Sportswashing is the next frontier of foreign influence in the United States. Authoritarian regimes are investing billions of dollars in the sports that Americans love — from the NBA to WWE, UFC, and, the PGA Tour.
In many cases these investments come with strings attached. Foreign powers aren’t just trying to make money, they’re hoping to launder their reputations and censor their would-be critics in the U.S. This can have potentially dire consequences for Washington foreign policy, given that many of these regimes seek to pull the agenda in a decidedly unrestrained direction via U.S. military entanglements.
Ben Freeman is Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute. He investigates money in politics, defense spending, and foreign influence in America. He is the author of The Foreign Policy Auction, which was the first book to systematically analyze the foreign influence industry in the United States.
Dear Mr. President: I am a U.S. military spouse, and I am begging you to hold your ground regarding Rafah and demand an end to Israel’s current offensive there.
On March 10th, you referred to an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza as “a red line.” When I heard you say that, I (and other military families I know) breathed a little easier. Humanitarian organizations have been warning for months that an assault on Rafah would cause unspeakable civilian catastrophe, and so we appreciated clarity from you (and repeatedly since then) that such a military misstep would not be supported by the United States.
After the horrific and deadly attack against Israel on October 7th, our organization joined with the international community in condemning Hamas’s brutality, and in supporting Israel’s objectives to free the hostages and defend itself within the rule of law. Over the subsequent weeks and months, we grew appalled by the nature of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military response, which has resulted in the deaths of over 35,000 Palestinians, and a spiral of retaliatory violence across the region.
There must be meaningful consequences for our ally as they progress further across this red line. You cannot waver on your commitment.
U.S. military troops may not have boots on the ground within Gaza, but our service members’ safety and wellbeing are still directly impacted by what is happening there. Many of us have loved ones deployed to the region, either for regional security purposes or to construct the aid-delivering pier you championed during your State of the Union address. Israeli attacks on Rafah will almost certainly antagonize adversaries in the region, which senselessly increases risk to U.S. service members nearby.
None of us in the military community is immune from the risk of moral injury, no matter how far we are from any line of fire. This conflict has forced many of us into an unresolvable dilemma. How can we feel proud of our service commitments to defend allies, ensure regional stability, and prevent terrorism – while at the same time, the allied troops you are asking U.S. service members to support include military units that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses by international humanitarian organizations?
Those hidden costs of war are permanent, and their impacts trickle down from the service member to their entire families. Not to mention, the military’s future as a flourishing all-volunteer institution at a time when retention and recruitment are at all-time lows.
As I close, I will commend how you’ve tried repeatedly to counsel our close ally by invoking the memory of 9/11, and the mistakes U.S. foreign policymakers made in response that led our country into an endless, unwinnable war. Those comparisons feel poignant this week in particular, as 21 years ago Americans were told by their President that the invasion into Iraq was done and settled, a declaration we later learned was far from true.
History threatens to repeat itself now, as Prime Minister Netanyahu embarks on his own ill-conceived invasion. And I fear whether it will sweep U.S. military families along with it.
You said it before, Mr President: “There’s nothing…low risk or low cost about any war.” I urge you, as one of the many military families who will live with the consequences of the decisions you make today, and as a voice representing many who are unable or afraid to speak up: remain steadfast in your condemnation of a Rafah invasion. And continue, with urgency, all efforts toward a sustainable ceasefire.
Sincerely, Sarah Streyder
This article was republished with permission from Sarah Streyder.
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Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Augusta (LCS 34) arrived at the installation last night following the ship's commissioning ceremony last weekend in Eastport, ME. The arrival of USS Augusta represents the first time the installation has hosted a ship of the Independence-variant design, which are built by Austal USA in Mobile, AL. USS Augusta will be homeported in San Diego and joined Littoral Combat Ship Squadron One. Photo: Bruce Katz via dvidshub.net
The United States Navy recently extended the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower while it patrols the shipping lanes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden protecting commercial shipping from Houthi rebel attacks. The Eisenhower left its homeport at Norfolk on October 14, more than 200 days ago.
