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Behind the rhetoric between Nato and Moscow over Ukraine there is little appetite for war
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Taking aim: an Estonian soldier mans a machine gun during Nato exercises held in the Baltic state last year
atarzyna Plejnis tries hard not to think of the missile launchers, tanks and thousands of Russian soldiers stationed just a few miles from her house in northern Poland. That is until the live fire exercises wake her up in the dead of night.
“You can hear the shooting at four in the morning,” says Ms Plejnis, who lives in Braniewo, a small town a few miles from the border with Kaliningrad, the heavily militarised Russian enclave squeezed between Poland and the Baltic states. “When you know that your friends are out there in the field, it makes you think that the threat is real.
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“Now there are more and more military exercises on both sides of the border, we are worried that something could happen,” adds Ms Plejnis.
Since the invasion and annexation of Crimea early last year, and the subsequent conflict in the east of Ukraine, the border between the eastern edge of Europe and Russia has seen a surge in military activity, and public fear. The spectre of a resurgent, aggressive Russia has spooked the likes of Poland and the Baltic states, where tens of millions remember decades of Soviet rule and every schoolchild is taught of the invasions, annexations and attacks by Moscow in the centuries past.
That history ensures that even during more peaceful times suspicion of the far larger and more powerful Russia runs deep and the smallest of flashpoints can be construed as something greater.
Now Nato members, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have led calls for a more robust presence on the alliance’s eastern front. The demands for a show of strength through large-scale military exercises have intensified with the escalation of violence in Ukraine.
Part of that response has been the creation of rapid reaction forces in eastern Europe, a move Russia has decried as confrontational, sparking its own counter-exercises. So far this year, more than 20,000 Nato troops have taken part in exercises in the region and 30,000 more have been put on standby, in what Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, has described as “the biggest adaptation of force structures since the end of the cold war”.
Propaganda war
On the Russian side of the border, war fears are also on the rise. Moscow, which rejects accusations of aggressiveness, sees itself as perennially under threat, a perception it backs up with invasions from the west such as the 17th century Polish-Muscovite war and, more recently, it links to Nato’s expansion towards its borders since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In a country where a powerful state media shapes a large degree of public opinion the strained relations with the west and what Russian media portray as an antagonistic Nato response to the Ukrainian crisis has some worried. According to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), a pollster whose main client is the Russian government, more than half of all Russians now see war with Nato as a real threat.
Last week, Nato launched two of its largest military exercises this year in the region, involving a total of 11,000 troops, 49 warships and 40 aircraft, including nuclear bombers, to “build confidence” between allies.
“We try not to think about it, because if we thought too much about what was happening [around us] we would not be able to leave our homes,” says Violetta Daszkowski, a flower seller in Braniewo’s quiet market. “When I see what is going on, on the TV, I believe that people only think of it as words, not actions. I hope that it won’t lead to war.”
In the Baltic states, barely a day has passed this year without some kind of exercise involving Nato troops or tanks.
“My daughter asked me: ‘Are they going to attack us? Do I have to go to school if something breaks out?’” says Kalev Stoicescu, a research fellow at the International Centre for Defence Studies in Estonia.
In depth
Pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine have escalated the political turmoil that threatens to tear the country apart
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In Russia, the cause of the rising tension is viewed differently. “We know that Nato is moving closer, and I think about that very often because my cousin is a soldier,” says Boris Fyodorov, a 35-year-old accountant in Pskov, a northwestern Russian town just 30km from the Estonian border. Pskov is home to Russia’s 76th Guards Air Assault Division, an elite paratrooper unit.
“I can’t speak for all residents of Pskov, but those people with links to the military understand that the threat of war exists,” says Lev Shlosberg, a local lawmaker. “Those connected to the army have more information and know the threat of war is real.”
The conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s growing estrangement from the west, the angry rhetoric of President Vladimir Putin and state media’s depiction of the west — especially the US — as an adversary, have made the fear of a conflictcentral to public sentiment.
“Fear about external threats has replaced economic concerns as the main driver of public sentiment,” says Mikhail Dmitriev, an economist and sociologist in Moscow. Pollsters say this has helped Mr Putin maintain popularity ratings at a historical high level of more than 80 per cent despite an economic slump — GDP is expected to contract by more than 2 per cent this year.
Politicians in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania admit privately that they are torn between the desire not to alarm their own citizens and the need to keep western allies on their toes over the threat Russia poses.
“It is a dilemma,” says one Baltic minister. “We know very well how Russia can behave but not everybody in the west remembers. But we don’t want to panic our own population.”
Both Lithuania and Latvia have issued guides to the public on what to do in the case of war. “Keep a cool head,” the Lithuania manual advises — a message some commentators say is undermined by the manual itself.
Panic levels spiked in March after reports citing Russian military officials said Moscow had deployed Iskander missile launchers in Kaliningrad, putting Warsaw, Minsk, Vilnius, Tallinn and parts of eastern Germany within range of the missiles, which can be armed with nuclear warheads. Russia has said the launchers were temporarily moved to the enclave, but did not confirm a permanent deployment.
Neighbouring countries, backed by the US, issued howls of condemnation, accusing Moscow of ratcheting up the tension. In a poll conducted by Levada Center, Russia’s most independent pollster, in April, 59 per cent of respondents said the US posed a threat to Russia — up from 47 per cent in 2007. “I doubt that what happened in Crimea and Ukraine will take place here, because we have Nato. I think Russians will be more afraid to step in to Poland,” says Wioletta, a barmaid at the Olga Bar on the edge of Polish territory where both Poles and Russians congregate — albeit at separate tables — just a few hundred.yards from the border.
Warsaw announced in April that it would build a chain of watchtowers along the border with Kaliningrad for surveillance purposes.
“Mr Putin wants Polish people to be scared. But as you can see, we carry on. We do not feel the pressure,” says Wioletta, who declined to provide her surname. “If something bad happens, they will close the border. And then, if the tanks come, then they will come.”
Doing deals
Many in Braniewo try to see Russia as a peaceful neighbour. Cross-border trade is crucial for its economy. The border crossing is busy, with queues of cars on both sides as mainly Russianscross into Poland to shop at budget shopping centres, supermarkets and warehouses built specifically for them. An advertising hoarding in Russian sits outside a cash and carry promising tax-free breakfast cereals, as two men load boxes of goods into the back of a four-wheel drive car with Russian number plates.
But the flow of trade is not without its problems. “Sometimes there are tense situations here,” says Ms Plejnis. “There are shops that accept zloty and rouble, to make it easier for Russian visitors. Once a Russian said to the other customers “Soon, all of you will be paying in roubles.”
“That caused a scene,” she says. “But there are good and bad Russians, just as there are good and bad Poles.”
In the Baltics, which had Russian troops stationed there as recently as 1994, Russia’s proximity is heavily felt. About one-quarter of Estonia and Latvia’s populations are Russian-speaking, with a small number in Lithuania too. The Latvian military has practised simulated attacks on “separatists” in its Russian border region, as has Lithuania in its regions close to Kaliningrad.
Lithuania reintroduced conscription in February, while Estonia’s chief of defence has said that any “little green men” — like the ones who appeared in Crimea — would be immediately shot if they appeared in his country.
One of the biggest provocations against the Baltics took place in the country: the seizure of Estonian intelligence officer Eston Kohver last September, just inside his own border.
Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the defence committee in Estonia’s parliament, admits to being disappointed by comments from people such as the UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, and an ex-head of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that the Baltics will be next to suffer the fate of Ukraine.
“I don’t think this is helping,” says Mr Mihkelson. “If we would like to de-escalate then we shouldn’t talk that loudly about scenarios that one day could become self-fulfilling prophecies.”
Mr Fyodorov stresses he does not want war and nobody else in his country does either. “We Russians know the horrors of war more than anybody else, and that’s why peace is so important for us,” he says. “But of course we are ready to defend our motherland.” He accuses Nato of warmongering, citing the decision last year, to create a Joint Expeditionary Force Agreement. “They have also increased fighter jet flights close to our borders. That is in violation of everything Nato promised Russia,” he says.
Rapid reaction
Nato has agreed to form a rapid reaction “Spearhead Force” for the alliance’s eastern flank of about 5,000 troops in response to the crisis in Ukraine. That force, intended to be deployed at 48 hours notice, will undergo exercises in Poland later this month.
In Palkino, a village in the Pskov region not far from the Latvian border, local residents are not so firm on the details of Nato strategy, but concerns about war exist. “If only there was no war,” says Nadezhda, an elderly woman using a popular phrase that embodies ordinary Russians’ fear of conflict.
Opinion polls show Nadezhda’s generation are more afraid of war than working-age Russians. While 39 per cent of respondents in the FOM poll said they believed the risk of war with Nato was higher now than in the 1970s, that figure stands at 54 per cent among those aged over 60. Although few in Russia see their own country as aggressor, the new prominence of nuclear weapons is a result of Moscow’s own rhetoric. Officials including Mr Putin have shocked western counterparts by reminding them of the country’s arsenal.
Such statements unnerve defence officials in Warsaw. But in Braniewo, just miles from a potential launch site, a sense of grim humour prevails over panic. “It is calm here,” says Witold, an elderly man selling clocks in the deserted market. “No one is going to come and invade. Braniewo is too small. It won’t be hit, the [Iskander] missiles will just fly over.”
“Yeah, they will,” another trader shouts from a nearby stall. “They will just fly over.”
Additional reporting by Zosia Wąsik
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Lithuania has never seen so many Nato troops in its country before. Six thousand soldiers began a three-week training exercise in the Baltic country this month, in the latest show of force on the alliance’s eastern border.
It has been a busy six months for generals on both sides of the border between Nato and Russia, with exercises and manoeuvres involving in excess of 100,000 troops, and countless tanks, fighter jets and bombers.
