WAR 02-07-2015-to-02-13-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry folks the "meat world" has been beating me like a drum today....

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http://www.news24.com/World/News/Senator-Its-US-vs-Iran-in-nuclear-talk-showdown-20150210

Senator: It's US vs Iran in nuclear talk showdown
2015-02-11 05:00

Washington - Five of the six world powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme have stepped back, leaving Washington to hammer out a deal with Tehran, a key US lawmaker said on Tuesday.

"It's evident that these negotiations are really not P5+1 negotiations any more," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairperson Bob Corker said as he emerged from a closed-door briefing by Obama administration officials on the status of nuclear talks with Iran.

"It's really more of a bilateral negotiation between the United States and Iran."

The five permanent UN Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Germany have undertaken years-long talks with Iran in a bid to halt the Islamic republic's nuclear drive.

Several rounds of sanctions have been imposed on Iran, cutting deeply into the country's economy.

Under an interim agreement reached in November 2013, Iran has diluted its stock of fissile materials from 20% enriched uranium to five percent in exchange for limited sanctions relief.

But two deadlines for a permanent agreement have already been missed, requiring the talks to be extended.

President Barack Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House on Monday, and Obama said he saw no reason to further extend the current deadlines.

The present issue, Obama said, was "does Iran have the political will and the desire to get a deal done?"

With an end-March deadline for a political agreement approaching, and a final deal confirming technical details required by 30 June, Corker said the key players are now essentially Washington and Tehran.

"I was in Munich this weekend [for an international security conference] and was very aware that this was becoming more of a one-on-one negotiation," the Senate Republican told reporters.

Corker and the Democrat he replaced as committee chairperson, Senator Robert Menendez, left the latest briefing expressing concern about the administration basing negotiations on the need to maintain Iran's potential nuclear weapons "breakout" time to at least one year.

"One of my major concerns all along that is becoming more crystal clear to me, is that we are, instead of preventing proliferation, we are managing proliferation," Menendez said.

Having Iran just one year away from building a bomb would be "a different world and a far more challenging world," he added.
- AFP

Related Links

Iraq's al-Maliki denies comeback
US Democrats put brakes on Iran sanctions bill
Iran warns of 'consequences' for Israeli attack

 

[Housecarl]

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http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7751743-74/obama-ground-troops#axzz3RPcNABpW

Obama to seek war power as Westerners join jihad, but 'enduring' combat questioned

Wire Reports
Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015, 10:15 p.m.
Updated 2 hours ago


WASHINGTON — While American alarm continued to build over terrorism and the lack of a policy on how to fight it, the White House circulated a proposal Tuesday to authorize the Pentagon formally to fight Islamic State terrorists without an “enduring offensive combat” role, an ambiguous phrase designed to satisfy lawmakers with widely varying views on the need for ground operations.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, describing the proposal to reporters, said President Obama would seek an authorization for the use of force that would expire after three years. It would end the approval for operations in Iraq that Congress passed in 2002.

Menendez and other Democratic senators met privately with top White House aides.

“Hopefully there will not be a significant delay in Congress acting,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

ISIS's savagery in recent weeks has kept a fresh reminder of the threat posed by the terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

Military officials for months have railed against the degree of bombing against ISIS and the failure to use support troops on the ground. Many Republicans have said they prefer legislation that at least permits the use of ground troops if Obama decides they may be necessary. Some, including Sen. John McCain, have gone further, saying ground troops are needed if the Islamic State fighters are to be defeated.

Part of the concern expressed over policy involves Obama's inability to recognize or mention radical Islamic terrorism or his failure to judge it as the threat others believe it is.

For instance, what President Obama has described as the greatest threat to new generations was neither terrorism nor ISIS. It wasn't nuclear weapons in rogue states, such as Iran, either.

“No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” said Obama in his State of the Union speech. His statement was met with scattered, muted applause. The United States should lead in international efforts to protect “the one planet we've got,” he said.

Meanwhile, intelligence officials said in an updated estimate that jihadists are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other Islamist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world. Those figures repeated Tribune-Review figures reported Sunday.

Intelligence agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some have succeeded in reaching in the Syrian war zone, officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number are still fighting with extremists.

The testimony and other data were obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any other point in the past 20 years.

Of immediate concern was the legislative struggle — the search for a compromise that could satisfy Democrats who oppose the use of American ground forces in the fight against ISIS, and Republicans who favor at least leaving the possibility open.

Menendez, in describing the White House's opaque formulation, said it remained subject to modification. “That's where the rub will be” as the White House tries to win approval for the legislation, he said.

One senior Democrat, Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, said she has significant questions about the president's proposal. “I don't know what the word ‘enduring' means. I am very apprehensive about a vague, foggy word,” she said.

Menendez said it was not yet clear whether the proposal would cancel a 2001 authorization for the use of force that Congress approved shortly after 9/11. Some congressmen believe that no new authorization is needed by Obama in view of the 2001 act.

Republicans control both houses of Congress, and presidents generally court bipartisan support for legislation of the type Obama seeks.

Several other lawmakers who were briefed in earlier meetings, said the president would likely seek legislation targeted exclusively against the fighters seeking establishment of an Islamic state, wherever they are and whatever name they use.

Public sentiment indicates general support for the airstrikes that have been under way for months, but less for the use of American ground troops on the heels of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In an AP-GfK poll taken in late January and early February, 58 percent of those surveyed said they favor American involvement in airstrikes, which Obama ordered months ago. Only 31 percent backed deployment of U.S. troops on the ground.

Some Republicans expressed concern with other elements of the administration's emerging proposal.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said administration officials had told him it would not provide for the protection of U.S.-trained Syrian rebel troops on the ground in the event of an air attack by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

“It's an unsound military strategy. I think it's immoral if the authorization doesn't allow for us to counter Assad's air power,” he said.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://tbo.com/news/blogs/the-right-stuff/if-nukes-violate-koran-whatre-we-negotiating-20150210/

If nukes violate Koran, what’re we negotiating?
By Tom Jackson | Tribune Staff
Published: February 10, 2015

According to President Obama, acquisition of a nuclear arsenal would run counter to the core tenets of Islam. So says “their Supreme Leader,” Obama noted in a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday.

Indeed, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did some years back declare his belief that use of an atomic bomb unleashed a massacre, destroyed humanity and, thus, is prohibited by the Koran.

A reasonable person might wonder, then, what the heck is there to negotiate? And if their faith rules out nuclear weapons, what’s up with the Iranians’ pursuit of an ICBM program? Surely the mullahs aren’t going to all that trouble and expense just to be capable of delivering Persian falafel to western Europe or the New World.

Taking the second conundrum first, Washington Free Beacon senior editor Bill Gertz wrote last summer:

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 29, [2014,] the same month the Iran report was produced, that “Iran would choose a ballistic missile as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Clapper said Iran is making progress on its space launch vehicles and when combined with plans to deter the United States and its allies have given Tehran “the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile.”

As for the other, Paris-based Iranian dissident Ayatollah Jalal Ganje’i detects chicanery:

This rhetoric, however, even if taken as face value, is just a political gimmick and not a fatwa. A fatwa never refers to one’s personal understanding of the Quran or another text. Here, Khamenei states that destroying mankind has been condemned by Quran. Even in referring to Quran, we see that this verse has no such meaning and Khamenei’s interpretation of the verse in question is simply inaccurate. No reputable religious scholar or interpreter of Quran has interpreted this verse in this manner.

The credibility of a fatwa may be assessed on three grounds: its correctness, utility, and the competence of the one who issues it. The solidity of the reasoning behind a fatwa largely hinges on the religious expertise of the one issuing it, and Ali Khamenei is not considered a jurisprudent in Iranian and Shiite religious centers.

Was President Obama’s insertion of the Supreme Ruler more verbal sloppiness, like that reference to a “buncha, uh … violent, vicious zealots, uh, who behead people or randomly shoot … uh … a buncha folks, uh, in a, in a deli in Paris” in his interview with Vox’s Matt Yglesias? Or was something even more disconcerting, something like an I’ve-got-your-back wink to Khamenei?

Either way, there’s nothing comforting here.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.eurasiareview.com/10022015-new-rise-japan-analysis/

A New Rise Of Japan? – Analysis
February 10, 2015 JTW Leave a comment

By JTW

By Selçuk Çolakoğlu and Altay Atlı

Japan is trying to increase its influence by reinventing itself in the areas of foreign policy, security and economics and by repositioning itself in the global order. However, while it is observed that the country’s foreign and security policies are going through a tough test, it also would be difficult to say that developments in the country’s economy are contributing to the process.

Journalist and author David Pilling, who worked in Japan for many years, recently published a book entitled “Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival”. In his book, Pilling tells the story of a country and its people who have encountered difficulties all throughout history, yet they have always been able to “bend” challenges into opportunities, managing to survive and maintain the course of progress. Looking at recent Japanese history, we see World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the economic crisis, and the nuclear power plant catastrophe. Yet for the Japanese living in these times of disaster, every challenge can be seen as a new turning point. As the country of the rising sun, Japan has managed to pick itself up and continue its path each and every time.

Today, after the ongoing economic recession that began in the 1990s and the later meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power facility, the country finds itself at another critical turning point. Japan is trying to increase its influence by reinventing itself in the areas of foreign policy, security and economics and by repositioning itself in the global order. When it comes to the ongoing processes in these areas – or Pilling’s conceptualization of “bending” these challenges into opportunities – it is useful for us to look at the current developments in a historical context.

Japans foreign policy and security paradigms

Since its defeat in World War II, Japan has pursued a foreign policy and national security strategy that has rested upon its alliance with the United States as outlined by the San Francisco Treaty of 1951. This is reflected in Article 9 of the new post-war Japanese constitution, which prohibited Japan from building an army in the traditional sense. With these constitutional limitations in mind, Japan subsequently created a unit under the name of the Self-Defense Force (SDF) to meet the country’s minimum security requirements. Nonetheless, it was an impossibility for the nonexistent Japanese army to deploy troops abroad. During the Cold War, Tokyo developed its entire strategy under the security umbrella provided by Washington. In those times, the situation coincided with the interests of Tokyo because the US security assurances allowed Japan to decrease its defense spending and fully prioritize economic development while also preventing Asian countries from worrying about a resurgence of Japanese expansionism, which had been seen in the country’s colonial past.

With the dawning of the 1990s, two important transformations began to take place. First, with the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the security framework in Asia began to change. In this context, with the disappearance of the perceived common enemy, the US began to develop independent relationships with all global actors. The second transformation can be seen in the Japanese economy entering a long period of stagnation, which still continues today, coupled with the swift rise of China in the world economy. Proudly bearing the title of the second largest economy in the world, Japan was surpassed by China in 2009, and thus pushed into third place. Currently, the economic gap between the two countries shows no sign of contraction. Furthermore, as it grew more powerful economically, China has also increased its influence in the region and across the globe. Beijing began to act more assertive towards Japan with regard to issues surrounding disputed islands and rights to maritime areas in the East China Sea; the same behavior has been exhibited by China in the South China Sea opposite member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Under these difficult circumstances, after a short-term as prime minister in 2006-2007, Shinzo Abe once again came to power in December 2012 after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won elections. Here, the prime minister has pushed two critical items onto the agenda. First, he has aimed to lift the Japanese economy out of its slump and increase the country’s economic weight on a global scale, and second, he has sought to develop a new Japanese foreign policy and security framework that meets the changing dynamics of the world order. It is worth noting that Japan’s perceived security threats have seriously increased throughout this process.

With respect to the perceived security risks that have emerged in recent years, Japan has begun to voice concerns over the US’s official capacity to assist Japan in times of dire need. This situation has provoked Japan to reevaluate its place in the alliance with the US while also sparking a country-wide discussion about growing the capacity of a Japanese national military. China, with its rapid economic growth and increasing military capacity, has come to top the list of Japan’s security concerns. Beijing’s approach to the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyu Islands in Chinese) and its declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea have become a concrete indicator of the growing tensions between China and Japan. Furthermore, Japan is concerned that North Korea, as an unpredictable neighbor on Japan’s doorstep, may be a potential source of regional instability. In 1998, North Korea launched a missile into the Pacific Ocean beyond Japanese territory, thus signifying that Pyongyang had attained the military capacity to strike any area of Japan. In addition, North Korea announced to the world in 2009 that it had attained nuclear weapons, and it continues to carry out provocative nuclear tests. In other words, Japan sees itself as being encircled by threats, a perception that has been shaped based on sufficient and justified grounds.

Abe’s foreign policy principles

Four core principles seem to constitute Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s foreign policy strategy in the current context. These are: (1) improving the US-Japan security alliance; 2) deepening and further strengthening Japan’s relations with Australia, India, ASEAN countries, Africa and Europe; (3) promoting peaceful resolutions to international problems; and (4) fulfilling the obligations laid out by international law. While the latter two principles illustrate the normative values of Japanese foreign policy in general, the former two principles reflect Japan’s foreign policy priorities in the new era.

The top priority of the Abe government is to strengthen the military alliance with the United States. Not only US President Barack Obama, but also Prime Minister Abe believes that a rebalancing policy should be executed in Asia to offset a rising China. In this regard, from a military perspective, Japan is striving to make the US-Japan alliance more powerful and dissuasive in order to avoid being left to stand alone against China. Meanwhile, strategies are also being developed to transform the Japanese SDF into a deterrent army. In this context, the Abe administration has opted to reinterpret Article 9 of the constitution, as opposed to amending its restrictive provisions. Currently, the interpretations of the article have already been softened to allow the deployment of Japanese troops abroad. Indeed, there have been similar examples of this type of action in the past. Deemed as “checkbook diplomacy” in the literature, Tokyo reacted to the 1990 Gulf Crisis by offering substantial financial support to the coalition in lieu of troops, justifying its actions based on Article 9 of the constitution. However, that Japan was not listed among the countries that supported the coalition against Iraq was a serious jolt for Tokyo. Later, an exception to the Article was created that allowed Japanese troops to participate in overseas peacekeeping operations. Now, Abe is considering making similar exceptions that would allow Japanese participation in international military cooperation, with the end of improving alliance relations.

Prime Minister Abe also foresees the formulation of Japan’s own rebalancing strategy in Asia. In this respect, he has placed great importance on bolstering cooperation with India, Australia and ASEAN countries. Extremely uncomfortable with China’s South China Sea policy, the ASEAN member states of Vietnam and the Philippines have become a particular focus of Japan’s drive to increase cooperation. Additionally, the attitudes of Indonesia as a leader of ASEAN have been granted great importance. Therefore, after strengthening the military alliance with the US, if Japan can develop a strategic partnership with India, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, it would feel more comfortable in the face of China.

So far the greatest deficiency in Japan’s rebalancing strategy is South Korea. In the Abe period, far from developing, Tokyo-Seoul relations actually began to decline. The fallout of Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December 2013, as a response to China’s ADIZ moves, stressed relations with South Korea. Seeing that Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates nearly two and a half million Japanese who died as a result of war, houses the names of Japanese generals who were alleged to have committed war crimes during the Second World War, Abe’s visit to the controversial site drew fierce reactions from China and South Korea. Indeed, as a prime minister of Japan, Abe’s visit to this temple in the wake of China’s ADIZ announcement has weakened the possibility of political cooperation between Japan and South Korea. To summarize, in terms of foreign policy and security issues, Japan is going through a difficult period. The process in economics fields in terms of confronted challenges was ever left behind.

How successful is “Abenomics”?

After the Second World War the Japanese economy experienced fast and strong growth at first, nonetheless, it then entered a period of prolonged recession. The Japanese economy has experienced this recession since the early 1990s, and even though occasional growth spikes can be seen in the 2000s, the general trend points to a loss of momentum. Faced with this reality, since the first day he took power, Prime Minister Abe set out to apply a package of policies which have become popularly known as “Abenomics”. This package is shaped around three basic measures: (1) to give a massive fiscal stimulus to economic activity by way of financial incentives; (2) to lower the Japanese yen’s value via monetary easing on the one hand, and to break the deflationary cycle, providing a rate of inflation around 2 percent on the other; and (3) within the positive environment created by the above two measures, to implement much needed structural reforms.

The fact that the LDP has a majority in both chambers of parliament represents an advantage in terms of implementing the economic stimulus packages and reform program, especially when we take into account that eight prime ministers have lost their seats over last decade. Although the first two elements of Abenomics, i.e. fiscal stimulus and monetary easing, have provided positive results during the first two years of the Abe government, there are still doubts as to how these results can be turned into sustainable growth. More importantly, however, the question still remains how the third element, i.e. structural reform, can be effectively realized. The dilemmas of the Japanese economy exhibit structural peculiarities, and consequently, solutions to these problems also require structural transformation. However, the fiscal and monetary measures only provide an appropriate basis for this transformation, nothing more.

Since the Abe government came to power in December 2012, major public investment projects have been realized and a monthly average of 5-6 trillion yen has been injected into market by the Central Bank. Throughout this process, the Japanese yen has depreciated against other major currencies by approximately 26 percent. The inflation rate is over 1 percent and is moving towards 2 percent. However, these developments have not yet led to positive readings in a macroeconomic sense. As seen in Figure 2, Japan’s exports are declining. While the country has traditionally exhibited trade surpluses, it now has an unfavorable balance of trade. The decline in the yen’s value failed to provide sufficient drive to the uncompetitive export sector. In addition, the fact that Japan had to increase its fuel imports because of the closure of nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster and that the share of total imports occupied by fossil fuels increased from 19 percent to 34 percent over the last decade has had considerable negative impacts on the country’s trade balance. On the other hand, an increase in the inflation of company revenues has been witnessed. Therefore, it is expected that consumption and investment will increase due to the resultant impact on wages and increase of disposable income, although this has not yet become the complete reality.

While Abenomics helped the Japanese economy to take a breath, structural reforms must be effectively implemented for sustainable growth. The main reason for weak production and export rates is the loss of the Japanese economy’s competitiveness, productivity and innovation. This is supplemented by the fact that the labor pool has aged and shrank. Companies not only stopped investing in innovation and technology, but also moved their production and investments to other Asian countries at the expense of Japan. Japanese exports increasingly lose their power as they are is increasingly realized via third countries. On the other hand, the Abe government wants to cut the cost of fuel imports that have resulted from the closure of the country’s nuclear facilities and depreciating currency by once again commencing the operation of nuclear plants, a plan that has drawn serious opposition from society.

Beginning of the road for structural reform

First and foremost, Abenomics requires the launching of a restructuring process that will encourage companies to enact measures which will provide added value, and that means to encourage them to invest and produce. When it comes to a company’s productivity, the labor force is undoubtedly one of the most important inputs. Japan’s aging population has a negative effect on the economy. While only 5-6 percent of the population was over the age of 65 in 1960 at the beginning of the so-called “Japanese Miracle”, today this rate has reached 25 percent.

According to data collected in 2013, the population growth rate is -0.2. In other words, the Japanese population is aging and shrinking; while the amount of people who produce, provide added value and pay taxes is decreasing, the amount of people who depend on social services and do not produce is increasing. As the labor pool decreases, companies’ employment policies give preference to loyalty rather than performance, the work force exhibits a gender imbalance (according to official data 70 percent of men participate in the work force while this rate is only 48 percent for women) and legislation on immigration which does not open the doors to skilled workers and brain power from abroad leads to Japan’s inability to increase productivity and thus sustains the weakness of its labor force. When there is no increase in productivity, there is no increase in production, competitiveness, wages, or investment. While the Abe government has begun structural reforms to amend these economic woes, such as the realization of some measures that aim to increase the participation of women in the economy, the third element of Abenomics is still at the beginning of the road.

How successful can Abe be in realizing these reforms? What is the credibility of Abe in a country where governments and prime minister can so easily lose their seats? The bad news for the Japanese prime minister is that the approval rating which was 76 percent when he took office is now at 48 percent. The rise in the excise tax, which came into force in early April in order to reduce the burden of public debt in Japan that had reached a whopping 240 percent of GDP, was not received positively by the public. In addition, in April, as producers and consumers braced for the taxes that would be implemented in the upcoming quarter, the growth rate fell to 6.7 percent in second quarter, whereas it had been 7.1 percent in the previous quarter. This situation undermines Abe’s position, yet the lack of a strong opposition is a significant political advantage for the prime minister.

In order to achieve the goals set out in its foreign and security policies, it is essential for Japan to strengthen its economy. To do this, structural reforms are necessary, and for that purpose Abe should preserve his political power. The changes that Abe made to his cabinet in early September by replacing 12 of 18 ministers can be read as his way of trying to inject new impetus into his policies. Nonetheless, the resignation of two ministers because of various political scandals was a serious blow to the prime minister. Abe’s Japan once again is trying to meet challenges and continue on its path. Yet to do this, the government of Abe has to get a firm footing on the slippery surface of Japanese politics.

JTW

JTW - the Journal of Turkish Weekly - is a respected Turkish news source in English language on international politics. Established in 2004, JTW is published by Ankara-based Turkish think tank International Strategic Research Organization (USAK).

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articl...te-war-authorization-limits-u-s-ground-forces

Declassified
Obama's War Authorization Limits Ground Forces
Comments 2992
Feb 10, 2015 1:45 PM EST
By Josh Rogin

President Barack Obama will soon give Congress his proposal for a new authorization for the use of military force against Islamic State fighters, and it will place strict limits on the types of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed, according to congressional sources.

