WAR 02-20-2016-to-02-26-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Saudis admit they have nuclear weapons
Started by alchemike‎, 02-22-2016 12:36 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?485255-Saudis-admit-they-have-nuclear-weapons

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.globalresearch.ca/there-will-be-no-nuclear-war-over-syria-and-oil/5510009

There will be No Nuclear War over Syria and Oil

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, February 24, 2016
New Eastern Outlook 23 February 2016

In this most bizarre of seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East, wars ultimately over something as stupid as control of oil, a most alarming report has surfaced introducing the nightmare scenario of nations using tactical nuclear weapons to secure their aims. That were it to happen wouldl be the most stupid thing the human race has done to date to destroy itself. Given the implications and what is being reported it warrants more than close scrutiny.

It’s a report from a serious US journalist, citing an anonymous “source close to Putin” that a nuclear war pitting Russia against USA, NATO, Turkey and Saudi Arabia is possible. I refuse to believe in such a nuclear war over Syria and I want to say why.

The Report

On February 18, Robert Parry, an American investigative journalist of unusually high-quality, one who uncovered explosive details about the 1980’s illegal US Government Iran-Contra scandal among other stories, wrote the following alarming note on his website:


“A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation.”


I have followed Parry’s research since the 1990’s and find it to be of high professional quality.

Parry’s report was then picked up by Alexander Mercouris for the Russia Insider website. Mercouris is also an unusually serious and careful analyst of events Russian. He added to the Parry report his own details of a February 11 unusual meeting of the highly-important Russian Security Council, followed by a series of military exercises arranged at short notice in their Southern Military District, which look like they were “intended to prepare the Russian military for rapid action at short notice against Turkey should the need arise.”

The Saker, the pen-name of an equally-highly-respected and knowledgeable military analyst, one whose writings on Russia since the US-organized coup d’etat in Ukraine in early 2014 have been exceptionally sober, while reprinting the Mercouris article on his blog, openly disagreed with the Parry report and the Mercouris analysis. On February 20 The Saker wrote, “I don’t see any scenario short of a massive US/NATO attack under which Russia would use her tactical nuclear weapons.” He also cited a translation of Russian doctrine on use of nuclear weapons:


§27: The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use against her and (or) her allies of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons in a way which would threaten her very existence as a state. The decision to use nuclear weapons is taken by the President of the Russian Federation.


My belief

I want to state something completely different about the report on possible use of nuclear weapons over the conflict in Syria. I refuse to believe there will be a nuclear war over Syria and oil. Full stop!

The conflict in Syria is essentially a conflict between two persons–Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, and his neighbor, Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Ba’ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party’s branch in Syria. This is NOT World War III, and I refuse to believe it will become World War III. It is a conflict between two people, Assad and Erdoğan.

If we recognize this reality about the nature of the Syrian conflict, we begin immediately to relativize what’s going on. The problem is that there is a faction in the West drooling at the prospect of engineering a nuclear war with Putin’s Russia and willing to manipulate Erdoğan, Saudi Prince Salman, and anyone and everyone they can deceive to reach that end. They tried and failed in Ukraine.

The problem, a most fundamental problem which I now see more clearly in hindsight, is, when understood in this light, it was an initial error, if an understandable one. Russia’s leadership decided to intervene militarily at the end of September for a complex of reasons I believe, some in defense of Russian military security, some for reasons of Russia’s standing or perceived standing in the world, some for complex psychological reasons going deep into Russian history. All that led Russia to accept the plea of one of the two parties in that Syrian conflict, to make a military war against the terrorists, which were in reality the extended arm of the second party, Erdoğan.

That error has now played into the hands of the war faction in NATO and beyond, a faction in the West that desperately wishes to destroy Russia along with China as a positive force for good in the world.

It matters not whether a trusted person in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle passed that message to Robert Parry about using tactical nuclear weapons should Erdogan’s army invade Syria and threaten the lives of an estimated 20,000 Russian military personnel. Russia’s military action in Syria fed the world more energy of war, killing, hate. That, the world urgently needs less of.

As I stated in a recent interview for the Russian state Sputnik News media, there are no winners in war, by the very nature of war. Everyone in this war is deceiving, playing Machiavellian games — Erdogan, Salman and his son, Prince Salman, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, John Kerry, Obama, David Cameron, Hollande.

Russia is in a most risky situation in Syria if it and its leading people have any illusion that the other actors are reasonable. Hate knows no reason. Syria’s Bashar al Assad cannot win this conflict with Turkey’s Erdoğan. Nor can the most sophisticated air power of Russia win it for him.

That being said, now we have an absurd situation with thousands of nervous Turkish military, standing, armed and peering across the border into Syria. Alongside that stupid spectacle, we have the recent deployment of Saudi Air Force jets now sitting at the Incirlik Air Base–106 miles away from the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, near Latakia, Syria. The Saudi jets sit alongside some 5,000 airmen and the various military jets of the United States Air Force 39th Air Base Wing, and of the Turkish Air Force, along with F-15E jets from the British Royal Air Force that arrived in November, 2015 to join the “attack on ISIS.” It’s worth noting also that Incirlik Air Base today is one of six European NATO airbases holding a stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons.


The Turkish Incirlik Air Base (Red Star) near the Syrian border is one of six European NATO bases which hold tactical nuclear weapons.

As I detail in my newest book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy, dealing with the complex, decades-long unholy alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood death cult and the CIA, going back to Saudi Arabia in the early 1950’s, the conflicts between Syria’s Assad and Turkey’s Erdogan have nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

That’s a fact, no matter who else has decided to join in on either of the two sides. It reminds much like in a barroom brawl once the first beer bottle is hurled. It has not to do with killing of Christians–Orthodox or Catholic or other, despite the recent talks between the Roman Pope and the Moscow Patriarch. It has not to do with a war of Sunni Wahhabists against Shi’ite or Alawites.

The secret: It’s about the oil, stupid!

The poorly-understood reason for this conflict over Syria and over the entire Middle East is a conflict to control its oil–Syria’s reportedly huge oil reserves in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights; Iraq’s huge oil reserves in Kirkuk and elsewhere; Libya’s significant oil reserves and Qatar’s vast gas reserves. They all want the oil–British and US circles, French circles, Saudis, Turks, Syrians, Israelis, Iraqis–all. A good part of the NATO conflict with Russia is also about oil and gas. And even China’s ongoing conflict with her neighbors and with the United States in the South China Sea is significantly about oil.

The Syria conflict in this light must be seen for what it is: it’s essentially a conflict between two persons, Assad and Erdoğan, over control of oil and the vast sums of money from oil. It is not the beginning of World War III as that Pope in Rome said in Jose Marti Airport in Cuba last year. That is why I refuse to believe there will be a nuclear war over Syria and its oil.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.


The original source of this article is New Eastern Outlook

Copyright © F. William Engdahl, New Eastern Outlook, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...st-Shaping-Israel’s-military-nuclear-doctrine

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Shaping-Israels-military-nuclear-doctrine-446003

Opinion
By LOUIS RENÉ BERES \ 02/24/2016 21:39

Shaping Israel’s military nuclear doctrine

In law, such strategies are known as expressions of “anticipatory self-defense.”

Notwithstanding the July 2015 P5+1 Vienna diplomatic agreement with Iran, Israel will soon need to forge a more comprehensive and conspicuous strategic nuclear doctrine, one wherein rapt attention is directed toward all still-plausible nuclear enemies. Irrespective of precisely which national and/ or sub-national nuclear adversaries Jerusalem may sometime have to face, this indispensable doctrine will need to satisfy at least two intersecting criteria. In principle, therefore, it will need a) to identify and consider all available strategic options (deterrence, preemption, active defense, strategic targeting, nuclear war fighting); and b) to correctly correlate all of these overlapping alternatives with imperative survival goals.