Britain’s largest warship and American nuclear-capable B-52 bombers are taking part in Nato navy exercises in the Baltic this month, involving a 49-strong flotilla practising troop landings among other manoeuvres.
That follows dozens of exercises in recent months involving Nato troops, equipment and weapons in Poland and the Baltics, in moves designed to reassure the eastern allies’ governments and populations, and demonstrate some military prowess to Moscow.
In March, Russia staged a mass military exercise that involved more than 80,000 soldiers, 3,000 vehicles, 15 submarines and 220 aircraft in the Arctic, Baltic and Black Sea regions, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis. Those manoeuvres simulated a confrontation with Nato forces and involved nuclear-armed submarines, ballistic missiles and strategic bombers.
Russia is embarking on a Rbs20tn ($358bn) rearmament plan that prioritises reinforcing its military in Kaliningrad, Crimea and the Arctic.
US General Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, has described Nato’s slew of exercises and initiatives as “defensive . . . [but] a clear indication that our alliance has the capability and will respond to emerging security challenges on our southern and eastern flanks”.
Gen Breedlove has championed the beefing up of Poland’s Nato base in Szczecin, and overseen the creation of a rapid-reaction force focused on eastern Europe.
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· · · · · · · · · · ·
Barack Obama reportedly poised to send 500 extra military personnel to fight Islamic State and set up new training base in Anbar province
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An Iraqi soldier stands guard at a military barracks near Ramadi city, western Iraq Photo: EPA
The White House is reportedly planning a shift in strategy in Iraq that would see hundreds of American military trainers deployed to help retake Ramadi and the delay of long-held plans to drive the Islamic State from Mosul.
Six months after US forces began training Iraqi troops to take on the jihadist fighters, a string of defeats on the battlefield has prompted the Obama administration into a recalibration of its plans.
According to the New York Times, the US now intends to put its focus on the Sunni province of Anbar in western Iraq and establish a new base there to train Iraqi troops.
The American military hopes to build up enough well-trained and well-equipped Iraqi forces to retake the city of Ramadi, which fell to Isil in mid-May.
The plan would see US troop levels in Iraq rise from their current 3,000 to around 3,500.
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But the focus on Anbar province will come at the expense of long-held ambitions to liberate Mosul, Iraq's second largest city and which was captured by Isil in June last year.
In February this year, the Pentagon boasted openly that it was preparing Kurdish and Iraqi troops for an assault on Mosul in northern Iraq by the end of May.
That timeline slipped as Isil fighters gained ground in Anbar and now appears to have been pushed back into next year.
The shift in White House thinking reflects the failure the frustration with Iraqi forces unable to hold their own against Isil troops but also the limits of air power in defeating a determined on the insurgency ground.
The US and a coalition of Western and Arab allies have flown more than 4,000 bombing missions against Isil but have been unable to stop them from gaining ground in both Iraq and Syria.
The last US troop increase came in November, when Mr Obama ordered up to 1,500 new troops to Iraq.
Since the loss of Ramadi, which led to harsh US criticism of the Iraqi military performance, Washington has begun to speed up supplies of weapons to the government forces and examine ways to improve the training program.
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· · ·
World | Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:55am EDT
BEIJING
BEIJING China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was astonished by a U.S. State Department report which raised worries about the Chinese commitment to nonproliferation.
The State Department said Chinese entities kept supplying missile parts to countries of concern andChina had continued to develop its "biotechnology infrastructure" and "engage in biological activities with potential dual-use applications".
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China had made important contributions towards nonproliferation.
"In recent years, the United States has in many venues offered full approval for China's efforts and contributions made," he told a daily news briefing.
But the latest State Department report had "played the same old tune" and "made presumptuous comments", Hong added.
"China is astonished and most dissatisfied. The comments by the United States are totally baseless. China is resolutely opposed to them," he said, adding that this is not the way to go about getting cooperation between countries on this issue.
While China has signed up for tough U.N. sanctions on Iran and North Korea, which both have controversial nuclear program, Chinese companies occasionally come under suspicion for selling them both banned weapons and parts.
China says it is committed to enforcing sanctions on both countries.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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· ·
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers a speech at Texas Southern University in Houston, Thursday, June 4, 2015. (Pat Sullivan/AP)
Warning to readers: Reports of Hillary Clinton’s supposed lurch to the left have been greatly exaggerated, and there’s more to come.
Certainly, her campaign has supplied bullet points for a tale of leftward tilt:
Ruth Marcus is a columnist and editorial writer for The Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy.
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●Clinton came out for an immigration program even more expansive than President Obama’s.
●She called for overhauling the criminal justice system, arguing to “end the era of mass incarceration” that her husband helped create.
●She endorsed universal, automatic voter registration and 20 days of early voting in every state.
●Last weekend, she phoned in to a union meeting to back a higher minimum wage.
All of which presents an easy narrative for political reporters: Egged on by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), heels nipped by rivals Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, Clinton wants to get right with a skeptical base whose turnout is essential.
Except, nothing Clinton is saying is outside the 2015 Democratic Party mainstream — or, more to the point, is likely to hurt her in a general election.
Sure, the Clinton campaign wants to placate the base. But if Clinton’s recent positions are pandering, this is pandering with a purpose, and without an obvious cost. She’s saying everything she can to make the left happy — without backing herself into a left-wing corner. Where’s the downside in chiding Republicans on voting rights?
Indeed, as Clinton prepares for her big launch speech Saturday and begins to flesh out her policy specifics over the summer, the left-leaning positions she isn’t taking are as significant as the ones she has endorsed.
She’s ducking the trade issue by neither endorsing nor opposing “fast-track” trade authority for Obama and his successor — a minor procedural question best left to Congress, campaign advisers argue, unconvincingly. As for the Trans-Pacific Partnership — well, they say, Clinton can weigh in on that down the road, if and when it’s concluded.
Likewise, even as she supports an increase in the minimum wage — and what Democrat doesn’t? — Clinton has been deliberately fuzzy on how high the number should go, even as Sanders andO’Malley push for the full (and excessive) $15 backed by unions. She hasn’t weighed in on one of the more irresponsible of the left’s emerging litmus tests: expanding Social Security benefits for all recipients, regardless of need.
Sure, you might hope for more ideological bravery from a candidate with a clear path to the nomination. Why, for example, won’t Clinton champion the trade deal that she pushed as secretary of state? Folks like me will hope in vain for even a glancing mention of the national debt or entitlement reform.
One way to think about Clinton’s situation is to consider the different political landscapes of 1992 and 2016. Bill Clinton’s task then was to convince wary voters that they could trust the Democratic Party to represent their interests and values — that he was a different kind of Democrat. Bill Clinton needed a Sister Souljah moment, separating himself from the base, in a way that Hillary Clinton doesn’t.
The Clinton campaign insists that she has not given up on luring “persuadable” voters in favor of a single-minded turn-out-the-base strategy. Yet it is undeniable that the electoral terrain of 2016 is far more polarized, with far fewer voters up for grabs, than that of 1992.
Meanwhile, the social issues that once posed political land mines for Democrats — gay rights, in particular — now present a risk for Republicans instead. Today’s Democrat doesn’t need to worry about proving that she is tough on crime or how to thread the needle of support for same-sex marriage. The 2016 Republican needs to worry about how to talk about gay rights and immigration without alienating key voting blocs — the young and Hispanics.
Yet as you listen to Clinton’s speech on Saturday and digest the inevitable commentary about her populist tone, recall as well the degree to which her husband sounded similar themes. He mentioned the middle class 12 times in the course of his announcement speech, describing his campaign as a “fight for the forgotten middle class.” Shades of Warren — he excoriated President George H.W. Bush for staying silent as “Salomon Brothers abused the Treasury markets” and “rip-off artists looted our S&Ls.”
Not as much has changed as you might think. Not every reference to the embattled middle class is evidence of a hard left turn. Heed the rhetoric, but pay closer attention to the policy details to come.
Read more from Ruth Marcus’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
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“Blood in, blood out.”
Normally, the Aryan Brotherhood motto means aspiring members must assault someone to get into the gang, and can only leave when they die. In between, they sport “SS” Nazi lightning bolt tattoos on both sides of their neck: visible signs of their blood oath, and their belief in white supremacy.
In rare cases, however, brothers who have broken the rules are stripped of their membership — in the most gruesome and literal way possible.
That’s what happened on May 2, 2013, when three men associated with the Universal Aryan Brotherhood — Oklahoma’s very own off-shoot of the infamous Neo-Nazi organization — kidnapped a brother who hadn’t been selling his share of methamphetamine.
Ronnie “Dirty Red” Haskins and Robert Bryan held the brother down. A man nicknamed Buddha produced a burning hot hunting knife. Finally, a handsome drug dealer named Aaron Clay King, just three months out of prison, gripped the glowing blade and pressed it to the brother’s skin, turning the lightning bolts into boils and scars.
The brutal torture episode appears in an indictment filed against 11 alleged UAB members or associates in November. On Thursday, Bryan pleaded guilty to his role in it. On Tuesday, two more men with ties to the Universal Aryan Brotherhood (UAB), including a member of its powerful Main Council, pleaded guilty to racketeering and selling meth.
The plea deals were announced in a somber Department of Justice press release. There were no victorious quotes from federal prosecutors; no promise to break the UAB.
Perhaps that’s because the victory seems Pyrrhic. How to defeat a gang that doesn’t just openly recruit and operate inside Oklahoma’s prisons, but practically owns the institutions? What to do when each arrest just adds to the organization’s ranks?
These questions are vexing authorities across America, where ever more crowded prison blocks are increasingly controlled by violent gangs. The Aryan Brotherhood was one of the first such organization, founded in 1964 by Irish American bikers when California prisons were racially integrated, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Similarly, Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, started in Los Angeles prisons and quickly spread to communities across the Americas.
