WAR 02-10-2024-to-02-16-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

Housecarl · Feb 10, 2024

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The Dangerous Global Order with a Nuclear Armed Iran

America's actions now – or else its inaction – will determine the ability of global powers to mold an international order that either upholds democratic values or succumbs to the dominance of terror groups and dictatorships. Inaction or a failure to

www.gatestoneinstitute.org

The Dangerous Global Order with a Nuclear Armed Iran

by Majid Rafizadeh
February 10, 2024 at 5:00 am

America's actions now – or else its inaction – will determine the ability of global powers to mold an international order that either upholds democratic values or succumbs to the dominance of terror groups and dictatorships.
Inaction or a failure to adopt a resolute stance against the ascent of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear capabilities, can only pave the way for a world where autocratic regimes and extremist factions dictate the course of international affairs.

As Iran is on the verge of achieving a significant milestone in obtaining nuclear weapons, concerns are mounting over the Biden administration's lack of a coherent strategy to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Since the Biden administration took office, Iran has been rapidly advancing its uranium enrichment, approaching levels of 83.7% close to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons capability.

The consequences of Iran possessing nuclear weapons should not be downplayed or overlooked. The Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel, and views that goal a central pillar of its ideology. This commitment is rooted in religious prophecies from the regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, foreseeing the eventual eradication of Israel.

General Hossein Salami, chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has explicitly outlined the regime's aggressive stance, stating on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019, "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map." Khamenei's 416-page guidebook, Palestine, further emphasizes the regime's dedication to Israel's destruction.

The Iranian regime is also committed to exporting its Islamist system globally. Embedded in its constitution is the prioritization of revolutionary ideals, aiming at propagating its governance system in line with its version of Shiite Islam. This mission, outlined in the preamble, seeks to create conditions that align with the values of Islam, and that foster the revolution at home and abroad. Since 1979, the regime has expanded its influence across the Middle East. The regime has deployed the IRGC and its expeditionary Quds Force to influence regions from Yemen to Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip through proxy groups such as the Houthi militia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq.

Expanding on the multifaceted concerns surrounding Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities, a critical dimension lies in the unsettling prospect of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the regime's extensive network of proxies. This network includes the above-mentioned groups as well as the Syrian regime, Iran's allies in South America, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The intricate web of alliances and shared interests creates a scenario where the Iranian regime could extend its influence by providing such capabilities to like-minded allies and proxy groups. Iran's establishment of weapons factories abroad and its production of advanced ballistic missiles, including precision-guided ones, underscores the urgency of the situation.

This adds a layer of complexity to the global security landscape, raising the stakes and emphasizing the immediate need for a comprehensive strategy to address not only the imminent nuclear threat from Iran but also the broader implications of potential proliferation among its network of proxies and allies.

To address these concerns, two critical policy considerations emerge. First, the consideration of a military option looms large on the strategic horizon. This involves a meticulous examination of targeting Iran's nuclear infrastructure, thereby disrupting its capacity to advance its nuclear program. A decisive and preemptive strike is necessary to thwart the imminent danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Second, a fundamental reevaluation of the West's diplomatic and economic engagements with Iran emerges as a crucial policy imperative. The prevailing practice of rewarding the regime with substantial financial incentives, amounting to billions of dollars, and engaging in trade relationships contributes to the funding of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Consequently, a recalibration of Western policies is needed, with a focus on imposing strategic economic sanctions and halting diplomatic relationships that are fueling the regime's nuclear aspirations.

Drawing historical parallels: If Hitler had acquired nuclear weapons, would he have hesitated to use them?

So far, Iran is "pushing Biden around," as news analyst Aaron Cohen said. The more Biden lets it, the more pushed around Biden will get.

It remains to be seen if the Biden administration will undergo a strategic recalibration and take decisive action, or persist in crafting a legacy that supports the Iranian regime, a top state sponsor of terrorism, to advance its nuclear weapon program to completion, and allows the ruling clerics and their allies, terror groups, and proxies, to acquire nuclear weapons.

The ramifications extend far beyond the immediate geopolitical landscape. America's actions now – or else its inaction – will determine the ability of global powers to mold an international order that either upholds democratic values or succumbs to the dominance of terror groups and dictatorships. Inaction or a failure to adopt a resolute stance against the ascent of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear capabilities, can only pave the way for a world where autocratic regimes and extremist factions dictate the course of international affairs.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Follow Majid Rafizadeh on X (formerly Twitter)

Housecarl · Feb 10, 2024

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War in Sudan risks inflaming other fragile African countries - Vatican News

The former Apostolic Nuncio to Sudan and Eritrea, Archbishop Luis Miguel Muñoz Cárdaba, explains to L’Osservatore Romano the root-causes and ...

www.vaticannews.va

10 February 2024, 15:00 (Posted 8 hours ago)

War in Sudan risks inflaming other fragile African countries

The former Apostolic Nuncio to Sudan and Eritrea, Archbishop Luis Miguel Muñoz Cárdaba, explains to L’Osservatore Romano the root-causes and implications of the ongoing conflict ravaging Sudan.

By Valerio Palombaro
Archbishop Luis Miguel Muñoz Cárdaba has granted the following interview to L’Osservatore Romano in which he offers an insight into the war between the regular army of President General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The Spanish-born Archbishop represented the Holy See in Sudan and Eritrea until 23 January 2024, when he was appointed by Pope Francis as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Mozambique.

Q: For almost 10 months, Sudan has been grappling with a bloody conflict, causing staggering numbers of casualties and displaced persons. Which areas are most involved in the hostilities, and is there concern about a further escalation of this war?

Archbishop Muñoz: The armed conflict sparked by rivalry between the two generals, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan leading the Sudanese regular army (SAF), and Mohamed Dagalo "Hemedti" leading the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has thrown Sudan into chaos with consequences that will last for many years.

While the fighting is particularly fierce in the capital Khartoum and in the regions of Darfur, with massacres reminiscent of the terrible genocide of the years 2003-2005, as well as in Kordofan and Gezira, the rest of Sudanese territory under the control of the regular army enjoys relative calm.

But the war in Sudan concerns the entire Horn of Africa region, which bears its consequences, with the concrete risk of plunging into a long humanitarian crisis with serious geopolitical repercussions. Before the conflict, Sudan hosted over 1.1 million foreign refugees, including 800,000 South Sudanese and many Eritreans and Ethiopians. Sudan was therefore one of the main refugee-hosting countries in Africa.

Today, the dynamics are reversed, and there is therefore a risk that the Sudanese war could inflame neighbouring countries, particularly fragile South Sudan, but also Chad and others.

Q: About 20 years after the atrocities of the early 2000s, Darfur has once again become the scene of serious violence and crimes. What is the situation in the area?

The war has reignited ethnic tensions, causing clashes between tribal fighters and militias, especially in Darfur (which has a population of about 6 million, for the most part Muslims, and a territory slightly larger than Spain), dangerously plunging this region into a new tribal civil war.

The current situation can be traced back to the long-standing conflict in Darfur over access to land and water between the majority of the black African population, composed of sedentary tribes, and the minority of nomads originally from the Arabian Peninsula, who constitute the majority elsewhere in Sudan.

The current war, which erupted on 15 April 2023, escalated after two armed groups in Darfur, hitherto neutral, declared their allegiance to the regular army against the paramilitaries, accusing them of committing atrocities. It should also be noted that members of the RSF are from Darfur.

Q: Mediation efforts between the warring parties seem to have been unsuccessful. Who can carry out effective mediation, and are there areas to work on to bring diplomacy back into play?

So far, all efforts and attempts at mediation to find a way out of the conflict have been fruitless. Even talks between representatives of the two opposing factions, held several times in the Saudi city of Jeddah with the support of Saudi Arabia and the United States, have failed.

Indeed, neither of the two warring generals has respected the ceasefires agreed upon for the opening of humanitarian corridors. Both parties accuse each other of repeated ceasefire violations.

Moreover, last December, the UN Security Council decided to end UNITAMS, the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, whose activities have always been viewed with suspicion and obstructed by the military, who considered it an interference in Sudanese internal affairs. This reduced international presence in Sudan could, sadly, make it easier to commit new crimes against civilians.

Q: Have the two warring factions expressed clear objectives that could be the starting point for possible political-diplomatic solutions?

The conflict in Sudan is merely a continuation of an unstable political situation since the fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The armed forces and groups have never wanted to hand over power to civilians. Currently, it is the military and paramilitaries vying for control of the country, at the expense of a transition of power to civilians. Dialogue between the belligerents is not easy, although this is the path to follow.

Furthermore, the international community should work harder to bring peace back to the country and put it back on the path to democracy, with the contribution and participation of Sudanese people.