Almost six months after the president began using force against the Islamic State advance in Iraq and then in Syria, the White House is ready to ask Congress for formal permission to continue the effort. Until now, the administration has maintained it has enough authority to wage war through the 2001 AUMF on al-Qaeda, the 2002 AUMF regarding Iraq and Article II of the Constitution. But under pressure from Capitol Hill, the White House has now completed the text of a new authorization and could send it to lawmakers as early as Wednesday.

If enacted, the president's AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly.

In advance of the release, top White House and State Department officials have been briefing lawmakers and Congressional staffers about their proposed legislation. Two senior Congressional aides relayed the details to me.

The president’s AUMF for the fight against Islamic State would restrict the use of ground troops through a prohibition on “enduring offensive ground operations," but provide several exemptions. First, all existing ground troops, including the 3,000 U.S. military personnel now on the ground in Iraq, would be explicitly excluded from the restrictions. After that, the president would be allowed to deploy new military personnel in several specific roles: advisers, special operations forces, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers to assist U.S. air strikes and Combat Search and Rescue personnel.

Under the president’s proposal, the 2002 AUMF that was passed to authorize the Iraq war would be repealed, but the 2001 AUMF that allows the U.S. to fight against al-Qaeda and its associated groups would remain in place.

The new statute would authorize military action against Islamic State and its associated forces, which are defined in the text as organizations fighting alongside the jihadists and engaged in active hostilities. This means the president would be free to attack groups such as the al-Nusra Front or Iraqi Baathist elements who have partnered with the Islamic terrorists in Syria or Iraq. There are no geographic limitations, so the administration would be free to expand the war to other countries.

The president’s proposed AUMF would sunset in three years and would not give the president the unilateral authority to extend the authorization. That means the next president would have to come back to Congress for a new authorization in 2018, if the fight against Islamic State fighters lasts that long.

The White House’s AUMF largely tracks a version introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Democrat Robert Menendez last December, with small tweaks to clarify the definition of Islamic State and its associated groups, and to remove the geographic limits. The president's limits on ground troops are more constricting than what some Republicans had asked for.

The president has crafted the bill so it can engender bipartisan support on Capitol Hill while still preserving an enormous amount of flexibility on the battlefield without micromanagement from Congress, one senior Republican Senate aide said. More Republicans are likely to support an AUMF now that the president has requested it formally, the aide added, warning that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and other hawks will still object to the ground-force limitations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been resisting a vote on the floor on an AUMF, but now that the president has made his move we can expect floor action in late February or early March, following hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Some Republicans remain skeptical of the president’s actual enthusiasm for an AUMF, as the current ambiguity gives Obama a lot of flexibility in carrying out the war. They will now wait to see if the administration remains active on the issue after the legislation is introduced.

“The president has to deliver Democrat votes on this and he has to show a commitment,” the senior Republican Senate aide said. “He’s actually got to prosecute the fight to get this thing passed. If he doesn’t demonstrate that he actually wants this, you might see Republicans walk.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In recent days, White House officials have acknowledged that the release of the president’s AUMF proposal is just the beginning of the effort.

“There will be a very robust debate,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week. “Things that aren’t that serious have a hard time getting through the United States Congress these days. So when we’re talking about something as weighty as an authorization to use military force, I would anticipate that it will require substantial effort.”

The last time President Obama asked for an authorization to use military force, it was to strike the Assad regime in response to its use of chemical weapons. Yet it was obvious that the administration wasn’t wholly committed to actually prosecuting that war. He nixed the attacks before Congress weighed in.

This time around, Obama is already engaged in the fight against Islamic State and his team genuinely wants Congressional buy-in. Clearing up the legal ambiguity of the war will be helpful. But it won’t solve the more important conflict between the White House and lawmakers over the scale and effectiveness of the mission.

(Updates with new details in first three paragraphs.)

To contact the author on this story:
Josh Rogin at joshrogin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor on this story:
Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-09/why-jordan-is-islamic-state-s-next-target

Middle East
Why Jordan Is Islamic State's Next Target
Comments 105
Feb 9, 2015 5:38 PM EST
By Noah Feldman

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in battle gear last week, quoting Clint Eastwood and bombing Islamic State targets in retaliation for the horrific burning-alive of a Jordanian pilot. Is this a sign that Jordan is entering the war against the insurgent group in earnest, or is it a temporary show for a stunned Jordanian public?

The complicated reality is that Jordan and Islamic State are enmeshed in an extended, dynamic, repeat-play game in which the rules are just now being set. In fact, Abdullah was signaling to Islamic State that if it engages in further public challenges to the Hashemite Kingdom, he’s prepared to devote real resources to the war against the militants.

For its part, Islamic State was testing Abdullah by publicizing the video, trying to figure out how vulnerable Jordan’s ever-cautious monarchy is, or thinks it is, to being undermined by an external threat that could easily become internal. The lesson of last week’s exchange of messages between Jordan and Islamic State is that the struggle between them may just be getting started.

To see how that struggle is likely to evolve, begin with Islamic State’s strategic interests vis-à-vis Jordan. The shape-shifting entity now has forces within or near the borders of three weak states, one strong state and Jordan. The two weakest states are Syria and Iraq, from which Islamic State has carved out great swaths of territory. The third weak state is Lebanon, where Islamic State could potentially find adherents among radical Sunnis, at the cost of finding itself in a pitched battle with Lebanese Hezbollah and Christian militias. So far, the group has held back from confrontation there. The strong state is Turkey, which Islamic State has no realistic chance of confronting successfully; instead it has taken advantage of Turkey’s ambivalence about a spreading Kurdish state to fight Kurdish forces in the shadow of the Turkish border, as at Kobani.

Then there’s Jordan. The state is much stronger than its Levantine neighbors, benefiting from a religiously heterogeneous Sunni Arab population. Its internal fault line has traditionally been between Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who by some accounts make up two-thirds of its population, and ur-Jordanians of tribal origin and (sometimes) continuing affiliation. To simplify a complex history, the Hashemite monarchy has owed its continued existence to a skillful and permanent juggling act between these constituencies. The tribes demand patronage and offer loyalty; the Palestinians offer entrepreneurship and seek influence in return.

Without a reliable source of revenue such as petroleum to buy off its population, Jordan has been, and remains, vulnerable to fundamentalist challenges. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the feared leader of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, one of Islamic State’s predecessor organizations? He was from Zarqa, a Jordanian town 15 miles northeast of Amman. This city of 700,000 produced not only Zarqawi, who took the town’s name as his nom de guerre, but also a number of other radical jihadis.

To Islamic State, then, Jordan offers a potential target of opportunity. The group wouldn’t challenge Jordanian sovereignty directly -- for now. But over the medium to long term, it could plausibly strive to delegitimize the monarchy from without and within. It could do so with the mixed strategy of showing the regime’s weakness by killing Jordanians and promoting acts of terrorism within the kingdom. Even if efforts to weaken Abdullah failed, Islamic State would still be on the offensive against Jordan, which would be better than the defensive. Jordan is the most likely base from which to stage the efforts of any serious coalition to take on the insurgents.

From Jordan’s perspective, Islamic State is unquestionably bad news. The radical destabilization of neighboring Syria and Iraq is perhaps worse for Jordan than any other country. As happened during the birth of the Iraqi refugee crisis, early refugees from Syria came to Jordan with money -- but they stayed after their money ran out, and were followed by penniless refugees whose presence further destabilizes Jordan. Some international financial aid has eased the burden, but a country whose population consists in no small part of Palestinian refugees will never take its eye off the refugee problem.

And Abdullah understands perfectly well that he represents a target of opportunity to Islamic State. That explains the aggressiveness of his public response to the pilot's gruesome death. Abdullah is trying to communicate to Islamic State leadership that there’s no percentage in humiliating him by killing his airmen. Islamic State does not yet pose an existential threat to Abdullah -- but if it chose to focus on his regime, it could.

So long as the militants get the message and back down, Abdullah’s interest lies in helping anti-Islamic State efforts without committing himself irrevocably to them and hurting his standing with Sunni Jordanians who may feel sympathy with their Syrian and Iraqi counterparts. Abdullah could have played it cool, hoping that anti-insurgent sentiment would eventually burn out any nascent support. But this would be an extremely risky strategy given the inherent vulnerability of the monarchy to delegitimation. Holding back could easily be construed as weakness, not wisdom.

But escalation, even rhetorical escalation, has its own risks. Islamic State may well escalate in return -- which would require Jordan to commit more serious and long-term resources against it, possibly including ground troops. This would thrill the U.S. and probably please Saudi Arabia, because both have a desire to fight Islamic State without using their ground troops. Islamic State, of course, knows all this, too -- but it might welcome the chance for a limited ground war against Jordanian forces, calculating that survival would turn the group into a permanent, credible regional actor.

This isn’t the beginning of the end or even the end of the beginning. As far as Jordan and Islamic State are concerned, it’s the beginning of the beginning.

To contact the author on this story:
Noah Feldman at nfeldman7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor on this story:
Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post...in-China-US-great-game.aspx?COLLCC=851081936&

Thailand: A pawn is moved in the US-China great game

10 February 2015 3:35PM
Elliot Brennan

As many analysts have cautioned, Thailand has swung closer to China's orbit since the junta took control in May 2014. This wasn't Nostradamus-level foresight. The US was always going to have a tough time publicly maintaining relations with a military government, particularly with so much riding on Myanmar's democratic transition next door (ie. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign).

The depth of ties between the US and Thailand, Washington's closest and oldest ally in the region, has made it difficult to take a step back. The knowledge that Beijing would happily pick up the slack left by any weakening of US-Thai relations complicated things further. But as we approach a year since the military seized power, and with no elections in sight this year, the US has upped the rhetoric in the past month to serious effect.

Last month, the US Charge d'Affaires in Bangkok, Patrick Murphy, said in a speech that Thailand should lift the martial law that has been in place since May 2014, adding that the trial of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was 'politically driven'. Bangkok wasn't impressed. The head of the military government, Prayuth Chan-Ocha, rebuked Murphy, explaining that 'Thai democracy will never die, because I'm a soldier with a democratic heart. I have taken over the power because I want democracy to live on.' Bangkok summoned Washington's top diplomat in East Asia to caution that the US should stay out of Thai politics. As Murphy noted this week, US-Thailand relations are going through 'challenging' times.

That euphemism was further highlighted in the past week, when the US followed through with its October promise of a scaled-down version of its annual joint military exercise. Cobra Gold, which began yesterday, is (usually) the world's largest annual multinational military exercise. This year it is smaller. Washington cut the number of troops it sent compared to lat year by nearly a quarter, to 3600. It stopped short of scrapping the event altogether, as this would have had wide-ranging implications across the region.

Bangkok then played some strong-arm diplomacy of its own. On Friday, during a two-day visit by China's Defence Minister, Chang Wanquan, China and Thailand agreed to boost military ties over the next five years. The agreement includes, among other things, intelligence sharing, cooperation on transnational crime, and increased joint military exercises.

This US-Thailand-China interplay could further hurt Southeast Asian views of the US 'pivot'. Many in the region will be watching how both the US military and Thai military respond in coming weeks. Any further unstitching of the relationship could unravel confidence in the pivot in Southeast Asia. That could encourage Beijing to boost military-to-military ties with willing Southeast Asian states.

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150210/ml--yemen-a40a823387.html

Shiite Yemen leader issues threats; US Embassy plans to shut

Feb 10, 2:54 PM (ET)
By AHMED AL-HAJ

(AP) Houthi Shiite Yemenis wearing army uniforms, stand guard outside parliament, during...
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SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The leader of the Shiite rebels now in control of Yemen warned his enemies not to stand in his hard-line movement's way on Tuesday as the U.S. government announced it was closing its embassy in the country.

Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, who leads the Iran-linked Houthi rebel movement that claimed formal government control of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country last week, denounced reported plans by foreign governments to remove their diplomats as amounting to unwarranted "pressures."

Al-Houthi didn't specify the planned U.S. Embassy closure as he issued a sweeping warning that anyone seeking to thwart his tribal movement's ambitions would suffer unspecified retaliation in response.

"We will not accept pressures. They are of no use," al-Houthi said in speech broadcast on the rebel group's own al-Masirah TV network.

(AP) In this Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015 file photo, Houthi Shiite Yemenis wearing...
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"Whoever harms the interest of this country could see that their interests in this country are also harmed," he said. Al-Houthi made a series of similarly threatening but vague remarks, and offered no explanation for what specific retaliatory action he might have in mind.

Al-Houthi defended his group's decision to dissolve Yemen's parliament and declare that the Houthis' own Revolutionary Committee, a panel of top security and intelligence officials, was Yemen's new governing authority.

Against the backdrop of political unrest, the United Nations' envoy to Yemen has reopened multi-party talks seeking a way forward to forge a compromise government acceptable to both the country's Sunni majority and Shiite minority.

The United Nations' stated goal is to try to create a lawful government authority in Yemen that has been missing since January, when President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi resigned after being placed under house arrest by Houthi rebels. The Houthis continue to restrict him to his residence.

The Houthis, who are traditionally based in northern Yemen bordering Saudi Arabia, have continued to expand the Yemeni territory under their control. On Tuesday, Yemeni military officials said the rebels had seized the key central province of Bayda, the gateway to the country's mostly Sunni south.

Houthis have yet to take control of Yemen's oil-rich Maarib province in the east.

In Washington, two U.S. officials said Tuesday that American diplomats were being evacuated from the country and that the embassy in Sanaa would suspend operations until conditions improve. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the closure publicly on the record.

Marines providing the security at the embassy will also likely leave, the officials said, but American forces conducting counterterrorism missions against al-Qaida's Yemen affiliate in other parts of the country would not be affected.

---

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this reports.

 

[energy_wave]

Bob Work Calls Navy’s Anti-Surface Tomahawk Test ‘Game Changing’

By: Sam LaGrone
February 10, 2015 1:49 PM

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — The Pentagon’s number two civilian praised a January test of Raytheon Tomahawk missile that successfully struck a moving maritime target calling it a “game changing capability.”

Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work used the test of the Block IV Tomahawk as an example of quickly adapting existing technology in new ways of an example of the defense innovation in line with the pursuit of the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy.

“A big part of the Third Offset Strategies is to find new and innovative ways to deploy promising technologies,” Work said during a keynote speech at the WEST 2015 conference.
“This is potentially a game changing capability for not a lot of cost. It’s a 1000 mile anti-ship cruise missile.”

The benefits of using the Tomahawk as an anti-ship missile include the ability for the weapon to be used on a variety of U.S. Navy platforms.

“It’s a 1000 mile anti-ship cruise missile,” he said.
“It can be used by practically by our entire surface and submarine fleet.”

In the test, a Block IV fired from USS Kidd (DDG-100) struck a moving maritime target while being guided by a F/A-18 Super Hornet that issued instructions to the missile mid-flight.

The Tomahawk test is also in line with U.S. surface forces new, “distributed lethality” concept to put more offensive power on U.S. surface ships.

“[U.S. Surface Forces commander Vice Adm.] Tom Rowden talks about having distributed lethality in the fleet and this is exactly the way we can go about doing it,” Work said.

In January, U.S. director of surface warfare said modifying existing weapon systems would be a component of the distributed lethality concept.

“I go take a seeker – if that’s my problem – and I glue it on the front end of an existing missile. If it doesn’t go far enough, I put a new backend on it. If someone around the world is already flying it, I go buy it,” Rear Adm. Peter Fanta said in January.

Work said the addition of a new seeker on the Tomahawk could preclude the need to develop a new high power anti-ship missile (ASM) – considered an urgent need by U.S. forces in U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM).

“What happens if we take another step and just make an advanced seeker on the Tomahawk, rather than building a new missile?” Work said.
“We believe if we make decisions like that that we will be able to out turn potential adversaries and maintain our technological superiority.”

The Navy is currently testing a next generation ASM, the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

Early iterations of the Tomahawk included an anti-ship variant – the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM). However most of the missiles were taken out of the Navy inventory in the early 1990s.

Currently, the Navy’s ASM is the RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile – a decades old anti-ship missile – has thought to have been eclipsed in range and sophistication by weapons developed internationally, USNI News understands.


http://news.usni.org/2015/02/10/west-bob-work-calls-navys-anti-surface-tomahawk-test-game-changing

Video: Tomahawk Strike Missile Punches Hole Through Moving Maritime Target

http://news.usni.org/2015/02/09/video-tomahawk-strike-missile-punches-hole-moving-maritime-target

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150211/ml--yemen-af1abd9e09.html

British Embassy in Yemen closes, evacuates staff amid chaos

Feb 11, 12:39 AM (ET)
By AHMED AL-HAJ

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The British Embassy in Yemen's capital closed and evacuated its staff early Wednesday, authorities said, the latest diplomatic post to shut down in the Arab world's poorest country amid turmoil following Shiite rebels seizing power.

In a statement, U.K. Minister for the Middle East Tobias Ellwood also urged British citizens still in Yemen to "leave immediately." This comes as the State Department confirmed it also closed the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and evacuated its staff because of the political crisis there and security concerns.

"The security situation in Yemen has continued to deteriorate over recent days," Ellwood said. "Regrettably we now judge that our embassy staff and premises are at increased risk."

Yemen has been in crisis for months, with Shiite Houthi rebels besieging the capital and then taking control. Earlier Tuesday, U.S. officials said the embassy closure would not affect counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida's Yemen branch, which America views as the world's most dangerous branch of the terror group.

The United Nations has been trying to broker talks between the Houthis and others in Yemen since the Shiite rebels dissolved parliament after earlier besieging the country's president, who later resigned while armed militants surrounded his home.

Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, who leads the Shiite rebels, warned his enemies Tuesday not to stand in his hard-line movement's way and denounced foreign governments for removing their diplomats.

"We will not accept pressures. They are of no use," al-Houthi said in speech broadcast on the rebel group's own al-Masirah satellite television network. "Whoever harms the interest of this country could see that their interests in this country are also harmed."

Al-Houthi made a series of similarly threatening but vague remarks, and offered no explanation for what specific retaliatory action he might have in mind.

The Houthis, who are traditionally based in northern Yemen bordering Saudi Arabia, swept into Sanaa in September and have seized other territory since. Many link the Houthis to regional Shiite power Iran, though the rebels deny they are backed by the Islamic Republic.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150210/ml--islamic_state-b37d84eb09.html

From Jordan base, UAE resumes airstrikes on Islamic State

Feb 10, 3:33 PM (ET)
By ADAM SCHRECK

(AP) This photo released by WAM, the state news agency of the United Arab Emirates, shows...
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Arab Emirates fighter planes roared out of an air base in Jordan on Tuesday to pound Islamic State militant positions, marking a return to combat operations by one of the United States' closest Arab allies in the fight against the extremists.

The Emirates' decision to launch fresh airstrikes from the kingdom after a more-than-monthlong hiatus was a strong show of support for Western-allied Jordan, which has vowed a punishing response to the militants' killing of one of its pilots.

It also is likely to quiet concerns in Washington about the oil-rich Emirates' commitment to the fight.

The seven-state federation, which includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai, stopped conducting airstrikes late last year after Jordanian Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh was captured when his plane crashed behind enemy lines, according to American officials. Al-Kaseasbeh was later burned alive in a cage by the militants.

(AP) This photo released by WAM, the state news agency of the United Arab Emirates, show...
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American defense officials last week said they moved search-and-rescue aircraft closer to the battlefield, helping ease allies' concerns about the coalition's ability to aid downed pilots.

The General Command of the UAE Armed Forces said Emirati F-16s carried out a series of strikes Tuesday morning, according to a brief statement carried by the Gulf nation's official WAM news agency.

The fighters returned safely back to base after striking their targets, the statement said. It did not elaborate, nor did it say whether the strikes happened in Syria or Iraq. The militants hold roughly a third of each country in a self-declared caliphate.

Previous Emirati airstrikes had been in Syria, making that the most likely site of its latest targets.

The Emirates had not commented on the suspension of its airstrikes in December, and Tuesday's statement was the first confirmation it had restarted combat operations.

(AP) This photo released by WAM, the state news agency of the United Arab Emirates, shows...
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It has continued to provide logistical support to the campaign by hosting coalition warplanes at its air bases on the southern rim of the Persian Gulf.

On Saturday, the Emirates announced it was deploying a squadron of F-16s to Jordan.

Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University, said the decision to resume flights from Jordan was meant to "send the right message to everybody that the UAE stands by its friends in times of need."

He predicted the Emirati role in the coalition would be even stronger than before now that it has American assurances about search-and-rescue capabilities.

"It's a relentless campaign and it has to be carried out until Daesh is defeated," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. "I think the UAE firmly believes this, probably more than any other Arab county."

(AP) This photo released by WAM, the state news agency of the United Arab Emirates, shows...
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The Emirati announcement came as Syria's President Bashar Assad said in comments published Tuesday that his government has been receiving general messages from the American military about airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group inside Syria but that there is no direct cooperation.

In an interview with the BBC, Assad said the messages are conveyed through third parties, such as Iraq.

"Sometimes they convey message, general message, but there's nothing tactical," he said.

American and allied Arab planes conducting airstrikes in Syria share the skies with Assad's air force, which also targets the militants.

Syrian officials have maintained that they have not been consulted about the airstrikes since they started in September — only informed through third parties in the beginning.

(AP) This photo released by WAM, the state news agency of the United Arab Emirates, shows...
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White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said there has been no coordination as to specific details of U.S. military operations in Syria.