The Oklahoma case shows how gangs like the Universal Aryan Brotherhood are run from inside prisons, but exert power far beyond their walls.
The UAB was established in 1993 within the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and modeled after the principles and ideology of the Aryan Brotherhood. “The UAB had a defined militaristic structure,” according to the indictment: it’s overseen and directed by an all-powerful ‘Main Council,’ the 12 members of which are all incarcerated, most of them inside the maximum-security Oklahoma State Penitentiary-McAlester, known as the “Walls.”
Sub-councils sprang up in medium security prisons across the state. Orders are passed down from the Main Council to the sub-councils, and then onto “yard captains,” also known as “shot callers.” Yard captains “collected intelligence, oversaw security, enforced order and imposed discipline as directed by the Sub-Council,” according to the indictment.
Inside Oklahoma’s prisons, there are UAB “soldiers” and “prospects,” who have yet to earn their “SS” tattoos, or patches. “Members of all ranks were expected to fight and commit acts of violence at the direction of senior leaders,” the indictment says. Leaders issue “D.O.’s,” or direct orders, such as an “S.O.S.” (stab on sight) or “green light” (assassination).
Outside the prisons, however, in what brothers call “the free world,” the UAB still holds considerable power. According to the indictment, the UAB runs a state-wide meth distribution network, enforced with black market guns. The proceeds are allegedly laundered with the help of “associates,” or non UAB members. Women, referred to as “featherwoods,” also play a key role, “facilitating gang communication among imprisoned members” and transporting both drugs and drug money at the direction of UAB leaders.
The November indictment shows just how the racket works: fueled by meth and enforced with arson, assaults, torture and murder.
The top official named in the indictment is Anthony Ramon Hall, a 39-year-old skinhead with a long and violent criminal record. He was locked up as a 19-year-old for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon but quickly escaped, records show. Hall was recaptured and would spend the better part of the next two decades behind bars. Prison photos show him bulking up and adding tattoos: skulls, guns, clovers, dragons, swastikas, iron crosses and a giant motorcycle across his chest. Sometime between 2001 and 2003 he earned his first “SS” patch on his neck, signifying full membership in the UAB.
Hall quickly rose to the Main Council. Using cell phones smuggled into prison, he helped orchestrate meth sales in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, according to his guilty plea.
While Hall and other members of the Main Council were running operations from behind bars, their foot soldiers were causing havoc in the “free world.” In 2005, Matthew Brian Wagner carried out orders to stab a rival gang member in retaliation for the murder of an imprisoned UAB member, according to the indictment.
Wagner, another man, Carl Matthew Smith, and others also sold marijuana and meth, the profits of which were laundered onto prepaid debit cards delivered to Hall and other imprisoned UAB leaders.
UAB soldiers and associates on the outside carried out other missions as well, from stealing vehicles from people who owed the gang drug debts to picking up UAB gang members when they escaped from prison. On April 4, 2013, Smith offered to pay a subordinate to beat someone who owed a drug debt, according to the indictment. Smith was also involved in buying weapons for the gang.
If there is one incident, however, that shows the UAB’s power inside and outside of prison, it’s the horrific scene that played out on May 2, 2013. That’s when Haskins, King, Bryan, Rodney Lee Broomhall, aka “Buddha,” and Kristin Bright allegedly kidnapped and tortured a fellow UAB member, according to the indictment.
Using a red hot knife, King burned the “SS” tattoos off the neck of the man, identified only as FH in the indictment. “I knowingly, willfully, and intentionally participated in, and aided and abetted the maiming of FH for the purpose of maintaining, or increasing my position in the UAB,” Bryan admitted in his June 4 plea deal. “I knowingly, willfully, and intentionally pinned FH’s arm down in order to prevent FH from defending himself while a UAB member held a heated hunting knife on FH’s neck, burning FH’s UAB patch-tattoo off of his skin, and causing permanent scarring.”
On March 24, 2014, Hall ordered his UAB henchmen to burn a vehicle belonging to a drug user who hadn’t paid, according to the indictment.
It’s unclear how the case against the 11 UAB members and associates came together. Arrest warrants remain sealed. King, Smith and Hall are the only defendants to plead guilty so far. They will be sentenced later this year.
The racketeering case is similar to others brought by federal prosecutors against Aryan Brotherhood groups in recent years. But it’s unclear how much of an effect it has to put members of a prison gang back into prison.
“It’s heartening that law enforcement officers and prosecutors who have to do these cases see that there are some good results,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor who has tried prison murder cases.
“But the truth is, this [gang] is like a hydra: you cut off a limb and it’s going to grow back,” she said. “These guys have been around a long time and they’re going to get new leaders.”
Levenson was speaking to The Washington Post just after the murder convictions of four top Aryan Brotherhood leaders — back in 2006. Almost a decade later, her skepticism still echoes.
“Do I think this marks the end of prison gangs?” Levenson said in 2006. “No way, nobody thinks that.”
Michael E. Miller is a foreign affairs reporter for The Washington Post. He writes for the Morning Mix news blog. Tweet him: @MikeMillerDC
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It seems the Pentagon’s new Yoda has received his directives from the Jedi Council.
In a June 4 memo labeled “Guidance,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter outlined a subtle shift for the Pentagon’s renowned Office of Net Assessment and its new director, retired Air Force Col. Jim Baker. With Carter’s memo, the office, which traditionally looked towards the horizon when it comes to defense concerns, will incorporate more of today’s issues in its analyses.
“This memo accurately reflects Carter’s high interest in the office, but it also reflects Carter’s interest in the here and now,” said Jerry Hendrix, a former Navy captain who worked in the office of Net Assessment under its former director and is now a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security.
Baker, who took over the office in May, was preceded by Andrew W. Marshall, who left the Pentagon’s internal think tank at the age of 93. Marshall worked at his post for more than 40 years, and along the way earned the “Star Wars” themed nickname — Yoda — for both his looks and Jedi-master like intelligence when it came to defense issues.
The office, which reports directly to Secretary of Defense and focuses heavily on future threats, has a $10 million budget and, now, according to the memo, will have access to all classified Department of Defense programs. In the memo, Carter outlined his expectations for Baker, echoing the office’s past responsibilities while also adding some new ones.
“The Office of Net Assessment has long been my predecessors’ source of independent, long term, deep thinking about our future,” the memo reads. “That is the legacy I expect you to maintain and upon which I expect you to build.”
Performers dressed as Imperial Stormtroopers characters pose in front of a model of the “Star Wars” character Yoda at the “Cite du Cinema” movie studios in Saint-Denis, near Paris, Feb. 13, 2014. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Yet it is in the memo’s concluding paragraph that Carter highlights what he might mean when it comes to building upon the office’s legacy.
“Finally, help me think about the long-term consequences of near-term policy decisions,” it reads. “Your work remains future focused, but you must ensure the team’s work has present relevance to me.”
Hendrix believes this change has numerous implications for the office’s ability to identify future problems.
“The office will have to balance between the long-term and the near-term challenges,” Hendrix said, adding, “If you measure [the] effectiveness [of the office] on its ability to correctly identify the coming challenges, you’re going to see some drop off as the office changes its focus.”
Other areas that Carter also wants to incorporate or “reinvigorate”, as he puts it in the memo, are putting “a premium on finding opportunities, rather than just challenges” as well as bringing competing views to the table and rebuilding “the connective tissue” between the office and the intelligence community.
With the Carter’s directives, Hendrix noted that the office, and its outlook, will look different in the coming years.
“What is clear is that the net assessment of the past will not be the net assessment of the future,” Hendrix said.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Washington Post contributor and a former U.S. infantry Marine.
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Activists from the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently work at their office in Gaziantep, Turkey. (Alice Martins/for The Washington Post)
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — The man’s voice was brisk and low as he called in his report from the dark heart of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital, the north-central Syrian city of Raqqa.
Islamic State police are out in force in the city’s central square, he said. They are stopping passersby at random and scrutinizing their mobile phones. Two people have been detained. Islamic State fighters have also set up extra checkpoints on roads approaching the city and seem in an unusually jumpy mood.
“Don’t call me back unless I call you,” said the man, who also seemed nervous, before he hung up.
In this Turkish city more than 200 miles away, the screen of a colleague’s cellphone, which had identified the caller as “Raqqa Reporter 3,” went blank.
Such calls, made at great peril by a network of undercover activists living under Islamic State control, are the lifeblood of a group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, organized to expose Islamic State atrocities through postings on Facebook and Twitter.
Comprising about two dozen 20-something Syrians who honed their activism — and their subterfuge — during the uprising against President Bashar al-
Assad in 2011, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently has become a leading source of news and information about life under the Islamic State.
Assad in 2011, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently has become a leading source of news and information about life under the Islamic State.
The activists launched their campaign in April 2014, at a time when the world was still largely oblivious to the threat posed by the extremists rampaging through Syria, beheading opponents, crucifying critics and imposing other harsh punishments.
The word “silently” in the group’s name attests to the sense of abandonment felt by many Syrians who watched in horror as their revolution for democratic change was hijacked by brutal jihadists.
The network claims credit for changing that.
“Raqqa is not being slaughtered silently now,” said Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, one of the group’s founders, speaking by Skype from an undisclosed location and using a pseudonym. “Because of this campaign, the whole world knows about Raqqa and the reality of ISIS.”
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has played its own part in broadcasting its atrocities, along with the slick propaganda videos that portray life under its rule as idyllic.
The Raqqa Slaughtered network has filled a crucial gap, presenting an alternative narrative to the Islamic State’s from people who are living inside Raqqa, said Hassan Hassan, co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”
Citizens of Raqqa line up for charitable food distributions(1:50)
In footage provided to The Post by the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, residents of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital city line up for food distribution from a charity group. (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)
“These activists put their lives on the line to put out vital information from the ground,” he said. “What we don’t want is just ISIS telling the story, and people in the outside world saying that there’s no proof people are not happy under their rule.”