“Everything is very simple in war,” says Carl von Clausewitz, in his 19th-century classic, On War, “but the simplest thing is still difficult.” By “difficulty,” Clausewitz means (among other things) complexity.

In this connection, Israel’s now systematically- configured doctrine will need to take close account of: c) certain possible interactions between assorted strategic options; and d) certain determinable synergies that could possibly obtain between enemy attacks. By focusing on synergies, or on what military planners more typically call “force multipliers,” Israeli planners could acknowledge that in certain crucial matters of war and peace, the adversarial “whole” could become much more dangerous than the simple sum of its “parts.”

Significantly, calculating these particular interactions and synergies will present Israel with a computational task of the highest order of intellectual difficulty. It follows, going forward, that the progressive refinement of Israel’s nuclear deterrent must always be viewed as a primarily intellectual requirement, and not as a merely operational task or narrowly political expectation.

To begin its pertinent calculations, Jerusalem must first identify the basic goals of any Israeli nuclear deterrence posture, here with special reference to required enemy perceptions of both ability and willingness. Before a rational adversary of Israel could be suitably deterred by any Israeli nuclear deterrent, that enemy would first need to believe that Israel had both the capacity to launch appropriate nuclear reprisals for certain forms of aggression, and the will to undertake such a launch. In matters involving a prospectively irrational nuclear enemy of Israel, successful deterrence would then need to be based upon certain threats to enemy values other than national survival, and/ or would need to be complemented or supplanted altogether by strategies of preemption.

In law, such strategies are known as expressions of “anticipatory self-defense.”

In some circumstances, it could conceivably help Israel to feign irrationality itself (defense minister Moshe Dayan stated: “Israel must be seen as a mad dog, too dangerous to bother”), but any actual Israeli resort to pretended irrationality could turn out to be a double-edged sword. Here, the principal danger posed would be a nuclear enemy that responds to Israel’s apparent irrationality with its own “defensive” first strike. In such cases, the logic behind the “rationality of pretended irrationality” strategy would backfire upon Israel, perhaps even incentivizing an enemy to “preempt” an expected Israeli preemption.

Once again, everything here might seem simple, but could in fact be exceedingly difficult.

All things considered, Israeli planners would do best to remain focused on maintaining more recognizably secure and penetration- capable nuclear retaliatory forces, and also on deploying appropriately layered or multi-tiered systems of active defense.

In meeting the perceived ability criterion of successful nuclear deterrence, Israel will first need to demonstrate, inter alia, the substantial invulnerability of its own nuclear retaliatory forces to enemy first strikes. Like the United States, Jerusalem is increasingly likely to depend upon some form or other of strategic triad deployments.

Already, it is very likely that Israel has begun to embark upon serious sea-basing of a portion of the country’s still-undeclared nuclear forces.

Looking ahead, it is plain that it will be in Israel’s long-term survival interests to more fully commit to certain submarine- basing nuclear options. Israel is a tiny country, and its land-based strategic forces could sometime present to enemies as too vulnerable. In part, whether or not Israel should proceed to more explicit submarine- basing of its presumed nuclear retaliatory forces, it could still acquire meaningful deterrence benefits from a nuanced and incremental end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity,” or the “bomb in the basement.”

Although somewhat counter-intuitive, Israel will soon have to clarify that at least certain specific sectors of its presumptive nuclear retaliatory forces are not only survivable, but also “usable.”

Ironically, this could mean forces that would not appear, prima facie, as “too destructive” for operational military use.

From the early days of prime minister David Ben-Gurion, Israel has understood the overriding need to rely upon a “great equalizer,” that is, on nuclear weapons and corresponding strategy. There are, of course, a great many circumstances in which any nuclear option would be unsuited – most obviously, in any plausible forms of regional counter-terrorism – but, in the end, there can be no viable substitute for such a residual option. Doctrinally, Israel has already rejected any notions of theater nuclear deterrence, and/or nuclear war-fighting; nonetheless, there are still some identifiable circumstances wherein a nuclear exchange might simply not be preventable.

On this point, Pakistan, in another prominent theater of assorted military nuclear risks, last year accepted a strategy of theater or tactical nuclear deterrence.

Among other things, this explicit acceptance signaled a dramatic shift away from classic Cold War patterns of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD) toward what Kennedy-era Americans used to call “flexible response” or (more recently) “nuclear utilization theory.” Speaking of the Cold War, it is clear that we are now entering into a “Cold War II,” and that Israel’s military nuclear doctrine should already begin to factor this re-emerging polarity into its wider security-policy decisions.

In the end, some forms of nuclear war-fighting between Israel and particular enemies might not be avoidable. Such failure could take place so long as: 1) enemy state first-strikes launched against Israel would not destroy Israel’s second-strike nuclear capability; 2) enemy state retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel’s nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; 3) conventional Israeli preemptive strikes would not destroy enemy state second-strike nuclear capability; and 4) Israeli retaliations for enemy state conventional first strikes would not destroy enemy state nuclear counter-retaliatory capability.

What this means, for Israeli security, is that Jerusalem must take appropriate steps to ensure the plausibility of 1) and 2) above, and, simultaneously, the implausibility of 3) and 4).

Submarine deployments could prove helpful or even indispensable to Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture. Submarines, after all, still represent the ultimate stealth weapon, and a submarine force could essentially guarantee the ability to unleash a catastrophic retaliatory strike.

Because of Israel’s irremediable lack of strategic depth, the small country’s developing submarine force represents an “ace in the hole” element of strategic deterrence.

Already, Israel is upgrading its Dolphin I submarines purchases from Germany with additional Dolphin II submarines.

These boats are diesel powered, and unlike the US nuclear submarines are more or less limited by the length of time they can remain submerged. The INS Rahav, Israel’s newest submarine from Germany, arrived in Haifa on December 17, 2015, and joined the INS Tanin, Tekuma, Leviathan, and Dolphin.

A sixth submarine has been ordered from Germany.

Israel’s submarines have been designed and built to meet very specific Israeli requirements, and are larger than the original German boats. The Rahav is over 220 feet (67 meters) long, and weighs more than 2,000 tons. One must assume that this larger size is intended primarily to accommodate nuclear missiles. In essence, a complex sea-basing capability will be critical to maintaining Israel’s nuclear deterrent.

In the seventeenth century, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in his literary (not nautical) Leviathan, soberly intoned that “Covenants without the sword are but words.” Today, there is nothing about the 2015 Vienna Agreement that will in any way meaningfully curtail Iran’s steady policy of military nuclearization. On the contrary, it may already be prompting the reciprocal nuclearization of certain Sunni Arab rivals in the region, most evidently Egypt and/or Saudi Arabia.

Looking ahead, Israel will need to rely increasingly on a multi-faceted doctrine of nuclear deterrence; moreover, certain elements of this “simple but difficult” doctrine will soon need to be rendered less “ambiguous.” This will imply, in turn, an even more determinedly “synergistic” Israeli focus on prospectively rational and irrational enemies, including both national and sub-national foes.

Let it finally be known. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan bears a direct intellectual connection to Israel’s submarine of the same name. Diplomatic agreements can never save Israel. Israel’s nuclear forces and associated doctrine can offer Israel relevant existential assurances, but only through a corollary policy of intelligent and calculated “non-use.” In this apparently paradoxical relationship, Jerusalem can find counsel in the ancient strategic wisdom of Sun-Tzu. Says the oft-quoted Chinese strategist in The Art of War: “Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.”

