen-SS Division ) was an actual unit in the SS , deemed important enough to receive a personal visit from Heinrich Himmler , Hitler ’ s second in command and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust .
During his speech to rally the Ukrainian SS troops , Himmler waxed poetic about how much better-off Ukraine was with the Jews exterminated and mused about the fighters ’ willingness to slaughter Poles .
SS Galichina recruitment posters proudly featured Hitler ; there ’ s no doubt about just who it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truly unfortunate thing is that Oakville ’ s monument is only one of several glorifying Nazi collaborators and butchers of Jews scattered throughout Canada .
Edmonton has a bust of Roman Shukhevych , who was in charge of a nationalist battalion serving as Nazi auxiliaries that later morphed into a German auxiliary police battalion .
These units took part in lethal anti-Semitic violence and brutal counterinsurgency suppression .
Shukhevych also commanded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( UPA ) , which killed Jews and systematically massacred 70,000–100,000 Poles ; the Oakville cemetery has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ built them ?
The Nazi collaborators themselves , whom Canada took in with open arms .
The most infamous case of Nazis launching successful postwar careers in the New World is Operation Paperclip , when the US government secretly brought over Nazi scientists and engineers who helped pioneer America ’ s rocket program .
But Operation Paperclip is known only because of its impact ; the truth is , the United States and Canada took in thousands of concentration camp guards , SS fighters , and other Nazi collaborators from Ukraine and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its own SS division , one it honors today with parades .
Unlike the Jews they had tortured and murdered , these Holocaust perpetrators got to settle down , start families , work , live , and die in peace .
Along the way , they rebranded themselves as “ victims of Communism ” and “ freedom fighters ” to whitewash their bloody pasts .
Once in a while you hear about one of them—some of the last remaining Nazis in the United States were Ukrainian—but most went on to live unmolested and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several theories about why the US and Canadian governments welcomed these murderers .
Some say it ’ s because they helped lead the fight against the USSR in the Cold War ; indeed , declassified CIA materials admit to it .
Others point out they were used as strike-breakers to weaken the resistance of labor movements .
Underneath , though , is a much simpler explanation : American and Canadian elites let in Holocaust perpetrators for the same reason they denied asylum to Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis who desperately tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rejected at every port of call : anti-Semitism .
In 2017 , the awkwardness of being a country that simultaneously honors Canadians who died fighting for the Allies and Ukrainian units who fought for the Third Reich exploded into international headlines .
The scandal was triggered by an interesting party : Moscow .
Vladimir Putin has made World War II remembrance a cornerstone of building patriotism and pride in Russia , commemorating the USSR ’ s enormous sacrifice with films and elaborate parades .
Moscow ’ s focus on defeating the Nazis went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The new Kiev government had its own neo-Nazi battalions and instituted an ultranationalist policy of officially honoring Shukhevych , the SS Galichina , and other Nazi lackeys and Holocaust perpetrators .
These actions , which I and others reported for The Nation , have been condemned by Israel and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum , among others .
Moscow seized on this to justify annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Eastern Ukraine .
To this day , the Kremlin propaganda machine delights in trolling the West about Ukraine and other nations ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to feeding the cult of WWII at home , the trolling is used to put Russia ’ s Western adversaries in an awkward spot .
Three years ago , the Kremlin decided to take the show on the road .
The Russian embassy in Canada began gleefully tweeting about the Canadian monuments , including the SS Galichina memorial in Oakville .
It ’ s safe to assume Moscow knew that this would create a wedge issue between Ottawa and Canada ’ s large Ukrainian diaspora .
But the Russian trolling backfired .
Indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a gift for the whitewashers , who began to attack anyone protesting the glorification of Nazi collaborators as carrying water for the Kremlin .
Under anything approaching normal circumstances , the “ You ’ re siding with Putin ” logic wouldn ’ t have worked in a remedial middle school debate .
It ’ s the ultimate straw man argument—the question of whether we should condemn those who honor Nazi butchers and engage in Holocaust distortion has nothing to do with Russia .
The Kremlin , like most governments , routinely denounces things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans who oppose terrorism Kremlin stooges ?
But this didn ’ t happen under normal circumstances .
It happened during the three-year orgy of Russiagate , when accusations of doing Putin ’ s bidding were hurled with abandon in the media .