That is one of the main goals, said Abu Mohammed, 26, a former law student and another of the founders, who works out of the group’s small office in Gaziantep.
The group’s 23,000 followers on Twitter include diplomats, journalists and Pentagon officials. More than 39,000 people have “liked” its Facebook page.
Abu Mohammed says the group’s Facebook followers include Syrians living under Islamic State rule who don’t dare click “like” in case they are detained and discovered.
They are the group’s target audience, the people who are chafing under Islamic State rule and might otherwise feel that they are voiceless, he said. The group also hopes its reports will deter aspiring foreign fighters who might otherwise be tempted to volunteer.
It has clearly become a source of irritation to the Islamic State, judging by persistent attempts to disrupt the network, said Abu Ibrahim.
Imams have railed against it at Friday prayers. Its Twitter account has been hacked. Facebook suspended its page on several occasions previously after complaints — suspected to have come surreptitiously from the Islamic State — that it was violating rules against posting atrocities.
The militants recently announced that they had installed closed-circuit cameras in Raqqa to catch “the like of Raqqa Being Slaughtered Silently,” according to the Twitter account of one Islamic State member.
Whether that is true, the threat prompted even greater caution by the group’s members, for whom secrecy is paramount. They operate a cell-like structure, with activists inside Syria mostly unaware of the identities of the others, in case they should be captured and tortured to reveal names. They use encrypted software to communicate, don’t divulge their affiliation even to family members and regularly move locations, according to one of the group’s members, who uses the pseudonym Taim Ramadan and until last month was reporting from Abu Kamal, a town on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Dispatches are relayed to Gaziantep, where Abu Mohammed and a half-dozen or so other activists, all from Raqqa, are on standby round-the-clock to post the feeds on social media. They receive funding from an American nongovernmental organization, which they do not want to identify publicly because of safety concerns.
Mistakes have been made, with tragic results. One of the group’s founders, Moataz Billah, was captured by the Islamic State at a checkpoint within days of the network’s formation. The militants found videos and photographs on his cellphone that proved his activism, and a month later he was killed.
On another occasion last year, the group posted a video sent in by an ordinary citizen of a coalition airstrike on the border town of Tal Abiyad. The man’s voice could fleetingly be heard on the video, and the Islamic State used its location to track him down, identify him and imprison him. He has not been heard from since.
“Any mistake means death. If you are arrested, they will kill you,” said Abu Mohammed, who spent a week in an Islamic State prison in 2013 for taking photographs of the extremists, before the organization was as powerful and pervasive as it is now.
Verifying the accuracy of the reports is usually impossible, because access to information in Islamic State areas is so difficult. But the network has often been proved correct.
One of its scoops was a detailed account reported in July of the clandestine U.S. operation to free American hostages held at a secret location east of Raqqa, more than six weeks before the Obama administration acknowledged the raid, which ended in disappointment. After destroying antiaircraft weapons, the American commandos were unable to find the prisoners they had hoped to free — including journalist James Foley, who was later beheaded.
When the militants captured a Jordanian pilot late last year, the Raqqa network reported his death within days of his capture. After the militants released a video depicting his brutal, fiery death, more than a month later, Jordanian intelligence confirmed that Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh had indeed been killed about the time pegged by the Raqqa group.
Many of its postings are more mundane, focusing on the electricity cuts, bread lines and shortages of food and medicine that reveal life under the Islamic State to be less rosy than the militants portray. The group also reports details of coalition airstrikes, and it drew criticism in one instance from other activists for allegedly inflating the toll of an attack.
Abu Mohammed stressed that the members do not consider themselves journalists, but activists, dedicated to overthrowing the Assad regime as much as the Islamic State. Many of them spent time in government prisons for participating in the 2011 revolt, and they see the two goals as inseparable, he said.
“We are nonviolent activists. We can’t fight Daesh with weapons. We can only fight them with words,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “To defeat us, they would have to shut down the Internet. And they can’t do that because all of them use the Internet.”
Liz Sly is the Post’s Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the Middle East, including the Iraq war. Other postings include Africa, China and Afghanistan.
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Soldiers from NATO countries attend a opening ceremony of military exercise 'Saber Strike 2015', at the Gaiziunu Training Range in Pabrade north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, Monday, June 8, 2015. (Mindaugas Kulbis/AP)
MOSCOW — After more than a year of war in Ukraine, Western European citizens are extremely wary of using military force to defend NATO allies from Russia, according to a wide-ranging opinion poll released Wednesday. The findings highlight fears among Russia’s NATO neighbors that the Western defense alliance may not be ready if put to the test.
Fewer than half of those surveyed in Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain supported using military force to defend NATO allies if Russia entered a serious military conflict with one of them, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found. The results came at a time of the worst tensions between Russia and the West since the Cold War, as the NATO nations that border Russia have stepped up military exercises to levels not seen in recent memory.
The NATO charter requires that member nations defend one another if one comes under attack. But the former Eastern bloc countries that joined the alliance in 2004 have long feared that their partners may not come to their aid. Leaders there say that Russia is keeping a close watch on NATO readiness.
“We can’t defend ourselves by ourselves,” Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis said in an interview last month. He has since become president-elect. “Russia is provoking us all the time. They are checking our readiness to react to any test of our borders.”
The three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — as well as Poland have increased their defense spending since the conflict started in Ukraine. And NATO troops, including more than 600 U.S. soldiers, have been rotating through the countries conducting exercises. Just last week, dozens of NATO navy vessels began practicing combat operations in the Baltic Sea.
View results from the Pew poll
Of the eight NATO nations that Pew surveyed, the United States was the most open to backing its allies if one was attacked. Of the Americans questioned, 56 percent were in favor of using military force and 37 percent were against. Germany, which has taken the lead European role in negotiations with Russia, was the most skeptical of a military response, with 38 percent in favor and 58 percent opposed.
U.S. security officials have long complained that Europe benefits from the American defense umbrella even though most countries spend less on defense than the level required by NATO rules. In Europe, only Britain, Greece and Estonia spend the amount required by NATO, which is 2 percent of gross domestic product. The Pew results suggest that citizens in European NATO nations are less committed militarily to their allies’ security than are Americans.
Within the United States, there was a partisan divide on the issue, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats to support military action to defend Russia’s NATO neighbors. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans favored military force, while 47 percent of Democrats did.
Americans narrowly favor arming the Ukrainian military, a possibility floated over the winter, with 46 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed. U.S. officials say that such a move is unlikely.
Russia is emerging as a campaign trail issue, with Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s record on Russia during her term as secretary of state up for debate. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict last year, she has advocated a tougher line against Russia than the Obama administration has taken. Republican Jeb Bush, who plans to declare his candidacy next week, started a European tour Tuesday with a speech in Berlin that was harshly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Later in the week he planned to visit Poland and Estonia, where leaders have said they fear a Russian attack.
The Pew surveys were conducted during April and early May of this year. Depending on the country, polling was done by telephone or in face-to-face interviews. The margin of error ranged from 2.8 to 4.1 percentage points.
The study also examined attitudes in Russia and Ukraine toward the continuing conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine, where the death toll has passed 6,400 since April 2014, according to U.N. estimates.
A cease-fire deal struck in February is being violated every day, according to international observers, but the fighting is far calmer than at peak moments during the crisis. More recently, the Kremlin and the rebels have shifted their rhetoric, and both camps now say that the breakaway parts of eastern Ukraine should remain part of that country.
But only a third of Russians agree, a measure of the harsh passions stoked by a year of angry rhetoric on Russian state television and a sign that the Kremlin may have unleashed anger it cannot fully control. Fifty-nine percent of Russians believe the rebellious territories should split from Ukraine, with 24 percent of those surveyed saying they want the region to become part of Russia.
The survey also found that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has become deeply unpopular among his electorate despite having won an unusually strong first-round majority in the May 2014 presidential election. Forty-three percent of Ukrainians disapprove of his performance, while a third approve. On specific policy issues, his disapproval ratings are far higher. The survey did not measure attitudes in the regions of Ukraine where there is war, nor in the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
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Michael Birnbaum is The Post’s Moscow bureau chief. He previously served as the Berlin correspondent and an education reporter.
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By Katie Stallard, in central Russia
The recent deaths of three Russian servicemen raise serious questions about the Kremlin's claim that its military is not operating in Ukraine.
Our team travelled to remote villages in central and southern Russia to find the freshly dug graves of three young men, each bearing a wreath from Russia's ministry of defence.
Anton Savelyev, Timur Mamayusupov and Ivan Kardapolov died on the same day - 5 May, 2015.
Social media activists connected their deaths through tributes posted online, and identified the locations of their graves.
Ivan Kardapolov and Timur Mamayusupov seen close to the Ukrainian border
They found references to the elite 16th Brigade Spetsnaz, but when Sky News asked at the base they denied having heard of any of the men.
We found the first grave in a small cemetery in the Tambov region of southern Russia, a few miles from where the 16th Brigade is based.
1/12
- Gallery: Russian Deaths Raise Questions Over UkraineThe grave of Russian soldier Anton Savelyev - date of death 5 May 2015. A framed photo shows him wearing Russia's paratrooper uniform, the same uniform worn by the 16th Brigade Spetsnaz
- Timur Mamayusupov's grave is strikingly similar to Anton's - date of death is 5 May 2015 with the same wreath from the ministry of defence and the unit command
- The same wreaths are at Ivan Kardapolov's grave. His date of death is also 5 May 2015
- The deaths of the three Russian servicemen raise serious questions about the Kremlin's claim its military is not operating in Ukraine. Anton died a week before his 21st birthday
- Gallery: Russian Deaths Raise Questions Over UkraineThe grave of Russian soldier Anton Savelyev - date of death 5 May 2015. A framed photo shows him wearing Russia's paratrooper uniform, the same uniform worn by the 16th Brigade Spetsnaz
Anton Savelyev died the week before his 21st birthday. A framed photo shows him wearing Russia's paratrooper uniform, the same uniform worn by 16th Brigade.