This timeless advice on “deterrence” is even more compelling in today’s nuclear world, more compelling than even Sun- Tzu himself could ever have imagined.

The author is emeritus professor of political science and international law at Purdue University.

Educated at Princeton (PhD,1971), he is the author of 12 books and several hundred published articles dealing with Israeli security matters. In Israel, he was chairman of Project Daniel (2003). His newest book is titled, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/will-there-be-nuclear-arms-race-middle-east

Will there be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East?

by Drew Christiansen , Ra'fat Aldajani | Feb. 22, 2016 NCR Today
Comments 9

After a massive but failed Israeli effort to prevent the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli sources are now raising the alarm that a nuclear arms race is beginning in the Arab world. The competition is fueled by fear of a resurgent and expansionist Iran and mistrust, especially on the part of the Saudis, of American policy in the region.

The latest warning was issued by Israeli defense minister, Moshe Ya'alon, who claimed that Israeli intelligence had determined Sunni Arab nations have started developing their own nuclear weapons in response to last year's nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers led by the United States.

Although Israel and the Gulf states do not have formal diplomatic relations, they nonetheless communicate through back channels, and their exchanges grew in their common effort to prevent world powers from completing a nuclear disarmament agreement with Iran.

On both sides, enmity toward Iran runs deeper than fear of its development of an independent nuclear capability. Israel regards Iran as "existential threat" to its survival. Iran's support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and for the Assad regime in Syria makes it a direct threat to the Israeli state on its northern and the northeastern borders.

For the Saudis and the other Sunni Gulf states, the Iranians represent a religious threat to the Arab heartland from the Shi'a revival. Shiite states and proxies, led by Iran, are already engaged in a hot war in Syria and Yemen with Sunni states and proxies, led by Saudi Arabia.

For Saudi Arabia, in particular, Iran is also a political rival, threatening the fall of Arab monarchies with revolutionary regimes on the model of the Islamic Republic. In addition, Iran is a civilizational competitor to the al-Saud kingdom, threatening to displace Arab dominance of the region with a Persian one.

In January 2016, an editorial in the Saudi Al-Riyadh daily warned that with the lifting of sanctions against Iran "the American president has thrown the Iranian regime a lifeline." The editorial urged the country's leaders to "begin preparing a nuclear program for peaceful purposes" with 2030 as the goal for the activation of the first Saudi nuclear reactor.

There have also been whispers of Saudi Arabia purchasing "off-the-shelf" nuclear weapons from Pakistan, a close Sunni ally whose nuclear program Saudi Arabia has largely financed. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent in purchasing U.S. arms, Saudi Arabia is still considered weaker than Iran in a head-to-head military confrontation.

A nuclear arms race in the Middle East -- that would surely also drag in Egypt, Turkey and even Algeria -- would be an unmitigated disaster to a region that is already experiencing upheaval, chaos and war unmatched in the modern era.

Although in essence this proxy war is a jockeying for political domination of the region, the adversaries have unleashed the sectarian genie and given the conflict a bloody religious dimension that will be difficult to control. Adding a nuclear dimension to this conflict increases the danger to the region exponentially.

Although the Iranian nuclear deal imposed tough monitoring and compliance restrictions on the Islamic Republic, the potential it has to improve regional security across the Middle East has yet to be realized. Instead, it seems that one of the unintended consequences many feared, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, may be on the verge of starting.

In a diplomatic miscalculation at last May's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the U.N. in New York, the U.S. abetted the Arab arms race by leading a coalition to block a consensus agreement. The draft consensus agreement would have begun the process of building a Middle East Nuclear Free Zone.

The putative reason for blocking the consensus was that Israel had not been consulted in drawing up the proposal. U.S. officials also regarded the NFZ as an attempt of the Egyptians and others "to pen in the Israelis."

Realistically, Israel, a nuclear-armed state and a non-member of the NPT, had not the least interest in crafting such a proposal. An opportunity to avoid a nuclear arms race in the Middle East was lost.

Possibly the U.S. calculated that not forcing the issue with Israel would give diplomats more latitude to complete the Iran deal. But U.S. officials failed to grasp the degree of disaffection with the U.S. on the part of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

As a result, we now face a double threat, a nuclear arms race among the Arab monarchies and the unraveling of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal, as the Arab bomb threat grows. What was a tactical maneuver to fend off Arab and Israeli pressure against the Iran deal may prove to be a strategic blunder.

Ironically, the nuclear taboo in the Middle East was broken years ago by Israel in the 1950s. Israeli columnist Ari Shavit's 2013 book, My Promised Land, The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel argues that after 65 years of relative security Israel's unspoken nuclear shield has provided, "Israel's nuclear hegemony in the Middle East is coming to a close. Sooner or later, the Israeli monopoly will be broken."

Shavit traces the Israeli nuclear program to the trauma of the Holocaust and the siege mentality of the fledgling Jewish state. This, despite the fact that Israel had defeated a number of Arab armies during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, a military superiority that would only increase and multiply over the years.

Even if Arab states think that Iran is secretly building a weapon, Shavit warns, then Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria could be next.

"[The Arab states] all believe that if we [Israel] have a right to our Dimona [the Israeli nuclear reactor]," Shavit writes, "they have a right to theirs. And when other Middle Eastern nations exercise their rights, our Dimona will turn from a blessing into a curse."

Finally, Shavit concludes that the nuclear program "that allowed Israel to flourish ... will become the biggest threat facing Israel. It might turn the lives of Israelis into a nightmare." We can only hope that he is wrong.

Achieving a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East will take some hard work. It will require the United States and other world powers to closely monitor Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal. It will require addressing the regional security issues that would push the Sunni Middle Eastern powers toward a nuclear weapon. And it would require Israel coming to terms with the fact that a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East includes it too.

__

9 comments

Purgatrix Ineptiae • a day ago

The idea that if Israel forswore nuclear weapons the Arabs and Iran would do the same is just laughable. Israel is quite correctly uninterested in signing treaties with Arab governments that are unlikely to be around in ten years; Arab governments have given Israel innumerable reasons to doubt their integrity in the matter of keeping agreements and very few to trust them; and it is perfectly obvious the Arabs and Iran want nuclear weapons not just to murder Israelis but to murder each other as well. If the Arabs and Iran want to sign treaties with Israel, they should begin by signing a treaty recognizing their right to exist.

Israel has always had the ability to make nuclear weapons because tiny Israel is a scientific and technological giant among the world's nations. The Iranians have been working on it for half a century and still haven't got it to work. If they ever tried to drop their bomb on Israel, there's a better-than-average chance they'd botch the job and end up dropping it on themselves. By the time the Arabs get a nuclear weapon, Israel will have figured out how to neutralize the threat.

God has given the Israelis two great advantages in their struggle to survive the world's irrational hatred: the first is brainpower and the second is the out-sized clumsiness and venality of their enemies.


jimmy kraktov • 20 hours ago

With all the Nuclear contamination pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima, Japan, I don't think what other countries are doing or threatening to do, will matter a whole lot. The North American Media is pretty much ignoring what has become a truly global disaster and threat to humanity around the globe. No one seems to care.


