The Big Five - 7 April edition
A weekly guide to new readings on modern war and adapting to win
This week I have been back in Ukraine. It was a very productive visit. As always, I had the opportunity to speak with a variety of people in the Ukrainian government, the military as well as think tanks like the Centre for Defence Strategies and crowd-funding organisations that support the Ukrainian war effort such as Come Back Alive and the Rapid Capability Group.
Over the next week, I will be publishing a series of insights here from my trip.
Until then, please enjoy this weeks Big Five selection of important articles on modern wars, technology, and the intellectual, moral and physical preparations that democracies need to undertake to push back on authoritarian aggression.
1. Employing AI in Military Operations
According to a variety of reports, Israel has been using artificial intelligence to identify targets in its war against Hamas. For years now, military organisations and governments have debated the legal and ethical issues associated with such practices. If Israel is doing this already, it may short circuit many of these debates. You can read the details of Israel’s use of the ‘Lavender’ algorithm here.
2. Ukrainian Mobilisation and the Conscription Age
The political debate over mobilisation in Ukraine continues. It has already seen thousands of amendments to the proposed mobilisation bill, and the public interventions by previous Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi was a contributor to his removal. This week, the Ukrainian president lowered the conscription age to 25. You can read the story here.
3. Russia’s Coming Mobilisation
Even though Russia is currently recruiting around 30,000 soldiers per month (according to British intelligence) this is only enough to keep up with monthly casualties. As I was briefed by several sources in Ukraine this week, there is an expectation that Russia will shortly begin another larger scale mobilisation of around 300,000 personnel to enable another ‘big push’ some time in the northern summer or autumn. You can read the Newsweek story on this subject here.
4. A Sarcastosaurus Update (7 April)
This is one of the best sites for analysis of the ongoing war in Ukraine. If you are interested in the war, this is one of those ’must follow’ resources which is updated regularly. Today’s update explores recent Ukrainian and Russian strike operations as well as military operations on the ground. You can read the update here.
5. Deterring China in the Pacific
Returning to my part of the world, this week Defense News explored the Pacific Defense Initiative. A program developed by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, its funding and implementation have hardly been smooth sailing. You can read the full story here.