The Ike’s sailors aren’t the only ones being forced to spend more time away from home. Many of the carrier’s escort vessels have also seen their deployments extended.
The Navy is struggling to meet some of its operational requirements in part because it simply doesn’t have all the ships it expected. The current threat to navigation in the Red Sea is precisely the scenario for which the Navy invested so much time and resources building the Littoral Combat Ships. The LCS program was sold to the American people as a “networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals.”
The Houthi rebels launching missiles and drones from shore and hijacking commercial shipping in the confined waters of the Red Sea meets the textbook definition of an asymmetric threat in a littoral region. Yet the “little crappy ships,” as they have come to be known, are nowhere to be seen inside the Red Sea. Rather, the Navy has to keep a carrier strike group composed of Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers on station longer than anticipated in an attempt to keep an important maritime choke point open.
The Littoral Combat Ship is one of two major shipbuilding failures from the past 20 years. The other is the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Both programs began in earnest in the years after 9/11 and almost immediately ran into trouble. The Zumwalt program saw massive cost growth which forced Navy leaders to slash the planned fleet size from the originally planned 32 to 7 and finally to the three which were actually built. These three ships cost nearly $8 billion each while failing to deliver promised combat capabilities.
The Littoral Combat Ship program cost $28 billion to build a fleet of 35 ships. According to the Government Accountability Office, the Navy expects to pay more than $60 billion to operate the fleet for its expected 25-year lifespan. Like the Zumwalt, the LCS program’s combat functionality is far less than expected. The ships were designed to be modular with crews swapping out mission systems in port for different missions. Engineers could never get the mission modules to work properly, so the scheme was abandoned.
The LCS program does excel in spectacular breakdowns. The USS Milwaukee famously broke down shortly after it had been commissioned and had to be towed into a Virginia port while its crew attempted to sail the ship to its intended San Diego home for the first time. Other ships suffered from saltwater corrosion, cracked hulls, and broken-down water jets. The Freedom-class variant LCS had trouble with the combining gear linking its diesel engine with the ship’s turbines. The problems grew so bad that Navy leaders essentially threw up their hands and began retiring ships decades before they should have smelled mothballs. The Navy decommissioned the USS Sioux City after a single deployment and less than five years after the ship entered service.
Navy leaders are now scrambling to develop the Constellation-class frigate to fill the capability gap that should have been filled by the Littoral Combat Ship. They decided upon a safer acquisition strategy with the new program by selecting the European multipurpose frigate, a proven design already in service with the French and Italian navies, rather than starting at the drawing board. The Navy awarded Fincantieri Marinette Marine the detail design and construction award for the first ship in April 2020.
Of course, the Navy isn’t simply purchasing a fully developed ship. Engineers began with the existing design and have spent the past several years “maturing” it. Like many such endeavors, changes to one shipboard system necessitated modifications to others and the entire process spiraled. Navy leaders had expected to have the first ship to be delivered in 2026, but they recently announced that because of design problems, supply chain issues, and a shortage of skilled workers will delay the first ship by an additional three years.
The U.S. Navy’s last successful comparable surface shipbuilding program was the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. The final ship of that class, the USS Ingraham, was commissioned in 1989.
Herein lies the danger inherent with unrealistic acquisition programs. When service leaders convince themselves that a radical design will work before the concept is actually demonstrated in the real world, they commit themselves, potentially for decades, to a program that may fail. By spending so much time and money on the Littoral Combat Ship program, the U.S. Navy squandered 40 years of shipbuilding time. That is an enormous lost opportunity cost and now our hard-pressed sailors enduring extended deployments are paying the price.
Service leaders, the civilians leading them, and members of Congress need to remember this case the next time a defense contractor presents them with a bunch of slick conceptual drawings and then fills their ears with promises of transformative capabilities they can deliver at rock-bottom prices. As the homesick sailors aboard the Ike understand well now, if it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons against Western states during a commemoration of Russia’s World War II victory in Moscow Thursday.
“Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash,” Putin said. “But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us.”
“Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness,” the Russian leader added, referencing his country’s most powerful nuclear weapons. The comments came just days after Russia announced it would conduct military exercises to prepare for the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons, which are designed for attacks on soldiers rather than population centers.