The road ahead is long as the country continues to fracture, not only because the military and paramilitaries do not seem willing to lay down their arms for the moment, but also because they are unlikely to accept handing over the leadership of Sudan to civilians through a new process of democratic transition.

There is a key element that should not be forgotten: there will be no peace or democratic transition if civil society, including the numerous young people, is not the true protagonist—and not the military or paramilitaries—of political change and the construction of a new Sudan.

Q: The conflict in Sudan is causing a staggering number of displaced persons. What are the most difficult situations, and how is the Holy See moving to help?

In addition to the very high number of internally displaced persons (estimated by the UN at 7.5 million people, with over 6 million inside the country and about 1.5 million in neighbouring countries, including Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic), the conflict has complicated Sudan's already precarious health, education, and economic situation: 65% of the population lacks access to healthcare; 75% of hospitals in conflict-affected areas are no longer functional; the number of children out of school reaches 19 million; at least 10,400 schools have been closed in conflict areas; and out-of-school children are exposed to recruitment by armed groups and sexual violence.

Indeed, according to UNICEF, Sudan is on the verge of becoming the country with the worst education crisis in the world. Additionally, the World Bank predicts that the Sudanese economy will contract by 12.5% in 2023 because the conflict has destroyed human capital and the state's capacity, halted production, damaged the industrial base, and, moreover, led to the collapse of economic activity and the erosion of the state's capacity, with damaging impacts on food security and forced displacement.

Q: The end of Omar Al-Bashir's thirty-year regime in 2019 had fueled hopes for a positive "revolution" for the country. What didn't work in this "revolution," and what are the real aspirations of the Sudanese people?

I arrived in Khartoum in 2020 at a time of optimism and hope for Sudan's future, thanks to the democratic transition process that opened up in the summer of 2019 after the civic revolution and the fall of al-Bashir's Islamist military regime, which had ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years.

From the beginning, I was struck by the different perceptions that Western ambassadors and Sudanese bishops had of this political transition process. While the former did not hide their great enthusiasm, even stating that Sudan would become an example of democratic openness for the entire Horn of Africa, the latter were much more sceptical about the country's future, recalling Sudan's recent history, marked by many coups and dictatorial governments. Unfortunately, time has fully vindicated the local bishops’ judgment.

In October 2021, the same generals, al-Burhan and "Hemedti," now fighting each other, led a coup, overthrowing the civilian government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and opening months of political, social, and institutional crisis. All remaining hopes were then swept away by the conflict that erupted on 15 April 2023.

To understand the deep reasons behind the bloody war currently marring Sudan, one must also consider several causes: the impractical presence of two different armed forces (SAF and RSF) in the same country, whose leaders acted like "two roosters in the same henhouse"; control of natural resources, especially the gold mines of Darfur; al-Burhan's affinity with various senior members of the officially dissolved Islamist party, the National Congress Party, in power during the regime of the ousted al-Bashir, which could not please "Hemedti," considered a traitor by the Islamists themselves; and finally, the different international support on which the two rivals rely.

Though it is still unclear what specific incident sparked the fire between the two rival armed forces, what is clear is the decisive role played by the Islamist minority in the outbreak of the war.

The aspirations of the Sudanese people, especially many young people, are the same that inspired the Civic Revolution four years ago: progress, democracy, more freedom and justice, and an active role for civilians in political and economic life. This is where we should start again.

Housecarl · Feb 10, 2024

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China makes presence felt at Saudi Arabian defense show, outpacing US, Russia - Breaking Defense

The wide range of equipment on display by China was dominated by armed and unarmed drones, but also covered fighter jet models, air-to-air missiles, long-range air and missile defense systems, anti-tank and C4ISR kit.

breakingdefense.com

China makes presence felt at Saudi Arabian defense show, outpacing US, Russia

The wide range of equipment on display by China was dominated by armed and unarmed drones, but also covered fighter jet models, air-to-air missiles, long-range air and missile defense systems, anti-tank and C4ISR kit.

By TIM MARTIN and AGNES HELOU on February 09, 2024 at 2:02 PM

A Chinese Wing Loong-10B armed drone on display with an array of weapons at the World Defense Show, outside Riyadh (Breaking Defense)

WORLD DEFENSE SHOW 2024 — Next to Pakistani Shahpar armed drones and not far from Russia’s Pantsir-SM surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, this week visitors to the World Defense Show, staged about 40 miles outside Riyadh, were offered a rare, up-close look at some Chinese military equipment, from full-sized Wing Loong drones, FT series precision guided bombs and HQ SAMs.

It was an opportunity for Beijing’s defense industry to attempt to outshine the competition on the “world stage” so to speak, similar to displays at other Gulf exhibitions. And though Chinese companies delivered a collection of platforms and armaments that outnumbered the US and all other international pavilions, those eager to get a glimpse at serial life-sized production fighter jets or warships would have been disappointed as not-to-scale models across all domains were very much the order of the day.

American defense firms may have come in droves to show off their wares, led by the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon, but Chinese firms claimed the most floor space outside host nation Saudi Arabia. Beijing also put on an aerial demonstration for the first time.

Data shared by organizers indicated that China’s floor space — much of it in a “China Defense” staging area — amounted to 4,668 square meters (over 50,000 square feet), the largest of any international invitee, ahead of Turkey with its own outsized presence at 4,355 square meters and the US at 3,335. Russia tagged along with just over 800 square meters.

In all, 36 Chinese companies attended, according to the show’s exhibitor list, while a flying display of J-10 jets from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Ba Yi Aerobatic Team also took place — a first for the World Defense Show. Though not taking up so much display area, American firms greatly outnumbered Chinese with over 100 organizations officially listed.

For US officials who have long been concerned about Beijing’s efforts to expand its influence in the Middle East, this year’s World Defense Show might have offered a worrying visual, but they could take solace that no new orders by China were recorded, at least publicly, during the show.

RELATED: Asked about China’s Middle East arms sales, Qatari PM lauds US ‘defense alliance’

Broadly speaking, government officials and manufacturers from all nations in attendance did not report orders for big ticket items like fighter jets. That said, organizers announced on Thursday that, overall, 61 orders were placed at a value of SAR 26 billion ($6.9 billion), while 73 MoU agreements were also made, including several involving American and European companies.

J-10 jets from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Ba Yi Aerobatic Team take to the skies (Breaking Defense)

Leading Chinese defense contractors and military export authorities in attendance included Aerospace Long-March International Trade Co. (ALIT), China National Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation (CPMIEC), China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC), China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), ELINC, China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) and Poly Defence.

The wide range of full-sized equipment on display by China was dominated by armed and unarmed drones, but also covered fighter jet models, air-to-air missiles, long-range air and missile defense systems, anti-tank and C4ISR kit.

Continued.....

Housecarl · Feb 10, 2024

Continued......

A Wing Loong II armed drone with Saudi Arabia markings, like those sold to the Kingdom in 2017, the LD-35 35mm anti-aircraft gun and integrated air defense weapon system, a CM-302 supersonic antiship missile model and Norinco’s Blue Arrow air-to-surface missile family, were among the more eye catching systems exhibited. Norinco also showcased a Red Arrow 12E anti-tank missile and a 155mm GP155B GPS guided projectile.

Lesser-known companies like the Beijing-based Hoverwing Technology group also displayed their wares, including the HW150V hybrid vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone. The ISR platform has a range of 300 kilometers, maximum take of weight of 160 kilograms, endurance of 10 hours and cruise speed up to 150km per hour, according to company literature.

The China Defence section of the World Defence Show displayed an extensive collection of air, land and sea based equipment belonging to Beijing. (Breaking Defense)

China and Saudi Arabia’s close military ties, which have included joint naval training exercises in recent years, remain highly concerning to the US and Western allies, but at a competitive level there remains little evidence that Beijing is disrupting US-Saudi defense business in any major way.

The US heads the list of global arms exporters, business that is largely driven by orders placed by Riyadh. Data [PDF] from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that between 2018 to 2022, almost one-fifth of all defense exports by Washington were ordered by the Kingdom. In the same period, Chinese military exports were dominated by orders from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Serbia.

China also has a sizeable gap to make up if it is to catch the US in terms of defense exports, as it holds a lowly 5.2 percent share, lagging behind Washington’s 40 percent share, according to SIPRI.

A Chinese armored vehicle on display at WDS 2024

China exhibited a camouflage sporting LD-35 35mm anti-aircraft gun and integrated air defense weapon system at World Defense Show 2024 in Riyadh. (Breaking Defense)

Russians In Riyadh

Meanwhile, America’s other top geopolitical rival, Russia, attended World Defense Show with less of a presence than China, but still its largest display in the Gulf since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.

Russian firms here showed a diverse collection of defense platforms not only as scale models, but the actual systems including Orlan drones, armored vehicles like MRAP, and Ilyushin military transport aircraft, IL–76MD-90A in the static display area, as well as missile launchers and Kalashnikov rifles.