Redemptionis Donum • a day ago

How could there be a race, Obama got the Iran deal done.


wfdehaas • 2 days ago

Do not buy your conspiracy and fear response or your projected narrative. In addition, read and have Ari Shavit's 2013 book, My Promised Land, The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel but I read his analysis very differently from you. In the book, his history and analysis lays out exactly how Israel (with French assistance, lies, lying to the US repeatedly, etc.) achieved nuclear arms....and his point is that in this Israeli history lays the eventual downfall of the Israeli experiment. Their very drive for security contains their own destruction - they lied, stole, and cheated their way to nuclear weapons and thus the basic trust necessary to exist has been destroyed by their own behaviors.


Alexandra > wfdehaas • a day ago

I am really interested in why you reject the possibility of an arms race in the Middle East.


wfdehaas > Alexandra • a day ago

Please - let's make some distinctions. This opinion piece focuses on nuclear arms and suggests that the Iran deal has only increased the risks. It also interprets a book by an Israeli - an interpretation that I question and dispute....the writers have taken that author's viewpoint and twisted it to fit their own narrative.
Arms race - actually has been going on for decades with the support and encouragement of US policy. So, we buy off dictatorships via fancy and expernsive arms deals e.g. F-15s to Saudii, Abrams tanks to Jordan, etc. Iran has gotten into the game by backing and shippiing sophisticated armaments to Hezbollah and Gaza. US continues by arming Iraq - increasing Shia/Sunni animosity. US designs to arm groups in Syria has both failed and backfired.
But, my questions and push back have to do with this opinion pieces's nuclear narrative - don't buy it for lots of reasons that they completely ignore or don't touch.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, even Egypt do NOT have the financial capital much less technology to even accomplish what has just been dismantled in Iran. Yes, they could try to buy nuclear capability from Pakistan, etc. - but, don't think that is a reasonable narrative.
Is there an arms race? Well, to a degree but it is not in nuclear arms. Iraq will succeed or fail based upon US arms, airpower, and Kurdish success. Saudi and Iran are waging a local war now - only in Yemen. That war has moved slowly and has only underlined the weakness of Saudi airpower. The current stikes against ISIS, etc. are 95% US, Russia, or European. There is no arms race.
As I said, it comes across as a conspiracy column.


Alexandra > wfdehaas • a day ago

Thanks for taking the time to reply. It gives me more to think about. :-)


Publius > wfdehaas • a day ago

And yet it hasn't been an issue till now. None of the other regional Arab states have felt compelled to develop their own nuclear weapons until now. Why? Why didn't Isreal's "lying, cheating, stealing" etc 50 YEARS AGO result in an immediate Middle East arms race? Hmm? HMMM???


wfdehaas > Publius • a day ago

Because the US bought off Saudi Arabia, etc. These regimes also did not see Israel as the ultimate threat - rather, they have always seen each other as the threat reinforced by the Sunni-Shia split; or the Arab-Persian split; or the nationalists-dicatorships split, etc.
It is not about Israel - it is about power in the Arab world.

 

[Housecarl]

That infamous line from the deck of the carrier after the plane crash is coming to mind with all of this ...........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/southchinasea-usa-idUSL2N16315M

Markets | Wed Feb 24, 2016 10:55am EST
Related: Currencies, Markets, Industrials

U.S. Navy plans more freedom of navigation moves in S.China Sea -admiral

WASHINGTON


Feb 24 The head of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command told a congressional committee on Wednesday he will carry out more freedom of navigation operations with more complexity in the South China Sea.

Admiral Harry Harris told a House of Representatives Armed Services Committee hearing the United States must continue to operate in the South China Sea with allies, including Japan and South Korea.

The hearing comes after China deployed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the South China Sea's Paracel chain and new radars on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratlys. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Writing by Clarece Polke; Editing by Eric Walsh)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa-idUSKCN0VX22B

World | Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:56pm EST
Related: World, China, South China Sea

U.S. to boost freedom of navigation moves in South China Sea: admiral

WASHINGTON | By Idrees Ali


The United States, which is worried by China's military buildup to assert dominance in the South China Sea, will increase freedom-of-navigation operations there, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday.

"We will be doing them more, and we'll be doing them with greater complexity in the future and ... we'll fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows," Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

"We must continue to operate in the South China Sea to demonstrate that that water space and the air above it is international," Harris said.

On Tuesday, Harris said China was "changing the operational landscape" in the South China Sea by deploying missiles and radar as part of an effort to militarily dominate East Asia.

China is "clearly militarizing the South China Sea ... You'd have to believe in a flat Earth to think otherwise," Harris said in comments that coincided with a visit to Washington by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

China says its military facilities in the South China Sea are "legal and appropriate" and on Tuesday, in an apparent reference to U.S. patrols, Wang said Beijing hoped not to see more close-up reconnaissance, or the dispatch of missile destroyers or strategic bombers.

Harris, asked what more could be done to deter militarization, said the United States could deploy more naval assets, although there were significant "fiscal, diplomatic and political hurdles" in the way of stationing a second aircraft carrier group in the region.

"We could consider putting another (attack) submarine out there, we could put additional destroyers forward ...there are a lot of things we could do, short of putting a full carrier strike group in the Western Pacific,” he said.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

Harris's comments came a day after he said China had deployed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the South China Sea's Paracel chain and radars on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratly islands further to the south.

On Tuesday, his command said China's repeated deployment of advanced fighter aircraft to Woody Island was part of a disturbing trend that was inconsistent with Beijing's commitment to avoid actions that could escalate disputes.

Last month, a U.S. Navy destroyer carried out a patrol within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels, a move China called provocative.

The United States has also conducted sea and air patrols near artificial islands China has built in the Spratlys, including by two B-52 strategic bombers in November.


(Reporting by Idrees Ali; additional; reporting by David Brunnstrom and Clarece Polke; Editing by Susan Heavey and James Dalgleish)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/24/chinese-russian-subs-increasingly-worrying-the-pentagon/

Chinese, Russian Subs Increasingly Worrying the Pentagon

By Paul McLeary
February 24, 2016 - 4:14 pm
paul.mcleary@paulmcleary

The commander of American forces in the Pacific is worried that the United States doesn’t have enough submarines to meet the rapidly modernizing fleets being put to sea by China and Russia — and that things will only get worse before they get better.

The U.S. Pacific Command “suffers shortage of submarines today, my requirements are not being met,” Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. Harris said he’s most concerned that the Pentagon’s plan to modernize its own fleet may not move fast enough to keep pace with its Pacific rivals.

Most worrisome is the building spree that Russia and China are conducting to bolster their submarine assets in the Pacific. Late last year, Russia completed improvements to its naval base on the Kamchatka peninsula in the northern Pacific in part to accommodate new nuclear-powered Borei-class ballistic missile submarines. The boats are designed to carry 16 Bulava ballistic missiles each. A total of eight of the vessels are planned by 2020.

Harris said that Russia “has the most capable submarine force in the world after ours.”

China has already built four nuclear-powered ballistic missile JIN-class submarines, with an unknown number still being built.

But under the terms of the U.S. Navy’s own long-range shipbuilding plan, that will become increasingly difficult. The plan calls for the number of attack submarines to fall from 52 today to 41 in 2028 before gradually clawing back to 50 by 2044.

Harris also repeated his plan to carry out more so-called “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea, where China has engaged in a land grab in recent years and built islands in order to push its territorial claims further out to sea.

“We will be doing them more, and we’ll be doing them with greater complexity in the future, and as the secretary [of defense] has said, we’ll fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” Harris said. “We must continue to operate in the South China Sea to demonstrate that that water space and the air above it is international.”

Testifying before a Senate committee on Tuesday, Harris said that “China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea,” adding “you’d have to believe in a flat earth to believe otherwise.”