The announcement set off alarm bells in Washington, which has sought to carefully avoid any escalation to a direct NATO-Russia war. The State Department called the move “reckless” but soothed some nerves by saying the U.S. did not anticipate any short-term use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Putin’s latest moves are nonetheless part of a notable increase in Russian belligerence toward the West this past week, which Moscow claims is a response to Western efforts to rush weapons to Ukraine.
The situation increasingly resembles an escalation spiral, an international relations term for when two sides inch closer to direct war through gradual moves aimed at deterring the other party. As the war has dragged on, hawkish elements in the West and Russia have each succeeded in pressing their leaders to take steps that were once viewed as likely to result in further escalation.
Fearing a potential Ukrainian defeat, western Europe and the U.S. have increasingly signaled that the proverbial gloves are off. Britain recently declared that it had no issue with Ukraine using British weapons to strike Russian territory. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it's defending itself,” British Foreign Minister David Cameron said last week.
And Cameron is right in a narrow, moral sense. But the practical wisdom of that greenlight is unclear given Russia’s predictable response, which was to threaten retaliation against U.K. military targets if any British weapons did indeed strike Russian territory.
Even if Britain had no intention of being dragged into the war, Russia’s threat took British views out of the picture entirely. It is now up to Ukraine — a country facing long odds in a desperate, defensive war — to decide whether it can stomach the risk of further escalation.
The U.S. is more attuned to the risks inherent to Britain’s approach. While Washington did quietly give Kyiv long-range missiles, the Biden administration also made clear that the weapons could only be used against targets inside of Ukrainian territory, a restriction aimed at threading the needle between Russia’s red lines and Ukraine’s needs.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been less careful. Macron responded to Ukraine’s battlefield struggles by suggesting that France could send its own troops into the fight, raising the specter of direct war between two nuclear-armed states.
In this case, Russia shot back at Macron by promising to attack any French troops that show up at the frontline. “If the French appear in the conflict zone, they will inevitably become targets for the Russian armed forces,” said a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Wednesday.
From Russia’s perspective, all of these recent moves are likely about restoring deterrence. But that doesn’t make them any less terrifying to us in the West. And Russia feels the same when we respond to that fear with our own efforts to restore deterrence.
This should all serve as a reminder that the potential of a broader Russia-NATO war never went away. We’ve simply gotten used to living in a time of great danger. In practice, the chance of a cataclysmic mistake is growing more and more likely by the day.
In other diplomatic news:
— Following a meeting with Macron Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an international truce during the Olympic Games this summer, according to Politico. Macron thanked Xi for signing onto his idea of an Olympic truce and hinted that the pause could provide an opening to push for peace talks in Ukraine. “Maybe this could be an opportunity to work toward a sustainable resolution [of conflicts] in the full respect of international law,” the French leader said. Xi will have a chance to pitch the idea to Putin directly later this month when the Russian leader is scheduled to visit China.
— The only way to end the Ukraine war is through a temporary truce followed by peace talks, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Monday, according to Reuters. Crosetto brushed off the idea that Putin hasn’t actually shown a desire to negotiate, saying “that is a good reason for us to try harder.” “We mustn’t give up any possible path of diplomacy, however narrow,” he argued, adding that Western sanctions and weapons had failed to deliver a decisive battlefield victory.
— Britain moved to expel Russia’s defense attache in London over allegations that the officer was using his military post for spying, according to AP News. The announcement came alongside new restrictions on diplomatic visas for future Russian envoys. Russia promised to respond “in kind.”
— Russian authorities arrested an American soldier in Vladivostok on charges of theft in early May, according to the New York Times. While U.S. officials have not formally designated the soldier as wrongfully detained, the arrest led to speculation that Russia is seeking further bargaining chips for prisoner swaps with the United States.
U.S. State Department news:
In a Wednesday press conference, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller strongly discouraged Americans from traveling to Russia given the risk of wrongful arrest. “Russia has detained Americans for not legitimate law enforcement reasons but because it wants to hold them essentially as hostage,” Miller said. “Americans should not, for any reason, travel to Russia.