Though only four Russian organizations were noted on the exhibitor list, products from more than 20 companies were actually on hand, many under the umbrella of the state’s defense export agency Rosoboronexport.
“Compared to 2022, the scale of the Russian exhibit has doubled,” said Alexander Mikheev, Director General of Rosoboronexport in a Feb. 1 statement.

Russian defense wares on display at WDS 2024

Russia’s Orlan family of drones, which have been used in the war in Ukraine, were on display at the World Defense Show in Riyadh in February 2024. (Breaking Defense)

In a separate statement issued by the Russian government earlier this week, Manturov claimed that “most of the presented samples [of Russian equipment on display] have real experience of use in combat,” while noting Russia’s “products traditionally generate a lot of interest.”

Other Russian government agencies talked in similar terms, though much like the case of China, no orders were announced by Moscow.

Before the show Rosoboronexport had also said it offers several UAV types for export including Orion reconnaissance/strike UAV, Orlan-10E and Orlan-30 reconnaissance drones, as well as the Kub-E loitering munition.

“We are negotiating the local production of drones on the customer’s territory, joint R&D work on advanced drones,” the statement added. “These proposals are based on the rich experience in organizing such infrastructure in the mass employment of unmanned vehicles in real combat conditions.”

At the World Defense Show, unlike Dubai Airshow and IDEX that took place in the UAE last year, the Russian booth was on the indoor show floor, among other international firms stands and booths, and not isolated in a separate display area.

Saudi Arabia Minister of Defense Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Valentinovich Manturov met at the show to discuss “aspects of joint cooperation in military industries,” according to a Saudi Press Agency report.

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Housecarl · Feb 10, 2024

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Thinking about the Unthinkable: Five Nuclear Weapons Issues to Address in 2024

The United States needs to address five key nuclear weapons challenges in 2024. Managing these challenges will require leadership and careful attention from the highest levels—a commodity that will no doubt be in short supply in 2024.

www.csis.org

Thinking about the Unthinkable: Five Nuclear Weapons Issues to Address in 2024

Commentary by Kelsey Hartigan

Published February 9, 2024

As the United States gears up for a presidential election and the administration juggles support to Ukraine, growing conflict in the Middle East, and a host of other challenges, Washington will need to address five key nuclear weapons challenges in 2024. Managing Russia’s nuclear threats, China’s opaque nuclear buildup, and North Korea’s increasing provocations—and the increasingly close relationships among them—will be no easy feat. At the same time, Washington will need to navigate its extended deterrence commitments and efforts to better integrate with U.S. allies and finally organize for a series of consequential, long-term decisions on the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. While a high-intensity war with China or Russia or a major conflict with North Korea is not inevitable, the pathways to potential conflicts are increasing, and so too are the risks of nuclear use—especially limited nuclear use. With an exceedingly complex international security environment, policymakers, planners, and legislatures need to think about the unthinkable this year and take action. Detering nuclear use requires a sober assessment of the new and changing ways adversaries are attempting to leverage nuclear weapons and clear-eyed plans for how to manage nuclear threats if deterrence fails.

Here are the top five nuclear issues to address in 2024:

Russia’s Nuclear Threats and the War in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year and the administration and Congress debate future U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, a key question will be how Russia’s nuclear signaling and threats will evolve in 2024 and how the trajectory of the conflict will affect the potential for nuclear use. While the risk of use likely remains low amid the current stalemate, significant changes on the ground, such as a significant spike in attacks deep inside Russia, could affect that calculus. In addition, with increased cooperation between Russia and North Korea (and Iran) and confirmation that North Korea is providing Russia with ballistic missiles and ballistic missile launchers, another key question will be to what extent this kind of assistance affects the situation on the ground, whether this prolongs the conflict, and how this affects overall escalation dynamics. With the intelligence community assessing that “Moscow will become even more reliant on nuclear, cyber, and space capabilities as it deals with the extensive damage to Russia’s ground forces,” nuclear risks could actually grow in the coming months and years, making it essential that Washington, NATO, and Kyiv remain prepared and clear-eyed about how to handle a range of scenarios, especially those involving “battlefield” nuclear weapons and limited nuclear use.

In addition, while U.S. officials have indicated that they have not yet seen changes to Russia’s strategic nuclear forces since it suspended New START, without onsite inspections or data exchanges, it may become more difficult over time to maintain confidence that there have been no militarily significant operational changes to Russia’s strategic forces using national technical means alone. This means there will be very few guardrails on the broader U.S.-Russia strategic relationship, making it—as well as Russia’s efforts to deliberately manipulate nuclear risks in Ukraine and beyond—one of the top nuclear issues to watch in 2024.

China’s Nuclear Buildup

China’s rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear forces also demands attention in 2024. While the administration has made clear that “the United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them,” a number of recent high-profile commissions, reports, and studies argue for important changes to U.S. nuclear forces, setting up a renewed debate over what’s driving China’s nuclear buildup and whether and how the United States should respond. China’s nuclear buildup cannot be viewed in isolation, however. This is fundamentally a question of whether the United States has the necessary force structure to manage concurrent or sequential conflicts with two nuclear-armed adversaries—a force-sizing construct the Pentagon abandoned years ago (and never truly had to address in the same way).

At the same time, the debate over potential changes to the size and composition of U.S. nuclear forces cannot mask questions over how Washington and its allies would respond to Chinese nuclear coercion or even limited nuclear use in certain scenarios, particularly a Taiwan crisis. Such a crisis could occur well before any changes to the current program of record materialize, and China is no doubt watching how Russia is deliberately manipulating nuclear risks in the war in Ukraine. With continued cross-Strait tensions and an uncertain future for the broader U.S.-China relationship, it is essential that officials understand the conditions under which China might use nuclear weapons and be prepared to manage the nuclear shadow that will loom over virtually any conventional conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Arms control talks with China may help improve this understanding over time, but recent efforts to engage on these issues are unlikely to translate into a reliable risk reduction mechanism any time soon or change the operational dilemmas U.S. forces might encounter. This means that Washington and its allies need to deepen planning and consultations in 2024 on managing the nuclear shadow with China for if and when a conflict occurs and ensure that these efforts are fully integrated into broader defense planning efforts.

Tensions with North Korea and Opportunistic Aggression

In his New Year address, Kim Jong-unn warned that North Korea needs to prepare for war with the United States in 2024 and pointed to the U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK) Washington Declaration, increased trilateral exercises, and the more visible presence of U.S. strategic assets as the reason behind the North’s aggressive posturing. While to some extent, this kind of rhetoric and blame game is more of the same—especially in an election year—North Korea’s continued quantitative and qualitative growth of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, including both long-range systems capable of striking the United States and its increasing emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons, pose serious threats to the United States, ROK, and Japan that cannot be ignored or wished away. Washington and Seoul cannot deter missile tests or satellite launches, but they can take steps to ensure U.S. and ROK forces are prepared for both major conflicts as well as localized attacks, which can in turn help deter a war that no one wants. This requires consistently updating plans and assumptions, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and maintaining readiness for a wide range of North Korea contingencies. Maintaining this focus can be difficult given all of the demands on U.S. forces and the attention on great power competition, but it is essential.

At the same time, tensions on the Korean Peninsula don’t exist in a vacuum, and possible North Korean contingencies or conflicts cannot be planned against in isolation. As North Korea and Russia step up their cooperation, ties between Russia and China increase, and China and North Korea rekindle links, 2024 will unfortunately likely serve as a reminder that it is not enough to focus on managing individual flashpoints with Russia and China. If the United States finds itself in a conventional conflict with China or Russia, it could provide a dangerous opening for North Korea to exploit, just as a conflict with North Korea could leave the United States and its allies dangerously unprepared to manage a bubbling over of tensions with Russia or China (Russia and China could also of course take advantage of regional conflicts in separate theaters, which would pose even greater constraints).

Understanding and better preparing for the risks and tradeoffs associated with these types of opportunistic aggression scenarios, whether coordinated or not, should be a top priority in 2024. This will require, among many things, difficult and frank consultations on the limitations and possible roles and responsibilities across various alliance structures in the Indo-Pacific, as well as with NATO allies.

U.S. Extended Deterrence Commitments and Integration with U.S. Allies

U.S. allies are understandably skeptical over whether the United States can and will maintain its alliance commitments. Managing these concerns—especially in an election year—will require continued time and attention, a requirement many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia worry could be increasingly difficult given the upcoming election and deteriorating situation in the Middle East and the demands the region is once again placing on U.S. officials. The Biden administration took important steps in 2023 to strengthen alliances and extended deterrence assurances to U.S. allies, and deepen planning and coordination on key crisis management issues. Finding ways to institutionalize and deepen these efforts will be critical. These efforts should focus on a range of possible conflict scenarios with Russia, China, and North Korea and dig into some hard questions: What specifically do various alliances intend to deter? Who would do what in a crisis? What might be perceived as escalatory? How would allies communicate with one another and the public during a contingency? How might various alliances might integrate conventional and nuclear operations during a crisis, or take certain actions to deter opportunistic aggression?