In this miasma , ultranationalist accusations became an extraordinarily effective weapon , deployed to smear anyone who dared speak out .
The Russia factor transformed a clear case of anti-Semitism into a debatable affair .
Western outlets churned out insipid articles framing the issue as a Russia story while allowing that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points .
A common argument is that Shukhevych and others were honored for fighting the Soviets , not slaughtering Jews .
Osama bin Laden also fought against Moscow ; should we erect statues celebrating his efforts ?
The very media that rightfully denounced Trump for both-siding white supremacists ended up both-siding Holocaust distortion .
To understand just how serious ( and career-threatening ) the Russia charges were , consider that over the past couple of years , we ’ ve witnessed an explosion of anti-Semitism , including Holocaust distortion/denial .
Yet the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designating Nazi collaborators “ hate crime ” victims is because of three people : the Ottawa Citizen ’ s Pugliese , fellow journalist Scott Taylor , and American blogger Moss Robeson , who ’ ve hammered away at the issue in the media and on Twitter .
Pugliese and Taylor weighed in on the glorification of Ukrainian and Latvian Nazi collaborators before and were attacked for it at international levels .
The Ukrainian embassy in Canada accused Pugliese of writing “ Kremlin-style propaganda , ” while the Latvian foreign ministry labeled his articles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Latvian ambassador to Canada accused Taylor of swallowing Russian propaganda .
Nor is this limited to the media .
In 2012 , Swedish postdoctoral fellow Per Anders Rudling , who bravely chronicled the whitewashing of Shukhevych and others , was subjected to a brutal campaign designed to discredit his academic career .
Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine Despite their different professions and nationalities , Pugliese , Taylor , Robeson , and Rudling have one thing in common : None of them run websites with prominently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight anti-Semitism .
Canadian-Jewish organizations , on the other hand , have those buttons .
This takes us to the final sordid part of this story—appeasement by Jewish groups .
The two major Jewish-Canadian advocacy groups are the Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs ( CIJA ) and B ’ nai Brith Canada .
Despite Canada ’ s Nazi collaborator monuments ’ having been in the news for three years , the CIJA ’ s press release section doesn ’ t contain a single item on the issue .
( CIJA ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ request for any pertinent press releases . )
That ’ s despite CIJA ’ s numerous denunciations of other anti-Semitic incidents .
B ’ nai Brith ’ s behavior has been even stranger .
In 2017 , B ’ nai Brith official Aidan Fishman parroted ultranationalist talking points about how the real story was Russian propaganda , not Canada ’ s honoring the SS .
Fishman later doubled down , claiming “ the intent of these monuments is not to stir up hatred or glorify crimes against Jews.
” B ’ nai Brith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” in Europe , not the more inconvenient commemorations at home .
At the same time , it was vocal about Shukhevych ’ s crimes and supported an effort to strip another Ukrainian war criminal of Canadian citizenship .
When it comes to the recent uproar over the Oakville monument , B ’ nai Brith appears to have split the difference between defending and condemning Nazi collaborators , initially electing to remain silent .
However , in response to an inquiry from The Nation , the group said , “ There is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glorify military units , political organizations or individuals who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II .
B ’ nai Brith Canada calls for such monuments to be removed and for comprehensive education efforts to accurately portray the historical record of those individuals and organizations involved.
” The only major Jewish organization to forthrightly address the current scandal is the Simon Wiesenthal Center .
Unfortunately , this isn ’ t surprising .
As I and others have noted , Jewish groups appear to be following Benjamin Netanyahu ’ s lead .
Netanyahu @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Holocaust denial/distortion in Eastern Europe , including Poland , Lithuania , and Hungary , in exchange for favorable UN votes .
Perhaps that ’ s the case here .
Either way , motivations don ’ t much matter .
The sentence , “ We are choosing to remain silent on Holocaust distortion because… ” doesn ’ t have a morally justifiable ending—especially when you ’ re raising money to fight anti-Semitism .
Those who fought in WWII and Jews caught in the horrors of the Holocaust were faced with terrifying demands : charging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditions , carrying out real resistance behind enemy lines .
We are given much simpler tasks .
We ’ re merely asked to speak up for the memory of dead Jews and Allied soldiers .