Prior to initiating strikes in Syria, the U.S. did "inform the Syrian regime through the ambassador to the United Nations," Earnest said. "What was made clear in that communication is that it's the responsibility of the Syrian government, to put it bluntly, to stay out of the way," he added.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby also stressed that the U.S. was "not communicating, directly or indirectly" with the Syrian government over airstrikes against Islamic State.

In the interview, Assad also denied his forces have used barrel bombs. The government's use of the crude explosive devices, usually dropped by helicopters, has been widely documented by international human rights organizations and residents of opposition-held areas in Syria. The barrel bombs, which cannot be precisely targeted, have killed thousands of civilians, according to Syrian activists.

"I know about the army; they use bullets, missiles, and bombs. I haven't heard of the army using barrels, or maybe, cooking pots," Assad said, apparently making light of the allegations.

Pressed again about their use, he replied: "They're called bombs. ... There are no barrel bombs; we don't have barrels."

---

Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Nedra Pickler and Wendy Benjaminson in Washington contributed to this report.

---

Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck .

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/9/jed-babbin-obamas-national-security-strategy-wont-/

Obama’s fabulist national security strategy

This White House fable won’t keep Americans safe

By Jed Babbin - - Monday, February 9, 2015
Comments 17

To believe and accept any part of President Obama’s new national security strategy requires the willing suspension of disbelief. It’s a statement of bold leadership, in almost Churchillian terms, but it bears no relationship to the president’s actions or the current state of the world.

The “strategy” blueprint, released by the White House on Friday and outlined by national security adviser Susan Rice during a speech at the Brookings Institution, promises we will “lead with strength,” “lead by example,” and “lead with capable partners.” That sort of leadership is nowhere in evidence, and has not been in Mr. Obama’s entire presidency. Allies such as Saudi Arabia have renounced American foreign policy and have gone their own way. Ukraine, which the strategy promises to defend not with arms shipments but with more sanctions, is being gradually conquered by Russian “little green men,” soldiers disguised as insurgents and supported by identified Russian troops.

Apparently stung by criticism of his weak leadership, Mr. Obama establishes a theme promising to “lead with purpose” to secure the United States, our allies and partners. He says the strategy will establish “strong, innovative and growing U.S. economy,” “respect for universal values and “a rules-based international order advanced by U.S. leadership.” There are so many mentions of leadership — praise for it in the present and promises for the future — in contexts where it isn’t exercised — that it’s apparent that the White House has spun a fable around it to avoid the concept.

When you read, “Our military will remain ready to deter and defeat threats to the homeland, including against missile, cyber and terrorist attacks,” you need to recall that last March Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, head of United States Cyber Command, told Congress, “We are finding that we do not have the capacity to do everything we need to accomplish.” When you read that in response to Russian aggression, “we have led an international effort to support the Ukrainian people as they choose their own future,” you need to recall the renewed fighting there. And owing to Mr. Obama’s lack of action to support Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have, in desperation, undertaken their own peace initiative with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They will fail because Mr. Putin knows he can conquer Ukraine regardless of Mr. Obama’s sanctions.

There are a lot of other statements in the fable Mr. Obama has spun that leave us shaking our heads. His “strategy” characterizes the struggles for power in the Middle East as a “generational struggle,” not the war it really is, between the two main Islamic sects, the Sunni and the Shia. The document doesn’t, of course, mention the fact that Libya has become a terrorist safe haven as a result of Mr. Obama’s military intervention that overthrew the quiescent Moammar Gadhafi regime. Or that the only threat to the Islamic State is the Jordanian king, whose long-term determination to fight remains in doubt.

Perhaps the strangest parts of the “strategy” are the ones that address Iran directly and indirectly. The president asserts that our negotiations with Iran have already stopped the progress of its nuclear weapons program. That proposition is refuted by the facts we know and is entirely unverified. He argues that the best way to advance our interests is to continue along the path the Iranians and he have charted for the negotiations.

If that is true, why is Mr. Obama going to such great lengths to ensure that the agreement, whenever it is finalized, will never be submitted to the Senate for ratification?

Under this “strategy,” Mr. Obama says we will not hesitate to take “decisive action,” but only “legally, discriminately, proportionally, and bound by strict accountability .” This is the heart of the president’s policy. He restricts us to acting proportionally, which means that the enemy can dictate the terms of any war. As I wrote on Sept. 11, 2001, in a column that appeared on this page the following day, that is a policy of appeasement. It promises our enemies that we will never take sufficient action to defeat them decisively.

Mr. Obama presumably means we will function in what he describes as “a rules-based international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace .” Perhaps he hasn’t read Henry Kissinger’s recent book “World Order.” Our most senior statesman wrote that because Iran is a revolutionary power, we must realize that it rejects such a rules-based order and, in fact, seeks to overthrow anything that resembles it.

Mr. Obama’s strategy document says we have to “live our values at home while promoting universal values abroad.” To do so, he promises to work harder to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The president doesn’t mention, though, that the five top Taliban commanders released in a trade for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will soon finish their parole in Qatar and be able to return to their leadership of the Taliban movement in time to retake the government of Afghanistan.

The paper, as expected, continues to assert that climate change is a top strategic threat to American security. That insistence led to the “Climate Change Adaption Roadmap” released by the Pentagon last year. It mandates that “climate change” considerations will be included in every aspect of defense planning, including plans for military operations. (I can just see the press release: “The Marines have landed and have beach erosion well in hand.”)

We and our allies need a detailed national security strategy that deals effectively with the realities we face. This isn’t it. It’s a parody of policy, but no one should be laughing.

• Jed Babbin served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is a senior fellow of the London Center for Policy Research and the author of five books including “In the Words of Our Enemies.”

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

 

[Housecarl]

John Batchelor Show
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/tuesday-10-february-2015

Hour Two
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 10, 2015 Readout of the President's Call with President Putin of Russia
President Obama today called President Vladimir Putin of Russia to address the escalating violence in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s ongoing support for the separatists there. President Obama reiterated America’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. President Obama underscored the rising human toll of the fighting and underscored the importance of President Putin seizing the opportunity presented by the ongoing discussions between Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine to reach a peaceful resolution. The President emphasized the importance of reaching and implementing a negotiated settlement underpinned by the commitments in the Minsk agreement. However, if Russia continues its aggressive actions in Ukraine, including by sending troops, weapons, and financing to support the separatists, the costs for Russia will rise.
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus (2 of 4), in re: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Colum...cond-Front-Obama-and-Kerry-Are-Now-War-Europe
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-forces-launch-offensive-near-port-of...
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus (3 of 4); in re: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-08/lavrov-s-comedy-routine...
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus (4 of 4).
Hour Three
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 3, Block A: Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: Scott Walker opens office in Iowa ; Scott Walker must clarify his immigration stance, critics say. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar..._dems_pushing_middle_america_away_125529.html
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 3, Block B: David Hawkings, Roll Call/CQ, in re: Not often do a congressman and an anchorman see their careers simultaneously lurching onto parallel and perilous tracks. But that’s one way of looking at what’s happening with Aaron Schock and Brian Williams.
The situations facing both the Republican House member from Illinois and the face of NBC Nightly News appear strikingly similar in many ways. Read more / t.
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 3, Block C: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover & Real Clear Politics, in re: "Why the Left Casts a Blind Eye on Radical Islam,"
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...asts_a_blind_eye_on_radical_islam_125522.html
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 3, Block D: Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/9/jed-babbin-obamas-national-security-strategy-wont-/
Hour Four
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 4, Block A: Terry Anderson, PERC Montana & Hoover (John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow & William A. Dunn Distinguished Senior Fellow), in re: Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation Environmental legislation including the Wilderness Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, to mention a few, were the hallmark of environmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s. They all reflected a command-and-control mentality aimed at correcting the perceived tendency of capitalism to run ruff shod over the environment. With children’ eyes burning from smog in Los Angeles, bald eagles' heading toward extinction, and the Cuyahoga River burning, it was easy to muster political support for these laws. . . .
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View, in re: “The president has to deliver Democrat votes on this and he has to show a commitment,” the senior Republican Senate aide said. “He’s actually got to prosecute the fight to get this thing passed. If he doesn’t demonstrate that he actually wants this, you might see Republicans walk.” Obama's Islamic State war authorization limits US ground forces.
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Sohrab Ahmari, WSJ London, in re: The View from NATO’s Russian Front. The Army commander in Europe on Putin’s new way of war, Russia’s growing arsenal, and coping with U.S. military budget cuts. In Wiesbaden, Germany: ‘I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years—' The Russians have “got some forces in Transdnistria,” he says of the state that broke away from Moldova in the 1990s. “They’ve got forces in Georgia. And I think they view China as their existential threat, so they’ve got a lot of capacity out there.” The Russian military is thus already somewhat stretched, and Moscow had to carve out from existing units the battalion task groups currently arrayed near eastern Ukraine. Yet “they are clearly on a path to develop, to increase, their capacity,” Gen. Hodges says. Add to this expansion that “they’ve got very good equipment, extremely good communications equipment, their [electronic-warfare] capability, T-80 tanks.” How long will it take for Russia to reach its desired military strength? “I think within another two or three years they will have that capacity,” he says.
Tuesday 10 February 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Dragon returns to Earth safely After 29 days in space, Dragon returned safely to Earth today, splashing down in the Pacific. NASA safety panel questions safety of SLS NASA’s safety panel has issued a report questioning the safety of the early launches of the Space Launch System (SLS), partly due to the very low launch rate and the lack of any planned unmanned test flights for the rocket’s upper stage engine.
“The ASAP and the Agency remain concerned about risks introduced in the currently scheduled frequency of SLS/Orion launches, ” according to ASAP’s 2014 Annual Report. “The plan indicates a launch about every 2 to 4 years. This would challenge ground crew competency. The skills, procedures, and knowledge of conducting the launch, mission, and recovery are perish-able. The ASAP believes that an extended interval requires the relearning of many lessons and skills, in contrast to Apollo and Shuttle, which had a relatively steady cadence.”
No space project can accomplish anything with launch rate this slow. Not only does this increase the risk that inexperience will cause errors, the long time gaps make it difficult for the project to get anything done. And then there's NASA’s idea that it can put humans on this rocket without any previous launch testing of the rocket’s upper stage or the capsule’s life support systems. Why should NASA’s rocket get a pass on this kind of testing when the agency is demanding that the private companies do it?
.. .. ..


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[Housecarl]

Here's the whole WSJ article....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wsj.com/articles/weekend-interview-gen-frederick-hodges-on-natos-russian-front-1423266333

The Weekend Interview
The View From NATO’s Russian Front

The Army commander in Europe on Putin’s new way of war, Russia’s growing arsenal, and coping with U.S. military budget cuts.

By Sohrab Ahmari

Biography
Sohrab.Ahmari@wsj.com
@SohrabAhmari

Feb. 6, 2015 6:45 p.m. ET
373 COMMENTS

Wiesbaden, Germany

‘I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years—not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years.”

So says Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe. It’s Monday evening at the Army’s Lucius D. Clay garrison near Wiesbaden, a small town in southwest Germany. The air outside is freezing, the ground coated by a thin layer of snow. Moscow lies 1,500 miles east, but Russia comes up almost immediately as I sit down to dinner with Gen. Hodges and one of his aides in a cozy dining room at the base.

“Strong Europe!” reads a sign on one of the walls. Next to it is the U.S. Army Europe insignia, a burning sword set against a blue shield. The two signs represent the strategic framework the three-star general has introduced—building on America’s decades-long role on the Continent—since taking command last year of the 30,000 or so U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe.

The U.S. military presence in Europe is more vital at this moment than it has been in many years. American engagement is essential if the West is to deter a revanchist Russia that has set out to “redraw the boundaries of Europe,” Gen. Hodges says with a native Floridian’s drawl.

He points to the recent increase in violence in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Kremlin forces in January assaulted the Black Sea port of Mariupol, killing 30 civilians, and are now consolidating their gains.

“What’s happening in eastern Ukraine is very serious,” the 56-year-old West Point alumnus says. “When they fired into Mariupol that got my attention. Mariupol is an important place, city of 500,000 on the Black Sea. Russia has to resupply Crimea by sea or air, and that is very expensive, so obviously they would like to do it overland. Mariupol sits right in the way. They would really like to drive right through there.”

What Russian President Vladimir Putin “has done in Ukraine,” he says, “is a manifestation of a strategic view of the world. So when you look at the amount of equipment that has been provided, and the quality and sophistication of the equipment that has been provided to what I would call his proxies . . . they clearly have no intention of leaving there.”

The new weapons Mr. Putin has supplied to these proxies include “some of the latest air-defense systems,” says Gen. Hodges. “They also have brought in some of the latest, most-effective jamming, what we would call electronic-warfare, systems.” This level of assistance suggests Ukraine “is not a foray, not a demonstration. They are deploying capabilities way above and beyond anything that any militia or rebel organization could ever come up with.”

The fact that the political class in the West is still splitting hairs about the nature of the insurgency in Ukraine is testament to the success of the Kremlin’s strategy of waging war without admitting it. “When you saw video of the Spetsnaz [Russian special forces], the so-called little green men” in eastern Ukraine, the general says, “unless you absolutely know nothing about military stuff, how they carry themselves, the fact that they were all perfectly in uniform, that’s hard to do. It’s hard to get soldiers to stay in uniform and everybody carrying their weapon the right way all the time. That’s how you tell the difference between a militia, or rebels who have a variety of uniforms, and this group who are all perfectly in uniform.”

Gen. Hodges then strips his own Ranger badge from a Velcro patch on his uniform sleeve, just as those well-organized soldiers aiding the Ukrainian insurgents are badgeless. “I can take my patch off my uniform and say I’m not in the Army anymore,” he chuckles. “So there’s a reluctance to acknowledge it. I can understand that. This has huge implications. But that’s what so-called hybrid warfare is all about. It’s about creating ambiguity, giving people who don’t want to believe it an excuse to not believe. Or to create enough uncertainty so that the responses are slow, delayed, hesitant.”

Such hesitation has already worked for Mr. Putin, and contrasting Russia’s military buildup with anemic military spending in the West gives the general further reason for concern.

The Russians have “got some forces in Transnistria,” he says of the state that broke away from Moldova in the 1990s. “They’ve got forces in Georgia. And I think they view China as their existential threat, so they’ve got a lot of capacity out there.” The Russian military is thus already somewhat stretched, and Moscow had to carve out from existing units the battalion task groups currently arrayed near eastern Ukraine. Yet “they are clearly on a path to develop, to increase, their capacity,” Gen. Hodges says. Add to this expansion that “they’ve got very good equipment, extremely good communications equipment, their [electronic-warfare] capability, T-80 tanks.” How long will it take for Russia to reach its desired military strength? “I think within another two or three years they will have that capacity,” he says.

Gen. Hodges notes that the Russians already have an advantage in the information battleground: “They’re not burdened with the responsibility to tell the truth. So they just hammer away, and whenever somebody in the West puts out a blog or a tweet, there’s an immediate counterattack by these trolls.”

Russia Today, the Kremlin’s foreign-language television service, is estimated to be within reach of 600 million viewers world-wide. Russia Today’s YouTube channel has received a billion views, making it one of the most-watched channels on the online-video platform.

Then there is the Kremlin’s sheer aggressiveness, not least on the nuclear front. The Pentagon last year announced that it is removing missiles from 50 of America’s underground silos, converting B-52 long-range bombers to conventional use and disabling 56 submarine-based nuclear-launch tubes—all well ahead of the 2018 New Start treaty deadline. Moscow, by contrast, has been simulating nuclear strikes on Western capitals as part of annual exercises.

Gen. Hodges won’t comment on the U.S. strategic-force posture in Europe other than to say he is “confident in that process.” But he adds that the fact that the Russians rehearse nuclear-strike scenarios “shows that they’re not worried about conveying a stark message like that. You know, frankly, you hear this often from many people in the West, ‘Oh, we don’t want to provoke the Russians.’ I think concern about provoking the Russians is probably misplaced. You can’t provoke them. They’re already on a path to do what they want to do.”

Fear of provoking Russia has been part of the recent debate over providing lethal aid to Kiev. As a member of the military, Gen Hodges won’t weigh in directly in the Washington policy debate. “What’s more important is this,” he says. “We have to have a strategy. Just military aid is not a strategy.” Western leaders should first determine what outcome they’d like to see emerge in the region, he says, and then apply a “whole-of-government” approach, including a military dimension, to achieve it.

Before being posted here, and in between multiple post-9/11 deployments to the Middle East, Gen. Hodges served as an Army congressional liaison in Washington. What he learned was that lawmakers’ “interests will tend to be domestic,” he says.

“If you’re the delegation from North Carolina that cares about Fort Bragg, you’re going to want to see as much capability as possible and money spent in North Carolina. Same thing at Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Lewis, Washington,” he says. “But there is no congressman for Wiesbaden, no senator for Bavaria.”

Many Americans and their representatives are tempted to regard Crimea as a distant geographical abstraction—and to say that it’s about time Europeans met their own defense needs instead of financing bloated welfare states. “It’s a fair question,” Gen. Hodges says. “Why won’t the Germans do more? Why won’t the Brits do more? You’ll get that from people in the States. I’ve never been bashful about telling allies, ‘Hey, you have a responsibility here, too. You all agreed to spend 2% of your GDP on defense. Right now only four countries are doing it.’”

Yet the failure of many of European leaders to live up to their defense commitments “doesn’t change our interest,” Gen. Hodges says. “And the U.S. economic link to Europe, to the EU, dwarfs any other economic link in the world, anywhere in the Pacific, China, India, you name it. So if for no other reason it’s in our interest that Europe be stable, that people make money so they can buy U.S. products. . . . We provide capability assurance here by being present here.”

Gen. Hodges says there is also a huge payoff in U.S. security from U.S.-European cooperation. The main lesson of the post-9/11 wars is that “we are not going to do anything by ourselves militarily,” he notes. The U.S. “needs the capacity that other countries can bring.” These benefits come “from a relatively small investment—I mean, U.S. Army Europe is 2% of the Army’s budget and about 5% of the Army’s manpower. . . . You can’t sit back in Virginia, Texas or Oregon and build relationships with people here.” He quotes his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell: “You can’t surge trust.”

Nor can the U.S. project national power world-wide, as it has since the end of World War II, with an overstretched Army. “There are 10 division headquarters in the Army,” he says. “Nine of them are committed right now. I’ve never seen that. I don’t think at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan you had nine out of 10 division headquarters committed against some requirement.” That leaves little in reserve if another conflict breaks out.

To a commander like Gen. Hodges, the strain on the Army caused by budget sequestration is palpable. “With the possibility of sequestration hanging over our head, the Army will have to go to 420,000” personnel, he says. “That’s about another 80,000 below where we are now. . . . The strength of the Army at the height of the buildup was about 560,000.”

What Gen. Hodges fears is a “hollow” Army, in which commanders will have to forego a capable and sufficiently large personnel, readiness or modernization to meet budget requirements. To serve its purpose, however, an Army needs a depth of resources at its disposal.

“We’re not a business,” he says. “If you run a Napa [auto parts] franchise, the last thing you want is anything on the shelf. You basically want it coming out of the delivery truck to the customer, so you don’t have money tied up in inventory. In the military, that’s exactly what you want. You want stuff on the shelf, because you can’t possibly know how many customers you might have.”

In the Army, “customers” are global crises. “What are the three biggest things that have been on the news this past year?” Gen. Hodges asks. “Russia in Ukraine. Ebola. ISIL. A year ago, who had that on their list of things that are going to go wrong? Not all the geniuses in the think tanks and in all the agencies. I certainly didn’t.”

Even with supplies on the U.S. military’s shelves thinning, there is no bigger deterrent to Vladimir Putin and other bad actors than the knowledge that men like Gen. Hodges and the forces he commands are working in customer service.

Mr. Ahmari is a Journal editorial-page writer based in London.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/no-proxy-war-against-russia

Dispatches
Michael J. Totten

No Proxy War Against Russia
9 February 2015
Comments 207

Senator Ted Cruz thinks the United States should arm Ukraine so it can beat Russian-backed separatists in the east. As much as we’d love to help plucky Ukraine resist the giant bear to the north—and we have a solid precedent under our belts—it’s a terrible idea.

Backing the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s worked smashingly well. Moscow learned the hard way that it could no longer project enough hard power to shield its vassal states from local uprisings and everything fell apart almost instantly.

Afghanistan was hardly the only country in the Soviet sphere disgruntled with communist rule. Eastern Europeans never acquiesced to it in the first place. They had it imposed on them by the victorious Stalin atop the ashes of the Nazi regime. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956, which began as a seemingly harmless student revolt, brought down the local Russian puppet state. Moscow panicked, deployed thousands of soldiers and tanks, and reimposed the brutal old order. It did the same during the Prague Spring in 1968.

But after the debacle in Afghanistan, Russia lacked the resources and will to repeat it. Nothing could hold back the rising tide of mass discontent in Europe, and barely six months later the Berlin Wall fell.

But Ukraine isn’t Afghanistan, and it is not Hungary. It’s where Russian civilization was born, as the medieval state Kievan Rus in the 10th century. For Russians, losing Kiev to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union was a bit like Jews losing Jerusalem. Their toleration of a sovereign Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet system was always conditional on Kiev taking orders from Moscow. As soon as that ended with the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych last year, so did its independence.

Russia will no sooner surrender to American-backed forces in Ukraine than we would surrender to a Russian-backed insurgency in Vermont. The situation is hardly analogous—unlike Vermont, Ukraine is a country—but from Vladimir Putin’s point of view it’s precisely analogous.