It will also be important to watch how Washington postures its nuclear forces over the next year to both assure allies and demonstrate its readiness and resolve to U.S. adversaries. The United States has shifted to a much more dynamic mode of messaging and communicating its nuclear force movements—from a significant uptick in bomber task force missions to a much more visible presence for U.S. ballistic missile submarines. Going forward, officials need to take a holistic look at what effect these measures have (and what the implications for future force management decisions might be) and find opportunities to monitor how certain actions or exercises in one theater register, or not, with adversaries in another.

Progress on U.S. Nuclear Modernization

Finally, with such a dynamic threat environment, 2024 will be a critical year for the nuclear enterprise. Every major element of U.S. nuclear forces is being modernized. But delays, budget overruns, supply chain issues, and significant workforce and infrastructure constraints across both the defense and national lab sectors are leading to an increasing disconnect between policy debates over what might be needed in the future and the reality of what the existing workforce and infrastructure can support. This needs to change in 2024. Congress needs to change the way it oversees defense and National Nuclear Security Administration programs and work with the Pentagon to enact significant changes to the way the enterprise assesses risks—not just the risks of delays across the nuclear enterprise but also to conventional acquisition programs that are critical to our ability to deter, and prevail in, if necessary, a high-intensity conflict. To be clear, this is not just a resourcing issue. Service members will soon be operating both legacy and replacement systems concurrently—a challenge the U.S. Air Force and Navy have not encountered for decades. Managing these issues requires leadership and careful attention from the highest levels—a commodity that is often in short supply.

Unfortunately, these are far from the only challenges the United States and its allies will have to contend with in 2024. Washington will also have to manage the growing proxy war with Iran and ongoing concerns about its nuclear program, as well as a host of other nonproliferation challenges.

Thinking about the unthinkable in 2024 does not mean reviving Strangelovian concepts from the Cold War. Instead, it is about being realistic about the potential for direct conflicts with Russia, China, or North Korea and wrestling with a more difficult and uncomfortable question: If the United States goes to war, is it prepared to manage nuclear coercion and respond to potential nuclear use?

Kelsey Hartigan is deputy director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and senior fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Housecarl · Feb 11, 2024

Posted for fair use......

In South Africa, a great evil is growing fast

For decades, Westerners were deeply concerned about South African apartheid. The pressure the West put on that nation finally led to apartheid’s end in the early 1990s. However, a new and very ugly apartheid movement is emerging in South Africa...

www.americanthinker.com

February 11, 2024

In South Africa, a great evil is growing fast

By Andrea Widburg

For decades, Westerners were deeply concerned about South African apartheid. The pressure the West put on that nation finally led to apartheid’s end in the early 1990s. However, a new and very ugly apartheid movement is emerging in South Africa, and no one in the West seems interested in talking about it. This time, it’s whites who are in the crosshairs, and genocide is on the menu, with a radical black communist party poised to become the majority in South Africa’s Parliament.

While the end of apartheid was ripe with promise, the fly in the ointment was always going to be communism. Thanks to the non-stop communist rule of South Africa’s ANC party, the country, which is rich in natural resources, is an economic basket case. The result, especially when focused through climate change madness, has led to the electric grid’s collapse across vast swaths of the country, bringing with it water and food shortages.

Image: Julius Malema. YouTube screen grab.
Naturally, as systems collapse, finding a scapegoat becomes a matter of extreme urgency. In South Africa, the collective scapegoat is the country’s roughly 4,600,000 white people out of a nation of around 59,600,000 people, slightly over 48,000,000 of whom are black.

South African white farmers, who live in fairly isolated conditions, are increasingly the victims of murderous racial attacks. And egging them on is Julius Malema, the head of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters movement. We last saw Malema leading 90,000 people in singing “kill the Boer (white people). Kill the white farmer.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1685753052857339904

View: https://twitter.com/Xx17965797N/status/1685753052857339904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1685753052857339904%7Ctwgr%5E8a822b6ad771aa0d642d8636d5ae0bb5fb4ff129%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Fblog%2F2024%2F02%2Fin_south_africa_a_great_evil_is_growing_fast.html

This was not an aberrant moment in Malema’s career. He’s been very open in the past about his desire for a revolution that could lead to white slaughter. This 2018 interview bears witness to that attitude. I’ve included a partial transcript below (emphasis mine):

View: https://youtu.be/la0TRqPMdUY

Malema: I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the future. I’m saying to you, we’re not called for the killing of white people, at least for now. I can’t guarantee the future.

Interviewer: You’d understand somebody watching that, especially as it gets shared on Twitter, they freak out. It sounds like a genocidal call.
Malema: Crybabies. Crybabies. I’m not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now. I can’t give a guarantee of the future, especially when things are going the way they are.

Malema wraps up by saying that, if there’s an “unled revolution,” anything can happen.

If the skin colors were reversed, and Malema were a white man saying this about blacks, the uproar from the West would be so loud it would echo off the moon. As it is, though, the Western media are mostly silent. They report on politics in South Africa as if the whole thing is some sort of anodyne story, along the lines of reporting about wheat harvests or a change in traffic laws.

But as the Jews can tell you, when someone is open about desiring your slaughter, it’s never an anodyne story. It wasn’t anodyne in the 1930s and early 1940s in Germany, nor is it anodyne in Gaza and the West Bank today.

Wise people understand that, when Malema sits there casual as you please and discusses the mass slaughter of his country’s more than 4 million white citizens, that’s a big, important, red flag of an issue.

And today, it’s more of an issue than ever because there’s a distinct possibility that Malema’s party will take control of South Africa’s parliament. After all, when a country’s on the skids, he who scapegoats best wins. Malema, eying total power, already has plans to seize white-owned property:

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema revealed ambitious plans for land expropriation without compensation.
Malema was addressing the party's supporters during the EFF manifesto event at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.
He said the party is targeting 50% of South Africa's land by the end of 2025 if they secure a majority vote in the 2024 elections, reported SABCNews.

Even the blacks who support Malema might want to view that policy with suspicion. For a long time, Zimbabwe was one of the great food producers in Africa. Then, in 2000, its president, Robert Mugabe, embarked upon a policy of land seizures. Not only was the process violent, destructive, and (as with all communist policies) unfair, but it also plunged the country into deep economic distress and a manmade famine. This is what Malema is promising for South Africa.

Should Malema win, I have two predictions: First, life in South Africa is going to get immeasurably worse, and very quickly, for all South Africans, especially those whites who survive. Second, if there is a Democrat in the White House, whether Biden or someone else, when whites flee the openly demanded genocide in South Africa, America will not open her doors. For leftists, refugee crises are only for minorities fleeing poor economies.

18 Comments

Housecarl · Feb 12, 2024

Well here's a DOT! I can hear the "special" cabinets being unlocked now........

Posted for fair use.....

Seoul 'open-minded' about Japan's participation in Korea-U.S. nuclear deterrence dialogue: ex-Seoul official | Yonhap News Agency

By Song Sang-ho WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is "open-minded" ...

en.yna.co.kr

Seoul 'open-minded' about Japan's participation in Korea-U.S. nuclear deterrence dialogue: ex-Seoul official

Song Sang-ho
All News 03:48 February 13, 2024

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is "open-minded" about the idea of Japan participating in a currently bilateral nuclear deterrence dialogue between Seoul and Washington, a former South Korean national security advisor said Monday.

Kim Sung-han, who served as President Yoon Suk Yeol's top security advisor from 2022-2023, made the remarks, noting that while in office, he had discussions with his counterpart over the idea of Japan's participation in the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG).

The NCG was established under the Washington Declaration that Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden adopted during their summit in Washington last April as part of efforts to enhance deterrence against evolving North Korean nuclear and missile threats.

"It depends on Japan. Korea is open-minded," Kim said during the form hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"So we need to think about whether we will have ROK-U.S. NCG and ROK-U.S.-Japan trilateral NCG, respectively, or we can have Japan join ROK-U.S. NCG in a gradual manner. It depends on Japan, which requires some closer cooperation and consultation beforehand," he added.

ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

Kim pointed out that for Japan, its participation in such an apparatus about the use of nuclear arms would be a sensitive issue -- in an apparent reference to domestic opposition in Japan about any potential employment of nuclear weapons.

"I myself had a chance to talk to my Japanese counterpart about that issue when I was in the government. But this is a somewhat sensitive issue to Japan because NCG is about how to use nuclear weapons in a contingency," he said. "So from the Japanese perspective, this might provoke some domestic kind of discussions."