He was pictured on social media standing in front of the 16th Brigade memorial.
On his grave there was a wreath addressed: "To the Defender of the Fatherland, from the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation."
Other flowers were marked: "From comrades" and "From the command of the unit".
A lady who knows the family said Anton Savelyev "died heroically" but asked us not to give her name for fear of the consequences of speaking out.
"They were sent to Rostov and in Ukraine. In Ukraine everything is done quietly," she said.
"We don't know where exactly, but somewhere there.
"It's Ukraine's fault that he died of course. It's a shame that we die for not our motherland."
From there we flew to Ufa in central Russia, then by road to the republic of Tatarstan - the home of Timur Mamayusupov.
His grave was strikingly similar to Anton's - we found the same wreaths from the ministry of defence and the unit command, and the same date of death.
Photos uploaded to Russian social media sites show Timur posing with the Spetsnaz flag, along with a service medal for the Russian military operation in Crimea last year, which was denied by Russian authorities at the time.
Other photos show Timur with the flag of the separatists' Luhansk People's Republic, and in front of a distinctive armoured personnel carrier (APC) known to have been used by the rebels in East Ukraine.
Timur's mother told Sky News she was given a notice of death from the military that said her son had died "in the North Caucasus" - a restive region in southern Russia - but no specific location.
But there are no reports of Russian military casualties around this date in either Russian or local media, or from militant groups known to operate there, for whom the death of a Russian soldier would be a powerful propaganda tool.
Guzel Mamayusupov said she had been worried her son might be sent to Ukraine, and he had told her he would go if he was asked.
"When he was on vacation I told him that if you get sent to Ukraine, let me know," she said.
"He said, 'Mum, if they send me to Ukraine, I will go, I won't refuse, but I will warn you about it'. He didn't give me such a warning."
Russia blogger Ruslan Leviev has led the social media investigation into the deaths and his network first connected the three men.
"Many relatives of both Timur and Ivan wrote on social media websites that they died at war," he said.
"We all know that there is no war in the North Caucasus, there is no anti-terrorist operations there at the moment.
"There is only one war and that's in eastern Ukraine."
Ruslan has been getting death threats - he showed us a photograph of a funeral wreath in his name - but he is determined to continue with his work.
"We want to show the people that our government is lying even to its soldiers, that they abandon them, those who were captured and died," he said.
The third man, Ivan Kardapolov, was from another rundown rural village, close to the border with Kazakhstan.
Again, we found the same wreaths at his grave, and the same date of death.
The location is so remote that at first very little was known about Ivan, but then a local man read about the deaths on Ruslan's blog and decided to investigate the death in this region.
He said Ivan's brother told him that at the funeral there were Federal Security Service officers who had asked mourners to remove their parade uniforms.
But they had refused and paid their last respects in military dress.
It was not possible to independently verify this account.
The family said they had been told that Ivan died in the North Caucasus, but again with no more specific location.
Several of his friends from the village told us Ivan died in Ukraine.
A man who gave his name as Dmitry said: "His niece was told that he was in Ukraine, that's where he died.
"The notice of death came, the military recruitment officer brought it personally."
Another man said Ivan died "in Donbas", a region claimed by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.
He said there had been paratroopers at the funeral, but that Ivan himself "was Spetsnaz".
In each of the three locations a number of people told us the men "died heroically" - but if they did, serving their country, and not in Ukraine, why is their government silent about their deaths?
And if these men had left the army and were not on active duty at the time, why is the ministry of defence sending flowers to their funerals?
We put these cases to ministry of defence, and Federal Security Services, but have yet to receive a response.
Russian officials, from the President down, continue to insist there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine and that any Russian citizens who might be there are "volunteers".
Vladimir Putin has since signed a decree declaring the deaths of Russian servicemen in "special operations" a state secret - but no such operations have yet been announced.
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Obama: Health-care law is a reality(1:16)
President Obama says his health-care law is no longer just a law or a theory, but a reality for millions of Americans whose lives have improved. (AP)
President Obama uttered more than 3,600 words on the stage of Washington’s Marriott Wardman Park ballroom on Tuesday, but his message could be summed up in three: You wouldn’t dare.
He was speaking not to the hundreds of hospital administrators assembled for the Catholic Health Association’s conference but to five men not in the room: the conservative justices of the Supreme Court, who in the next 21 days will declare whether they are invalidating the most far-reaching legislation in at least a generation because of one vague clause tucked in its 2,000 pages.
Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital. He joined the Post as a political reporter in 2000.
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Obama’s appeal to the justices, devotees of judicial modesty all: Do they really wish to cause the massive societal upheaval that would come from killing a law that is now a routine part of American life?
“Five years in, what we are talking about is no longer just a law. It’s no longer just a theory. It isn’t even just about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare,” he said. “This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another. This is health care in America.”
Without mentioning the looming decision, Obama warned of its devastating potential. “Once you see millions of people having health care, once you see that all the bad things that were predicted didn’t happen, you’d think that it’d be time to move on,” he said. “It seems so cynical to want to take coverage away from millions of people, to take care away from the people who need it the most, to punish millions with higher costs of care and unravel what’s now been woven into the fabric of America.”
The appearance had been scheduled long ago, but White House officials elevated the importance of the speech to keep pressure on the Supreme Court, which Obama said at a news conference in Germany on Monday shouldn’t have even taken up the case. Obama said trashing the federal health-care exchanges, as a hostile Supreme Court ruling would do, is “not something that should be done based on a twisted interpretation of four words.”
The conservative justices, like conservative critics of the law generally, are unlikely to be persuaded by Obama’s recitation of the merits of the law, which he repeated at length Tuesday. But they may well be reluctant to upend a law that now has broad acceptance in American society.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks public opinion on the matter, found in April that more Americans had a favorable view of the law than an unfavorable view (43 percent to 42 percent) for the first time since 2012. That difference is not statistically significant, but the favorable view is up 10 points since the botched HealthCare.gov rollout in 2013 and the unfavorable view is down seven points. Forty-six percent favor keeping the law as is or expanding it, compared with 41 percent who favor scaling it back or repealing it.
More evidence of the acceptance of Obamacare: Health care is fading as an issue. Gallup found last month that only 5 percent called it the country’s most important problem. That compares with26 percent in September 2009.
Certainly, those numbers could change if premiums jump as expected. But the recent improvement in the law’s standing comes even though most Americans aren’t aware that the law has cost the government less than forecast.
With such broad acceptance of (if not fondness for) the new health-care status quo, it’s difficult to imagine the Supreme Court justices taking away health coverage for 6 million or 7 million Americans, causing costs to skyrocket for millions of others, and likely plunging the entire American health-care system into chaos. That’s not just judicial activism — it would be a judicially induced cataclysm.
Such a cataclysm has no place in the catechism of Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association and a key early supporter of Obamacare who broke with the Catholic bishops to support the law.
“It would be unspeakably cruel,” she said when I asked her after the conference Tuesday what an adverse Supreme Court ruling would produce. Millions of people — pregnant women, cancer victims, heart patients — would lose coverage, she said. “The panic is going to spread, the confusion. It’s going to be incredibly chaotic.” And, with Congress unable to agree even on little things, the chaos would persist.
“It makes me crazy just to think of it,” Keehan said, urging me to “light a candle” as the justices prepare their opinion.
I’ll leave the votive offering to Sister Carol. I have faith that the conservative justices, even if they detest Obamacare, have no wish to throw the country into chaos.
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Jacksonville, Fla. — During those two electric Novembers, the chance to elect a black president, and then keep him in office, seized Regenia Motley’s neighborhood.
Nightclubs were registering voters. Churches held fish fries after loading buses that ferried parishioners to the polls. A truck hoisted a big sign that said “Obama.” And residents waited in long lines at precincts across the community.
But as Motley and some friends sought shade recently under a mulberry tree and looked across the landscape of empty lots and abandoned houses that has persisted here, they wondered whether they would ever bother voting again.
“What was the point?” asked Motley, 23, a grocery store clerk. “We made history, but I don’t see change.”
On Jacksonville’s north side and in other struggling urban neighborhoods across the country, where Barack Obama mobilized large numbers of new African American voters who were inspired partly by the emotional draw of his biography, high hopes have turned to frustration: Even a black president was unable to heal places still gripped by violence, drugs and joblessness.
The dynamic, made prominent in recent months after unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., sets up a stark challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.
While supporting Obama became a cause for many here rather than a typical campaign, Clinton faces a higher bar in making a case that she, too, can be a transformative figure.
Her campaign is planning to build on the multiethnic coalition that turned out to support Obama. Running to be the first female president, Clinton will also try to generate Obama-like enthusiasm among new voters — those who were too young to turn out for Obama or have not previously been engaged with politics.
Yet as her allies prepare to register voters and expand the black electorate, her candidacy presents residents here with a question: If Obama’s presidency didn’t do more to help African Americans, then how could hers?
The Rev. Lee Harris of Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church in the historic Jacksonville neighborhood called Durkeeville. (Octavio Jones/For The Washington Post)
“She is focusing on exactly the right issues,” said the Rev. Lee Harris of Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church on the north side. “But here in Jacksonville, the issues won’t be enough.”
Clinton has shown in recent weeks that she intends to put high-priority issues for African Americans, particularly those who live in impoverished urban areas, at the top of her campaign agenda.