China has grown increasingly assertive in its claims to territory in the South China Sea, embarking on an ambitious — and controversial — island-building project in the critical waterway. On Tuesday, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department, reports emerged that Beijing had sent fighter planes to Woody Island in the South China Sea, the same island that Beijing recently deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries. The deployment of the J-11s Flanker and JH-7s Flounder aircraft raised tensions even further between China and its neighbors Taiwan and Vietnam, who also claim rights to the island.

Last month, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracel chain in a show of force that Beijing said only increased tensions in the region. The U.S. also flew two B-52 bombers near artificial islands that China has built in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea in November.

Harris roundly dismissed Chinese criticisms of American freedom of navigation patrols as being provocative. Asked about comments from a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson earlier this week that Beijing’s deployment of surface-to-air missiles to a disputed island in the South China Sea “is not substantively different from the United States defending Hawaii,” Harris shot back, “it’s ridiculous, and to me it’s indicative of the spokesperson’s tone-deafness.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://atimes.com/2016/02/south-china-sea-face-off-the-mystery-of-woody-island/

AT Opinion ›

South China Sea face off: The mystery of Woody Island

By Peter Lee on February 24, 2016

A single report that the PRC had deployed surface-to-air missiles in the South China Sea created quite the media firestorm. What if I told you, as the Internet meme goes, it was just a case of Same Old Same Old?

Soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island, in the Paracel Archipelago, which is known in China as the Xisha Islands.

Fox News got the ball rolling with an Exclusive! on February 16, declaring on the basis of commercial satellite imagery provided to Fox China sends surface-to-air missiles to contested island in provocative move.

What you see from the commercial imagery is fuzzy boxes. The official confirmation:

A US official confirmed the accuracy of the photos. The official said the imagery viewed appears to show the HQ-9 air defense system, which closely resembles Russia’s S-300 missile system.

Further confirmation was provided by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, whose spokesman stated that the MND had “grasped” i.e. was confident in its intel that there had been missiles on the island and “judging from the satellite photos it appeared that the missiles were HQ-9”.

國軍先前已掌握此項動態，會密切注意後續發展。國防部認為相關各方應共同維持區域和平穩定，避免採取任何升高緊張情勢的單邊措施。軍方官員也指出，根據衛星照片，解放軍部署在永興島的飛彈是「紅旗九型」。

The title of the initial report from Taiwan’s United Daily News, a sizable pro-KMT outlet, is interesting:

陸永興島部署飛彈 我早掌握

“We knew early on there were missiles on Woody Island.”

The report paraphrases the MND spokesman, Brig. Gen. David Lo, as saying, “We had been previously aware of this activity and will pay close attention to how it develops in the future.”

Hmm.

On to the fallout.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, when confronted by the report at a press availability with Australian FM Julie Bishop in Beijing, appeared blindsided and resorted to a non-denial denial:

Following talks with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop, Wang said he had become aware of the missile reports just minutes before.

“We believe this is an attempt by certain Western media to create news stories.”

Given time to reflect, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson pursued the same line — neither confirming nor denying the report but asserting the PRC’s prerogative of putting defensive facilities in the SCS — on three consecutive days at the press briefing. The exchanges were reproduced on the MOFA website which, since MOFA’s choice of content to display from its press conferences is, to put it politely, rather selective, indicates that the PRC had decided to advertise this position.

Admiral Harry Harris, who runs the US Navy’s Pacific shebang, was paraphrased in the New York Times as saying the reports, “if verified” would concern him:

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the head of the United States Pacific Command, said on Wednesday that the missile deployment, if verified, would go against pledges not to militarize the South China Sea that China’s president, Xi Jinping, made in September when meeting with President Obama at the White House.

On Feb. 19, courtesy of the US Pacific Fleet Commander via Military.com’s reporter Hope Seck, we finally get some hard info:

“My response would be, ‘OK, let’s be thoughtful about this,’ ” Adm. Scott Swift said Thursday at the AFCEA West Conference in San Diego, adding that the move needed to be viewed in context with the island’s history.

Swift’s remarks came a day after Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the reported move as a sign of “increased militarization” and promised to have a “very serious” conversation with Chinese authorities about the alleged missile deployment. Chinese President Xi Jinping promised not to militarize the South China Sea in a Rose Garden meeting with President Barack Obama, Kerry noted.

In fact, Swift said, this is at least the third time that Woody Island has housed HQ-9 missiles; twice previously, China has sent missiles to the island for exercises.
“So that context is important. This isn’t exactly something that’s new,” he said.

During one of those exercises, Swift said, the Chinese actually employed the weapons system, using an HQ-9 missile to shoot down a drone.

“So there’s an end-to-end test that the system is operational and it works,” he said.
But unlike previous missile deployments to Woody Island, this one had no association with an exercise, Swift said.

“So the real question is, ‘What’s the intent? How long is it going to be there? Is this a permanent forward deployment of this weapons system or not?’ ” he said. “So it’s a series of questions that we need to generate and ask ourselves.”

If this was indeed the third time HQ-9s showed up on Woody Island, it would explain the “we’ve known for a while” statement from Taiwan.

Anyway, so far it’s a lot of “appears” “if verified” “reported move.” Admiral Swift comes the closest to confirming it through his matter of fact characterization of “the move,” while indicating he doesn’t know much about it. A little short on firebreathing.

And the PRC sidestepped every direct question by simply reasserting its right to put defensive facilities in the South China Sea.

Admiral Swift’s remarks, by the way, rather shakes my faith in Jane’s as an infallible source of milsec tittle-tattle given that it started off its Feb. 17 report with “For the first time China has deployed up to 32 fourth-generation HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to Woody Island in the Paracels…”

For the heck of it, NPR:

LANGFITT: I think it is. I’ve been talking to a lot of analysts today, and this is the first time most of them can remember China actually putting missiles on disputed islands.

Just like in Hollywood, the motto for reporting on the military in Asia is “Nobody knows anything.” Exactly the way the DoD likes it, I expect.

Let’s unpack this thing.

First of all, the initial Fox story was pretty unambiguously intended as a hatchet job on President Obama and his namby-pamby handling of the ASEAN summit at Sunnyland, which failed to deliver a denunciation of the PRC’s malfeasance in the South China Sea.

If readers have any doubt, watch the Fox News video report on the “nightmare for President Obama” during the ASEAN summit: “another example of a foreign power challenging President Obama to respond to an act of defiance and aggression.”
And it looks to be a mid-level Pentagon China hawk hatchet job using crappy commercial satellite imagery and not the US military recon satellite imagery with reported resolution of 10 inches (why reporters don’t demand that the US military trot out the good stuff for these leaks is beyond me, but whatever). Fox News can take pride in sharing a name with one of nature’s cleverest mammals, but it is, to be kind, not a top-shelf destination for White House or Department of Defense leaks. It also lacks a Beijing bureau or for that matter anything closer to Asia than Kabul as far as I can tell, a rather remarkable fact in today’s day and age. So it has little interest in trying to get a Chinese response before releasing the story into the wild.

Big media was also happy? desperate? to run with Fox’s story without getting a PRC comment. Reuters was steered to General Lo in Taiwan, not the usual quote source for Western outlets on Paracel Islands affairs, perhaps because no ASEAN defense ministry was interested in helping out on the story while the civilian leadership was off at Sunnylands.

But it doesn’t seem the Navy brass was terribly enthusiastic. Although the magic words “South China Sea” are attached to the story, Woody Island is in the Paracels, real islands real close to the Chinese coast (seized from Vietnam in 1974 and, though “disputed,” neverneverever going back to Vietnam), not the faux islands amid the Spratlys out in the middle of the South China Sea, that are the source of all the island-building/Great Wall of Sand/FONOP heartache.