Expansion discussions of the NCG to include Japan came as Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have been stepping up security cooperation through three-way military drills and diplomatic talks to counter unceasing security threats from Pyongyang.

sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)

Housecarl · Feb 12, 2024

Hummmm..........

Posted for fair use......

NATO general raises prospect of new nuclear power

Poland's Brigadier General Jaroslaw Kraszewski said his country getting nuclear weapons was a "realistic scenario."

www.newsweek.com

NATO General Raises Prospect of New Nuclear Power

Published Feb 12, 2024 at 6:49 AM EST Updated Feb 12, 2024 at 10:32 AM EST

By Brendan Cole
Senior News Reporter
Comments 34

NATO member Poland should eventually get nuclear weapons as a security measure, a top Polish general has said.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has been a key supporter of Kyiv and has warned of the danger posed by the Kremlin, which has made repeated nuclear threats.

Brigadier General Jaroslaw Kraszewski told Polish media outlet RMF FM that if Warsaw had nuclear weapons it would deter possible aggression because "those who possess nuclear capabilities have a very high level of security."

Kraszewski said that Poland's armed forces had been modernized significantly since the country joined NATO in 1999 and that Warsaw had always shown its support for the alliance's actions in acting against threats to its borders.

He was asked about an article in British magazine The Spectator headlined "It's time to give Poland nuclear weapons," by Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

Rohac argued that the prospect of Donald Trump winning the U.S. election could endanger NATO's deterrence given his rhetoric criticizing the alliance.

"Trump-proofing the security of Eastern Europe, few measures would be as effective as arming the largest country of the region—Poland—with nuclear weapons," the Op-Ed said.

Kraszewski described such a scenario "as very real," according to a translation.

"Those who possess nuclear capabilities have a very high level of security," he said. "Usually, such countries are not attacked and the possibility of any action aimed at provoking a local crisis is not even considered. That is why I see having such an arsenal as a challenge in the coming years. I hope it will come to that."

When asked about a time frame, he said there would be a resumption of negotiations on the arrangement of nuclear forces in the world after the war in Ukraine.

"Western Europe is fed up with being intimidated by Russia," he said, describing Moscow as an "unpredictable neighbor."

Newsweek has contacted the Polish foreign ministry for comment.

In September 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Warsaw had asked the U.S. for nuclear weapons to be stationed in Poland because of the perceived threat posed by Russia, which has deployed such arms to neighboring Belarus.

Warsaw has said that no progress has been made towards hosting nuclear weapons in Poland.

In reporting Kraszewski's comments, Russian state news agency TASS said Poland's National Security Bureau chief, Jacek Siewiera, had dodged the issue of nuclear weapons during an interview with newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

It said he had avoided answering a question about whether Warsaw would strike a deal with the U.S. to place such weapons in Poland under the NATO Nuclear Sharing program.

Update 02/12/24, 10:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.

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Housecarl · Feb 12, 2024

Hummm......

Posted for fair use......

Understanding the Deterrence Gap in the Taiwan Strait - War on the Rocks

What is stopping China from invading Taiwan? In the past, it was overdetermined that Beijing would not use force to compel reunification. Not only did

warontherocks.com

UNDERSTANDING THE DETERRENCE GAP IN THE TAIWAN STRAIT

JARED M. MCKINNEY AND PETER HARRIS
FEBRUARY 12, 2024
COMMENTARY

What is stopping China from invading Taiwan? In the past, it was overdetermined that Beijing would not use force to compel reunification. Not only did China lack the capabilities to execute a swift and decisive conquest of the island, but China’s leaders since 1979 used to believe that peaceful unification was both possible and vastly more preferable to military solutions. Today, however, the military balance of power has shifted decisively, enabling an amphibious invasion from a capabilities standpoint in the not-too-distant future, while prospects of peaceful unification have faded. As such, it is now something of a conventional wisdom that a Chinese invasion has become more likely than not.

We agree with these pessimistic assessments. Of course, no analyst can say with certainty when or why a war over Taiwan might be triggered. Those who project auras of inevitability are wrong to do so. But the changing geopolitical situation around Taiwan cannot be ignored. It is only because deterrence across the Taiwan Strait was strong that past crises over the island’s political status could unfold without causing an invasion. Now that deterrence has weakened, there are few if any guardrails to prevent current or future crises from escalating to become a full-blown war.

This is a combustible situation — one that warrants urgent attention from Taiwanese and American leaders. For Taiwan to regain security, the deterrence gap should be closed and the odds of destabilizing crises emerging should be lowered.

What Is Making War More Likely?

The balance of power across the Taiwan Strait used to serve as a tight constraint on China’s freedom of maneuver. In the past, Taiwan’s armed forces — especially its air force — constituted a significant barrier to a Chinese invasion. As recently as 2002, the Department of Defense’s report to Congress on Chinese military power assessed that Taiwan’s air force enjoyed “dominance of the airspace over the Taiwan Strait” and maintained “a qualitative edge over” its Chinese counterpart. But this is no longer the case.

To be sure, China still has reason to fear a U.S. military intervention in a war over Taiwan, but the threat of such an intervention has been made deliberately uncertain. It would be wrong to dismiss “strategic ambiguity” as a dud deterrent. But it is becoming increasingly clear it may not be sufficient on its own to deter an invasion.

This is because Chinese strategists have had decades to plan for this eventuality. As a result, the United States no longer possesses clear escalation dominance. People’s Liberation Army doctrine is optimistic about managing escalation, which perhaps increases the likelihood of a first strike against forward-deployed U.S. assets in East Asia of the sort that might significantly undermine U.S. capabilities for stopping an invasion. And, of course, there is always the possibility that nuclear-armed China could successfully deter Washington from joining a conflict over Taiwan, as Russia has in Ukraine.

Various “self-deterrents” that once held back China have weakened, too. For example, leaders in Beijing once worried that absorbing Taiwan into the People’s Republic would pose significant social, political, and economic challenges — so much so that unification was sometimes viewed as more trouble than it was worth, at least in the short term. Not anymore.

At the same time as the balance of power has shifted, Chinese government incentives for restraint have also eroded. Those who talk about deterrence usually focus on the credibility and potency of threats made against a potential aggressor — that is, an adversary’s expectations about what will befall them if they do something unwanted. But such constraints are only part of a would-be aggressor’s overall calculation about whether to use force. States also consider what will happen to their political, social, and economic interests if they do not use force.

The 2022 National Defense Strategy put incentives for restraint at the heart of the concept of deterrence:

Deterrence is strengthened by actions that reduce a competitor’s perception of the benefits of aggression relative to restraint. Effective deterrence requires the Department to consider how competitors perceive U.S., Ally, and partner stakes, commitment, and combat credibility; their perception of their own ability to control escalation risks; and their view of how the status quo will evolve – in part as a result of U.S., Ally, and partner actions – if they do not use force.

This sophisticated understanding of deterrence is directly applicable to assessing Chinese government decision-making today.

What are the costs to China of exercising restraint? With reference to Taiwan, we think four key variables speak to this point: the strength and resilience of the “One China” discursive framework; the rate of economic growth in China; the trajectory of “tech wars” involving the United States, Taiwan, China, and other relevant economies; and China’s perception of a closing window of opportunity to resolve the Taiwan dispute on favorable terms.

Restraint Variable 1: “One China”

Since the Shanghai Communique in 1972, a “One China” framework has been at the foundation of U.S.-Chinese relations. Of course, there has never been agreement over what the One China concept means, precisely. Beijing has a One China principle, for example, while the United States maintains a One China policy — with each capturing very different political understandings regarding the status of Taiwan.

But even so, the common language of “One China” has served as a useful discursive framework to help mediate the deep estrangement that defined ties between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party before 1972. The One China framework worked in the past because all sides tolerated — albeit sometimes more, sometimes less — the ambiguity that accompanied the compromise.

Since 2016, the One China idea has become increasingly devoid of practical meaning. This began to some extent haphazardly, with President-elect Donald Trump speaking with Taiwan’s president on the phone, but since then a bipartisan pattern of disregard has become the norm in U.S. politics. In our new monograph, Deterrence Gap: Avoiding War in the Taiwan Strait, we count 27 “firsts” since 1979 that have occurred since Trump’s phone call with Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. These “firsts” range from Taiwan’s chief of the general staff visiting the White House, to deputy assistant secretaries of defense visiting Taiwan, to the State Department terminating previous restrictions on U.S. government contacts with Taiwanese officials.

To be clear, for many of these developments, action-reaction cycles are in operation. We do not hold the Chinese government guiltless in the process that is destroying the status quo. Quite the contrary. But what matters for our present argument is this: Chinese analysts increasingly fear that the United States will reverse its One China policy and create a de jure or de facto defense alliance with Taiwan. This makes peace — and restraint — less beneficial for China in the short to medium term and creates powerful incentives for China to seek a non-peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute before the situation (from the Chinese Communist Party’s perspective) further deteriorates.