Unfortunately , so far we have failed , which is why Canada ’ s Nazi monuments continue to stand tall .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated both to reflect B’nai Brith Canada’s change in position since we originally published it and to include more of Aidan Fishman’s comments.
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“Graffiti on monument commemorating Nazi SS division being investigated as a hate crime by police.” Ordinarily, you’d assume a headline about Nazis as victims came from The Onion (and indeed, they’ve been prescient on this). But it’s 2020; we’re well down the rabbit hole of the American president who calls neo-Nazis “good people,” and this all-too-real article is from the Ottawa Citizen, a major Canadian newspaper. Indeed, the news that Canada has a monument commemorating Third Reich soldiers is just the outer layer of a nesting doll of progressively shocking facts.
First, Canada has not one but several memorials to Nazi collaborators. Second, even though Canada, like the United States, is in the midst of a reckoning about statues to monsters, the chances of Ottawa’s doing anything, even speaking out, on this are next to none. Finally, Canadian-Jewish organizations—people you might think have an interest in denouncing monuments celebrating butchers of Jews—have been distinctly silent about this. That’s both stunning and unsurprising.
The story of how a monument to Nazi collaborators ended up in Canada—a nation that lost over 45,000 men fighting against the Nazis—is both dark and complex, involving geopolitics, historical revisionism, propaganda, anti-Semitism, and the quiet continuation of a war that for most people ended 75 years ago.
The story about Jewish organizations appeasing Holocaust distortion is far simpler. It’s a story about silence. And cowardice.
An “Unfortunate” Tribute to the SS
The monument in question is a cenotaph honoring members of the SS Galichina division of the Waffen-SS, the Nazi party’s military branch whose long list of war crimes includes the Holocaust. The pillar, which is located in a Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, was vandalized with the words “Nazi war monument” sometime around June 21. Early in the investigation, the police classified the vandalism as a “hate crime,” meaning the SS members are the ones who were victims of hate here.
In response to David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen, the Halton Regional police spokesman stated, “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group.” The fact that the “identifiable group” in question is an SS division didn’t seem to matter.
After Pugliese’s article gained traction, the Halton Regional police department apologized, stating that the incident has been reclassified as simple vandalism. The police chief added an admirable tweet, saying, “The most unfortunate part of all this is that any such monument would exist in the first place.” Current Issue View our current issue
It is, indeed unfortunate, for the SS Galichina (also known as the 14th Waffen-SS Division) was an actual unit in the SS, deemed important enough to receive a personal visit from Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s second in command and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
During his speech to rally the Ukrainian SS troops, Himmler waxed poetic about how much better-off Ukraine was with the Jews exterminated and mused about the fighters’ willingness to slaughter Poles. SS Galichina recruitment posters proudly featured Hitler; there’s no doubt about just who it is the Oakville memorial honors.
But the truly unfortunate thing is that Oakville’s monument is only one of several glorifying Nazi collaborators and butchers of Jews scattered throughout Canada. Edmonton has a bust of Roman Shukhevych, who was in charge of a nationalist battalion serving as Nazi auxiliaries that later morphed into a German auxiliary police battalion. These units took part in lethal anti-Semitic violence and brutal counterinsurgency suppression. Shukhevych also commanded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which killed Jews and systematically massacred 70,000–100,000 Poles; the Oakville cemetery has a prominent UPA monument as well.
Who built them? The Nazi collaborators themselves, whom Canada took in with open arms.
Butchers Welcome
The most infamous case of Nazis launching successful postwar careers in the New World is Operation Paperclip, when the US government secretly brought over Nazi scientists and engineers who helped pioneer America’s rocket program. But Operation Paperclip is known only because of its impact; the truth is, the United States and Canada took in thousands of concentration camp guards, SS fighters, and other Nazi collaborators from Ukraine and other nations such as Latvia, which had its own SS division, one it honors today with parades.
Unlike the Jews they had tortured and murdered, these Holocaust perpetrators got to settle down, start families, work, live, and die in peace. Along the way, they rebranded themselves as “victims of Communism” and “freedom fighters” to whitewash their bloody pasts. Once in a while you hear about one of them—some of the last remaining Nazis in the United States were Ukrainian—but most went on to live unmolested and free in North America.
There are several theories about why the US and Canadian governments welcomed these murderers. Some say it’s because they helped lead the fight against the USSR in the Cold War; indeed, declassified CIA materials admit to it. Others point out they were used as strike-breakers to weaken the resistance of labor movements.