Satellite images of Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea

Woody Island is a PRC military asset that has been under development as an air/radar facility at least since the 1990s. The airport has been in operation as a military airfield since its inception. It’s been outfitted with a range of radars at least since 2008. In 2014 the runway was expanded to handle larger planes, including 737s. A public debate has gone on as to whether Woody Island should be developed as dual use or exclusively as an airbase. Apparently, the decision has been made in favor of dual use since the PRC plans to run a scheduled civilian air service to the airport starting this year.

The military orientation of Woody Island is unambiguous. It’s considered a key element in extending PLAAF jet fighter coverage further into the South China Sea than can be achieved from Hainan Island, and the runaway expansion was widely reported as enabling rotation of more sophisticated military aircraft. Several J-11 fighter jets were apparently rotated into Woody Island late last year without grumbling from the US military and, as Admiral Swift pointed out, the island has been used for exercises involving surface to air missiles. I wouldn’t be surprised if the missiles were temporarily deployed to Woody Island in tandem with the deployment of the J-11 fighters last year.

At press time I saw a report that the PRC is rotating another group of J-11 fighter jets into Woody Island, which would perhaps explain the deployment of surface-to-air missiles beginning February.

Not much new at Woody Island, in other words. So not much new vis a vis “militarization” of the South China Sea, which explains the business as usual response of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, and I think the US Navy. Assuming that the missiles were actually deployed beginning February and we were not looking at fuzzy pictures of construction equipment, perhaps the Navy brass perhaps saw little point in making a fuss over PRC military operations in February 2016 that the US had accepted largely without comment in previous year, and hid behind “reported” and “if verified” in preference to calling out the PRC in an escalated confrontation on the issue.

And never dismiss the possibility that the PRC notified the US government of the upcoming deployment and some wiseguy or gal in the Pentagon saw this as a chance to get in a round of China-bashing on the occasion of the ASEAN conference.

This sort of context might have been interesting and useful, but apparently insufficiently alarmist for the western press. In the end, it may turn out the only lasting outcome was to establish in the public domain the routine character of PRC military activities on Woody Island as it transforms into a full-fledged air base and lays the groundwork for eventual declaration of a South China Sea ADIZ.

Peter Lee runs the China Matters blog. He writes on the intersection of US policy with Asian and world affairs.

The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Asia Times.


Related
China sends fighter jets to contested island in South China Sea: Fox News February 23, 2016 In "China"
US-China naval clash unlikely despite Chinese missile deployment: IHS February 17, 2016 In "Asia Times News & Features"
China denies sending surface-to-air missiles to contested island February 17, 2016 In "China"

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...alling-anti-stealth-radar-in-south-china-sea/

China's Putting Anti-Stealth Radar in the South China Sea

​Radar installed on an "artificial" island could detect the B-2, F-35, and F-22​.

By Kyle Mizokami
Feb 24, 2016

China appears to be building an anti-stealth radar system on an artificial island in the middle of the South China Sea, where a military-grade system would be useful in detecting stealth aircraft in the contentious and contested area.

Satellite imagery obtained by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative and DigitalGlobe (which provided the images above and below) shows the Cuateron Reef recently enlarged by dredging and now measuring about 52 acres. Beijing didn't stop there. The imagery also shows that China has built or is building two radar towers, a lighthouse, a communications tower, bunker, and quay for the docking of supply ships. The most interesting development is a large field covered with evenly spaced 20 meter poles. This is the kind of thing you'd need for over-the-horizon high-frequency radar systems, which can detect objects at up to 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), including stealth aircraft.

While HF radars can spot stealth planes, they cannot guide missiles to targets—for now. Even so, the radars are useful in providing an early warning network, cueing Chinese fighter planes such as the J-11—also based on an artificial island in the South China Sea—to the probable location of stealth aircraft.

The position of the radar would be ideal for detecting American and allied aircraft operating from bases in the Philippines. The Philippines, embroiled in a dispute with China over the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals—has made its air and naval facilities available to the United States.

In recent years, China has laid claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea. While many countries claim part of the South China Sea, none have claimed—and seized—as much as China. To support its claim, China has taken several shoals and reefs and expanded them dramatically with sand dredged from the sea floor. China believes (or at least claims) that this bit of terraforming amounts to a legal transformation of these shoals from nuisance navigational hazards to full sovereign territory, complete with a12-mile territorial boundary and a 200 mile exclusive right to economic development.

The radar site, first noticed in 2015, became particularly newsworthy after last week's announcement that China had deployed HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missiles on another artificial island in the South China Sea. Although the two systems are too far apart to support one another, together they do support the argument that China is fortifying the South China Sea.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-idUSKCN0VY19C

World | Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:04am EST
Related: World, United Nations, Libya

French advisers helping Libyan forces fight Islamic State in Benghazi: Libyan commander

BENGHAZI, Libya | By Ayman Al Warfalli

French military advisers have been helping coordinate Libyan forces fighting Islamic State insurgents in the eastern city of Benghazi, where pro-government brigades have been making progress, a senior Libyan military commander said on Thursday.

It was the latest sign of U.S. and European engagement in trying to restore some order and security in anarchic Libya, where Western governments are looking to help local forces stop Islamic State expanding beyond its bastions in Iraq and Syria.

"The French military group in Benghazi are just military advisers who provide consultations to the Libyan National Army in its battle against terrorism, but they are not fighting with our Libyan forces," special forces commander Wanis Bukhamada told Reuters. There was no immediate French comment.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported on Wednesday that French special forces and intelligence commandos were engaged in "a secret war" against Islamic State in Libya in conjunction with the United States and Britain. France's Defence Ministry declined comment on the report.

Libyan military forces in Benghazi are under the command of General Khalifa Haftar and loyal to the North African country's government based in the eastern city of al-Bayda. A rival armed faction took over the capital Tripoli in the far west in 2014 and set up its own self-declared government.

Haftar's forces have been advancing against Islamic State in Benghazi, taking back neighbourhoods in the country's biggest eastern city that had been under militant control for months.

Western officials have said they are discussing possible air strikes and special forces operations against Islamic State in Libya, where militants have exploited a breakdown of state order since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi to seize control of some towns.

Last Friday a U.S. air strike targeted Islamist militants in the western Libyan city of Sabratha, killing more than 40.

Western officials say any deeper international military involvement, such as training missions or a proposed Italian-led security stabilisation force, will require a request from a U.N.-backed Libyan national unity government.

The United Nations has been trying to bring the country's rival factions together in a unity government. A presidential council has been formed, but hardliners are resisting a vote in Libya's elected parliament to approve the new government.


(Reporting by Ayman El Warfalli; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-saudi-arms-idUSKCN0VY1K1

World | Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:26am EST
Related: World, United Nations, France, Saudi Arabia

European Parliament calls for Saudi arms embargo

BRUSSELS | By Robin Emmott

The European Parliament called on the European Union to impose an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia on Thursday, saying Britain, France and other EU governments should no longer sell weapons to a country accused of targeting civilians in Yemen.

EU lawmakers, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of an embargo, said Britain had licensed more than $3 billion of arms sales to Saudi Arabia since Saudi-led forces began military operations in Yemen in March last year.

Nearly 6,000 people have been killed since the coalition entered the conflict, almost half of them civilians, according to the United Nations, and the European Parliament said it was acting on humanitarian grounds.

"This is about Yemen. The human rights violations have reached a level that means Europe is obliged to act and to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia," said Richard Howitt, a British center-left lawmaker who led efforts to hold the vote.

