The D Brief: Collisions in the Pacific; Bridges down inside Russia; Ukraine seeks ‘buffer zone’ in Kursk; ULA for sale?; And a bit more.

New: At three o’clock this morning, China’s Coast Guard rammed several Philippine Coast Guard vessels in the South China Sea, ripping a one-meter hole in one of Manila’s ships, and a five-inch hole in another, according to Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela, who shared illustrating photos. 

Chinese officials point the blame at the Philippines, and similarly accuse them of “unprofessional and dangerous” behavior at sea and of “deliberately collid[ing]” with the Chinese vessels, according to Reuters. 

Location: Near the Sabina Shoal in the Spratly Islands, along Manila’s route to resupply its troops on the quite small but occupied Flat Island, about 75 nautical miles from the Philippines.

Context: “China claims both [the Sabina Shoal and the Spratly Islands], which lie within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone—as it does much of the South China Sea,” the Wall Street Journal reports. And, “A 2016 ruling by an international arbitral tribunal held that China’s claims have no legal basis,” but China has rejected the ruling and has chosen to ignore it.

One U.S. military POV: “The People’s Republic of China claims an absurd footprint of sea space that defies logic [and] that impinges not just on the Republic of the Philippines, but of every state within the South China Sea,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Sam Paparo, who is in charge of Indo-Pacific Command, speaking Thursday at an event in Honolulu. 

ICYMI: Chinese officials were reportedly very alarmed by a U.S. Army missile system sent to the Philippines back in April for exercises with regional allies, the Associated Press reported Friday. The system, known as the “Mid-Range Capability,” can fire Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. However, the missile system was reportedly never fired during the exercises, and “may be transported out of the country next month,” AP writes. 

The U.S. taxpayer angle: The United States is devoting $500 million to help the Philippines bulk up its military and develop better intelligence and surveillance capabilities for disputed waters. Read our coverage from the region earlier this month.  

Coverage continues below…

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Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Patrick Tucker. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1989, a peace demonstration at the Austrian-Hungarian border known as the “Pan-European Picnic” helped usher in the fall of the Berlin Wall less than three months later.

INDOPACOM chief’s wishlist: More special operators in the Pacific. The U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command is “underinvested” in special operations forces, “and I think SOF is underinvested in PACOM,” Navy Adm. Paparo also said Thursday in Honolulu.

Though many in the general public tend to think of special operators in terms of direct action, Paparo said, “SOF is a cognitive space,” and “SOF’s greatest power is early leverage” in deterring conflict.

More from Paparo: 

• On Taiwan: “It is important to all of the nations that matters not be settled by force. This is the matter at hand in Ukraine. This is the matter at hand in the Middle East.…This unsettled matter of Taiwan—that it be settled due to the principles of self-determination, peacefully, through negotiation—also has implications for all of the countries of the Indo-Pacific.”
• On information operations: “We should be in and among our adversaries, learning from them. They should never learn from us. If they are learning, it should be the wrong lessons.” Defense One’s Jennifer Hlad has more from Honolulu, here.

From the region: 

Ukraine troops say they’ve destroyed three bridges inside occupied Russia that Moscow could have used to reinforce or relieve embattled troops in Kursk oblasts, just across the border from Ukraine. That includes three bridges over the Seym river; the New York Times illustrated their locations here. 

New: Ukrainian troops are inside Russia to create a “buffer zone,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy said in his latest evening address on Sunday. “Now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions,” he said. “This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”

Dispatch: “While the first phase [in Kursk] was planned meticulously, the campaign is now developing in an ad hoc fashion,” Oliver Carroll of the Economist reported Sunday. “With the element of surprise lost, the Ukrainian advances have slowed,” he added. But the troops aren’t expected to sit on their hands. “In recent days, an expanded Ukrainian contingent of 10,000-20,000 soldiers appears to be focused on establishing control on the southern bank of the Seim river to the north-west of Sudzha,” Carroll writes. More behind the paywall, here. 

Who’s who in Kursk: Open source researchers have identified several various Ukrainian units with elements involved in the cross border operation. Here is the latest rundown. 

Expert reax: Despite Ukraine’s attention-grabbing cross border surge, Russian invasion troops are still advancing around Ukrainian cities like Pokrovsk, Toretsk and other towns in Donbas, Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute writes in the Guardian. “These towns will soon be depopulated, and defending them will be resource-intensive,” he says. 

“Ukraine’s wider military position remains precarious, and the autumn looks to be politically challenging,” Watling continues. “Kyiv must strike a balance, preparing for the loss of critical supplies without burning its ability to fight on.” Read more, here. 

Additional reading: 

Lastly today: Boeing and Lockheed Martin are (again) looking to sell their roughly $2 billion joint project United Launch Alliance, and they could sell it to Sierra Space, Reuters reported Friday. 

Background: “ULA was formed in 2006 as a consolidation of Boeing’s and Lockheed’s dueling rocket businesses, ending years of competition between the two and cementing their grip on government launch services,” Reuters writes. The two defense titans tried to sell ULA five years ago, but never seemed to have nailed down satisfactory terms. In 2020, the Pentagon decided that ULA should launch 60 percent of the Defense Department’s missions for the next seven years and that competitor SpaceX should launch the rest, Reuters reported in January. Continue reading, here. 

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