In her first major policy speech, in April, amid the Baltimore protests that followed the death of Freddie Gray, Clinton lamented how the incarcerations of hundreds of thousands of black men affected communities. She vowed to “deliver real reforms that can be felt on our streets, in our courthouses, and our jails and prisons, in communities too long neglected.”
And last week, she called for universal voter registration, tapping into frustration among many minority advocates who say that Republican-backed voter-ID laws have served to squelch black and Hispanic voting.
Clinton’s early moves are designed to signal that she can speak out and act more boldly than Obama, who felt political pressure as a candidate to tread lightly around race issues. Her campaign officials say she has enlisted a number of African Americans in top positions and plans on finding local leaders in cities who will advocate for her.
Still, polls show a gap between the positive feelings black voters have for Clinton and those they hold for Obama.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week found that 75 percent of African Americans thought that Clinton understood the problems of “people like you,” as opposed to 91 percent who felt that way about Obama in a survey last fall.
“At least with Obama, he gave pride to our young men and was a good role model,” said Daniel “Happy Jack” Cobb Jr., 73, the owner of Happy Jack’s Grocery and Market on Jacksonville’s north side. “Hillary needs to prove to us that she’s genuine and really true. And I’m not even sure that would help. We’ve been snakebitten too many times before.”
Far from the palm-tree-lined, trendy corridors of this sprawling city in the northeast corner of Florida, some roads on the north side have no sidewalks. The major thoroughfares are home to Family Dollar stores and bail bondsmen and crab shacks that sit between large, fenced-in lots full of shaggy grass. In one area, contaminated soil from a trash incinerator put off plans for a redevelopment project.
Before 2008, many here felt singed by the contentious 2000 presidential election, when thousands of votes cast in the city’s black neighborhoods were among those nullified amid the legal battle that led to Republican George W. Bush’s narrow victory in the state.
Obama campaign aides studied the numbers and saw that tens of thousands of eligible black voters here had not turned out in 2004, when Republicans again won Florida. While Obama’s team knew that winning the majority in Duval County was unlikely — Bush won the county, whose seat is Jacksonville, by 61,000 votes in 2004 — strategists concluded that aggressively targeting black voters here could narrow the gap and boost statewide totals.
So the Obama team hit the north side hard. It signed up hundreds of volunteers, made thousands of phone calls and animated voters who had never before trusted the political process.
A photo of President Obama printed on a $44 bill at E.B. Johnson’s Clean Greens Mart in Jacksonville. (Octavio Jones/For The Washington Post)
And there was so much swag. Residents kept buttons and door hangers as keepsakes — even squares of toilet paper with Obama’s face on them.
At the end of the 2008 campaign, Jacksonville was one of the last places Obama visited. When the voting was done, that 61,000-vote gap between the Democratic and Republican nominees in Duval County had been reduced to 8,000 — and Obama had won Florida.
“It became more about a personal duty to elect Obama than a civic duty to vote,” said Mone Holder, the northern Florida regional director for Florida New Majority, a liberal voting rights group. “There’s been a lot of talk in the state about how to transform that enthusiasm into a black and brown agenda. No one has fully figured it out yet.”
Obama campaigns in Jacksonville in November 2008, a few days before the election. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)
There was a newfound fascination with politics on the north side, a sense that black officials could be elected to jobs that were once unfathomable. The community that once felt disenfranchised had become a political force, making a statement to the country and to themselves.
That feeling carried over into 2011, when the city elected its first black mayor, Alvin Brown, who won with support from an energized black community as well as backing from whites and parts of the business establishment. Obama cinched Florida again in 2012, in part by once again mobilizing blacks and keeping the margins low in Duval County.
But now, as the Obama era draws to a close, that excitement has dimmed.
On the north side, gang violence and drug use have surged. In April, 33 Jacksonville residents were shot, including seven who were killed. A group of pastors held a news conference and declared the city a “war zone.”
For the friends who gathered recently to hang out in the shade of the mulberry tree, it will be hard to justify the effort of turning out and voting next year when so little has changed — and some things feel worse.
“We got the president his job,” Motley said. “But did he help us get any good jobs? I still need a raise.”
“It’s not his fault,” interrupted Louis Wilson, 65, a retired airport maintenance worker. “We did all the work to get him in, but when it came time to vote in people to support him, all the [black people] stayed home. That’s what happens when you don’t vote.”
The conversation became heated. Another said he’d love to vote but could not because of his felony conviction. Another complained that she couldn’t get a raise in eight years.
“We all struggling,” said another. One man became so uncomfortable, he removed his T-shirt, wrapped it around his head and walked away. The shirt read “Obama ’08.”
Last month, when Mayor Brown was up for reelection, pastors and voting advocates considered the race a test of whether Jacksonville’s black electorate remained politically engaged. Republicans rallied around a former state party chairman, Lenny Curry, as their candidate. GOP presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Rick Perry visited, and Jeb Bush made a video in support of Curry.
On the night of the election, after the pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church on the north side encouraged his flock to trust God’s plans, a group of young black parishioners reminisced about the wonders of the past two presidential elections. And they wondered about the next one.
Harris, left, talks politics with Alex Barnett, 58, a barber at Esquire Barber Shop. (Octavio Jones/For The Washington Post)
“It’s not just because Obama was black, but it was because you knew he had a sense of empathy with your struggle,” said Sherrod Brown, a 26-year-old gospel singer. “The people of Jacksonville are fair. We’d vote for Hillary, but she has to prove she’s down.”
Simia Richardson, 31, a teacher, said she was unsure whom to support. “I’m all about [Clinton] being a woman, but it will be a problem for a lot of people,” she said. “And there are some other people who might be interesting. Ben Carson, he’s running.”
The mention of Carson, the famous black neurosurgeon running as a Republican, caused some to perk up.
“The ‘Gifted Hands’ dude?” asked James Sneed, 18, referring to Carson’s popular autobiography.
“Yeah, and he’s a Republican,” Richardson said. “And there’s another one who thinks he can get black votes. Rand Paul?”
Then Brown’s cellphone buzzed.
“Alvin Brown is going to lose the election,” he announced.
There was a pause. Richardson tried to reassure the group, but soon shook her head and expressed disbelief.
“I know, right?” Sherrod Brown replied. “Just when we thought things were about to change.”
Sneed, who remembered voting for the winning candidate in every major election since a mock vote for Obama in middle school, pulled out his phone to read the news. He encountered a word that was unfamiliar to his political life. He looked up and asked:
“What does concede mean?”
Robert Samuels is a national political reporter who focuses on the intersection of politics, policy and people. He previously covered social issues in the District of Columbia.
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BEIJING – China’s growing paranoia about national security has rattled American and European companies with a raft of new laws creating rising uncertainty for foreign investors, business leaders and diplomats say.
The security clampdown reflects President Xi Jinping’s concerns that foreign forces are intent on overthrowing China’s Communist Party, propagating dangerous Western values such as democracy and free speech, and inspiring a popular uprising or “color revolution,” experts say.
Foreign business concerns center around a draft National Security Law, another piece of legislation reviewing national security in free trade zones, and a third draft law meant to regulate foreign non-governmental organizations.
All three laws have been drafted to further empower China’s national security apparatus, giving it wide-ranging and potentially arbitrary powers over a range of foreign activities in China, with apparently very little consideration of the views of the business community.
The definition of national security enshrined in these laws is so vague and so extensive “that we are in effect looking at a massive national security overreach,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China.
“It is so hazy and so vague, it makes business decisions more difficult to take,” he said in an interview. “It could apply to a pig farm, it could apply to a car components manufacturer, it could apply to anything.”
In a letter to the China’s National People’s Congress, more than 40 American trade associations and lobby groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complained that the NGO law could hamper their own activities in China, as well as those of a range of other important non-governmental groups.
Foreign industry associations, universities, environmental organizations and science and technology institutes play a vital role in the daily operations of businesses in China, they argued, helping in research, innovation, market development and information sharing. They also play a key role in promoting “corporate social responsibility.”
“We are therefore deeply concerned that the Draft NGO law will inhibit our ability to effectively operate and contribute to China’s economy and consequently hinder China’s economic development,” they wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post.
The law puts significant new restrictions on the activities on foreign NGOs, putting them under the direct supervision of the Public Security Bureau, forcing them to disclose detailed work plans and funding, and finding a government agency to sponsor them. Some fear they could be forced out of China.
The U.S. industry associations said their work also helps deepen the commercial relationship between the United States and China, which remains “the ballast” of the broader bilateral relationship.
“Our organizations believe that the Draft NGO law, if enacted without major modifications, would have a significant adverse impact on the future of U.S.-China relations.”
The letter was signed by 44 U.S. organizations ranging from the Motion Picture Association of America to the U.S. Soybean Export Council -- as well as by the Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the letter reflected “shared concerns” that the law would not only affect the ability of companies to do business, but also commercial and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
“This is increasingly important as China globalizes and its companies and NGOs expand overseas,” he said in an emailed statement.
Wuttke said the NGO law “doesn't fit in with the opening up of economy”, arguing that environmental groups, for example, help China transition to a cleaner, healthier lifestyle and environment.
“For Chinese companies, it’s the same thing. If they go global, they have to deal with exactly these players in international markets, they have to deal with trade unions and political associations,” he said, explaining it would be better if they had more of a“training ground” at home so they could learn how global business is conducted.
There are concerns too that China’s ever-growing controls over the Internet hamper foreign businesses and stifle innovation.
The European Chamber’s annual business confidence survey, released Wednesday, showed that 57 percent of member companies believed that an inability to access certain web pages has an adverse effect on their business, harming productivity, research and data exchange.
Premier Li Keqiang vowed this year to make the Internet cheaper, faster and more accessible. But at the same time, China has reinforced its system of Internet censorship known at the Great Firewall.