The parliament's vote is not legally binding but lawmakers hope it will pressure EU governments to agree to an embargo, following a petition of 750,000 European citizens calling for the suspension of weapon sales.

Fellow British lawmaker Alyn Smith, a Scottish Nationalist who grew up in Saudi Arabia, has also written to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini calling for the embargo.

However, any EU embargo would go against U.S. President Barack Obama's policy of bolstering U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia after Washington brokered a deal with regional rival Iran last year to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Britain and France are the main European suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia, while Germany also licensed arms exports of almost $200 million to the Sunni kingdom in the first six months of 2015, the latest economy ministry data available.

EU lawmakers warned the vote may prompt retaliation from Saudi Arabia, whose envoy to the European Union held several meetings with EU lawmakers and tried to dissuade the parliament.

"The Saudis said to me they may cut off relations. I hope those are just words," Howitt said, adding that the quickest way to avoid an arms embargo was to end the conflict in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador, Abdulrahman Al Ahmed, defended the kingdom's actions in a letter to EU lawmakers on Sunday, saying that "the larger ramifications of our not taking action in Yemen would have had devastating geopolitical consequences for the kingdom, Europe and the broader West as well."

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition of nine Arab countries that began a military campaign in March 2015 to prevent Houthi rebels, whom it sees as a proxy for Iran, from taking complete control of Yemen.

The Houthis and their allies, forces loyal to former Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accuse the coalition of launching a war of aggression.

Yemen has become one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The U.N. says famine looms as over half the population, or 14.4 million people, face hunger. Clinics and hospitals have been repeatedly hit.


(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Katharine Houreld)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.janes.com/article/58330/...-paper-to-bolster-country-s-maritime-presence

C4iSR: Maritime

Australian Defence White Paper to bolster country's maritime presence

Julian Kerr, Sydney - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
24 February 2016

Australia's defence budgets and capabilities seem set to surge in coming years, with the focus placed squarely on maritime activities in a long-awaited Defence White Paper that calls on China to provide "reassurance to its neighbours by being more transparent about its defence policies".

Launched by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Defence Minister Marise Payne in Canberra on 25 February, the White Paper was originally to have been produced within 18 months of then prime minister Tony Abbott's election in September 2013 but was delayed by ministerial changes and Abbott's replacement by Turnbull as Liberal Party leader in September 2015.


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(100 of 760 words)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.newsweek.com/egypt-president-sisi-admits-russian-jet-downed-terrorists-430229

Egypt President Sisi Admits Russian Jet Downed by ‘Terrorists’

By Conor Gaffey
On 2/25/16 at 7:43 AM

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has admitted publicly for the first time that a Russian jet that crashed in the Sinai region in October 2015 was shot down by “terrorists.”

The Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, crashed on October 31 after setting off from the popular tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board.

Russia’s Federal Security Service concluded in November 2015 that the downing of the jet was a “terrorist act” and Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for causing the crash.

The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it was caused by an explosive device smuggled onboard in a soft drink can . But Egyptian officials have so far declined to say that the incident was caused by militants.

In a televised speech on Wednesday, Sisi indicated that the incident was aimed at damaging relations between Cairo and Moscow and hurting tourist revenues. “Has terrorism ended? No, it has not, but it will if we unite. Whoever downed the Russian plane, what did he mean? He meant to hit tourism, and to hit relations with Russia,” said Sisi, according to Reuters .

Prior to the admission, Sisi had dismissed claims that the plane was downed by militants as “propaganda” that was aimed at damaging “the stability and security of Egypt and the image of Egypt.” Sisi also said that the situation in the restive Sinai region was “under our full control.” An ISIS splinter group, known as the Sinai Province , are active in the region and regularly launch attacks against Egyptian security forces.

Following the crash, Russia canceled all civilian flights to Egypt, which was the most popular overseas destination for holidaying Russians in 2014, accounting for around 30 percent of all Russian tourist journeys. The Egyptian tourism ministry said in January that tourism receipts dropped by 15 percent in 2015 and that the sector had lost 2.2 billion Egyptian pounds ($281 million) per month since the Russian jet was downed.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/m...today-rep-duncan-hunter-endorses-trump-212881

U.S., China agree on new North Korea sanctions

By Jeremy Herb | 02/25/16 08:30 AM EST
With Louis Nelson, Connor O’Brien and Austin Wright

BREAKING OVERNIGHT — U.S., CHINA AGREE ON NEW NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS, reports The Associated Press: “The United States and China have reached agreement on a U.N. resolution that would impose tougher sanctions on North Korea as punishment for its latest nuclear test and rocket launch, U.N. diplomats said Wednesday. One Security Council diplomat called the draft resolution ‘significantly substantive’ and expressed hope that it will be adopted in the coming days.

“Another said the draft had been circulated on Wednesday to the three other permanent council members — Russia, Britain and France. The Security Council is scheduled to hold closed consultations Thursday afternoon on compliance with the North Korean sanctions resolutions, and the U.S.-China draft could be discussed then with the 10 non-permanent council members.”

DRIVING THE DAY — CARTER, DUNFORD TESTIFY ON CAPITOL HILL: Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford make their first appearance on Capitol Hill this morning for the annual budget hearing go-around. But this year, the Pentagon leaders are making their debut in a different venue than normal: The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Typically in past budget cycles, Pentagon leaders have appeared almost immediately after the budget is released, before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

But House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) decided last year to change the approach to put the secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman toward the end of his hearing schedule, and Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has followed suit this year. As a result, Carter and Dunford’s first congressional appearance may not make as much news on world affairs as it normally might. They’re still likely to get plenty of questions about the Islamic State, Russia, Afghanistan and more, but typically the appropriations panels stay more focused on programmatic and budget issues.

SPEAKING OF RUSSIA AND SYRIA ... PUTIN PUSHES ASSAD ON CEASE-FIRE, via the AP: “Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Wednesday with key players in the Syria conflict, including President Bashar Assad, ahead of a U.S.-Russia-engineered cease-fire, as the opposition voiced concerns that the truce due to begin later this week will only benefit the Syrian government. Government troops backed by Russian warplanes waged fierce battles to regain control of a strategic road southeast of Aleppo from the Islamic State group.

“The truce agreement, which is set to take effect at midnight Friday local time, does not cover the Islamic State group, Syria's al-Qaida branch known as the Nusra Front, or any other militia designated as a terrorist group by the U.N. Security Council. It's not clear exactly where along Syria's complicated front lines the fighting would stop and for how long — or where counterterrorism operations could continue. Also unresolved are how breaches in the truce would be dealt with.”

— SYRIAN OPPOSITION SAYS IT BACKS PLAN, via Reuters: “Syria's opposition indicated on Wednesday it was ready for a two-week truce in Syria, saying it was a chance to test the seriousness of the other side's commitment to a U.S.-Russian plan for a cessation of hostilities. ... A statement seen by Reuters from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee, which groups political and armed opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said it ‘views a temporary two-week truce as a chance to establish how serious the other side is in committing to the points of the agreement.’”

HAPPY THURSDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we’re always on the lookout for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us at jherb@politico.com, and follow on Twitter @jeremyherb, @morningdefense and @politicopro.

HAPPENING TODAY — BREEDLOVE ON CAPITOL HILL: A rundown of other Capitol Hill action today: U.S. European Command chief Gen. Philip Breedlove testifies before the House Armed Services Committee this morning on the U.S. security challenges in Europe. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and other security and intelligence chiefs appear before the House Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats. And The House Small Business Committee holds a hearing on the Defense Department inspector general’s recent audits of defense contracting.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee holds a confirmation hearing for three civilian nominees this morning. Rep. Duncan Hunter speaks at a panel discussion hosted by TroopsDirect on providing supplies to the military. And at the Pentagon, U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris holds a press briefing, following two days of congressional hearings.