Underneath, though, is a much simpler explanation: American and Canadian elites let in Holocaust perpetrators for the same reason they denied asylum to Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis who desperately tried to escape the Holocaust only to be rejected at every port of call: anti-Semitism.
Enter Putin
In 2017, the awkwardness of being a country that simultaneously honors Canadians who died fighting for the Allies and Ukrainian units who fought for the Third Reich exploded into international headlines. The scandal was triggered by an interesting party: Moscow.
Vladimir Putin has made World War II remembrance a cornerstone of building patriotism and pride in Russia, commemorating the USSR’s enormous sacrifice with films and elaborate parades. Moscow’s focus on defeating the Nazis went into overdrive after the 2013–14 Ukrainian uprising. The new Kiev government had its own neo-Nazi battalions and instituted an ultranationalist policy of officially honoring Shukhevych, the SS Galichina, and other Nazi lackeys and Holocaust perpetrators. These actions, which I and others reported for The Nation, have been condemned by Israel and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, among others.
Moscow seized on this to justify annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Eastern Ukraine. To this day, the Kremlin propaganda machine delights in trolling the West about Ukraine and other nations’ whitewashing of Nazi collaborators; in addition to feeding the cult of WWII at home, the trolling is used to put Russia’s Western adversaries in an awkward spot.
Three years ago, the Kremlin decided to take the show on the road. The Russian embassy in Canada began gleefully tweeting about the Canadian monuments, including the SS Galichina memorial in Oakville. It’s safe to assume Moscow knew that this would create a wedge issue between Ottawa and Canada’s large Ukrainian diaspora.
But the Russian trolling backfired. Indeed, Moscow propaganda bemoaning Nazi whitewashing was a gift for the whitewashers, who began to attack anyone protesting the glorification of Nazi collaborators as carrying water for the Kremlin. Under anything approaching normal circumstances, the “You’re siding with Putin” logic wouldn’t have worked in a remedial middle school debate. It’s the ultimate straw man argument—the question of whether we should condemn those who honor Nazi butchers and engage in Holocaust distortion has nothing to do with Russia. The Kremlin, like most governments, routinely denounces things like terrorist attacks; does that make Americans who oppose terrorism Kremlin stooges?
But this didn’t happen under normal circumstances. It happened during the three-year orgy of Russiagate, when accusations of doing Putin’s bidding were hurled with abandon in the media. In this miasma, ultranationalist accusations became an extraordinarily effective weapon, deployed to smear anyone who dared speak out.
The Russia factor transformed a clear case of anti-Semitism into a debatable affair. Western outlets churned out insipid articles framing the issue as a Russia story while allowing that perhaps those glorifying Holocaust perpetrators had valid points. A common argument is that Shukhevych and others were honored for fighting the Soviets, not slaughtering Jews. Osama bin Laden also fought against Moscow; should we erect statues celebrating his efforts?
The very media that rightfully denounced Trump for both-siding white supremacists ended up both-siding Holocaust distortion.
“Nazi war monument” has been scrawled on a memorial to the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army in St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ont. (Kontakt Ukrainian TV / YouTube)
“A Threat to Democracy”
To understand just how serious (and career-threatening) the Russia charges were, consider that over the past couple of years, we’ve witnessed an explosion of anti-Semitism, including Holocaust distortion/denial. Yet the only reason you’re reading about Canada designating Nazi collaborators “hate crime” victims is because of three people: the Ottawa Citizen’s Pugliese, fellow journalist Scott Taylor, and American blogger Moss Robeson, who’ve hammered away at the issue in the media and on Twitter.
Pugliese and Taylor weighed in on the glorification of Ukrainian and Latvian Nazi collaborators before and were attacked for it at international levels. The Ukrainian embassy in Canada accused Pugliese of writing “Kremlin-style propaganda,” while the Latvian foreign ministry labeled his articles a “threat to democracy.” Meanwhile, the Latvian ambassador to Canada accused Taylor of swallowing Russian propaganda.