Restraint Variable 2: Economic Trends

The Chinese Communist Party rules China by mixing strategies of co-optation and coercion with claims to legitimacy. Over the past generation, legitimacy has been directly connected in China to economic performance. However, some observers now strongly suspect that economic growth in China has plateaued. This spells danger for cross-strait relations. For although we are skeptical of pure “diversionary war” arguments, slowing growth is important for a few reasons.

First, the erosion of economic competence as a hallmark of Communist Party rule might push China’s leaders to become more indulgent of nationalist pressure as a means of shoring up domestic support. Second, slowing growth means that there is a diminishing chance of Taiwan’s citizens opting to join the People’s Republic for some sort of economic payoff — something that was at least plausible in the not-too-distant past.

Finally, China’s economic slowdown threatens military spending as the Chinese state runs into a fiscal cliff by mid-century. This means that time will not solve all of China’s problems vis-à-vis Taiwan. On the contrary, time might be running out to make a move on Taiwan during propitious conditions.

Restraint Variable 3: Tech Wars

America’s export controls on semiconductors and related technologies are intended to prevent China from overtaking U.S. military, science, and technology power. In effect, Washington has launched a direct challenge to the Chinese government’s “innovation-driven development” strategy. The logic to these controls seems straightforward: Why should China’s economy and military benefit from technologies largely designed in the West and manufactured in Taiwan?

Counterintuitively, however, export controls might have some unintended consequences — namely, by decreasing the net costs of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the short term while creating pressures for Beijing to act before the U.S. military can reap the rewards of the emerging military-technological revolution. These dangerous side-effects of the tech war have been almost universally overlooked despite hefty international relations literature on economic interdependence and the expected costs of war.

In the past, one of the deterrents that protected Taiwan from invasion was the so-called “Silicon Shield.” The gist of the shield was that Taiwan’s position at the heart of the global semiconductor industry would add huge economic costs to a Chinese invasion. Although this in itself may be inadequate to deter such an invasion, it was one of a cluster of deterrents that operated in a concurrent and overlapping fashion, ensuring that the likely costs of an invasion outweighed the perceived benefits.

But restricting the export of semiconductors to China from Taiwan is entirely at odds with the Silicon Shield. In effect, China is being made to bear in peacetime the costs that it otherwise would have suffered only in wartime.

Even worse, the export controls impose additional time pressures on China writ large. The costs of recreating the technologies involved in extreme ultraviolet lithography are tremendous. As a former deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy put it, “At some point, you’re replicating all of human civilization.” The allure of just taking such machines, the majority of which are located in Taiwan, may seem simpler.

Continued......

Housecarl · Feb 12, 2024

Continued......

Another form of this pressure is military, as the People’s Liberation Army watches others — with easy access to massive compute — “intelligentize” faster than it, contributing to a “better now than later” dynamic, which we consider a final key variable reducing Chinese restraint.

Restraint Variable 4: The Future Balance of Power

The general context for a potential closing window of opportunity is set by the plateauing of the Chinese economy and the likelihood it will not be able to fully exploit the current military-technical revolution due to export controls. These trends suggest that, over the long term, time may not be on China’s side. What about in the shorter term? There is good reason to see relative Chinese military power as peaking this decade. Despite the increasing alarm animating both military and civilian analysts, by some metrics U.S. military power is actually declining this decade due to where the United States is in its modernization cycles.

This is especially true of the Navy. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which analyzed three possible plans submitted to Congress by the Department of Defense for 2023: “the lethality of the fleet, as measured in part by the total number of missile cells, would decline by 13 percent until 2032.” This number includes both vertical launch cells and torpedo tubes. The falling numbers for this decade contrast in particular with the numbers projected after the 2020s, when “the number of torpedo tubes would increase, compared with the number in today’s fleet, by 40 percent to 50 percent.”

The Air Force, in contrast, does not face such a drastic decline in lethality, but the most significant system it is investing in for modern peer-on-peer warfare, the B-21, will not be available in mass until the 2030s. The B-21 will recapitalize capability that has atrophied over decades, as the Air Force became centered around short-range fighters not particularly suited to stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

For their parts, the Marine Corps and Army are both modernizing their force structures and training to be more relevant for the Taiwan “pacing scenario,” and by the 2030s both are likely to possess significant new formations and capabilities. At the same time, the results of Japan moving defense spending from 1 percent of GDP to 2 percent will begin to be felt, too, as will rising defense budgets and longer conscription terms in Taiwan.

The Chinese government, of course, will not stand still throughout the 2020s. Certainly, more Renhai Cruisers and J-20 fighters will be commissioned. But such incremental Chinese progress will not change the overall pattern, which is that China has mostly completed a modernization cycle begun in the late 1990s, while the United States is still in the midst of one. A reinvigorated U.S. Navy increasingly centered on submarines and smaller combatants instead of hugely expensive and potentially vulnerable aircraft carriers, an Air Force with long-range bombers, and a Marine Corps and Army with long-range missiles and dispersible capabilities poses a much more significant threat to an invading Chinese force than exists today — or this decade.

In all, the combination of eroding constraints and loosening restraints is a toxic mix, implying that whatever might have been doing the heavy lifting of dissuading China’s leaders from invading Taiwan in the past is likely not operating today. Given the high probability for major provocations relating to the Taiwan issue going forward, especially as Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party enters an unprecedented third presidential term in a row, and that fact that two recent pollssuggest that more than half of China’s population already support armed unification, the upshot is that the Chinese leadership is becoming less likely to act with restraint compared to the past.

Restoring Deterrence

In a previous article published in Parameters, we proposed a strategy for Taiwan to deter a Chinese invasion, one that did not rely on an uncertain U.S. military intervention. This comprised four main elements: A pre-planned resistance campaign, multilateral economic sanctions, regional balancing behavior, and a targeted campaign of scorched tech that would see Taiwan threaten to destroy or disable their semiconductor industry if China were to invade. These are all deterrents that Taiwan and its friends could develop quickly. Even if not as severe as a U.S. threat to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf, they are credible deterrents in the sense that China could have a high degree of confidence in these threats actually being carried out in response to an armed attack.

Beyond these ideas, what else can be done to repair deterrence, bolster reassurance, and avoid war?

The most important point, as we argue in our follow-up monograph, Deterrence Gap, is that Taiwan and its partners should not repeat the mistakes of the past by assuming deterrence to be fixed and immutable. It is not. All deterrents decay over time, and deterrence across the strait will be in a state of peak decay this decade. Taiwan and its friends should realize the gravity of the situation. They need quick fixes — potent and credible deterrents that will cause China’s leaders to question their ability to seize Taiwan in a fait accompli. Betting too heavily on deterrents that will come online next decade might actually increase risk this decade by generating a “better now than later dynamic.” And all concerned should avoid the siren call of symbolism, which provokes, over substance, which deters.

This decade, there is still low hanging (substantive) fruit that should be exploited. Taiwan’s political leaders should consider allowing the Taiwanese air force to change its intercept doctrine so it does not wear out its pilots and airframesby intercepting every Chinese flight into its Air Defense Identification Zone. The Taiwanese air force could also prioritize its air defense mission: denying the People’s Liberation Army Air Force command of the air would be vital in a conflict, and ground-based launchers will be more suitable for this than expensive fighters. As well, procuring and training across services to achieve massed precision fires will be key to challenge the People’s Republic of China’s defensive systems in an invasion.

Unfortunately, given the huge cost and long timeline for entering service, Taiwan’s much ballyhooed submarine programis likely a distraction from the fundamentals of developing the hardware and software for an effective “anti-navy.” Taiwan’s armed forces should instead prioritize the acquisition, production, and employment of mines, drones, and missiles. Mines are likely Taiwan’s best way to “buy time” with minimal risk to Taiwan’s armed forces, while drones could bolster Taiwan’s defenses via decentralized and attritable systems that could wreak havoc on an invading force, and missiles —especially if road-mobile — combine resilience with lethality. Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown that such systems would need to be accessible in mass (i.e., thousands not scores).

Taiwan should also continue building out access to a reliable low-earth orbit satellite network to help preserve communication ability in the event of a blockade or invasion, but it should prioritize systems resilience in this process. All of these actions are practical in the next few years. The only thing required is prioritization.

Finally, regional powers — especially Japan, but also South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia — should be clearer about their own likely responses to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. These states have the most to lose from a Chinese bid to overturn the status quo. While it is unrealistic to expect regional governments to announce firm commitments to Taiwanese security, it would certainly help the cause of stability in East Asia if they would announce a willingness to impose economic punishments, political sanctions, and increase defense spending in response to an invasion.