This is all about NATO expansion which scares the daylights out of the Russians. It shouldn’t, but it does, and it’s not hard to understand why. Just ask yourself how the British would feel if the USSR won the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact expanded to Paris and Brussels. London would feel like it’s “next.” London would have cause to feel like it’s “next.” That’s exactly how it looked from Moscow’s point of view when former vassals like Lithuania and Estonia joined up with Germany and France—and the United States.

It’s a paranoid analysis, but Russia has always been paranoid.

“I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years,” said US Army Commander in Europe Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges. “Not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years.”

The solution from Russia’s point of view—as always—is to either control or destabilize as many “buffer” states as it can. Any of its smaller neighbors that get a little too uppity will find themselves undermined from within or outright invaded, and in the modern era they’re likely to find scraps of territory “annexed” by Moscow to indefinitely prevent them from joining NATO. No one in NATO wants to admit a nation as a new member state that has a disputed territory conflict with Russia. It’s dangerous. That’s ultimately what Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 was about, and it’s the main reason Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula last year.

Putin has already achieved his primary objective and doesn’t need to do much else at this point except not lose the rest of the war. If the United States gets even indirectly involved, he’ll just ramp it up. He needs to win in Ukraine far more than we do, and unlike us he’s more than willing to deploy his own forces directly.

There is no chance Ukraine could ever win a total war against Russia. All it can do is make continued Russian intervention too costly. While it may appear that arming Ukraine will make Russian intervention too costly, it will only inflame Moscow’s anxiety and make losing Ukraine too costly for Russia.

Maybe—maybe—if Kiev wins the war in the east on its own and cedes lost territory to Russia, a Ukrainian rump state could join NATO and prevent something like this from happening again in the future, but that’s only remotely possible if Putin doesn’t feel like he must best the West in his own “near abroad” or lose everything.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-110215.html

Greater China
Feb 11, '15
Michael Pillsbury and Fu-Manchu
By Spengler

The author of a new book claiming China is plotting to take over the world gets some things right but gets the big picture wrong. China may end up dominating the world, but if so it will be by default - because the United States abandoned the role, with its increasing tendency to walk away from strategic responsibilities bemusing China's leaders.

I haven't ordered Michael Pillsbury's new book about China's plot to take over the world (The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. Instead, I obtained Sax Rohmer's 1913 novel on the same subject, which can be had gratis from Amazon in a Kindle edition. "The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu" portrays a Chinese genius who plans a rising of the East to overwhelm the West. It has the double advantage of being more entertaining and free.

Michael Pillsbury, a former defense and intelligence official now at he Hudson Institute, claims that China has planned a "hundred-year marathon" since the days of Mao Zedong culminating in world domination. The difference between Rohmer's fantasy and Pillsbury's scholarship is that Pillsbury may turn out to be right after the fact. China may dominate the world, and future historians well may reconstruct China’s intent to dominate the world from the same sort of documents that Pillsbury cites.

But China is not planning to take over the world. It doesn't want the world. It doesn't like the world - that is, the world outside of China. Unlike Greeks, Romans, Muslims, and European imperialists, it does not want to plant its flag outside its borders, send its young men to conquer and defend new territories, or subject other peoples to colonial rule. Nonetheless, it may inherit the world, reluctantly and by default.

If China does emerge as a world power, it will not be the first time that an empire had greatness thrust upon it. Many of the great world conquests of the past were not conquests at all, but migrations into ruined and depopulated territory. Rome conquered a Greece whose population had imploded between the 5th and 2nd centuries B.C.E., as I reported in my 2011 book How Civilizations Die.

Most of the great battles fought in the so-called Muslim conquest never happened, Yehuda Nevo and Judith Koren argue convincingly in the 2003 book Crossroads to Islam. Arab auxiliaries of the Byzantine army, rather, moved into territory abandoned by the Eastern half of the Roman Empire during the great depopulation of the 7th and 8th centuries.

If China becomes the dominant world power, it will happen because the United States abandoned the role.

After its blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has lost the will to assert power in the world's trouble zones. And after the collapse of the tech bubble in 2000 and the mortgage bubble in 2008, it has lost interest in innovation except in the sterile fields of design (Apple) and social media (Facebook).

I wrote in 2013, "We [the United States] are a disruptive, bottom-up economy driven by entrepreneurship, and we look with contempt at China's clumsy, top-down model. The trouble is that we haven't done much innovation since the 1980s. A new generation of well-educated and eager Chinese may assimilate our past innovations and pass us by." And last September, I warned in the British monthly Standpoint that China may outstrip the West at innovation.

America, to be sure, still possesses far more intellectual firepower than China, but the gap is closing. China now mints twice as many science and engineering doctorates as the United States. China’s high school math curriculum makes the proposed Core Competence program look pathetic. Most importantly, China’s capital markets are far more likely to bet on young entrepreneurs with a new technology than American capital markets. Young Chinese innovators have a better chance of getting rich in China than in the US.

American policy towards China, Michael Pillsbury avers, was based on a set of false assumptions. Here he is right on the money. Among these assumptions were the belief that China is on the road to democracy; that China"wants to be - and is - just like us"; and that "engagement brings complete cooperation". China has had an emperor for 3,000 years, and the present dynasty (the Communist Party) has increased household income 16-fold since 1987. As the distinguished China watcher Francesco Sisci argues, the present dynasty represents a "golden age" by Chinese criteria.

China is investing massively in high-tech military capacity: satellite-killing missiles, high-velocity cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, and so forth, as Pillsbury observes. In fact, China’s efforts to move up the value-added chain in manufacturing involve dual-use technologies, that is, military R&D with civilian implications. That is well documented, for example, by Dr Michael Raska at Singapore’s Rajaratnam Institute of Strategic Studies. China wants to be impregnable within its borders and a few hundred miles from its coastline.

What China is not doing, though, is just as informative. The People’s Liberation Army owns not a single ground-support aircraft like America’s A-10 Warthog or Russia’s SU-25. It neither buys them nor builds them. It is not building a land army for regional conquest; it is investing in high-tech capacity with many defense as well as civilian applications to challenge America’s edge in military technology.

This should be something of a Sputnik movement for the United States, a wake-up call like Russia’s 1957 launch of the first satellite into space. Pillsbury is right to call attention to China’s rise, but wrong to attribute Fu-Manchu-like motives to China’s leaders.

On the contrary: China leaders are bemused by America’s sudden and unexpected withdrawal from strategic responsibility, for example, in the Persian Gulf, and struggling to devise a response that would ensure the security of oil supplies without entangling alliances and risky military commitments. It is a comedy of errors rather than a conspiracy, as I wrote in this space last November 10.

America should be concerned, and should respond. But the appropriate response is to restore funding to the gutted military R&D budget, and reform the tax and regulatory environment to encourage investors to risk money on the commercialization of new technologies. China will wake up and take notice if the United States pulls ahead of it in the technology race. If the US fails to do so, anything else it chooses to do will be futile.

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman. He is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East ForumHis book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, It's Not the End of the World - It's Just the End of You, also appeared that fall, from Van Praag Press.

Copyright 2015 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4473/u-s-national-security-strategy#more-5205

U.S. National Security Strategy

By krepon | 10 February 2015 | No Comments

U.S. National Security Strategy reports, like the one issued by President Barack Obama on February 6th, are quickly forgotten. They do, however, provide useful temperature-taking devices. Compare, for example, the National Security Strategy report released by the George W. Bush administration in 2002 with the Obama administration’s 2015 report.

There are many common themes in these two reports, built around values, alliances, and the like. U.S. national security strategy is, after all, built around core interests that don’t change from one administration to the next. New administrations do, however, change emphasis. They undertake course corrections, triggered by external events and the temper of the electorate.

The Bush administration’s first National Security Strategy report, issued soon after attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon by al-Qaeda operatives flying hijacked commercial airliners, presented an ambitious, muscular, and fateful course correction. Here are some excerpts:

We will defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants.

America will hold to account nations that are compromised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists— because the allies of terror are the enemies of civilization. The United States and countries cooperating with us must not allow the terrorists to develop new home bases. Together, we will seek to deny them sanctuary at every turn.

As a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed… History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action.

The United States will use this moment of opportunity to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe.

Having moved from confrontation to cooperation as the hallmark of our relationship with Russia, the dividends are evident: an end to the balance of terror that divided us; an historic reduction in the nuclear arsenals on both sides; and cooperation in areas such as counterterrorism and missile defense that until recently were inconceivable.

We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.

We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries… The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.

Compare these ringing declarations with the following passages from the Obama administration’s 2015 National Security Strategy:

We have to make hard choices among many competing priorities, and we must always resist the over-reach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear.

Our resources will never be limitless. Policy tradeoffs and hard choices will need to be made.

In an interconnected world, there are no global problems that can be solved without the United States, and few that can be solved by the United States alone.

We mobilized and are leading global efforts to impose costs to counter Russian aggression

We will prioritize collective action to meet the persistent threat posed by terrorism today, especially from al-Qa’ida, ISIL, and their affiliates.

We will be principled and selective in the use of force. The use of force should not be our first choice, but it will sometimes be the necessary choice. The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our enduring interests demand it: when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; and when the security of our allies is in danger. In these circumstances, we prefer to act with allies and partners. The threshold for military action is higher when our interests are not directly threatened. In such cases, we will seek to mobilize allies and partners to share the burden and achieve lasting outcomes. In all cases, the decision to use force must reflect a clear mandate and feasible objectives, and we must ensure our actions are effective, just, and consistent with the rule of law. It should be based on a serious appreciation for the risk to our mission, our global responsibilities, and the opportunity costs at home and abroad. Whenever and wherever we use force, we will do so in a way that reflects our values and strengthens our legitimacy.

[W]e shifted away from a model of fighting costly, large-scale ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which the United States—particularly our military—bore an enormous burden. Instead, we are now pursuing a more sustainable approach that prioritizes targeted counterterrorism operations, collective action with responsible partners, and increased efforts to prevent the growth of violent extremism and radicalization that drives increased threats.

When Presidents are re-elected, their second National Security Strategy report is usually more tempered than the first. This is true for both the Bush and Obama administrations. The national mood shifted greatly after 9/11 and then shifted again in reaction to the dispiriting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pendulum is now swinging back again, and will gain momentum in the next administration.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2015/02/11/20000-foreign-fighters-head-to-syria-to-join-is-us

20,000 foreign fighters head to Syria to join IS: US
AFP | 11 February, 2015 10:55

Foreign fighters are flocking to Syria at an "unprecedented" rate, with more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world joining the Islamic State or other extremist groups, US intelligence officials said Tuesday.

The foreign fighters have traveled to Syria from more than 90 countries, including at least 3,400 from Western states and more than 150 Americans, according to the latest estimate from the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC).

A majority of the foreign volunteers who arrived recently have joined forces with the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, it said.

The estimate of the total number of foreign fighters flocking to Syria was up from a previous estimate in January of 19,000, according to NCTC.

No precise numbers are available "but the trend lines are clear and concerning," Nicholas Rasmussen, NCTC director, said in prepared remarks for a hearing before lawmakers on Wednesday.

"The rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is unprecedented. It exceeds the rate of travelers who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years," he said.

The profile of those who head to the Syrian conflict are from a range of backgrounds and "do not fit any one stereotype," Rasmussen said.

"The battlefields in Iraq and Syria provide foreign fighters with combat experience, weapons and explosives training, and access to terrorist networks that may be planning attacks which target the West," he said.

Western governments have voiced increasingly alarm over the flow of foreign volunteers heading to the Syrian conflict, particularly in the aftermath of jihadist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead.

The director's prepared testimony for the House Homeland Security Committee was released to AFP on Wednesday.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/europe/ukraine-conflict/

Leaders gather in Minsk for Ukraine crisis summit

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 4:48 AM ET, Wed February 11, 2015

(CNN)All eyes were on Minsk, Belarus, on Wednesday as officials from Russia, Ukraine and separatist groups met to hammer out proposals for a possible peace deal for Ukraine.

After a series of low level talks, the leaders of France and Germany, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel, hope to bring together Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko later in the day.

Video showed Denis Pushilin of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Vladislav Deinego of the Luhansk People's Republic at the talks speaking with reporters Tuesday night.
Can Minsk talks end violence in Ukraine?

Can Minsk talks end violence in Ukraine? 01:48
PLAY VIDEO

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe also attended the preliminary meeting.

But leaders involved in the talks still have a long road to travel before any lasting agreement is reached, CNN's Nic Robertson reported from Minsk.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday that the upcoming talks were "another huge chance to take a big first step towards deescalation, hopefully towards a silencing of the weapons.

"But I underline it again, nothing has been resolved yet. The taking place of the summit alone is no a guarantee of its success. Therefore I urge and expect Moscow and Kiev to take it seriously and in the face of imminent military conflict really seize this chance."

The main points of negotiations of the so-called Normandy group -- the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine -- are expected to be the withdrawal of heavy weapons, the creation of a demilitarized zone and the future status of the Donbas area, which comprises Luhansk and Donetsk.

Bus station shelled

The talks come against a backdrop of worsening violence in eastern Ukraine.
OSCE: People experiencing violence everyday

OSCE: People experiencing violence everyday 02:31
PLAY VIDEO

Four people were killed and nine injured after a central bus station in Donetsk city was hit by shelling Wednesday morning, according to the official news agency of the Donetsk People's Republic, DAN.

The Donetsk City office website reported that two buses were hit and burst into flames.

In the past 24 hours, 19 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 78 injured in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military operation against the separatists, Vladislav Seleznyov, told reporters in Kiev on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, shelling in the town of Kramatorsk left 12 civilians dead and 35 injured, with 29 military personnel also injured, according to the Kiev-backed Donetsk regional authority.
Kramatorsk shelled day before peace talks set to begin

Kramatorsk shelled day before peace talks set to begin 01:28
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Kramatorsk, deep inside Ukrainian-held territory, is the location of the main base for the government's military operation against the separatists, which it calls the anti-terrorist operation, or ATO.

The OSCE said its monitors saw evidence that cluster bombs had been used. Cluster bombs are banned by many states because of their deadly impact on civilians.

Fighting continues around the strategically important town of Debaltseve, which has been under siege by separatist forces for weeks.

A Ukrainian unit also launched an offensive Wednesday against the separatists near the city of Mariupol in the south east.

Each side has accused the other of shelling civilian areas in the course of the conflict.

What's next in conflict?

Obama: Seize opportunity for peace

U.S. President Barack Obama called Putin on Tuesday and urged him to seize the opportunity for peace, the White House said.
Will diplomacy succeed in Ukraine?

Will diplomacy succeed in Ukraine? 05:21
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"The President emphasized the importance of reaching and implementing a negotiated settlement underpinned by the commitments in the (prior) Minsk agreement. However, if Russia continues its aggressive actions in Ukraine, including by sending troops, weapons and financing to support the separatists, the costs for Russia will rise," the White House said.

Obama has not ruled out providing weapons to the Ukrainian military to help it defend against the separatists' advances.

A Kremlin readout of the call said it focused on finding a peaceful settlement of the crisis.

In an earlier interview with Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was "really interested in a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Ukraine."

He said other Western proposals, such as imposing more sanctions against Russian interests, isolating Russia or the possible arming of Ukrainian forces, would only destabilize the situation.

The European Union's Foreign Affairs Council agreed on additional sanctions Monday against Russian and separatist interests but said their implementation would be delayed for a week to "give space for current diplomatic efforts."

Merkel in the middle of a U.S.-Russia standoff

Demilitarized zone?

The big challenge facing the leaders meeting Wednesday in Minsk is whether they can reach a peace agreement that will stick.
Ukrainian FM on Obama, Merkel talks

Ukrainian FM on Obama, Merkel talks 04:20
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A previous peace deal was signed in September, also in Minsk. It called for a drawback of heavy weapons, self rule in the eastern regions and a buffer zone to be set up along the Russia-Ukraine border.

But the agreement quickly disintegrated, and the violence continued.

The new plan envisions a much broader demilitarized zone to run along the current front lines.

Russia has steadfastly denied accusations that it is sending forces and weapons into Ukraine. But top Western and Ukrainian leaders have said there isn't any doubt that Russia is behind surging violence and separatists' efforts to take over territory in eastern Ukraine.

All the while, the crisis in Ukraine, which stemmed from a trade agreement, has killed more than 5,000 people, including many civilians, and forced more than 1.5 million from their homes, according to the United Nations.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Alla Eshchenko, Frederik Pleitgen, Catherine Shoichet, Khushbu Shah, Matthew Chance, Radina Gigova, Emma Burrows, Steve Almasy and journalist Victoria Butenko in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

Came across this and after reading it my first thought was that the author hadn't taken a good look at any Russian tactical transports...They've all got a bombardier nose station and often a tail stinger as well as built so in an emergency they can be converted into a bomber. The Il-76 discussed in the article is shown with the "glass house" showing very predominantly in the lead photo.

Heck that's what Sudan has been using for years in Darfur and other places. As to the dig about dropping "dumb bombs", they can fix that pretty quickly with a laser designator or a GLONASS system (the Russians like the Chinese have a wide selection of precision guided munitions) to go with their own PGMs.....Housecarl

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/russia-just-strapped-bombs-to-a-cargo-plane-d690fd9129bf

Russia Just Strapped Bombs to a Cargo Plane

Moscow plans to base the strike aircraft near the Baltic

by MATTHEW GAULT
Feb. 9, 2015

On Jan. 30, the Russian aviation manufacturer Ilyushin announced a very strange test. According to the company, the Russian military strapped bombs to an Il-76MD—a cargo plane—to test its capabilities … as a bomber.

In all, the Russian air force plans to station 10 crews trained in rigging bombs to the lumbering transports in the Tver, Orenburg, Pskov and Taganrog areas of Russia. Which is telling—it’s all part of the Kremlin’s growing military build-up along its periphery.

Orenburg is in the interior of the country, near the border of Kazakhstan. Tver, Pskov and Taganrog are all near the Baltic. Taganrog sits on the Sea of Azov, just two hours south of Donetsk. Pskov is only an hour’s drive from Estonia and Latvia.

The idea is to fly the Il-76s into unfamiliar territories, inspect the ground using flares, drop bombs to clear a path, then land and unload troops. The planes would fly at 300 miles per hour at an altitude between 1,500 and 3,000 feet.

“The task of the pilots is to carry out autonomous landing in an unprepared and unfamiliar area in the rear of the simulated enemy,” Russian air force colonel Igor Klimov told the Interfax news agency.

The plan is strange, that Moscow would use this plane to enact it is not.

The Il-76MD is large and heavy, weighing in at more than 100 tons when empty, and upwards of 200 tons when full. It can carry a lot of troops. Depending on the arrangement, the airlifter can fit 225 soldiers inside.

Russia has used the Il-76 to move troops since the 1970s, and still relies on the plane to rush airborne troops into conflicts, including during the 2014 invasion of Crimea.

This particular variant of the Il-76—the MD—is well suited for military engagements. It has heavier armor, includes four hard points and two 23-millimeter cannons in the tail. During recent tests, the Il-76s dropped at least 30 practice bombs, some weighing 500 pounds, according to Russian media reports.
Above—a crew preparing the P-50T practice bombs for the test. Ilyushin photo. At top—an IL-76 mobile hospital. Kirill Naumenko photo via Wikimedia commons

Air forces all over the world have long modified cargo planes for war. The German Luftwaffe bombed Poland with Ju-52 transports during World War II. Vietnam attacked Cambodia with pallets of explosives thrown from the back of C-130s captured after the fall of Saigon.

The Syrian air force has dropped barrel bombs from transport planes at high altitude. It’s an indiscriminate and brutal method of warfare.

The idea of arming troop carriers for intense combat isn’t new, either. The U.S. Air Force has AC-130 gunship variants packing cannons and small-diameter bombs.

But there’s a chance Russia’s low-flying bombing strategy is too risky to be practical. For one, the Il-76’s bombs are unguided. Pilots would need to get close to a target, mark it with flares and drop them from medium altitude, all while potentially taking fire.
Buy ‘Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-44.’

It’s a role traditionally assigned to gunships or dedicated attack planes, both of which Russia has. In the event it’s used beyond Russia’s borders, there’s a good chance anti-aircraft weapons could shoot the Il-76s down before they have a chance to drop troops, bombs or even the flares.

The cargo planes would be most effective in so-called “permissive” airspace. That is, where nobody shoots back.
Loading dummy rounds in the 33-millimeter guns. Ilyushin photo

The Russian military has spent a lot of cash and time modernizing its air force. It’s possible outfitting the Il-76 is a cost-saving measure that allows Moscow to keep the older planes in the air.

The Russian economy is still reeling from plunging gas prices and Western sanctions. Putin has vowed not to cut military spending, despite cautions from his finance minister.

Moscow wants more troops and arms along its western border. It wants to show NATO that it won’t back down from a fight, and that it has the capability to meet force with force. But it might not have the funds to do that.

If so, the Russian air force could be making due with what it has—transport planes designed in the ’70s and fitted with bombs. A dangerous gambit that could kill more Russian soldiers than it ever deploys.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...eploy-to-europe-on-training-mission/23186927/

A-10s Temporarily Deploy to Europe on Training Mission
By Jeff Schogol 4:12 p.m. EST February 10, 2015

The A-10 is returning to Europe, albeit temporarily.

Twelve A-10s and about 300 airmen are deploying to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, as part of the Air Force's first theater security package to Europe, according to a news release from U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

"TSPs are different from other deployments because they will generally be six-month rotations and they provide the EUCOM [U.S. European Command] commander and other regional commanders unique air capabilities necessary to support regional security," a USAFE spokeswoman said in an email to Air Force Times.