Nor is this limited to the media. In 2012, Swedish postdoctoral fellow Per Anders Rudling, who bravely chronicled the whitewashing of Shukhevych and others, was subjected to a brutal campaign designed to discredit his academic career. Related Article Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine Lev Golinkin
Despite their different professions and nationalities, Pugliese, Taylor, Robeson, and Rudling have one thing in common: None of them run websites with prominently placed donation buttons asking for money to fight anti-Semitism. Canadian-Jewish organizations, on the other hand, have those buttons. This takes us to the final sordid part of this story—appeasement by Jewish groups.
The two major Jewish-Canadian advocacy groups are the Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and B’nai Brith Canada. Despite Canada’s Nazi collaborator monuments’ having been in the news for three years, the CIJA’s press release section doesn’t contain a single item on the issue. (CIJA’s press office did not respond to a request for any pertinent press releases.) That’s despite CIJA’s numerous denunciations of other anti-Semitic incidents.
B’nai Brith’s behavior has been even stranger. In 2017, B’nai Brith official Aidan Fishman told Canada’s National Post: “Clearly, if there actually are monuments to Nazis in Canada we would be quite concerned about that,” adding that “The Russian government sometimes uses the word ‘Nazi,’ especially in the context of the Ukrainian conflict, with somewhat broader meaning than other groups would use it.” Fishman told the National Post the Russian embassy tweets were potentially an attempt “to take shots at the Ukrainian community in Canada.”
In a follow-up article about the monuments to SS Galichina and Nazi collaborator Shukhevych, Fishman told the National Post: “I think the question that Canadians really need to ask is, does the presence of these monuments in any way contribute to anti-Semitism, or to other forms of racism or bigotry in Canada today?” Fishman told the National Post the answer appeared to be “no,” adding that “the intent of these monuments is not to stir up hatred or glorify crimes against Jews,” and that, while B’nai Brith did not support the creation of new monuments of this kind, it did not see a need to call for the removal of the existing ones.
Fishman did add that: “I think that the communities that have established these monuments, so namely the Ukrainian-Canadian community, should take a critical look at these facts and should remind themselves that many of these people were engaged in collaboration with the Nazis…and that may change the way that these people are portrayed and perceived in their own community.”
B’nai Brith later condemned the “glorification of Nazis” in Europe, not the more inconvenient commemorations at home. At the same time, it was vocal about Shukhevych’s crimes and supported an effort to strip another Ukrainian war criminal of Canadian citizenship.
When it comes to the recent uproar over the Oakville monument, B’nai Brith appears to have split the difference between defending and condemning Nazi collaborators, initially electing to remain silent. However, in response to an inquiry from The Nation, the group said, “There is no place for monuments in our society that glorify military units, political organizations or individuals who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. B’nai Brith Canada calls for such monuments to be removed and for comprehensive education efforts to accurately portray the historical record of those individuals and organizations involved.” The only major Jewish organization to forthrightly address the current scandal is the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Unfortunately, this isn’t surprising. As I and others have noted, Jewish groups appear to be following Benjamin Netanyahu’s lead. Netanyahu has turned a blind eye to horrific Holocaust denial/distortion in Eastern Europe, including Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary, in exchange for favorable UN votes. Perhaps that’s the case here.
Either way, motivations don’t much matter. The sentence, “We are choosing to remain silent on Holocaust distortion because…” doesn’t have a morally justifiable ending—especially when you’re raising money to fight anti-Semitism.
Those who fought in WWII and Jews caught in the horrors of the Holocaust were faced with terrifying demands: charging the beaches of Normandy, surviving unspeakable conditions, carrying out real resistance behind enemy lines. We are given much simpler tasks. We’re merely asked to speak up for the memory of dead Jews and Allied soldiers. Unfortunately, so far we have failed, which is why Canada’s Nazi monuments continue to stand tall.
UPDATE: Following the publication of this article and the general backlash against Nazi monuments, B’nai Brith issued a press release titled “Nazi Collaborators Should Not Be Honoured In Canada,” stating that: “It is unfathomable that Nazi glorification be allowed to continue in this country.” The group went on to denounce the Oakville cenotaph as an “affront to the memory of Canadian veterans and the victims of Nazi atrocities,” and demand its removal, as well as of monuments to Shukhevych and “all others like it that glorify Nazis in Canada.”
The press release further denounced the evils of Nazis and Nazi collaborators as “unambiguous,” adding “The idea that there are officials in this country who could tolerate any other interpretation of these events is extremely disturbing to most Canadians.”