For peace to be likely in the Taiwan Strait in the 2020s, Taiwan and its friends will need to take radical action to develop short-term constraints on Chinese action but also look for ways to encourage internal restraint among Chinese decision-makers, something that will require recognizing practically what the Department of Defense has recognized theoretically: that if China comes to view the evolution of the status quo in increasingly negative terms, its incentives not to use force are correspondingly reduced.

BECOME A MEMBER
Dr. Jared M. McKinney is an assistant professor of international security at the Air War College at Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Dr. Peter Harris is an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University and a non-resident fellow with Defense Priorities.

Together, they are the author of Deterrence Gap: Avoiding War in the Taiwan Strait (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, January 2024)

The views expressed are those of the authors alone, and not necessarily those of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

Housecarl · Feb 12, 2024

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use......

Air Force launches reorganization, as Kendall warns ‘We are out of time’ to match China - Breaking Defense

Under the "reoptimizing" effort, changes are coming across the Department of the Air Force, from new training approaches to the establishment of high-level offices.

breakingdefense.com

AIR WARFARE, CONGRESS, PENTAGON, SPACE

Air Force launches reorganization, as Kendall warns ‘We are out of time’ to match China

Under the "reoptimizing" effort, changes are coming across the Department of the Air Force, from new training approaches to the establishment of high-level offices.

By MICHAEL MARROW and THERESA HITCHENS on February 12, 2024 at 9:07 PM

AFA WARFARE SYMPOSIUM — Senior leaders of the Department of the Air Force (DAF) unveiled details of a sweeping reorganization of the Air Force and Space Force today, a long-awaited move that the department’s top civilian has said is needed to “reoptimize” the two branches for “great power competition” with China.

All told, a total of 24 organizational changes are expected across the Air Force, Space Force and its civilian leadership, senior officials said in a keynote at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Denver, Colo. Timelines for the changes were not defined and many specific details still need to be ironed out, though some could take effect immediately whereas others will need “over a year” to be implemented, according to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

Even though the revamp entails major changes across the organization, Kendall said today that no funds in the service’s fiscal year 2024 budget request, nor in the upcoming FY25 proposal, are being sought for the reoptimization drive. Officials will use budget reprogramming authorities to move funds around as needed, Kendall said, who noted some new money might be needed in FY26.

Air Force, Secretariat Changes

The Air Force is pursuing the bulk of these new efforts, with 15 major changes ranging from a different approach to nuclear weapons management to new warrant officer programs, according to Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin.

Some major changes entail how the Air Force deploys its airmen by adjusting how its wings are structured. Others involve education, with plans to expand Air Education Training Command and rename it Airman Development Command.

Additionally, the Air Force is looking to embark on more large-scale exercises to simulate the conditions of a fight with a peer adversary. The service is aiming to carry the first such exercise out in the Indo-Pacific region sometime in FY25, according to Allvin, who warned that it might present budgetary pressures.

One major change that had been widely expected does not appear to be happening.

After a senior Space Force official suggested in December that the Air Force might be doing away with its current major command (MAJCOM) structure, Allvin disputed that, emphasizing that the current MAJCOM structure will remain intact. However, some of their responsibilities like developing requirements will instead be transferred to the new Integrated Capabilities Command, he explained.

The Air Force’s secretariat civilian leadership — which helps craft policy and budget decisions — has a much smaller list of changes. According to Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of the Air Force under secretary, the secretariat will stand up three new offices: an Integrated Capabilities Office, an Office of Competitive Activities and an Office for Program Analysis and Evaluation. (It was not immediately clear how the latter will work with the Pentagon-wide, service-independent Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, or CAPE.)

“These changes at the secretariat will help us to make the needed changes to stay ready and to be more effective,” Jones said. She did not specify where the staff for these offices might come from, or what other roles may be impacted as a result of creating them.

Space Moves

Among the planned changes for the Space Force elaborated by Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, perhaps most critical is a revamp of service readiness standards to reflect that space is now a contested domain, rather than a “benign environment,” according to the Air Force’s press release.

As it stands, Saltzman said, Guardians simply don’t have the right equipment, training and “operational concepts” necessary to deal with the new environment. To address the problem, the Space Force is creating a Futures Command — a name seemingly drawn from the Army’s Futures Command, which stood up in 2018 — to assess long-term needs, comprising three separate centers.

The first, the Concepts and Technology Center, will be dedicated to look at what will be needed as the threat environment changes, Saltzman said. The second will be focused on wargaming, and the third will build on the current Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) to develop force designs to meet those future needs.

Finally, the Space Force will designate Space Force Combat Squadrons as “units of action” separated out from those units that undertake day-to-day missions, he said. These units will get advanced training to be able to “fight tonight,” he said, but provided little detail about how that would work operationally.

One of the first efforts to be able to address the new threats detailed by Saltzman will be a new officer training regime, which eventually will be expanded. That will involve not just training on how to operate systems, but also how to handle adversary actions. This will include changing training infrastructure, he noted.

“We have to rewrite the standards for readiness centered around a contested domain,” Saltzman said.

Why Now, And How Congress Might Respond

For his tenure as secretary, Kendall has stressed that the DAF is not prepared for a conflict with a peer adversary, namely China. To that end, at this same AFA conference in 2022, Kendall spelled out a list of seven “operational imperatives” that are aimed at tackling big initiatives like fielding all-domain command and control.

The reoptimization, which Kendall first announced in September 2023, adds on to those imperatives and others like a separate effort known as cross-cutting operational enablers. Whereas those initiatives are more closely tied to specific modernization challenges, today’s announcements are aimed at taking a broader look at how the Air Force itself is structured.

“We are out of time,” Kendall said today of the pacing challenge posed by China. “We can no longer regard conflict as a distant possibility or a future problem that we might have to confront. The risk of conflict is here now and that risk will increase with time.”

RELATED: ‘A crime’: Air Force’s Kendall blasts congressional budget dysfunction

Many of the Air Force’s plans will need congressional buy-in, though it’s not clear how lawmakers might respond. JJ Gertler, a senior analyst with the Teal Group consultancy, told Breaking Defense ahead of the announcement that lawmakers’ interest, and potential opposition, is often shaped by major decisions for platforms and personnel.

“Congress is traditionally more interested in hardware and personnel than force design or organization. So it depends on how the Air Force sells the plan, and whether this is likely to mean a rethinking of either the types of platforms the Air Force is buying or if it will involve major personnel movements,” Gertler said.

“If the answer to either of those is ‘no,’ Congress is liable to let it go ahead after a couple of hearings,” he added. “But if the reorientation includes significant personnel movements or other changes to basing or what kind of aircraft will be stationed where, Congress will be much more interested.”

Housecarl · Feb 13, 2024

Some would say we're already in it or that it never stopped.....for imagry and X links please see article source. HC

Posted for fair use.....

West must ready itself for 'new War on Terror with bloody return of ISIS'

THE WEST is facing a new “War on Terror” as bloodthirsty fanatics will exploit the chaos in the Middle East, experts have warned. With the US and UK focused on tackling Iran-backed extr…

www.the-sun.com

'WAR IS COMING'

West must ready itself for new War on Terror with bloody return of ISIS & carnage in Middle East, warns experts

US General warns that the threat of a suspected attack has risen 200 per cent in the last three months

Ellie Doughty

Published: 3:59 ET, Feb 10 2024
Updated: 4:28 ET, Feb 12 2024

THE WEST is facing a new "War on Terror" as bloodthirsty fanatics will exploit the chaos in the Middle East, experts have warned.

With the US and UK focused on tackling Iran-backed extremists like the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah - the shadow of even more savage groups is growing in the region.

ISIS - the blood-curdling terrorists whose attacks sparked horror around the world for years - are feared to be firing up for a return.

And security experts told The Sun that the Israel-Hamas conflict means a terrorist attack on UK soil is "absolutely possible".

They warned a larger "war is coming", which could mean a return to the days of War on Terror even worse than we have seen before.

Former US General Ben Hodges and security expert Professor Anthony Glees spoke to The Sun about how the West needs to steel itself for the bloodshed that may be coming in the Middle East.

Professor Glees told us Hamas' brutal massacre on October 7 was the spark that lit the fuse on a new powderkeg - and warned the UK is not prepared.

And meanwhile, General Hodges said: "The UK is in a pre war environment. That means war is coming."

US, UK and allied forces have been launching daring operations to strike the Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

But in the background - it is feared more extreme groups, such as the savage ISIS, are gathering strength.

US General Joel Vowell - who leads America's efforts abroad to squash ISIS - warned that the threat of a suspected attack has risen 200 per cent in the last three months.

Vowell recently warned the world that the ongoing war in Gaza - and the melting pot of fanatical groups in the Middle East - has made ISIS a bigger threat than it was before.