The airmen and planes from the 355th Fighter Wing at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, will train with NATO allies as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which is meant to reassure NATO's Eastern European members of the alliance's determination to defend them.

During part of the deployment, the A-10s and airmen will be forward-deployed to NATO members in Eastern Europe, the USAFE news release says. As it so happens, the A-10 was originally designed to fight World War III in Central and Eastern Europe. Its 30 mm gun was meant to liquefy Soviet tanks.

The deployment is a homecoming of sorts. In May 2013, the last A-10s left Spangdahlem for Davis-Monthan after the Air Force decided to eliminate the 81st Fighter Squadron. Although the unit went away, the A-10s did not. It is not known if any of the same aircraft are headed to Germany.

When the A-10s left Europe, the continent was at peace. But last year, Russia launched a war against Ukraine, first annexing the Crimea region and then sending troops and sophisticated equipment into the eastern part of the country.

Since then, the Air Force has rotated airmen through Europe as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve to send a clear message that "the U.S. is serious about conflict deterrence and peaceful resolution of disagreements," Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an email to Air Force Times.

"These deployments augment our current presence in Europe," Stefanek said. "They further enhance the strength of our alliances without the need to permanently base additional aircraft and Airmen in Europe."
_____

Interesting juxtapose to this latest article on the brass' drive to retire the Warthog....

Watchdog: Air Force 'doctored the data' to make A-10 look bad
Started by Housecarl‎, Yesterday 07:50 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Force-doctored-the-data-to-make-A-10-look-bad

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/i...kraine-tactics-could-inspire-china-iran-study

Russia's Ukraine tactics could inspire China, Iran: study
February 11, 2015 - 1:50:02 pm

London--Russia's alleged tactics in the Ukraine conflict including covert military action and social media campaigns could inspire other nations such as China and Iran, a top defence think-tank warned Wednesday.

Most armies around the world are ill-prepared for this new type of "hybrid warfare", the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in its annual Military Balance report covering 171 countries.

It said NATO should act with "urgency" to develop responses to such threats, which had the potential to "rapidly destabilise" Western states.

The study said Moscow had waged "limited war for limited objectives" in Ukraine while maintaining a "deniability" which had confused the West's response.

Russia denies supplying troops and weapons to rebels in Ukraine.

As the United States considers whether to send arms to Ukraine, it also detailed how Kiev's armed forces had been "hollowed out" by low investment and were largely reliant on Soviet-era equipment.

By contrast, Russia's defence budget is set to rise from 2.1 trillion rubles ($31.6 billion dollars, 27.9 billion euros) in 2013 to 3.29 trillion rubles this year, the IISS said.

As well as Ukraine, the report, released in London, turned the spotlight on the Islamic State group and North Korea's plans to develop an inter-continental ballistic missile.

- 'Global ramifications' -

The report said Russia was waging a form of war in Ukraine which combined low-level conventional and special operations with campaigns on social media to shape public opinion.

Such tactics represent a "grave threat to NATO's collective security" because they operate "in grey areas that exploit seams in the alliance," it said.

Their effect could also spread further than Ukraine.

"Policymakers may anticipate that some current or potential state or non-state adversaries, possibly including states such as China and Iran, will learn from Russia's recent deployment of hybrid warfare," the report said.

"These lessons might not necessarily be applied in conflicts with Western states but their potential to rapidly destabilise the existing order could, if applied in other zones of political and military competition, mean they have global ramifications."

Some of the media tactics employed by IS jihadists in Iraq and Syria, including using social media to recruit fighters, had "thematic similarities" with those used in Ukraine, the study said.

It warned that Western armies, many emerging from a 13-year war in Afghanistan and facing squeezed budgets, were still focused on fighting conflicts using more conventional tactics.

Given the threat, they should be looking at how to counter enemy propaganda as well as gathering intelligence and improving the readiness of military forces, the IISS said.

By contrast, groups such as IS thrive on their flexibility.

"The hybrid, adaptable nature of ISIS (another term for IS) -- part insurgency, part light infantry and part-time terrorist group -- proved key to its advances," the report said.

- N. Korea missile 'advances' -

In Asia, the development of China's military has increased in importance under President Xi Jinping as it faces a string of territorial disputes and seeks to deter US deployments in the region, according to the IISS.

China's defence spending now accounts for 38 percent of the total for Asia, up from 28 percent in 2010. The country's overall defence budget rose 12.2 percent last year.

"Beijing's military ambition is aimed at providing at least regional power projection and a conventional deterrent capacity to discourage external intervention," the report said.

This comes amid a tougher posture on defence in Japan, underpinned by a 2.2 percent increase in defence spending last year after a decade of virtually stagnant military budgets.

North Korea, the totalitarian hermit state led by Kim Jong-Un, has meanwhile made "significant advances" in its rocket and non-conventional weapons capabilities, according to the study.

The IISS highlighted that the eight months from February to September last year "involved the most intense rocket and missile testing the nation has ever conducted".

It added that "continued advances" in Pyongyang's quest for an inter-continental ballistic missile caused greatest concern but stressed the age of the country's defence material.

"North Korea remains reliant on a predominantly obsolescent equipment inventory," the report said.

"The extent to which dependency on this equipment affects morale is difficult to assess -- but it likely has an effect."

AFP

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/what-does-north-koreas-latest-missile-test-tell-us/

What Does North Korea’s Latest Missile Test Tell Us?

Some say it could be a sign of Pyongyang’s growing capabilities.

By Prashanth Parameswaran
February 11, 2015

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On Sunday, the South Korean defense ministry confirmed that North Korea had fired five short-range missiles off its eastern coast. While the rogue state is no stranger to missile tests, some analysts are warning that this particular test may signal Pyongyang’s growing capabilities which could prove a threat to Seoul and Washington.

According to a South Korean defense ministry spokesman, the five missiles flew about 125 miles northeast before plunging into the sea. The launch came just a day after North Korea announced its leader Kim Jong-un had witnessed the test firing of a new antiship missile, though the relationship between the two developments is unclear because specifics – like the time and location – were not disclosed as is sometimes the case in the hermit kingdom.

In terms of intentions, the incident itself is very much in line with North Korea’s usual tantrums – even if defense wonks have noted that the pace of the missile testing has been quite high of late. Pyongyang has been known to ratchet up the rhetoric and flex its military might before major bilateral military exercises involving Washington and Seoul, which it regularly condemns as provocations. True to form, it had recently stepped up its own air and naval military drills just as the two allies prepare to hold Key Resolve and Foal Eagle.

North Korea had earlier offered to enter into talks if the allies stopped their exercises, but that suggestion was read as dead on arrival and its usual antics now appear to have resumed. The recent test also dampens hopes of renewed inter-Korean talks which had been initially broached by South Korean president Park Geun-hye. Given the Stalinist dictatorship’s penchant for timing its bluster and brinkmanship, it is also probably no coincidence that the missile launch also occurred so close to the 67th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s armed forces.

But the more interesting thing about this particular test is what it might tell us about Pyongyang’s capabilities. Experts have noted that the missile looks eerily similar to the KH-35, a Russian anti-ship missile. This would seem to suggest some kind of link between the two countries in this respect, even if it is still not clear how Pyongyang got it or how it was produced. That might raise eyebrows among some, particularly given the recent announcements by top Russian officials about potential military exercises with North Korea and a potential trip by Kim to Moscow – his first official state visit – in May.

The impact of this new anti-ship missile could be significant. Yang Uk, a senior researcher with the Korea Defense and Security Forum, warns that this is another sign that North Korea’s missile ranges are getting longer, and that key allied bases could be increasingly vulnerable as a result. Joseph S. Bermudez, a defense analyst, says it could pose a major threat to South Korean and U.S. navy vessels if it is successfully integrated into North Korea’s navy, and especially if Pyongyang goes on to deploy coastal defense and air-launched versions.

Obviously, these remain big ifs. A missile test alone does not reveal much about how the assets in question will eventually be employed and how effective they might actually be in reality. And as Bermudez is careful to point out, North Korea does not exactly have a stellar history when it comes to the kind of systems integration necessary to fully operationalize the capability. Getting the right sense for where Pyongyang is itself a challenge given that much of its inner workings remain shrouded in secrecy. These uncertainties suggest that while interested parties and observers should remain vigilant about the threat North Korea poses, they should also continue to keep in mind that its actual capabilities may not be as “cutting edge” as its bombastic state media and bold missile tests make them out to be.

___


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://38north.org/2015/02/jbermudez020815/

The Korean People’s Navy Tests New Anti-ship Cruise Missile

By Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
08 February 2015

On February 7, 2015, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun published an article describing Kim Jong Un’s recent trip to the Korean People’s Navy (KPN) East Sea Fleet during which he observed the test of a canister-mounted anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) from a patrol vessel.[1] Also present for the test launch was Rear Admiral Jin Chol Su, commander of the East Sea Fleet. The system tested is described as being a “new type of cutting-edge anti-ship rocket” that was developed by the Academy of Defense Science subordinate to the Korean Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department.[2]

Figure 1. Kim Jong Un watching the test of the KH-35 anti-ship cruise missile.

With all photos, click to enlarge. (Photo: KCNA)

While the report states that the missile was developed by North Korea, it appears to be a Russian Kh-35E anti-ship cruise missile. Whether the KPN acquired the system directly from Russia or a third party is unclear as is whether it is a licensed produced or reversed engineered version of the missile. Should the new system be successfully integrated into the KPN and widely deployed it would represent a significant step towards redressing the service’s obsolescence and increasing the threat poised to South Korean and US Navy vessels in the region.

Assuming that a Kh-35 anti-ship missile is successfully deployed with the KPN, a logical next step, which would extend the threat that this system poses, would be to deploy a coastal defense version. The potential threat posed by a Kh-35 system could be further expanded if the Korean People’s Air Force (KPAF) deploys the Kh-35EUL air-launched version. This could endow its ancient obsolete fleet of Il-28 light bombers with a modern standoff missile capability.

All of these potential developments are, just that, potential developments. The launching of a few missiles in and of itself, does not change the threat presented by the KPN. The North’s navy—and military industrial system in general—has a long history of slow and often poor system integration. While these recent developments are important, time will determine whether North Korea has the ability to realize the potential of this new system.

New Fast Patrol Craft on Display

Aside from the missile itself, the Rodong Sinmun provided several of the most detailed images yet available of the KPN’s class of modified-catamaran-hulled missile-carrying fast patrol craft (PTGF).

Figure 2. A KH-35 anti-ship cruise missile immediately after launch.

Photo: KCNA

During the late 1990s, as North Korea was emerging from a prolonged period of famine, floods and economic collapse, the Korean People’s Navy initiated a modest but wide-ranging modernization and shipbuilding program. Among the major aspects of this program included:

Introduction of 14.5 mm and 30 mm Gatling-gun close-in-weapon-systems (CIWS) to replace old single- and twin-mount systems on existing patrol vessels.[3]
Construction of a class of small catamaran-hulled fast patrol craft with at least three subclasses (PTF and PTFG).
Construction of a class of very slender vessels (VSV) with at least three subclasses including patrol (PTF) and high-speed infiltration landing craft (HILC).[4]
Construction of a anti-submarine warfare helicopter frigate (FFH).

In the design and construction of the modified-catamaran-hulled fast patrol craft and later the very slender vessels, the navy attempted to incorporate a degree of stealth technology. Each class has faceted hulls and superstructures to reduce detection from radars and lasers. The lead vessel of the PTF/PTFG class was completed sometime around 1998 and approximately six ships have been constructed to date. Of these vessels, only two are known to be deployed with the East Sea Fleet—one based at the Wonsan shipyard and the other at the Munchon Naval Base. The vessel from the Munchon Naval Base conducted the recent Kh-35 missile test.

This vessel is approximately 38.5-meters-long and 13-meters-wide and has been modified with the addition of a sponson on each side of the hull. Two canister launchers for KH-35 missiles are mounted on each sponson. The vessel is armed with a Furuno search radar and armed with four canister launchers (two on each side) for KH-35 missiles, two 30 mm AK-230 CIWS (one forward, one aft), four 14.5 mm Gatling guns (two forward, two aft) and what appear to be two six-round SAM launchers on the stern.

Figure 3. A close-up view looking aft of the KH-35 anti-ship cruise missile as it is being launched. The gun mounts are two 14.5 mm Gatling guns and a modified 30 mm AK-230 close-in weapon system.

Photo: KCNA

Given the small number of ships constructed and the fact that at least three configurations were built, it is possible that the class was intended to be used to test new naval designs (e.g., stealth, modified catamaran hull, etc.) and systems configurations (e.g., armament, electronic warfare, etc.). This possibility may be supported by the fact that a larger vessel of similar design is now under construction.

Figure 4. A close-up view looking forward of the KH-35 anti-ship cruise missile as it is being launched. The gun mounts are two 14.5 mm Gatling guns and a modified 30 mm AK-230 close-in weapon system. On the corner of the stern is what appears to be a flare/chaff launcher. Note the two personnel crouching next to the AK-230. The angle and location of the KH-35 above the vessel suggests that this image may have been altered.

Photo: KCNA



Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is Chief Analytical Officer of AllSource Analysis, Inc.



———————————-

[1] “Kim Jong Un Watches Newly-Developed Anti-Ship Rocket Test-firing,” Rodong Sinmun, February 7, 2015.

[2] The Academy of Defense Science is also known as the Second Academy of Defense Science or the National Academy of Defense Science

[3] Joseph S Bermudez Jr., “Korean People’s Navy’s 30mm CIWS,” KPA Journal, December 2012, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 1-2, http://www.kpajournal.com/vol-2-no-8-august-2012/ (accessed April 8, 2014); and Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “Korean People’s Navy’s 14.5mm 6-Barrel CIWS,” KPA Journal, August 2012, Vol. 2, No. 8, p. 7, http://www.kpajournal.com/vol-2-no-8-august-2012/ (accessed April 8, 2014).

[4] Curtis Melvin and Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “The December 7 Factory: Producer of Maxi Pads and Naval Stealth Technology,” 38 North, April 9, 2014, http://38north.org/2014/04/melvinberm040814/.
Found in section: Military Affairs

Tags: cruise missiles, joseph s bermudez jr., Kh-35, korean people's navy, kpn, military, missile test, missiles, navy
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2 Responses to “The Korean People’s Navy Tests New Anti-ship Cruise Missile”

Joseph Bermudez says:
February 8, 2015 at 11:36 pm

Xu Tianran,

Thank you for taking the time to comment on the article. After re-examining the available images of the vessel I believe you are correct. I’ve only previously seen detailed images of this SAM system from the rear, with the operator in their seat, so this particular view was unfamiliar to me. Thank you.

Regards,
Joe

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
XuTianran says:
February 8, 2015 at 11:02 pm

Dear Mr. Bermudez, it is not a flare/chaff launcher, but a six-tube Manpads launcher. Same thing can be found on modified Najin class and newly built KPAN vessels. NK also exported it to Myanmar. It can be seen on Myanmar’s F-11 and F-12 Frigates. Though the Manpads might be built by Myanmar itself cos NK also sold production line to Myanmar.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/02/10/mexican-officials-downplay-cartel-war-in-northern-mexico/

Mexican Officials Downplay Cartel War in Northern Mexico

by Ildefonso Ortiz
10 Feb 2015
Comments 6

MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — As warring Gulf Cartel factions just south of the Texas border continue to battle, creating panic in several Mexican border cities, the Tamaulipas government continues to take part in a systematic effort to downplay the nonstop violence.

The current conflict involves the faction of the Gulf Cartel in the border city of Reynosa and their allies, taking on the faction from Matamoros and their allies.

While hours-long shootouts have become a daily occurrence, the Tamaulipas government has only confirmed those that involve authorities, completely ignoring and refusing to provide any information about all the other shootouts between the warring cartel armies.

The various factions have set up roadblocks with armored vehicles and heavily armed gunmen on the main highways and rural roads that lead to their respective cities in order to keep out their rivals. The fighting has turned parts of the border cities into warzones as convoys of gunmen with grenade launchers, .50 caliber machine guns and rifles and other deadly weapons roll down main streets and avenues raining gunfire on their opponents.

In the most recent series of clashes that Tamaulipas official have confirmed to Breitbart Texas, a convoy of Mexican soldiers came under fire on Sunday on the highway that connects the border city of Rio Bravo and Matamoros. During the shootout, a group of gunmen, who had apparently set up a roadblock using trucks with Texas plates, fired at the convoy forcing the soldiers to fight back. One of the cartel gunmen was killed, but he has not yet been identified. Officials did not provide any information about the fighting that took place in that area between cartel gunmen.

In the border city of Reynosa, the Mexican military killed two gunmen and arrested a third following a series of shootouts in that city. While the Reynosa government did confirm an active shootout in the city, Tamaulipas officials only provided information about the shootout that authorities took part in. After those shootout, authorities seized various weapons including a grenade launcher.

In the border city of Miguel, Aleman which is just south of Roma, Texas, two warring factions of the Gulf Cartel got into a fierce firefight that, according to individuals who spoke with Breitbart Texas could be heard all the way across the American side of the border. While the shootout took place for more than one hour, the Tamaulipas government only reported arresting two cartel gunmen who had been throwing road spikes.

 

[Housecarl]

The Congressional on this one is going to make the "Potomac Two Step" on Benghazi look simple......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/middleeast/yemen-unrest/

Official: Houthis seize U.S. Embassy vehicles, Marines' weapons at airport

By Greg Botelho and Hakim Almasmari, CNN
Updated 1:14 PM ET, Wed February 11, 2015

Video

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)—Houthi rebels took all U.S. Embassy vehicles parked at the Yemeni capital's airport and wouldn't let departing U.S. Marines take their weapons with them, a top Sanaa airport official said about the latest evidence of unrest in an Arab nation long seen as key in America's fight against terrorists.

The actions come after the United States, along with Britain, suspended operations at their embassies and moved out staffers because of the instability in Yemen.

According to the official, the Houthis seized many U.S. Marines' weapons at the airport, and the American troops also handed over some to random airport officials Wednesday.

The previous night, embassy officials burned tens of thousands of documents and destroyed weapons that were inside the Sanaa embassy's storage warehouses, Yemeni employees of the embassy said.

Yemen has long been an important country to the United States as the home of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most feared, influential and operational terrorist organizations in the world. U.S. officials have had a long relationship with Yemeni leaders, working with them to target AQAP militants.

But now, Yemen's latest leader, President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, is gone, having resigned after Houthi rebels seized control of key government facilities, dissolved parliament and placed him under house arrest.

All this movement has left the Houthis -- Shiite Muslims who have long felt marginalized in the majority Sunni country -- as the preeminent power in Yemen.

Their takeover hasn't been smooth, however, and it's not clear if it will ever be complete. There has already been resistance to their attempted takeover of national government institutions from different groups in Yemen, particularly in the south, where there's a long-running secessionist movement, and in the oil-rich province of Marib to the east of Sanaa.

Then there's the question of what it means for the United States and its anti-terrorism efforts.

As of last month, U.S. officials hadn't engaged in talks with the Houthis, though there were discussions about whether to talk to them.

Still, even amid the turmoil, the U.S. military remains active in Yemen.

Take, for instance, the killing of senior AQAP cleric Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari and three other people in a drone strike on their vehicle on January 31.

"They are still capable of conducting counterterrorism operations in Yemen, and frankly ... there's some counterterrorism training that's still ongoing ... with Yemeni security forces," said Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.

"I'd be less than honest if I said that there hadn't been some adjustments already made because of the political uncertainty," he said. "We're just going to have to watch this closely going forward."

Yemen's government has been a key ally in the fight against AQAP, which has been tied to the failed attempt by "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab and Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan. More recently, the terror group has been linked to the slaughter at French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

"They are a very dangerous group," said Kirby. "They do want to threaten Western interests, including U.S. interests, and we do consider them a threat to the United States of America. We're watching them very closely."

_____

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/politics/yemen-us-special-forces-embassy/index.html

U.S. special forces stay in Yemen

By Jamie Crawford, CNN National Security Producer
Updated 1:22 PM ET, Wed February 11, 2015

Washington (CNN)—United States Special Forces personnel will continue to operate in Yemen conducting training missions with Yemeni forces, as well as retaining the ability to conduct counter-terrorism operations should they be needed, despite the suspension of U.S. embassy operations within the country a U.S. Defense official tells CNN.

This follows the removal of all remaining U.S. embassy personnel at the embassy in Sanaa after the State Department announced it would suspend its operations in the country amid the continuing deterioration of security in the country.

Yemen has been without a functioning central government since rebel Houthi forces overran the capital of Sanaa and dissolved the country's parliament, after the resignation of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

U.S. officials frequently cite al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the terror group's franchise based in Yemen, one of the most dangerous terror groups in the world based on their previous attempts to attack U.S. interests and their stated goal of striking Western interests.

Defense officials maintain the United States retains the capability to disrupt and strike at threats to U.S. security emanating from within Yemen.

With the country in political turmoil, the Pentagon has acknowledged the counter-terror mission against AQAP through the use of drones and other measures has entered a difficult phase without a reliable partner in country of the government.

"I'd say there's no question as a result of the political instability in Yemen that our counter-terrorism capabilities" have been effected Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters Tuesday. "We're watching the situation very closely, and we're monitoring it every single day, if not every single hour."

A separate defense official tells CNN the United States military offered intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to assist in the departure of the remaining US embassy personnel from Yemen. All personnel were able to leave the country via commercial means and did not require an evacuation through military means the official said.