Wuttke said it was “simply not fitting” that China’s Internet speed was five times slower than South Korea’s. He applauded efforts to speed it up, but said that only addressed part of the problem. “Still access to some web sites makes it hard for companies to do business,” he said.
German Ambassador Michael Clauss shares the concerns, arguing that the entire security clampdown is a drag on innovation.
“Problems with the Internet are amongst the main concerns of German companies operating here,” he said in a statement, citing not only speeds but also concerns about the security of data and intellectual property.
Earlier this year, China also proposed a law that would have forced IT companies operating in the banking sector to hand over passcodes and encryption keys, as well as providing Chinese security agencies with “back door” access to their systems.
But China later shelved the law when it realized the scale of opposition to the law: President Obama had argued the law would force out U.S. IT companies, while China’s own banking industry was concerned that it would undermine its own efficiency and data security.
Lobby groups hope their protests will have a similar effect this time around, but Clauss told the South China Morning Post last month that he was “doubtful” that foreign business concerns would be addressed.
“The Party has always balanced its security interests with its economic opening up and business interests,” said a Western diplomat, requesting anonymity while speaking on a sensitive subject. “But the balance is shifting more and more towards security.”
Human rights groups have already come out strongly against the new laws, arguing that they will be used to silence critics and give a thin legal veneer to repression in the name of national security.
Simon Denyer is The Post’s bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.
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A Chrome web browser extension which lets you see the edit history of any Google Docs text file has been released.
Google's answer to Microsoft Word allows people to write and share documents online, but a simple tweak to the Chrome browser shows the full edit trail on any document.
Given that companies increasingly ask for CVs and covering letters in a Google Docs format, it means that potential employers can see the array of tweaks, polishes and half-truths that people often add to their pitch for a job - including how much they really get paid.
Many companies and public bodies also use Google Documents for news releases and statements, meaning that all of the changes made before publication can now be viewed.
The tool is called Draftback, and was built by writer and programmer James Somers.
Once installed, a button appears within the Chrome browser when a Google Document is loaded.
It shows how many revisions have been made in a document, and when clicked brings up a blank page where the document takes shape from scratch - one word at a time.
As well as showing the edit history of a document, it can generate an embedded animation of changes so users can share what they've found.
BRATISLAVA/SOFIA A European Union embargo on arms imports from Russia, imposed last year in response to a pro-Russian rebellion in Ukraine, is speeding the demise of central Europe's remaining military ties to its former overlord.
The sanctions have also driven a limited regional market in locally-manufactured Russian spares to help tide central European armed forces over in an accelerated transition to Western weaponry.
Slovakia's defense ministry says it has to buy new air defense radars because it is unable to service its Russian-made models for lack of spares.
Bulgaria says it will have to take its Soviet-made jet fighters out of use because it cannot service them, and its defense minister told Reuters he may have to ask allies to help patrol Bulgarian airspace.
Former Warsaw Pact members now in NATO, once heavily reliant on Soviet military equipment, had already been gradually switching to non-Russian supplies, a trend that reduces the impact of disruption caused by sanctions.
However, the sanctions mean Russia has lost supply deals earlier than anticipated, inflicting pain on an economy for which weapons exports are a major source of revenue.
"While not a decisive factor for central and eastern Europe's military integration with the West, as this began many years ago, the EU sanctions on Russian weapons and parts are certainly speeding the process up," said IHS Jane's defense analyst Konrad Muzyka.
Although the terms of the ban allow EU members to buy Russian parts and services needed to maintain "existing capabilities", this only applies to contracts signed before the sanctions were imposed, and which have not expired.
"Slovakia is currently using (air defense) radars made by a Russian company Almaz-Antey," defense ministry spokesman Martin Cambalik said.
"With new spare parts, their expiration date could have been pushed to 2020. Because of sanctions, the ministry can't buy spare parts so we'll have to launch a tender for new radars."
"EU sanctions against Russia have not necessarily changed our priorities – we have planned to reduce dependence on Russian arms for a long time – but they moved certain things higher on our list of priorities," the spokesman said.
In April, Slovakia said it had agreed to buy nine U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters for $261 million, replacing its outdated Russian Mi-17 fleet which it was unable to service due to lack of spares.
Bulgaria's Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev also said that the EU embargo affected the supply of spare parts for Russian-made weapons, and the country's ability to service its MIG-29 fighter jets, once the cutting edge of Warsaw Pact air forces.
"If (the repairs) stop, MIG-29 fighters cannot perform training and combat tasks," Nenchev told Reuters.
"This would severely hamper ... security of the airspace and would force Bulgaria to invite allies to participate with their forces," he said, adding that for now Bulgaria may seek Poland's help in servicing the jets.
Asked why Bulgaria did not seek a renewal of the servicing contract with Russia despite being allowed to under the terms of sanctions, the defense ministry spokesman said it was advised by the foreign ministry there could be diplomatic hurdles.
Many firms shy away even from deals not covered by sanctions because of the risk that, if the scope of sanctions is later expanded, their agreement will be affected.
Western states have not ruled out such an extension, accusing Russia of backing Ukrainian rebels with arms and troops and flouting a ceasefire. Russia denies the accusation.
RUSSIA'S LOSS, POLAND'S GAIN
Moscow remains confident about its overall arms exports, which have recovered strongly since loss of the Pact market.
Russia says it exported $15 billion of weapons in 2014 and has an order book worth $40 billion over the next 3-4 years, with the biggest buyers from India, China, the Middle East and Latin America.
No figures are available specifically for Russian arms exports to former Pact states. But Russia has been keen to keep sales going to those countries for as long as possible.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russian deputy prime minister in charge of the arms industry, has held repeated meetings with Slovak officials.
But as Russia loses trade to former satellites, Poland may be set to gain what its former overlord has lost.
Until 1989, Poland's defense industry was closely linked to the Soviet Union, manufacturing weapons and parts based mostly on Soviet technologies. While the industry has been realigning with the West since Warsaw joined NATO in 1999, a significant capacity to service an array of Soviet-made weapons, including fighter-bombers and helicopters, remains.
"The Polish industry is able to provide services for other Eastern Bloc countries falling under the...embargo and still using post-Soviet equipment," a defense ministry spokesman said.
But the EU embargo has caused shortages of spare parts even on that already depleted market, defense ministry sources said.
Poland itself sometimes resorts to shopping around for second-hand parts, available both in the region and sometimes as far afield as India.
The EU sanctions hasten a transition that has been inevitable since Russia's ex-allies rallied to former foe NATO. While perhaps politically desirable that development will for some time force central European states to become increasingly inventive in maintaining defenses strained at the edges.
(Additional reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia and Wiktor Szary in Warsaw; Editing by Christian Lowe and Ralph Boulton)
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The strongest proof that Svetlana Alliluyeva was Joseph Stalin’s daughter is that this small, demure-looking redhead scared people — and not just because her face and coloring so resembled her father’s.
She had some of his fevered intensity, which showed up even in one of their favorite games: Hostess, in which little Svetlana gave bossy orders, and Russia’s unopposed tyrant, in the role of her humble Secretary, pretended to grovel in response. When he wasn’t signing letters to her as “Your Little Papa,” the man who struck fear in many a Russian heart was calling himself, in 1935, “Svetanka-Hostess’s wretched Secretary, the poor peasant J. Stalin,” for his 9-year-old princess’s amusement.
But a lot of Stalin’s teasing had a tone of threat to it, too. Nikita S. Khrushchev once said of this father-daughter relationship that “his was the tenderness of a cat for a mouse.” And as Svetlana grew up and saw the fear that her father, and even she, aroused, she was too smart to mistake the fairy tales he told her for Russian reality. Looking backward, as the Canadian historian Rosemary Sullivan does clearly and evenhandedly in “Stalin’s Daughter,” it appears astounding that the girl who could have had the world’s worst daddy issues managed to grow up at all.
The early part of this book is a tangle of fried and burned family relationships, all destroyed by Stalin as he rose to power. Though he was dependent on a large extended family during Svetlana’s earliest years, family portraits from that time must be captioned with the names of those he arrested, had shot or otherwise caused to disappear.
Most egregious and mysterious is the matter of the little girl’s mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, known as Nadya, who supposedly shot herself after a long, bitter evening of quarreling with her husband in front of many witnesses. The degree to which Svetlana was sheltered — she was 6 ½ at the time — was so extreme that she did not know of her mother’s possible suicide until years later.
Ms. Sullivan fills this measured, informative biography with contrasting theories about such events, because there is no such thing as an uncomplicated death that involved Joseph Stalin. But it is not a highly opinionated book. It paints a strong but slightly distant portrait of the headstrong Svetlana, whose every brush with adversity seemed to make her tougher. She grew up to be so sexually charged that she became a danger to any man on whom she set her sights.
When she had just turned 17, her romance with Aleksei Yakovlevich Kapler, a worldly Jewish cineaste, brought them some remarkable movie-watching moments (Garbo, in “Queen Christina”: “I have grown up in a great man’s shadow. I long to escape my destiny.”). It also brought Kapler five years in a labor camp — and another five after he stealthily visited Moscow, not looking for Svetlana but simply trying to see his wife.
Still, Svetlana entered into three official marriages in Russia (one a purely political arrangement cooked up by her father) and one common-law union before the dying wish of the last man, Brajesh Singh, allowed her to leave the country. He was Indian-born, and he wanted his ashes scattered on the Ganges. Svetlana liked India and perhaps would have enjoyed staying there indefinitely, had she not sensed opportunity at the American Embassy in New Delhi. But the book grows ever more fascinating in explaining how her 1967 decision to defect made for a huge mess late in the Cold War and turned her into a political football.