He has headed the ten year US-led coalition Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS, which saw Western troops stationed in Iraq and Syria - two hotbeds of the terror group's activity.

In January he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to talk about removing US troops from Iraq - but instead issued a disturbing message.

The Middle East expert explained that ISIS cells have been rallying their forces in the background, "in Syria and Iraq in the last 60 days in particular”.

The 'spark' of Israel's war with Hamas

Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist extremist movement, launched a brutal attack on Israel’s border in the early hours of October 7 2023 dubbed Israel's "9/11" - killing over 1200 people.

Extremist Islamist groups including the Houthis and Hezbollah have aimed attacks at the US and the UK, citing support of Israel - because of their war against Hamas.

Glees told The Sun that the Western world now faces threats “from all sides”, and that the fight against Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah shouldn’t detract from efforts to protect ourselves from older terrorist threats like ISIS.

“I absolutely think we are being assailed from all sides. That makes us vulnerable. And when you're vulnerable, you get bullied and attacked.”

The security expert also told The Sun that he “absolutely” thinks it's possible that we could be looking at a new wave of a terrorist threat like those seen over the last 20 years.

The raging threat of terror groups like Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah could be combined with attacks by organisations like ISIS on UK soil.

When the free democracies of the West, particularly America, when they're engaged in fighting one enemy, the other enemies come out of their holes and also try and have a go at them
Professor Anthony Glees

General Hodges said: "The UK is in a pre war environment. That means war is coming."

Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley warned this time last year that Britain that the UK has tens of thousands of potential terrorists hiding in plain sight.

Sir Rowley warned that they were on the security services radar, and would need just a “spark” to act on their extremist beliefs.

Glees told The Sun that the events of October 7 and the ensuing war has “provided that spark”.

He said: “I think what has happened since the seventh of October, has, in a sense, provided a spark.”

Glees “absolutely” thinks the threat of a terror attack on British soil has been increased.

He warned that while we have a nuclear deterrent, which could be used to ward off certain enemies, it won’t prevent more conventional attacks like those that might come from a terrorist organisation like ISIS.

“I think we are in a very difficult position because the whole of our defence and defending our values has been built around our nuclear deterrent.

“And, you know, it's good that we have it. However, the nuclear deterrent deters from nuclear attack. It doesn't deter from conventional attack. It doesn't deter from terrorism.”

Speaking of Britain’s forces, and capabilities for defence, Glees told the Sun that resources need to be funnelled into counter terror police as well as the armed forces.

“And I think wherever you look because it's not just about our armed forces. It's also about our police forces,” he said.

“I think we've got better in dealing with terrorism. I think our counter terrorist cops, they're the best cops we have in the UK.

“So we've learned the lessons from the past. The problem is that the ongoing war in Gaza… what has happened since the seventh of October, has, in a sense, provided a spark.

“And that's why people like me are very apprehensive of how this might develop.”

Who is ISIS?

ISIS, also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is a murderous terrorist network that officially formed in 2004.
The group, known for its barbaric public executions and beheadings, was originally part of al-Qaeda - the terrorists responsible for 9/11 which sparked the decades-long global War on Terror.
They took advantage of instability in Iraq and Syria after 2000 to rule with an iron fist.
After an injection of American troops into Iraq in 2007, ISIS lost some of its power grip in the region.
But it began to reemerge in 2011 and by 2014 the US had formed Operation Inherent Resolve.
The mission involved putting American boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria - as well as other regions in the Middle East.
In 2014, ISIS was the most powerful, best-equipped and wealthiest Islamic extremist group the world had ever seen.
By 2015 it had branches operating in at least eight other countries.
That October, their Egypt network bombed a Russian plane and killed over 220 people.
In November 2015, 130 were murdered and over 300 injured during one of their most brutal attacks on the West in Paris.
And in June 2016, a gunman who pledged himself to the murderous organisation killed at least 48 people at a nightclub in Florida.
By December 2017, ISIS had lost 95 per cent of it’s stolen territory.
But its core ideologies, which included a burning hatred for the Western way of life, continued to inspire countless terrorist attacks around the world.
While American combat in Iraq was officially axed in December 2021, 2,500 troops were left stationed there to work as advisers and trainers for Iraqi security forces trying to fend off extremist forces.
There are believed to be less than 1,000 still stationed in Syria.
Three of those American troops were killed in Jordan on January 28 - in a drone attack at a US military base near the Syrian and Iraq borders.

Is history repeating itself?

Professor Anthony Glees, an intelligence expert from the University of Buckingham, told The Sun why the West should be considering terror threats like ISIS more.

While the US, UK and other Western countries are focused on fighting the Houthis and Hezbollah - an opportunity is carved out for ISIS to make a comeback.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/10347332/middle-east-isis-terrorist-threat-ww3/#
He said: “When the free democracies of the West, particularly America, when they're engaged in fighting one enemy, the other enemies come out of their holes and also try and have a go at them.

“What's important is that we in the West are properly able to defend ourselves against all the people who might come at us.”

Glees said the current climate is comparable to the volatile moment our world found itself in during the early days of the War on Terror.

We know from history that the best way to prevent a war is to demonstrate that you're prepared for it
Ben HodgesFormer US General

The War on Terror was a global response led by America in the wake of Al Qaeda’s horrific attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11 2001.

On the morning of 9/11, 19 Islamic suicide terrorists hijacked four different planes filled with passengers travelling across America.

The first two hijacked planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing over 2,750 people.

The third plane - aimed at Washington DC, crashed into the US Defence HQ, the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania - killing 220 more.

The 9/11 horror, masterminded by al Qaeda, sparked the War on Terror - which saw decades of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

Stepping up UK defences

General Hodges told The Sun that war is coming - and Western attempts to keep the threat of extremist Islamic organisations under control, which have not worked for years, are lacking.

He said: "The UK is in a pre war environment. That means war is coming.

“The various strikes that have been happening over the last few days against Houthis, against Islamic organisations.

"They're in retaliation. But clearly these are not having the deterrent effect of what needs to be done. We've been doing this for years," he said.

"When I hear the Administration say, these strikes are just the beginning. That's fine, but I don't hear What's the ending? What are we trying to get to?"

Hodges also worries about the lack of resources at our disposal to fight a war.

He told The Sun: "We now are in a situation where I think we're much more vulnerable. And we know from history that the best way to prevent a war is to demonstrate that you're prepared for it."

He thinks the public should be made fully aware that we could spend a decade or more fighting the raging threats in the Middle East.

"I think that part of the problem is communication to our populations.

"You know where our leaders speak to us like we are adults and say, this is gonna take minimum 10 years for this strategy to take effect, or 15 years... there is no quick solution."

Speaking of the UK, US, and parts of Europe, Hodges said: "None of us have the resources to do it alone.

"So, having alliances and coalitions that are able to provide, that buy into it, that are willing to be a part of this. That's part of getting the resources together."

But it will have to be different to the last time the Western world banded against the extremist threat with America's War on Terror.

Hodges said we need a cohesive strategy, where priorities are established and resources carefully allocated with an end goal in mind.

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(331) 01-20-2024-to-01-26-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

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(333) 02-03-2024-to-02-09-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

The Dangerous Global Order with a Nuclear Armed Iran

War in Sudan risks inflaming other fragile African countries

China makes presence felt at Saudi Arabian defense show, outpacing US, Russia

The wide range of equipment on display by China was dominated by armed and unarmed drones, but also covered fighter jet models, air-to-air missiles, long-range air and missile defense systems, anti-tank and C4ISR kit.

Russians In Riyadh

Latest from Breaking Defense

General Atomics debuts new XQ-67A Air Force sensing drone

China makes presence felt at Saudi Arabian defense show, outpacing US, Russia

‘A crime’: Air Force’s Kendall blasts congressional budget dysfunction

L3Harris in ‘mature’ talks for regional HQ in Saudi Arabia as it looks to expand supply chain

Thinking about the Unthinkable: Five Nuclear Weapons Issues to Address in 2024

In South Africa, a great evil is growing fast

Seoul 'open-minded' about Japan's participation in Korea-U.S. nuclear deterrence dialogue: ex-Seoul official

NATO General Raises Prospect of New Nuclear Power

UNDERSTANDING THE DETERRENCE GAP IN THE TAIWAN STRAIT

Air Force launches reorganization, as Kendall warns ‘We are out of time’ to match China

Under the "reoptimizing" effort, changes are coming across the Department of the Air Force, from new training approaches to the establishment of high-level offices.

Air Force, Secretariat Changes

Space Moves

Why Now, And How Congress Might Respond

West must ready itself for new War on Terror with bloody return of ISIS & carnage in Middle East, warns experts

The 'spark' of Israel's war with Hamas

Who is ISIS?

Is history repeating itself?

Stepping up UK defences