With the suspension of embassy operations in Yemen and no US personnel on the ground, the US Marine contingent guarding the embassy also departed the country, and the security of the embassy is now the responsibility of local security forces.

 

[Housecarl]

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Report: China's Incomplete Transformation

By Wendell Minnick 9:14 a.m. EST February 11, 2015

TAIPEI — Media reports of China's new J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters, "carrier-killer" anti-ship ballistic missiles and anti-satellite weapons have unnerved many in the Pentagon.

But a new report to be released on Wednesday by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), outlines the various Achilles' heels of the Chinese military, including opportunities the US military could exploit.

Defense News got first rights, before its release, on reviewing the report, entitled, "China's Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People's Liberation Army."

Sponsored by the USCC and produced by the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the Rand National Security Research Division, the report is based on the premise that understanding where the People's Liberation Army (PLA) falls short of its aspirations, or has not fully recognized the need for improvement, is just as important as recognizing the PLA's strengths.

The report looks at two critical shortcomings: institutional and combat capabilities. On institutional issues, the PLA faces shortcomings regarding outdated command structures, quality of personnel, professionalism and corruption. Combat weaknesses include logistical, insufficient strategic airlift capabilities, limited numbers of special-mission aircraft, and deficiencies in fleet air defense and anti-submarine warfare.

"Although the PLA's capabilities have improved dramatically, its remaining weaknesses increase the risk of failure to successfully perform some of the missions Chinese Communist Party [CCP] leaders may task it to execute, such as in various Taiwan contingencies, maritime claim missions, sea line of communication protection, and some military operations other than war scenarios."

The report sifted through over 300 Chinese-language articles from CCP publications, along with numerous books and studies, including important books on strategic missile forces issues, such as "The Science of Second Artillery Campaigns" by Yu Jixun.

The PLA's own weakness assessments revolve around a concept alternately referred to as "two incompatibles" or "two gaps."

"Indeed, PLA publications are replete with references to problems in many areas, and discussions of these problems often highlight what Chinese writers refer to as the 'two incompatibles, reflecting their assessment that the PLA's capabilities are still unable to (1) cope with the demands of winning a local war under informatized conditions and (2) successfully carry out the PLA's other [historic] missions."

Although the two incompatibles and two gaps refer to the same concept, the literature uses them to highlight different traits. "Mentions of the two incompatibles are intended to state what the problem is, while mentions of the two gaps seek to diagnose why the problem exists and, often, how to solve it."

With the first incompatible, problems identified as "broad and endemic" are training, organization, human capital, force development and logistics. Training has not kept pace with modernization. Organizationally, China's military is not prepared to address continued "problems related to administrative structures and mechanisms" and remaining "institutional obstacles and structural conditions."

Force development suffers because the PLA is not an informatized force but rather a 20th-century mechanized force. Other commentators quoted in the report are even harsher in their assessments of force development.

"According to CMC [Central Military Commission] Vice Chairman Xu Qiliang, although the PLA seeks to become an informatized force, it is not fully mechanized." Logistics has been cited in PLA literature as an area of "weakness, specifically being at an 'insufficient ... modernization level ... to win informatized local wars.'"

In the second incompatible, the report states that literature points to comparable problems of training, organization and logistics, but less on force development. Training for the new missions is "insufficient" since "traditional ideas and habitual practices have not been drastically changed." Organizational issues, such as human capital, are also a problem, as "the overall level of talented personnel in our army does not meet the requirements for fulfilling its historic mission in the new century."

The "construction and development" of PLA logistics are "not meeting the requirements" because there is "insufficient support capability for the requirement of fulfilling the historical missions."

The report illustrates numerous examples of weaknesses in the PLA.

These include bungling and disagreement between state bureaucracies and the PLA during the 2001 P-3C aircraft collision off Hainan Island; the 2003 "severe acute respiratory syndrome" crisis; the 2006 Kitty Hawk incident with a Chinese submarine; the 2007 anti-satellite missile test; and the mismanagement of humanitarian operations for the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

During the Sichuan earthquake relief efforts, Premier Wen Jiabao had difficulty soliciting the full support of the PLA and People's Armed Police. Reportedly, the PLA refused to co-locate its disaster response headquarters with one being run by the State Council.

Corruption is abundant, according to the report. In 2000, the director of military intelligence in the PLA's General Staff Department was arrested. In 2012, the former deputy director of the General Logistics Department was detained. In 2014, the vice chairman of the CMC, Xu Caihou, was arrested.

There is the possibility, according to the report, that the co-vice chairman of the CMC, Guo Boxiang, could be charged with corruption as well.

The PLA's seven military regions group large provinces and urban areas together and do not reflect today's power projection requirements. This makes it hard to "meet the needs of commanding multidimensional operations under high technology conditions."

The report indicates the PLA has limited amounts of new equipment to train on, and difficulties integrating new and old equipment. In 2014, the PLA's main battle tank fleet consists "overwhelmingly of first- and second-generation tanks."

The Navy's 4,000-ton Type 054A frigate is considered a "mini-Aegis" vessel, but the ships are small and cannot carry enough long-range missiles for an actual area defense capability or handle a saturation attack from anti-ship missiles, particularly supersonic and hypersonic variants. The Chinese Navy also lacks anti-submarine warfare capabilities, most likely because the military has focused on anti-access rather than expeditionary deployments.

The report suggests deterrent actions the US could take. These include intentionally revealing the development and testing of new capabilities designed to "exploit specific PLA weaknesses, releasing details about new operational concepts that enable these countries to capitalize on PLA vulnerabilities, or highlighting training and exercises that demonstrate the ability to take advantage of gaps in the PLA's capabilities."

If deterrence fails, the US could work to present the PLA with challenges that are "fast paced, unexpected, and intended to overload or outmaneuver a slow-moving decision system that could have difficulty keeping up with a rapidly developing situation."

The report outlines 16 "critical assumptions" based on assessments made by the authors. The authors of the report are: Michael Chase, Jeffrey Engstrom, Tai Ming Cheung, Kristen Gunness, Scott Harold, Susan Puska and Samuel Berkowitz.

Preservation of the CCP will remain the top priority of the party, state, and military leadership, and the CCP will remain in control of the PLA.

"Despite its verbal and sometimes physical aggressiveness, the CCP tends to avoid conflict and wants to sustain a peacetime environment to ensure the strength of another pillar of legitimacy — economic development."

The objective of improving the PLA's integrated joint operations must dominate plans for organizational restructuring and training reforms, and a joint operations capability "must be realized sooner rather than later, to ensure that the PLA will be able to deter or, if necessary, win future informatized local wars."

Even though the PLA Army's traditional dominance over the Air Force and Navy could forestall restructuring and improving the military, the Army will continue to attempt to keep itsr established position.

"The PLA's transition to integrated joint operations will be incremental over the medium to long term. Tough decisions will be deferred or watered down if they affect the entrenched power of the CCP." Due to the Army's influence, "continental thinking will continue to dominate in operational art and leadership thinking."

China's recruitment and short rotation of personnel will not change drastically in the short to medium term.

"China's military personnel system will continue to be plagued by undertrained and inexperienced officers and men in the areas of modern combat, which will impede the force's ability to apply modern equipment and concepts effectively in line with China's concepts for force employment in future joint operations." This means that the number of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCO) will remain too small, poorly trained, and inexperienced to "transform combat power as rapidly and decisively as senior leaders wish."

Chinese leaders will continue to believe that nuclear weapons underpin China's status and function as a central component of its broader suite of strategic deterrence options.

"If we are incorrect and Chinese leaders do see the strategic utility of nuclear weapons as declining, the leaders may choose to emphasize other aspects of strategic deterrence — such as long-range conventional strike, counterspace or cyberwarfare capabilities — more heavily than nuclear forces."

The authors further assume that Chinese strategists will continue to see nuclear weapons as a means to deter nuclear coercion.

"If we are incorrect and China begins to see nuclear weapons as more useful in tactical roles, it could result in the development of tactical nuclear capabilities that most Chinese strategists thus far have seen as unnecessary and potentially destabilizing."

The report further assumes that China will continue to see the US as the primary focus of its nuclear force modernization. However, that might change if other neighbors, such as India, continue to modernize their nuclear capabilities. This could force the Chinese to focus on "theater-range nuclear deterrence and strike capabilities."

China will continue to have a large defense budget needed for recruitment, training, and "retaining highly qualified personnel; conducting necessary operations and maintenance; and investing in a wide range of force modernization programs," such as big ticket items — aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and national security space capabilities.

China will continue to qualitatively and quantitatively strengthen its nuclear deterrent capabilities without sharp trade-offs between nuclear force modernization and conventional force modernization. If the authors are incorrect and the economy declines or government spending shifts to curtail defense spending, the Chinese military could be forced to make trade-offs. This includes the possibility that China might either have to slow its nuclear force modernization efforts in order to procure big-ticket conventional weapons or the opposite.

If the report is wrong to conclude that the absence of civilian oversight is a weakness, the US might incorrectly believe that the "PLA is less efficient or effective at generating combat power because of the absence of oversight and coordination." If China can successfully coordinate without extensive civilian contribution, a US war-fighting strategy that seeks to "complicate Chinese military operations by striking at the seams of civilian and military coordination may be misplaced."

If the author's conclusions are right, the US might "complicate China's ability to generate combat power if it could induce doubt into the minds of the Party about the honesty and fidelity of the PLA to the broader leadership of the CCP."

Also, the report suggests the US might seek to cause "the PLA to doubt the wisdom of the broader policies of the Chinese state and to question whether the line agencies of the government are actually supporting their mission or are leaving the PLA to fight on its own without sufficient economic, diplomatic, policing, or other forms of institutional support for its security mission."

The authors state that in the unlikely event that the "broad community of PLA watchers" have "grossly overestimated its ability to evaluate the relationship of observed exercises to effective combat capabilities," then it would require a "major reassessment of our knowledge of the PLA" and would fall in line with recent statements from former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former US Pacific Commander Adm. Robert Willard that the US has "consistently underestimated China's capacity to innovate and catch up in the military domain."

The report assumes there is a large gap between academic and foreign-area offices in the PLA with those who have actual operational control. This will make military dialogue and engagement difficult for the US and suggests that those in operational control are hawkish and "immune to outside influences."

There is a general lack of professionalism in the PLA. This is evident in morale and discipline problems. Much of this originates from China's "one-child" policy, which has created the "'little emperor' phenomenon of spoiled children."

This had produced recruits who are not tough enough to withstand military discipline. Roughly, 70-80 percent of personnel are from one-child families.

"Recruits usually need two years to adjust to life within a unit through tough routine training and psychological counseling."

The report assumes there will be no major change in Sino-Russian relations. If this is incorrect, the authors suggest it could change China's external security environment. A downturn in relations could force China to reallocate more military resources in response to Russian provocations.

If relations improve and Russia continues to intimidate Europe, the US could be forced to reallocate military forces to NATO and reduce military plans to reorganize and reinforce its forces in the Asia-Pacific.

The report doubts there will be "drastic" technological surprises from China's military. However, if China should make a quantum leap in the areas of directed-energy weapons or hypersonic technology, it could force China to rethink its force modernization requirements and the way it conducts military campaigns in the future.

Email: wminnick@defensenews.com

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Conflict News @rConflictNews · 11m 11 minutes ago

BREAKING: Greek government official says Greece will not accept an extension of the bailout

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/11/iran-is-ready-to-take-over-iraq-s-troops.html

Collision Course
02.11.15

Iran Is Ready to Take Over Iraq’s Troops

Jacob Siegel
Comments 41

Tehran says it will start training Iraqi military officers, which could clash with the U.S. mission to train Iraq’s military. How will the jostling for influence shake out?

In an announcement that could complicate the cornerstone of America’s mission in Iraq—training Iraq’s military to fight ISIS—an Iranian general said Monday that he also is prepared to begin training Iraqi military officers. The message comes after Baghdad and Tehran reached a security agreement in December, which has not been made public but will reportedly increase military cooperation between the two countries.

Washington and Tehran have quietly cooperated in the fight against ISIS largely by avoiding direct contact and keeping to separate spheres of influence. If Iran begins training Iraqi officers at the same time the U.S. carries out its own multi-year training mission, those spheres could collide. Iran hasn’t actually begun any training yet, only signaled its readiness, but if it does start, there are some obvious logistical questions to sort out that carry broader implications. It’s not clear whether the U.S. and Iran would split up the Iraqi army in some sort of shared custody training different units, or if a single Iraqi officer could end up receiving direction from both American and Iranian advisers.

The American military began training Iraq’s forces in late December, days before Iran and Iraq concluded their security agreement. Currently the U.S. vets Iraqi troops to ensure they don’t have ties to terrorist groups, but has not reported screening for ties to other armies.

A Pentagon official told The Daily Beast that the department was unaware of Iran’s announcement about training Iraqi officers. The official did not provide further comment on how the U.S. mission to train Iraq’s military would be impacted if Iran began a similar program.

It’s no secret that the U.S.-backed war against ISIS relies on sectarian militias sponsored by Iran to combat the group in Iraq. After the Iraqi military collapsed during the initial ISIS onslaught, militias filled the gap, battling ISIS outside of Iraq’s Kurdish regions. While the militias counter ISIS on the ground, the U.S. has focused on conducting airstrikes and retraining the Iraqi military to eventually take on the group.

But the growing influence of Shia militias with ties to Iran, which have operated under U.S. air cover in the past, poses problems for both the U.S. and Iraq. While Baghdad attempts to form a national government and bring the country’s Sunnis back into its political system, Shia militiamen are accused of massacring more than 70 Sunni villagers last month.

The statement Monday from Brigadier Gen. Hossein Valivand about training Iraqi officers was reported by Iranian media, but received little notice in the West. Valivand, who runs the Iran Army’s Command and General Staff College, said “Iranian military experts are prepared enough to offer training to Iraqi forces,” according to Presstv, Tehran’s English-language news outlet. “Valivand added that the issue of training Iraqi soldiers had been discussed during a recent visit by Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi to Tehran,” Presstv reports.

The “recent visit” is a reference to a December meeting between Iraq’s defense minister and his Iranian counterpart that resulted in a security agreement between the two countries. Al Arabiya provided some of the few details on the agreement in English. Citing Iranian state television accounts, Al Arabiya reported that the defense ministers had ”agreed to continue cooperation in the defense arena with the creation of a national army to protect the territorial integrity and security of Iraq.”

“The Iranian proxy forces which include elements from the IRGC [the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s expeditionary military force] were already doing this for months,” said Phillip Smyth, a researcher on Shia Islamist militarism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s an interesting kind of public messaging campaign,” Smyth said of Monday’s announcement, “to demonstrate further support for the Iraqi national entities while they are simultaneously militia-izing the rest of the country.”

“None of this comes as a surprise,” said Mark Dubowitz of the agreement and Iran’s expanding military role in Iraq. Dubowitz leads the Iran sanctions and nonproliferation projects for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which describes itself as a non-partisan policy institute focused on promoting “democratic values” and countering “ideologies that drive terrorism.”

Dubowitz sees Iran “hedging its bets” in Iraq, bolstering its influence in both the military and among its loyal militias.

“Iran has obviously been training the Shia militias and using the proxies very effectively in Iraq and elsewhere. I’d imagine that Iran is hedging their bets: Train the security forces and the militias so you can increase your influence and facilitate the coordination between the formal service and the militias and ensure that, whoever comes out the winner, you retain effective control. It’s the same playbook in Lebanon; Hezbollah has been the proxy but Iran has also exerted increasing influence over the uniformed military services”

Doug Ollivant, former Director for Iraq on National Security Councils under Presidents Bush and Obama, does not see an inevitable conflict if the U.S. and Iran are both training Iraqi forces.

"I think we’re going to compete in different spheres.” Ollivant said. “U.S. forces are more or less restricted to a few military bases. As long as the Iranian forces aren’t on those bases there are not going to be a lot of opportunities for interaction."

After serving in Iraq as an army officer and later for the White House, Ollivant now works as a Managing Parter at Mantid International and an ASU Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.

According to Ollivant, there is less than meets the eye in the possibility of Iran training Iraqi officers. “This just shows that the Iranians are going to compete with us for influence in Iraq because it’s important,” Ollivant said. “Because they got there early,” he added, “and they’re neighbors, they have an advantage.”

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear facilities have brought Washington and Tehran into close contact since President Obama took office. ISIS supplied the “enemy of my enemy logic” that put the U.S. and Iran on the same side, but despite tacit cooperation in Iraq, no formal alliance exists in the common fight against ISIS. That leaves plenty of questions to be resolved between two powerful countries trying to influence the outcome of a war they are fighting through third parties.

“If I were Iranian intelligence, I’d be looking at this very carefully,” said Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s an interesting way for the MOIS [Iran’s ministry of intelligence] and Revolutionary Guards to get under the tents and learn all they can about U.S. training, force posture, and power projection.

“From the perspective of the Iraqi security services, I’d be betting on the Iranians,” Dubowitz said. “I’d be getting as much training and weaponry from the Americans while it’s on offer, but at the end of the day I’d be betting that Iranian boots are going to stay on the ground long after American boots.”


Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with quotes from Douglas Ollivant, a former National Security Council official, on the consequences for American interests of a potential Iranian plan to train Iraqi soldiers.

A description of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies policy institute as “conservative” has been changed to reflect that the organization describes itself as non-partisan.

 

[Housecarl]

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Syrian troops, Hezbollah launch major offensive near Golan

Feb 11, 12:47 PM (ET)
By BASSEM MROUE

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters swept south of the capital Damascus on Wednesday, seizing strategic hills and villages from rebels and a local al-Qaida affiliate near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

State media and opposition activists said the surprise counteroffensive is aimed at forcing back rebels who had recently advanced closer to embattled President Bashar Assad's seat of power.

The region is also important because it is located near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The area has been tense lately, particularly after a Jan. 18 Israeli airstrike in Quneitra on the edge of the Golan that killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general.

The Syrian government last year lost large parts of Quneitra province to opposition fighters, many of them from the Nusra Front.

State television said troops on Wednesday gained control of the town of Deir al-Adas and the village of Deir Maker, as well as the nearby areas of Tal al-Arous and Tal al-Sarjeh south of the capital.

A statement by the Syrian armed forces said the "successes" were important because they severed supply lines and communication between "terrorist outposts" in the Damascus countryside, the southern Daraa province and Quneitra.

Activists said the operation was being led by Hezbollah's special forces. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said their aim appears to be to set up a border zone under Hezbollah's control next to the part of the Golan seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists around the country, said Iranian volunteers are also taking part in the fighting. It said 20 opposition fighters were killed there on Tuesday alone. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Hezbollah says it has been fighting alongside forces loyal to Assad against Sunni Islamic extremists who pose a threat to the whole region. Israeli officials accuse Iran, through Hezbollah, of working to establish a base in southern Syria to launch attacks against the Jewish state. Hezbollah denies seeking any military presence there.

Last month's airstrike near the Golan killed a senior Hezbollah commander and the son of a slain top commander among four others. Hezbollah said the fighters were on a reconnaissance mission.

Veteran Israeli analyst Ehud Yaari said on Israel's Channel 2 TV that the Syrian army, along with significant Hezbollah forces under Iranian command, has made progress in the region, describing it as problematic.

"A problem is being created there as far as Israel is concerned," he said. "If they succeed in pushing the rebels back to our border, I think the last thing Israel wants is another front with Hezbollah."

Although Syrian state television and Hezbollah's Al-Manar satellite channel purportedly reported live from Deir al-Adas, a rebel spokesman said pro-government forces only captured the town briefly before being forced out.

Gen. Ibrahim Jbawi, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army's southern front, said the fighting killed or wounded 200 government forces and Hezbollah fighters. He said rebels also destroyed 13 tanks. His report could not be independently confirmed.

"The (Syrian) regime is trying to regain some of its standing" in the area, Jbawi said.

In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad met with U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura to discuss the diplomat's proposal for reducing the violence, starting with a hostilities freeze in the northern city of Aleppo.

De Mistura did not disclose details of the meeting, but state-run news agency SANA said the two discussed "new details" in the U.N. plan to freeze fighting in Aleppo "in a positive and constructive climate."

---

Associated Press reporter Ian Deitch contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

 

[Housecarl]

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Region feels ripples from Yemen's turmoil as embassies close

Feb 11, 4:29 PM (ET)
By HAMZA HENDAWI and AHMED AL-HAJ

(AP) Yemeni protesters march to protest against Houthi Shiites who have seized power in...
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SANAA, Yemen (AP) — As Western diplomats and staff fled Yemen on Wednesday, concern widened over the increasing turmoil in the impoverished nation, with Saudi Arabia arming loyal tribesmen across its southern border and Egypt readying a military unit to intervene if needed.

The U.S., British and French moved to close their embassies, signaling a belief that conditions in Yemen would only deteriorate further as the rebels, who have taken over in nearly half the provinces, try to expand their control.

In a show of bravado, the rebels seized about 20 vehicles left by U.S. diplomats and Marines at Sanaa's airport, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. The Americans evacuated after destroying documents and heavy weapons at the embassy.

The rebels also seized weapons found in the U.S. vehicles, the officials added, — apparently referring to personal sidearms that the Pentagon said the Marines left behind because they could not take them on their departing commercial flight.

(AP) Policemen stand guard at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen,...
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While Yemen has been in chaos for years, events took a dramatic new turn when the rebels, known as Houthis and suspected of being backed by Iran, took over the capital last fall and have spread over more of the country.