The way she wound up under the wing of the diplomat George F. Kennan, and managed to attract so many benefactors with homes in picturesque places, made her an extremely fortunate gypsy for her first experience of American life. So did the financial arrangements surrounding the publication of her first book, “Twenty Letters to a Friend.” Instantly rich, with money she could actually keep (as opposed to the People’s funds that supported the Stalins in Russia), she became a benefactor. And a whole new phase of her life began. By this point, she had severed all ties to her past, which included two Russian children who swore never again to have anything else to do with her.
Svetlana’s showdown at Taliesin West, the Arizona compound controlled by Frank Lloyd Wright’s dictatorlike widow, Olgivanna (and Svetlana knew a dictator when she met one), made for one more test of her resilience. Svetlana, who died in 2011, can be viewed as desperate, always in search of the man and home she never had, but that reduces her story to soap opera proportions. Or she can be seen as a woman from a highly eccentric gene pool who could feel both tyrannical and bereft, and who was constantly in motion throughout a long, unpredictable life.
After the Wright incident, during which she married a gold digger with Taliesin affiliations, she was not finished defecting. Read the rest of the book to learn how she ricocheted back to Russia, dealt with those abandoned children in addition to her brand-new baby, picked up stakes yet again and finally wound up at a compass point that made no sense, yet made all the sense in the world.
She never ceased to be Stalin’s daughter. People never stopped using variations on the “I can’t believe Stalin’s daughter is doing such-and-such” (like “mopping my floor”) construction when they spoke about her. But she turned small, demure, sometimes screaming and livid Svetlana into something more than a chip off the old block. This biography does justice to the part of her that was Svetlana’s alone: survivor, adventurer, petty tyrant instead of brutal one, truly charming “Hostess,” though she always wanted control. It’s an admiring portrait of an amazingly adaptable person facing all but insurmountable odds. She refused to let her lineage seal her fate.
STALIN’S DAUGHTER
The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
By Rosemary Sullivan
Illustrated. 741 pages. Harper/HarperCollins Publishers. $35.
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WASHINGTON — As NATO faces a resurgent Russian military, a substantial number of Europeans do not believe that their own countries should rush to defend an ally against attack, according to a comprehensive survey to be made public on Wednesday.
NATO’s charter states that an attack against one member should be considered an attack against all, but the survey points to the challenges the alliance faces in trying to maintain its cohesion in the face of an increasingly aggressive Russia.
“At least half of Germans, French and Italians say their country should not use military force to defend a NATO ally if attacked by Russia,” the Pew Research Center said it found in its survey, which is based on interviews in 10 nations.
Ivo H. Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO and the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said that after a quarter-century in which NATO worried little about defending its territory against Russia, “it will take a serious effort by the alliance to convince its public of the need to prepare for, deter and, if necessary, respond to a Russian attack.”
The survey is likely to send an unsettling message to Baltic members of the alliance, which have been looking for more assurances from NATO that it will protect them from Russian meddling.
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have been worried that they may become targets of some of the “hybrid war” tactics that Russia has used to try to mask its operations in eastern Ukraine. Theyinclude the use of specially trained troops without identifying patches whose operations are denied by Moscow.
“Our data shows that Germans, French and Italians have little inclination to come to a NATO ally’s defense,” said Bruce Stokes, the director for global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center, “and if the next military conflict in the region is hybrid warfare, and there is some debate who these Russian-speaking fighters are, such attitudes will only further inhibit NATO’s response.”
The Pew report is based on 11,116 telephone and face-to-face interviews in eight NATO countries as well as Russia and Ukraine. The interviews were conducted from early April to mid-May, and the results have a margin of error of roughly plus or minus three to four percentage points, the center said.
The Western alliance has long found it difficult to mobilize public support for military spending. But public opinion is not always decisive in shaping NATO policy.
President Ronald Reagan managed to win sufficient European backing to deploy Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles on the Continent despite a substantial peace movement. Those missile deployments increased pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate a 1987 American-Russian treaty banning intermediate-range land-based missiles.
Not all of the data in the Pew report is bad news for NATO. According to the study, residents of most NATO countries still believe that the United States would come to their defense. Americans and Canadians also largely say that their countries should act militarily to defend a NATO ally, and nearly half of the British, Polish and Spanish respondents say the same.
“You would have a basis for building a political consensus if there was a serious Russian attack,” Mr. Daalder said.
But the study highlights sharp differences within the alliance’s ranks. Of all those surveyed, Poles were most alarmed by Moscow’s muscle flexing, with 70 percent saying that Russia was a major military threat.
Germany, a critical American ally in the effort to forge a Ukraine peace settlement, was at the other end of the spectrum. Only 38 percent of Germans said that Russia was a danger to neighboring countries aside from Ukraine, and only 29 percent blamed Russia for the violence in Ukraine.
Consequently, 58 percent of Germans do not believe that their country should use force to defend another NATO ally. Just 19 percent of Germans say NATO weapons should be sent to the Ukrainian government to help it better contend with Russian and separatist attacks.
Support for the NATO alliance in Germany was tallied at 55 percent, down from 73 percent in 2009. Those results are influenced by Germans in the eastern part of the country, who are more than twice as likely as western Germans to have confidence in President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
In the United States, the study notes, support for NATO remains fairly strong. Americans and Canadians, it says, were the only nationalities surveyed in which more than half of those polled believed that their country should take military action if Russia attacked a NATO ally. Forty-six percent of Americans believe that the United States should provide arms to the Ukrainian government, though Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support such a move.
The findings on Russians’ attitudes are likely to be disappointing for NATO supporters.
Western officials have calculated that economic sanctions will eventually erode Russian support for Mr. Putin’s decision to intervene in eastern Ukraine, but he has remained extremely popular by riding a wave of nationalism and controlling much of the news media. Most Russians are unhappy with the state of the economy, but they tend to blame not Mr. Putin but the drop in oil prices and the West’s efforts to punish Russia.
Eighty-eight percent of Russians said they had confidence in Mr. Putin to do the right thing on international affairs, the highest rating since Pew started taking polls on the question in 2003.
“The Ukrainian situation continues to be very good for Vladimir Putin with his own people,” Mr. Stokes said. “The Russians feel the pain of the economy, but they blame it on the West, not on Putin.”
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WASHINGTON — In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province, Iraq, and to send 400 more American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi.
The White House on Wednesday is expected to announce a plan that follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently plans to retake Mosul, another Iraqi city that fell to the Islamic State last year, should figure in the early phase of the military campaign against the group.
The fall of Ramadi last month effectively settled the administration debate, at least for the time being. American officials said Ramadi was now expected to become the focus of a lengthy campaign to regain Mosul at a later stage, possibly not until 2016.
The additional American troops will arrive as early as this summer, a United States official said, and will focus on training Sunni fighters with the Iraqi Army. The official called the coming announcement “an adjustment to try to get the right training to the right folks.”
The United States Central Command’s emphasis on retaking Mosul depended critically on efforts to retrain the Iraqi Army, which appear to have gotten off to a slow start. Some Iraqi officials also thought the schedule for taking Mosul was unrealistic, and some bridled when an official from the Central Command told reporters in February that an assault to capture the city was planned for this spring.
Now, pending approval by the White House, plans are being made to use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya, as another training hub for the American-led coalition.
Alistair Baskey, a National Security Council spokesman, said that the administration hoped to accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and that “those options include sending additional trainers.”
The United States now has about 3,000 troops, including trainers and advisers, in Iraq. But the steps envisioned by the White House are likely to be called half-measures by critics because they do not call for an expansion of the role of American troops, such as the use of spotters to call in airstrikes.
There has long been debate within the administration about what the first steps in the campaign should be.
Led by Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the Central Command has long emphasized the need to strike a blow against the Islamic State by recapturing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which was taken by the group in June 2014. Mosul is the capital of Nineveh Province in northern Iraq and was the site of a sermon that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, defiantly delivered in July. The Baiji refinery, a major oil complex, is on a main road to Mosul.
While General Austin was looking north, State Department officials have highlighted the strategic importance of Anbar Province in western Iraq.
Anbar is home to many of Iraq’s Sunni tribes, whose support American officials hope to enlist in the struggle against the Islamic State. Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, is less than 70 miles from Baghdad, and the province borders Saudi Arabia and Jordan, two important members of the coalition against the Islamic State.
The differing perspectives within the administration came to the fore in April when Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that Ramadi was not central to the future of Iraq.
The Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi last month also punctured the administration’s description that the group was on the defensive.
Suddenly, it appeared that the Islamic State, not the American-led coalition, was on the march. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq scrambled to assemble a plan to regain the city.
The Islamic State now controls two provincial capitals, as well as the city of Falluja. With the help of American air power, the Iraqis have retaken Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad, but so many buildings there are still rigged with explosives that many of its residents have been unable to return.
To assemble a force to retake Ramadi, the number of Iraqi tribal fighters in Anbar who are trained and equipped is expected to increase to as many as 10,000 from about 5,500.
More than 3,000 new Iraqi soldiers are to be recruited to fill the ranks of the Seventh Iraqi Army division in Anbar and the Eighth Iraqi Army division, which is in Habbaniyah, where the Iraqi military operations center for the province is also based.
But to the frustration of critics like Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who say that the United States is losing the initiative to the Islamic State, the Obama administration has yet to approve the use of American spotters on the battlefield to call in airstrikes in and around Ramadi. Nor has it approved the use of Apache helicopter gunships to help Iraqi troops retake the city.
General Dempsey alluded to the plan to expand the military footprint in Iraq during a visit to Israel on Tuesday, saying that he had asked war commanders to look into expanding the number of training sites for Iraqi forces.
The United States is not the only country that is expanding its effort.
Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, said this week that his country would send up to 125 additional troops to train Iraqi forces, including in how to clear improvised bombs.
Italy is also expected to play an important role in training the Iraqi police.
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