In January, the rebels put U.S.-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his Cabinet ministers under house arrest, leading to their resignations. Subsequently, the Houthis, who are followers of the Shiite Zaydi sect in Sunni-majority Yemen, dissolved parliament and declared they were taking over the government.

The turmoil is starting to resonate around the Middle East, already shaken by bloody conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq.

As Houthi fighters advance to take more ground, Yemeni officials said Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, was sending arms and funds to tribesmen in Yemen's Marib province to bolster them against the rebels.

Saudi Arabia has in recent months repeatedly stated its concern over the Houthis' power grab, but the deeply secretive oil-rich kingdom has said nothing about arming or funding tribesmen there to fight the Shiite rebels.

(AP) Supporters of Houthi Shiites shout slogans while marching on a street as they...
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Marib is an exclusively Sunni, energy-rich desert area on the border with Saudi Arabia where tribes have long been close to the Saudis. It is also home to a sizable number of militants from the local branch of al-Qaida, the Houthis' sworn enemy.

Marib's tribal leaders, like many others in Yemen, have been on the receiving end of Saudi largesse for decades, and some of them hold Saudi nationality.

"Marib is the heart of Sunni tribal power," said Majid al-Modhaj, a Yemeni analyst. "Fighting there will take the Houthis away from their comfort zone in mountainous areas and into plain and flat desert land they are not used to."

Egypt has set up a special rapid deployment force that could intervene if the Houthis threaten shipping lanes in the strategic Red Sea, according to three Egyptian security officials. The force, they said, is drawn from the 3rd Army, which has been running security and intelligence operations in the Red Sea from its headquarters in Suez.

Yemen lies on one side of Bab al-Mandab, the narrow southern entrance of the Red Sea. The corridor leads up the Egyptian and Saudi coasts to Egypt's Suez Canal, a key sea route for oil traffic from the Gulf region.

(AP) Yemeni protesters march to protest against Houthi Shiites who have seized power in...
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The Egyptians and Saudis were coordinating a joint military response to deal with any eventuality in Yemen, including the disruption of shipping, the officials said.

The officials in both Yemen and Egypt spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

"Yemen is like the moon to Egypt, but it is important because of Cairo's close ties with Saudi Arabia, to whom Yemen is a priority issue," said Michael W. Hanna, a Middle East expert from the New York-based Century Foundation.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have forged close military ties since Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi took office in June, with frequent joint war games, including naval exercises in the Red Sea. Thousands of Egyptian special forces are embedded with their Saudi counterparts on the kingdom's border with Iraq as a precaution against militants of the extremist Islamic State group, according to the officials.

As the region's two most powerful Sunni nations, Saudi Arabia and Egypt view the rise of the Houthis with alarm, seeing them as a new geopolitical triumph by non-Arab Iran after it consolidated its influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

(AP) Policemen stand guard at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen,...
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The Houthis deny links to Iran, and it has been difficult to determine with any accuracy Tehran's role in the latest events.

Still, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and a senior Foreign Ministry official made it clear in separate comments Wednesday that the Islamic Republic looks approvingly at events in Yemen.

"The power that assisted the people of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen against terrorist groups was the Islamic Republic of Iran," Rouhani told a large crowd in Tehran. He did not elaborate.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said the developments in Yemen "have increased stability in the region and made the situation difficult for terrorists in that country." The chief of staff of Iran's military, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, said Sanaa was now "one of the safest places in the region" after the Houthi takeover.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not new to military involvement in Yemen.

(AP) Yemeni protesters shout slogans against Houthi Shiites who have seized power in the...
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Saudi Arabia fought a brief border war against the Houthis in 2010 to halt incursions over the frontier. Egypt in the early 1960s deployed thousands of troops in Yemen to support a republican coup that toppled a monarchy subscribing to Zaydi Shiism, like the Houthis.

Houthi rebels seized the province of Bayda, south of Sanaa, on Tuesday with help from government forces still loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the autocratic president who was ousted in the country's 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Bayda is widely viewed as the gateway to the country's south, but taking over that region is unlikely to be easy.

Hadi — a southerner — commands armed militias that fought al-Qaida militants in the province of Abyan in 2011 and 2012. Moreover, a key political faction in the south, the Nasserists, have close ties with Egypt, whose intelligence and security agencies have stepped up their activities in the south in anticipation of a Houthi attempt to capture the region, according to the Egyptian officials.

The Houthis' advances are also fueling secessionist movements in the south, once a separate nation.

"They won't have a friendly environment in the south," said Baraa Shiban, a Yemeni analyst. "Any attempt by the Houthis to take over the south will lead to secession."

Houthis have captured territory largely because of deals with provincial powers and massive help from army and police units loyal to Saleh. Effective battlefield resistance against their advances might finally come in Marib or in the south.

"The Houthis are spoiling for a fight, thinking that a battlefield victory will grant them a measure of legitimacy," said Sarah Gamal, a Yemeni political activist. "So far, they have just been assaulting peaceful protesters in Sanaa and elsewhere who reject their rule."

---

Hendawi reported from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Sagar Megani in Washington, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, and Adam Scheck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

 

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Boko Haram kidnaps hundreds, tells stories of Chibok girls

Feb 11, 5:58 PM (ET)
By CHIKA ODUAH

(AP) In this photo taken Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Dorcas Aiden, 20 years old , speaks to...
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YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — When Islamic extremists snatched more than 270 girls from the Chibok boarding school in Nigeria in the dead of night, protests broke out worldwide. The U.S. pledged to help find them, and the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag was born.

Some 10 months later, most are still missing. The Boko Haram extremist group sees the mass kidnapping as a shining symbol of success, and has abducted hundreds of other girls, boys and women. The militants brag to their new captives with claims that the Chibok girls surrendered, converted to Islam and married fighters.

"They told me the Chibok girls have a new life where they learn to fight," says Abigail John, 15, who was held by Boko Haram for more than four weeks before escaping. "They said we should be like them and accept Islam."

The kidnappings reflect the growing ambition and brazenness of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose an Islamic state across Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Some 10,000 people have died in the Islamic uprising over the past year, compared to 2,000 in the previous four years, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

(AP) In this photo taken Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Abigail John, speaks to a journalist...
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"It's devastating," said Bukky Shonibare, an activist in Abuja, of the kidnappings. "It makes you wonder, what is being done?"

John was among three girls interviewed by The Associated Press who recently escaped from Boko Haram. While their stories could not be independently verified, they were strikingly similar, and all spoke of their captors' obsession with the Chibok girls.

The girls had no idea whether the militants were telling the truth or making up stories to taunt their victims. John says the fighters enjoyed relating how they had whipped and slapped the Chibok girls until they submitted.

When the Nigerian air force dropped a bomb on the house where John was confined, she tried to escape, she says. She wrestled with the fighters, but they broke her am and hauled her off to another house.

At the end of last year, the Nigerian army liberated the town where she was held. She is now in Yola with her father, sister and six brothers, in a house overcrowded with refugees. She finally was able to get medical attention for her fractured right arm, which remains in a cast.

(AP) In this photo taken Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Dorcas Aiden, 20 years old , speaks to...
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The kidnappings of the Chibok girls in April brought Boko Haram to the world's attention in a way the group could not have imagined. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was tweeted more than 480,000 times globally in early May, and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama held it up in a sign to television cameras. She said at the time, "In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters ...we can only imagine the anguish their parents are feeling right now."

On Wednesday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan again promised the girls will be brought home alive, saying he is "more hopeful" about their fate now that a multinational force is being formed to fight Boko Haram.

"Give us some time over the Chibok girls. The story will be better in a few weeks," Jonathan promised, as he has many times in the past, on a nationally televised program.

In the 10 months since the mass kidnapping, Boko Haram has increased the tempo and ferocity of its insurgency. In August, it began seizing and holding towns, and — copying the Islamic State group — declared it would recreate an ancient Islamic caliphate in the region. The fighting has since spilled across Nigeria's borders, and the African Union this month authorized a multinational force of 8,750 troops to try to stamp it out.

Dorcas Aiden, 20, was another of those caught in Boko Haram's siege. She had finished high school and was living at home when the war came to her village. Fighters took her to a house in the town of Gulak and held her captive for two weeks last September.

(AP) In this photo taken Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Abigail John, speaks to a journalist...
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The more than 50 teenage girls crammed into the house were beaten if they refused to study Quranic verses or conduct daily Muslim prayers, she says. When the fighters got angry, they shot their guns in the air. Aiden finally gave in and denied her Christian faith to become Muslim, at least in name, she says.

One day, the fighters stormed into the room where she was kept locked up with a dozen other girls. They showed a video of the Chibok girls, dressed in hijabs, with only their faces visible through their veils. Aiden says she was so overwhelmed that she cried.

The fighters said the Chibok girls were all Muslims now, and some were training as fighters to fight women, which Boko Haram men are not supposed to do.

Aiden's captors boasted about how they had married off the Chibok girls, she says. One fighter said he would marry her. She balked.

"I said, 'No, I will not marry you,'" Aiden recounts. "So he pulled out a gun and beat my hand."

(AP) In this photo taken Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Dorcas Aiden, 20 years old , speaks to...
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Aiden says the insurgents threatened to break the legs of any girl who tried to escape, but she and six others ran anyway. As she made her way through abandoned farm fields, she noticed that Boko Haram had filled about 10 other houses with kidnapped girls and women.

Aiden, who is now in Yola with tens of thousands of other refugees, dreams of going to university, in defiance of the extremists' insistence that girls should be married, not educated. The nickname Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden or sinful."

Another escapee, a shy 16-year-old captured in September, begs that her name not be published because she escaped only a few weeks ago and believes the fighters are actively searching for her. After the girl's village was attacked four times, she fled to a great-aunt. Then that village also was targeted, she says.

The fighters held her for four months. When she escaped, she walked through the bush and across the border into Cameroon to avoid areas under Boko Haram's control. She is now taking refuge in a Catholic church in Yola.

All the girls say they were not raped, despite the fears of some villagers. Instead, the fighters said they wanted the girls to remain virgins until they were married off.

"They said they are doing the work of God, so they will not touch us," the 16-year-old recounts.

As she tells her story, she fidgets and looks down at her hands, clasped in her lap. She recounts how one fighter, nicknamed "Tall Arab," was set on marrying her. She pleaded that she was too young, but was told, "Do you think you are better than those Chibok girls that we kidnapped?"

The man told her the Chibok girls were "enjoying their matrimonial homes," she remembers. He also said the Chibok girls had turned against their parents, and were "ready to slit their parents' throats" if they ever saw them again.

Some never will. Even if the girls are released, people in Chibok say at least 13 of their parents have died since they were seized, in Boko Haram violence or possibly stress-related illness.

While dozens of Chibok girls escaped on their own after their kidnapping, 219 are still missing. Nigeria's military initially feared any action could lead to the girls being killed. But villagers reported last week that air force jets have begun bombing the Sambisa Forest — the area where fighters told Aiden some girls still are held captive.

__

AP writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story from Dakar, Senegal.

 

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At least 19 Malian elephants killed by poachers

Feb 11, 9:27 AM (ET)
By BABA AHMED

(AP) In this photo taken on Saturday, March 3, 2012, Elephants and cattle drink water...
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BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Motorcycle-riding poachers have killed at least 19 elephants over the past month, officials said Wednesday, marking a significant blow to a rare grouping that lives in a part of central Mali where al-Qaida and other extremists have been active.

It is believed there are only 350 to 700 elephants left in Mali, and those that remain are under growing threat not only from humans seeking their ivory but also from climate change and reduced rainfall, conservationists say.

"We have heard that the poachers are moving about two by two on motorcycles and killing the elephants in Gourma," said Soumana Timbo, assistant director of the government's conservation efforts, who confirmed the toll of at least 19 dead so far this year.

Timbo said he believed that poachers from elsewhere in the region were being assisted by locals in killing the elephants for their ivory.

(AP) In this photo taken on Saturday, March 3, 2012, an Elephant drinks water inside a...
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The Gourma population of elephants is the northernmost on the African continent, according to the Wild Foundation. The animals normally travel between central Mali and the southern border with Burkina Faso as part of an annual migration. However, the elephants have been making strange movements in recent weeks, suggesting they sense danger from a predator, said Nomba Ganame, an elephant specialist with the foundation.

Gourma is located in a part of Mali that is not completely under government control because al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists are known to operate in the area. While most of the rebels were scattered by a French-led military operation in 2013, remnants continue to carry out roadside bomb attacks which have stymied efforts to protect the elephants.

"It's a security problem for our staff to go into this area. We want to go along with the Malian army," Timbo said. "We should be doing these kinds of patrols every two weeks."

Poaching deaths of elephants to meet demand for ivory particularly in China is an escalating crisis across Africa. A report released last year by Africa's leading elephant experts, including Save the Elephants, estimated that poachers killed 100,000 elephants between 2010 and 2012 on the continent.

---

Online: Wild Foundation: http://www.wild.org/the-elephants

 

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Report: Sudanese forces raped 221 women, girls in mass attack; 'new low' in Darfur atrocities

Published February 11, 2015 · Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – A human rights group says Sudanese army troops raped at least 221 women and girls in a Darfur village in a series of organized, house-to-house attacks late last year.

The Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday calls the mass rape "a new low in the catalog of atrocities in Darfur."

The international community has pressed repeatedly for access to investigate the alleged attacks that witnesses and survivors say began Oct. 30 and lasted 36 hours.

Sudan's government says its own investigation found that "there had not been a single case of rape."

But the new report based on more than 130 interviews says girls as young as 10 were raped by Sudanese army forces, and that some women and girls were assaulted multiple times and in front of their families.

 

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Al-Qaida militants seize Yemeni military base in south

Feb 12, 4:10 AM (ET)
By AHMED AL-HAJ

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemeni military officials say al-Qaida militants have seized control of an important army base in the south following clashes with soldiers.

The officials say at least four troops and four militants died in the fighting and that at least 15 soldiers were taken hostage. The base is home to Yemen's 19th Infantry Brigade and is located in the Baihan area in southern Shabwa province.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to reporters.

A Twitter account affiliated with Yemen's al-Qaida branch, considered to be the most dangerous of the terror network, posted images of militants raising their black flag over the base.

The photographs also show militants in armored vehicles. The images' authenticity could not be independently confirmed but corresponded to events depicted.

 

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Israel: Gaza-bound boat with munition intercepted last month

Feb 12, 3:29 AM (ET)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says a boat carrying materials for making weapons was intercepted by the navy last month en route to the Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula.

It says charges against three suspected smugglers, who were detained on board, were filed this week.

The statement late Wednesday says the vessel carried material for making rockets and mortars of the type Hamas has fired at Israel.

Israel, along with Egypt, imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Palestinian militant Hamas group seized the strip in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel says the measure is meant to stop Hamas from smuggling weapons.

Hamas brings weapons and other goods into Gaza via underground, cross-border tunnels dug to neighboring Sinai. Egypt has recently destroyed many of the tunnels.

 

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http://www.jewishlinknj.com/index.p...-regional-arms-race&catid=150:news&Itemid=562

The Jewish Link of New Jersey

Iranian Nuclear Program Could Lead to Regional Arms Race

Thursday, 12 February 2015 06:22
By JLNJ Staff

TIP—With an eye on Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey look to build their own nuclear programs, raising concerns that the failure to halt Iran’s nuclear program could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Today Egypt and Russia announced a plan to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant with four reactors. Egypt’s move to acquire a domestic nuclear program underscores the position of some analysts that Iran’s program has already sparked such a race. Last July, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that giving Iran “any enrichment will trigger an arms race in the Middle East.”

In November 2013, the P5+1 global powers negotiated the Joint Plan of Action with Iran, which explicitly allows Iran to enrich uranium up to five percent. In response to Iran’s nuclear program, states in the region have threatened to acquire programs of their own in the interim. In 2009, the late Saudi King Abdullah reportedly told Ambassador Dennis Ross that “if they get nuclear weapons, we will get nuclear weapons.” The Daily Beast reported a conversation between Senator Lindsey Graham and former intelligence chief Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal. Graham asked the Prince, “If any final agreement that allowed Iran to maintain an enrichment capability would cause Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to invoke their own right to enrich uranium.”

He responded, “I think we should insist on having equal rights for everybody, this is part of the (Non-Proliferation Treaty) arrangement.” To gain access to U.S nuclear technology and equipment for its nuclear facilities, the UAE agreed not to enrich uranium. However, an agreement with Iran may lead the UAE to demand to renegotiate or abandon this agreement. Furthermore, last December Russia and Jordan signed an agreement to build the first nuclear power plant in Jordan. Turkey, a rival that competes with Iran for influence in the Middle East, may also acquire nuclear weapons.

In January 2014, Turkey and Japan signed a nuclear agreement that included a clause that allows Turkey to enrich uranium and extract plutonium, raising concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation. In 2009, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official claimed that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Turkey will do the same.

___

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The Jewish Link of New Jersey

Pres. Obama Is Not Serious About Stopping Iranian Nukes

Thursday, 12 February 2015 06:00
By Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel

New York—Last week, 10 Senate Democrats who had persistently expressed concern over President Barack Obama’s concessionary policy toward Iran over its nuclear weapons program, announced via a letter to the President that they would desist from seeking to pass new legislation to reimpose sanctions in the event of a failure of nuclear talks. Under reportedly enormous pressure from the White House, the senators said that they would await the March 24 deadline for a negotiated agreement with Tehran, despite their doubts that any such agreement would be forthcoming.

This delay is a serious mistake because one of the few things that might induce Tehran to agree to terminate its nuclear weapons program would be the certainty of renewed tough sanctions if it did not do so. Now such pressure is absent, and the chances of Iran agreeing are correspondingly reduced.

But this is only the latest blow to diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold power. The fact is that President Obama has a six-year record of indulging and conceding to Iran, without having achieved anything to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power, which he’s repeatedly and publicly proclaimed he would do “everything, everything” to prevent.

Obama could have availed himself of the huge demonstrations in Iran following the rigged 2009 presidential elections that confirmed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to exert international pressure on the regime. He could have even called for the regime to step aside, as he did in 2011 when American ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was similarly assailed by mass protests. Instead, he refused, saying that it was “not productive” to be “meddling...in Iranian elections.”

Obama has a disturbing record on Iran sanctions. For over a year after entering office, he prohibited a Congressional vote on new sanctions. Moreover, the 2010 UN Security Council sanctions regime Obama eventually supported included huge exemptions for numerous countries, like China, which has extensive contracts in Iran’s energy sector developing oil refineries, and Russia, which supplies S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran.

In 2011, Obama sought to torpedo or weaken new and stronger Congressional sanctions on Iran, even after these had been softened at his request, leading Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to publicly and angrily criticize the Administration.

In 2013, Obama quietly lifted financial pressure on Tehran, stopping the blacklisting of entities and individuals assisting Iran’s evasion of international sanctions. He also damagingly publicized Israeli preparations to deal militarily with Iran, including Israeli use of Azerbaijan airfields.

Then came the biggest subversion of the cause of keeping Iran nuclear weapon-free: the Geneva Interim Agreement with Iran, which gave Tehran vital sanctions relief totaling some $20 billion (not the $6-7 billion originally conceded by the Administration) while permitting Iran to retain - intact all the essential elements of its nuclear weapons program:

* Continued construction of its Arak plutonium plant;

* Continued uranium enrichment to 5% (which, with 19,000 centrifuges, can enable swift enrichment to weapons-grade level, allowing Iran to become a break-out nuclear state in a matter of months);

* Continued research and massive upgrading of centrifuges, enabling Iran to achieve a nuclear breakout in a mere two months;

* Continued nuclear research at military installations like Parchin, which remain off-limits to inspectors;

* Continued intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) programs, whose only purpose is carrying nuclear warheads and which, according to U.S. intelligence, will enable Iran to strike the U.S. itself by 2015.

Iranian aggression is also met with silence. Tehran’s Syrian ally, Bashar Assad, continues to murder and maim across Syria in a conflict that has already claimed 200,000 lives. Iran continues funding of the radical Islamic terror group, Hezbollah, which helps keep Assad in power. Iranian-supported rebels have just toppled Yemen’s pro-American government. Iran now has an increasing hold in large swathes of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Silence.

So, too, with Iranian threats to the U.S. and Israel. Statements continue to be made by Khamenei and other senior Iranian figures. including Khameini publicly calling for destruction of the U.S., the “Great Satan.” The Iranian Defense Ministry recently declared that “the Iranian nation still sees the U.S. as the No. 1 enemy.” And, Iran has been quietly expanding its reach into Latin America, courtesy of friendly regimes. Silence.

Instead, Obama fights proposed sanctions, which will only be imposed if there’s no nuclear deal, and is outraged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts an invitation to address the Congress on the subject, a record which even led Senator Menendez to declare, “The more I hear from the Administration...the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”

Perhaps Obama believes a nuclear Iran will be a source of stability. Perhaps he thinks an America that cannot threaten a nuclear Iran is good news. But what cannot be argued is that Obama intends to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state.

Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy.

By Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel

 

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China says 'no information' on high-level exchange with N. Korea

2015/02/12 17:43

BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- China's foreign ministry said Thursday that it had "no information" about a possible visit by a high-ranking North Korean official to Beijing.

"I have no information on that," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying replied when asked about a South Korean media report that North Korea may send Choi Ryong-hae, one of the top aides to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, to China as a special envoy.

Hua did not elaborate further. Choi visited Beijing in May 2013 as a special envoy of Kim.

Political ties between North Korea and China remain strained as Pyongyang shows no signs of abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

kdh@yna.co.kr

(END)

 

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http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/minsk-ceasefire-deal-will-ukraine-crisis-kill-nato-1487705

Minsk ceasefire deal: Will the Ukraine crisis kill Nato?

By Shane Croucher
February 12, 2015 12:28 GMT

The Ukraine crisis is something of a litmus test for Nato, the ageing transatlantic defence alliance formed at the dawn of the Cold War to shield Europe from the Soviet Union.

Its hawkish critics have decried what they see as a weak response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and its military support for warring separatists in the east of Ukraine.

But others welcome any weakening of Nato, an organisation they see as creating more conflict than it prevents and a tool for American imperialism.

The leaders of Germany and France – both Nato members – and Ukraine and Russia met in Minsk, Belarus, to try to reach a last-minute diplomatic deal to stop the fighting and re-establish peace. They agreed a fragile ceasefire. But there was no deal on borders or autonomy for rebel-held areas.

Should that ceasefire fail, as many expect it will, the leaders of Nato's 28 member states must again ask searching questions on how to take on the Russian president Vladimir Putin over his actions in Ukraine. Will the organisation expose itself as a grand illusion?

George Weigel, a US foreign policy commentator, wrote in Standpoint magazine:

“
Vladimir Putin's Russia, a kleptocratic, Mafia-like police state sitting atop a crumbling society, is nonetheless poised to dismantle the fundamental international security architecture that has kept the West safe since 1949.

The decisive test may well come over the next few months in the Baltic republics; if Putin, using his now-familiar excuse of ethnic and nationalist solidarity and his now-familiar tactics of the Big Lie and destabilisation by special forces, takes a bite out of Latvia or Estonia, what will Nato do?

Despite its solemn obligations under Article 5 of the Nato treaty to regard an attack on one member state as an attack upon all, the most that can be expected from the Obama administration, on its record, will be further economic sanctions.

The few European states willing to face down Putin will find no American leadership to follow; Article 5 will thus be rendered null and void; and that will mean the de facto end of history's most successful security alliance — and the abrogation of the victories it won in 1989 and 1991.
”
Sanctions and reinforcement

The West has imposed financial sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine, where the crisis death toll is approaching 5,000 as war between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists tears through eastern cities such as Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia retains control of Crimea, which it annexed in March 2014.

Russia has retaliated with sanctions of its own. But it is suffering more than the West. Russia's economy will contract by 4.5% in 2015, according to a forecast by its central bank, in part as a consequence. It is also suffering because of falling oil prices.

For its part, Nato has developed a "Readiness Action Plan" (RAP) to make its troops more prepared to respond to sudden crises, including an ultra-ready "Spearhead Force" of 5,000 ground troops. Altogether, Nato said it will have 30,000 troops under its "enhanced" response force.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the time:

“
If a crisis arises, they will ensure that national and Nato forces from across the Alliance are able to act as one from the start.

They will make rapid deployment easier. Support planning for collective defence. And help coordinate training and exercises.
”
Nato has also deployed more troops to its European allies, such as sending fighter jets to the Baltic states, and increased its patrols under the plan. Stoltenberg has described the RAP as "the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War".

But Nato states have made clear that it will not send troops into Ukraine, which is not a member state, though it is a partner and Kiev has long had aspirations of joining the organisation.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and de facto leader of the European Union (EU), said the solution to the Ukraine is a diplomatic not a military one after her meeting in Moscow with Putin.

And Barack Obama, president of the US, has said that he "will look at all additional options that are available to us short of military confrontation".

Are Nato's critics right? Has it responded weakly to the Ukraine crisis and Putin's actions by not committing troops to Kiev?

Alex Nicoll, senior fellow for geo-economics and defence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), tells IBTimes UK:

“
Obviously this wasn't something that Nato expected to be having to do.

From the time that the Ukraine crisis was serious, I think Nato has responded in quite significant ways by the things that we know about.

Clearly, Nato leaders are not interested in intervening in Ukraine itself. I think they've made that quite clear and I think that's still the position, in spite of all the talks we've been seeing.
”
He added that Nato's primary concern has been to reassure its former Soviet bloc members – many of which have large ethnic Russian populations similar to Ukraine – of their guarantee to security. But Nicoll is not convinced that Putin has shown the desire to invade other states.

Dr Rowan Allport, a senior fellow at the Human Security Centre thinktank, tells IBTimes UK:

“
It is important to separate Nato's core responsibly as an organisation focused on the collective defence of its members from the secondary, post-Cold War role it has adopted as a regional security actor.

At present, whilst there are many divisions amongst Nato states regarding the handling of the current crisis in Ukraine, there is no sign of any fundamental fracturing of the security guarantee membership of the organisation provides.
”
Allport says this is reflected in Nato's recent actions, such as the Readiness Action Programme and deployment of forces to Baltic states.

“
However, there can be little doubt that is falling some way short in its regional security role. In part, this is because the challenge Russia presents is far larger than those faced in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya - Nato's largest previous operations to date.

However, there is also an across-the-board lack of political resolve to confront security challenges amongst the key member nations that has not been seen in a generation.

At the very least, it would seem sensible that Nato, or more accurately the organisation's core membership, should be enhancing their efforts to support the reform and training of Ukraine's armed forces, which were hugely weakened by the corruption of Kiev's previous pro-Russian government.
”
'Nato foreign legion'

President Poroshenko of Ukraine has stopped short of calling for Nato to put boots on the ground, perhaps because he has been told behind the scenes not to bother. But he has asked for "lethal defensive arms" to help equip his army in the fight against Russia and pro-Russian rebels.

Putin, however, already thinks Nato troops are on the ground in Ukraine. Speaking to students in St Petersburg, he called the Ukrainian army "a foreign legion, in this case a foreign NATO legion, which, of course, doesn't pursue the national interests of Ukraine."

Paradoxically, Putin needs a strong Nato – or at least the perception of its strength to exist – because it is his claims of antagonism by the organisation that underpin his arguments for the Kremlin's own military aggression.

But, argues Nicoll, one thing is for sure: Ukraine won't be joining Nato anytime soon.

“
Ukraine is not a Nato ally and is not really right now on the cards of being a Nato ally.

Obviously that's what the Russians suspect. They are obsessed with this idea that Ukraine and previously Georgia could become Nato allies. But we have to look at the reality and say that that's really not on the cards. Nobody is really arguing for that right now.

Perhaps out of these talks going on right now there might even be some kind of assurance to Moscow on that. I don't know.
”
Pathetic

Zenko Lastowiecki is president of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB). He has family in the west of Ukraine and is worried about the prospect of total war if the situation escalates any further. Soldiers are already being drafted from all over Ukraine.

Lastowiecki tells IBTimes UK:

“
As you can imagine, for someone with very close connections with Ukraine, it's worrying. But by the same token, I think it's necessary.

Ukraine has to defend its territory otherwise President Putin is just going to roll over it.
”
The AUGB has been collecting money for supplies to be sent to the front line in Ukraine: food, clothing, first aid kits, medical equipment. All much needed by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in parts of the country's east.

But Nato's response so far, Lastowiecki says, has been "pathetic".

There's too much procrastination. I understand the West is trying to negotiate some kind of treaty. But that's been tried and failed," he says.

“
Yes, I agree with Angela Merkel that you should give diplomacy a chance. But the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin is just not, as I can see it, a way out.

President Putin just adamantly denies any involvement whatsoever and the evidence is quite to the contrary, which makes it quite difficult to negotiate with somebody who doesn't even think he's at the party, let alone responsible for creating a lot of the problems in the first place.

Now his latest views are that it's all Ukraine's fault and the West for stirring it all up in the first place because they expand Nato when they said they wouldn't.

So he's just doing everything he can to blame everybody else except accept any responsibility himself. It's very difficult to negotiate with these kinds of people.
”
He just wants Nato to "stand up and stick to what it said it would do": honour the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

“
Obviously Russia has blatantly disregarded that. But the fact that Britain and America have just walked away from that agreement says a lot," he says.

And they should actually now stand up and do what they say they're going to do.
”
Zenko Lastowiecki
Zenko Lastowiecki.(YouTube)

Under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Russia, the US and the UK, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for assurances about its economic and political sovereignty and that it would not be the target of Western or Russian aggression.

Putin has already disregarded the Budapest Memorandum because he does not recognise the current Kiev government, which came to power after the corrupt pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted from office during violent protests against him.

Yanukovich had eschewed closer trade ties with the EU – which is what many Ukrainians had wanted – in favour of joining Russia's rival Eurasian Economic Union after Putin put pressure on him. This is what triggered the protests, his ousting and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea.

Still in demand

The response of Nato to the Ukraine crisis was always going to be too much for some and not enough for others. But there remains a question about the role of Nato in the future as it emerges from its focus since 2001: the Afghanistan War.

It was an unpopular conflict that dragged on for years and cost thousands of lives, mostly those of innocent civilians. Coupled with Iraq, which was not a Nato conflict but led by its most powerful member, the US, the organisation's name has been sullied in the public eye over the past decade.

Nato evolved from a collective defence shield against the tyrannical Soviet Union into a global police force which concerned itself with radical Islam in the Middle East after the 9/11 terror attack on the US.

Now it is retreating back into its original territory with the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis coming at the end of the Afghan war. But has Nato forgotten its original purpose?

Obama to seek $534bn base defence budget and $51bn for wars
A US soldier from Dragon Troop of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment fires a Javelin missile system during their first training exercise of the new year, near operating base Gamberi in the Laghman province of Afghanistan, on 1 January.(Reuters)

Nicoll of IISS says:

“
There's not a strong awareness of defence issues in general in many Nato countries, in Europe at least.

And that's just a fact of life. When you've got a continent that's been basically at peace for a long time and there are competing demands on national budgets and agendas, it's inevitable that defence is going to take a bit more of a backseat.

I think it has been difficult for Nato's issues to rise to the top of the agenda of European Nato member governments.
”
But Nicoll adds that what he has noticed is that people always turn to Nato for a response to emerging crises. Take Libya and the fall of Gaddafi, for example. Or the Islamic State, which Nato has targeted with a campaign of airstrikes.

“
I don't necessarily mean the man in the street, but the man in the street's democratic representatives, if you like," he said.

So I still think for governments, even if it's not top of their minds, that it's still a highly useful instrument for them.

What happened last year was quite illustrative in that there was a Nato summit in Wales, of course it was known for about a year in advance that there was going to be one, the initial emphasis was that there wasn't going to a really very exciting summit.

The focus was going from deployment to preparedness as the Afghan mission wound down, but then the Ukraine crisis came along and European security was the top of the agenda and they did in fact take some important decisions there.

So the leaders found it useful as a means of demonstrating solidarity.
”
In the future, Nato must deal with declining defence budgets, especially in Europe where austerity and low economic growth are tearing through national budgets.

Nato members are recommended to spend 2% of their GDP on defence. Just six, including the US and UK, met this standard in 2013, according to World Bank data.

Nicoll says:

“
There are challenges, for sure, in that spending is in general on the decline and that makes it more difficult to invest in the technologies that are going to be the technologies you want in future conflicts for future crises.

That puts pressure on countries to co-operate more on whether it's on actual force structures, or buying equipment, and actually they haven't been very good at that. Co-operation has not nearly advanced as much as it should.

Each time defence spending falls you think that will encourage real co-operation. And then it doesn't really happen.
”
Nato is still a powerful force in the world. Security demands and expectations continue to be made of it. But this will be less so in a global sense than recent years.

“
It's still a tie to the United States, which for Europe is still very important in terms of keeping America interested in preserving European security.

There was a discussion a few years ago about whether Nato should become more global and basically the answer was no. Countries didn't want it to. So Afghanistan might be the furthest it goes.
”
Misguided opportunism?

Vladimir Putin
Russian president Vladimir Putin.(Ria Novosti)

After Putin's Georgia adventurism in 2008, in which he annexed the region of South Ossetia, and now his aggression in Ukraine, the Russian expansionism of the past appears to be rising from the dead.

Some Kremlin-watchers believe Putin is testing the limits of the new geopolitical order amid perceptions of a weaker, more insular US under Obama. Essentially, Putin looks to be seeing how much he can get away with by asking questions of the West and Nato's appetite for conflict.

How far are he and Nato willing to go?

Allport of the Human Security Centre says:

“
It is difficult to predict Putin's ultimate intentions. Whilst it is easy to slip into the notion that he has some sort of master plan - or at least the vague outline of one - it is equally probable that he simply an opportunist who is essentially making things up as he goes along as part of a broad strategy of sowing division amongst the Western allies using all of the means at his disposal.

In isolation, the Baltic states are of little strategic use to Russia, and at present it seems inconceivable that any direct or indirect incursion into them would fail to provoke a reaction from Nato that would ultimately prove to be catastrophic for both Russia and Putin personally.

However, it cannot be ruled out that Putin will act in a way that does not reflect a rational interpretation of Russia's interest. Arguably, his actions in the Ukraine have already seen him cross this line.
”
Allport adds:

“
In intervening in the Ukraine, Putin has arguably given Nato - an organisation that was facing the post-Afghanistan era with dread - a clear purpose, and in doing so has unintentionally helped preserve its strength.
”

Related
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Vladimir Putin condemns West in Ukraine blame game for 'breaking pledges'
Angela Merkel in Washington to discuss Ukraine crisis with Barack Obama

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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February 11, 2015 4:42 pm

China and Pakistan make an oddball but enduring couple

David Pilling

Beijing has stayed the course with Islamabad while Washington has blown hot and cold

Comments 28

You could call them the odd couple. China and Pakistan have one of the closest yet least understood relationships in international diplomacy. On the surface they have little in common. China’s state is strong and its economy has been growing for decades. The Pakistani state, apart from the military, is weak and its economic performance has been disastrous. China is communist and religion is tightly controlled. Pakistan is Islamic and religious fervour is often out of control.

Despite this, the two have maintained a decades-long relationship. It has survived the vicissitudes of Pakistan’s military and civilian governments and of Islamabad’s shape-shifting relations with Washington. This week, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, is visiting Pakistan to cement what Islamabad calls the “unshakeable bonds of friendship”. Next month could be even more important if Xi Jinping, China’s president, accepts an invitation to visit Islamabad for Pakistan Day celebrations.

We tend not to see things through Beijing’s eyes. If we are to make sense of shifting realities, we will have to try. From Beijing, the world can seem a hostile place. The US, with its unshakeable faith in liberal democracy, may not be actively seeking regime change in China but it would surely welcome the collapse of the Communist party.

In conjunction with other countries, including India, Australia and Japan, Washington is trying to contain China’s regional military ambitions. Neighbouring countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, which until recently had been reassured by Beijing’s “smile diplomacy”, have grown wary. Even North Korea, almost wholly dependent on Chinese largesse, has grown defiant.

Pakistan looks like Beijing’s one true friend. One of the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic in the early 1950s, Islamabad was a bridge between China and the US. When Henry Kissinger, who later became US secretary of state, made his secret visit to China in 1971 to prepare for normalisation of US-China relations, he sneaked in from Pakistan. And for Beijing, Pakistan has been a way to keep India off balance.

In return, Beijing has kept Pakistan’s military equipped when supplies dried up from elsewhere. Beijing also provided information and enriched uranium for Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. When a US stealth helicopter crashed during the 2011 operation to kill Osama bin Laden, the Pakistanis showed the wreckage first to the Chinese. China built Pakistan a deepwater port at Gwadar on the Indian Ocean.

Andrew Small, author of a book on the relationship, says Beijing has earned real leverage. In 2007, under Chinese pressure, Islamabad raided the Lal Masjid “Red Mosque” after militants kidnapped several Chinese citizens. Chinese pressure has been one factor behind Pakistan’s offensive against militant groups in North Waziristan. For years, the US pushed for the same thing without success. The China-Pakistan axis is worth watching if only because it shows the limits of Beijing’s non-interventionist policy. As it gets sucked into the global whirlpool, it faces the risk of blowback. China now has to deal with attacks by members of the Uighur, a Muslim minority ethnic group. Some may be ideologically inspired — if not planned — in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt. Like the US, Beijing worries Pakistan may not always crack down as hard on terrorists as it pretends.

Despite all this, China has stayed the course while Washington has blown hot and cold. That raises the intriguing notion of whether the US and China could work more closely in Pakistan. While there is much that divides their strategic interests, a surprising amount unites them. Beijing and Washington want a stable, viable Pakistan, not a viper’s nest of terrorist export. Both want to ensure the Pakistani military keeps a firm hold on nuclear weapons. Both want Pakistan to rein in support for the Afghan Taliban in the wake of US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Some detect signs that Beijing has become more open to the idea. Wang Jisi, a Chinese foreign policy expert, has said that China’s “western periphery” offers a rare opportunity. In east Asia, the US pivot is seen as containment and the two are locked in what he says is a zero-sum game. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, however, Beijing and Washington have “significant scope for co-operation”. It is in neither’s interests for Pakistan to fail. If they could work together in that cause, it would be the oddest thing of all.

david.pilling@ft.com

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?463718-FT-China’s-strange-fear-of-a-colour-revolution

Hummm......In light of what's come out regarding Ukraine, this might well not be unjustified paranoia on the part of the Chinese Communist Party......

For links see article source.....
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February 9, 2015 4:41 pm

China’s strange fear of a colour revolution

Gideon Rachman

Beijing seems to share the Russian view that America organised the uprising in Ukraine

Comments 213

China’s education minister has just issued an edict to the country’s universities that sounds like something from the heyday of Maoism. “Never let textbooks promoting western values enter our classes,” thundered Yuan Guiren. “Any views that attack or defame the leadership of the party or socialism must never be allowed.”

As a visitor to Beijing last week, it struck me that it is rather late in the day to crack down on western influence. The Chinese capital is the home to every western brand you can think of — from Lamborghini to Hooters. In the cafés near Beijing’s university campuses, Chinese students gossip and surf the internet, much like their western counterparts. Yet apparent familiarity can be deceptive. Logging in from my hotel, I was naively surprised to run straight into the great firewall of China that blocks access to Google, Twitter and many other sites.

In recent months, the great firewall has been raised higher amid a crackdown on western influence that has affected universities, bloggers and television schedules. People directly involved in liberal politics have suffered much more directly. Human rights organisations say that hundreds of activists have been detained over the past year. Foreign non-governmental organisations are also under intensified scrutiny and pressure.

This crackdown points to a surprising sense of insecurity in China’s ruling circles. Events in the outside world have made the government increasingly anxious about the threat of a “colour revolution” that would challenge the Communist party’s grip on power. That links to anxiety about the internal stability of China, at a time when the economy is slowing and President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is creating discontent among the ruling elite.

The wave of revolutions in the Arab world stirred deep anxieties in the Chinese Communist party about popular risings against undemocratic governments — and the chaos they can unleash. The role of western institutions and technology in stoking these revolts was noted in Beijing. The fact that the Egyptian uprising of 2011 was labelled the “Facebook revolution” and that one of its most prominent early activists was a Google executive helped to seal the fate of those two companies in China.

Over the past year, Chinese official paranoia about the threat of a colour revolution has been stoked by events in Ukraine and, above all, Hong Kong. China seems to have sincerely embraced the Russian view of the uprising in Ukraine, namely that it was essentially organised by the Americans, using all their nefarious tools, from the internet to NGOs. In April, months before the protests in Hong Kong broke out, Wang Jisi, a prominent Chinese academic, wrote that the main concern of Beijing’s leaders in dealing with America is “alleged US schemes to subvert the Chinese government and to penetrate politically and ideologically into Chinese society”.

The Hong Kong protests, which broke out in September, seemed to confirm Beijing’s deepest fears. Viewed from China, they looked dangerously like the arrival of the techniques of the colour revolution within China’s own borders: the sit-down protests, the students, the foreign television crews, the use of social media and the emergence of a catchy brand name, the “umbrella movement”. The Chinese government succeeded in damping down the protests in Hong Kong. But some in Beijing claim to see a sinister pattern of western meddling — stretching from the Arab world to Ukraine, Cuba, Venezuela and now Hong Kong.

What is more, all this international disorder is coming at a time of heightened political tension within China. Mr Xi’s trademark domestic political initiative is his anti-corruption campaign. This has gone on longer and struck deeper than many expected.

The anti-corruption drive is said to be popular among ordinary Chinese. But it is threatening powerful interests. In the past couple of months, the government has formally charged Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China’s internal security police and announced an investigation into Ling Jihua, who was the senior aide to Hu Jintao, Mr Xi’s predecessor. There is also said to be discontent in the massed ranks of party officials, many of whom have got used to supplementing their relatively meagre official salaries with bribes. Some even argue that the slowing of China’s economy has something to do with the chilling effect that the anti-corruption campaign has had on business deals.

It may be that Mr Xi is so perfectly in control of the political system that he can afford to take on powerful interest groups. But well-connected people in Beijing now speculate openly about the possibility of an attempt to remove the president. Some note that previous bouts of popular unrest in China, for example in 1989, coincided with divisions at the top of the Communist party.

Yet, in many ways, China has never looked stronger. A few months ago, the International Monetary Fund announced that China is the world’s largest economy, measured by purchasing power. Foreign leaders are queueing up for audiences with Mr Xi, usually in the hope of attracting Chinese investment. Viewed from the outside world, the apparent anxiety of China’s political leaders looks excessive, even paranoid. But, as the famous (western) saying goes: “Only the paranoid survive.”

gideon.rachman@ft.com