2016 WATCH — TRUMP GETS CONGRESSIONAL ENDORSEMENTS, INCLUDING HUNTER: Hunter was one of two Republican congressmen to endorse GOP front-runner Donald Trump for president on Wednesday, landing him his first congressional backers. The California Republican, an Armed Services member and Marine veteran, told POLITICO’s Nick Gass that he was backing Trump because, “We don't need a policy wonk as president. We need a leader as president.”

— BUT WOULD HE BE TRUMP’S SECDEF? Hunter would be interested in serving as Trump’s defense secretary — if Trump were elected president and asked, said Hunter's chief of staff, Joe Kasper. But the congressman isn't shopping himself for a new job, and he hasn’t even heard from the candidate he’s backing. “I don't think Trump wants my endorsement," Hunter said Wednesday.

— THE OTHER GOP CONGRESSMAN announcing his support for Trump was Rep. Chris Collins of New York.

ALSO TODAY — NAVY SECRETARY TO UPDATE DIVERSITY STATEMENT: Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is set to release an updated Navy “Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion Statement,” a Navy spokesman says. The diversity statement was last released in 2010 and will be updated to incorporate the end of the ban on gays serving openly in the military and the ban on women serving in all combat roles. Mabus is meeting with service organizations and will discuss the review and possible upgrade of the discharges of roughly 1,300 veterans who received less than honorable discharges due to their sexual orientation.

MAKING A LIST, AND CHECKING IT TWICE — THORNBERRY WANTS SERVICE ‘WISH LISTS’: The House Armed Services chairman plans to request unfunded requirements lists from the military, committee spokesman Claude Chafin confirmed to POLITICO. The so-called “wish lists” are an opportunity for the military services and combatant commanders to lay out weapons and other items they want but weren't included in the administration's official budget request. The lists are often used by lawmakers to justify spending on such weapons — essentially an end-run around the White House and Pentagon brass.

The lists were curtailed under then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but returned two years ago when then-House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon of California asked for them. “We want to know what they asked for that the administration did not put in the request,” Thornberry told Morning D. “Not that we take it necessarily, but you want to see what didn’t make the cut.”

AIR FORCE ACADEMY DINGED FOR SNUBBING U.S. FOOTBALL UNIFORMS, reports our colleague Austin Wright: “The Air Force Academy’s contracting squadron bought foreign-made football jerseys even though U.S. companies ‘could have fulfilled the requirement,’ according to a new inspector general audit that found spotty compliance with federal procurement laws.

“The audit by the Defense Department inspector general sought to determine whether the Air Force was adhering to the Berry Amendment and the Buy American Act. The two laws seek to ensure the United States maintains a strong industrial base for items that would be needed during wartime by requiring the Pentagon to give preference to U.S. companies when buying certain goods.”

McCAIN, SHELBY FEUD GOES BEYOND ROCKETS, our colleague Zachary Warmbrodt reports the dispute led to a bill honoring veterans getting blocked temporarily: “Stephanie Rader, a spy for the U.S during World War II, died at 100 in January. But thanks to a spat between two Republican senators, her life was one month too short to see her service honored by Congress.

“Arizona Sen. John McCain temporarily blocked a bill commemorating veterans of the Office of Strategic Services with a gold medal as he feuded with Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who leads the committee in charge of the measure. The bill finally passed this week after McCain relented, but not before Rader had passed away. The bad blood between the two men, both of whom are running for re-election this year, has been boiling since December.”

MAKING MOVES — FORMER CONGRESSMAN NAMED CENTER FOR ARMS CONTROL DIRECTOR: Former Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) was named executive director of the Council for a Livable World and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a research arm of the nuclear arms control advocate.

DESSERT — KERRY, SENATORS ATTEND ‘WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT’ D.C. SCREENING, via The Washington Post: “One thing actress Tina Fey and producer Lorne Michaels probably didn’t expect at the VIP Washington screening of their new war-time dramedy ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’: heckling. But then again someone invited Al Franken.

“‘We can’t hear you. Talk into the mic, Chris. Come on. Jesus!’ shouted Sen. Franken (D-Minn.) from the back row of the Burke Theatre at the Naval Heritage Center. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) chuckled nearby. And Chris? That would be Chris Dodd, the former senator and the current head of the Motion Picture Association of America.”

SPEED READ

— The head of the U.S. Pacific Command says the Navy will increase freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea amid China’s military buildup on contested islands there: Reuters

— Russian airstrikes in Syria have offered cover for Islamic State fighters to launch attacks and reposition forces, according to a report from IHS Janes’ Terrorism and Insurgency Center: The Washington Post

— Former Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterates his support for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: POLITICO

— French special forces are helping Libyan troops fight Islamic State militants: AP

— The Islamic State uses commercially available components for most of its bombs, a new report finds: AP

— The Islamic State relies on local bankers in Iraq to finance its efforts and evade an international push to financially isolate the militant group: The Wall Street Journal

— The controversial relocation of a Marine Corps air station in Okinawa, Japan, has been delayed an additional two years: Stars and Stripes

— The August death of a Marine at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during physical training is pushing the Marine Corps to institute stronger safety measures: Military Times

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/diplomats-us-china-agree-nkorea-sanctions-37185782

UN Diplomats: US and China Agree on New NKorea Sanctions

By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
·UNITED NATIONS — Feb 25, 2016, 7:46 AM ET

The United States and China have reached agreement on a U.N. resolution that would impose tougher sanctions on North Korea as punishment for its latest nuclear test and rocket launch, U.N. diplomats say. The council likely will discuss the draft Thursday afternoon.

One Security Council diplomat called the draft resolution "significantly substantive" and expressed hope that it will be adopted in the coming days. Another said the draft had been circulated on Wednesday to the three other permanent council members — Russia, Britain and France.

The council is scheduled to hold closed consultations Thursday on compliance with the North Korean sanctions resolutions, and the U.S.-China draft could be discussed then with the 10 non-permanent council members.

Both diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because all discussions on the proposed resolution have been private.

Their comments follow a flurry of activity in Washington, including meetings between China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, and with National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday afternoon.

National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Rice and Wang agreed "on the importance of a strong and united international response to North Korea's provocations, including through a U.N. Security Council resolution that goes beyond previous resolutions."

"They agreed that they will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state," Price said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kerry told a Congressional hearing: "We're on the brink of achieving a strong United Nations Security Council resolution."

North Korea started off the new year with what it claims was its first hydrogen bomb test on Jan. 6 and followed that up with the launch of a satellite on a rocket on Feb. 7 that was condemned by much of the world as a test of banned missile technology.

Over the past 10 years, North Korea has conducted four nuclear tests and launched six long-range missiles — all in violation of Security Council resolutions.

South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Oh Joon has urged the Security Council to adopt "extraordinary" measures to make clear to the North "that it will no longer tolerate its nuclear weapons development."

The U.S., its Western allies and Japan, also pressed for new sanctions that go beyond the North's nuclear and missile programs. But China, Pyongyang's neighbor and supporter on the council, is reluctant to impose measures that could threaten the stability of North Korea and cause the country's economy to collapse.

Wang said Tuesday that a new U.N. resolution alone cannot resolve the North Korean nuclear issue and that dialogue was needed.

He said China was urging a "parallel track" in which there were both talks on denuclearization — the top priority of the United States — and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang.

While the U.S. and China were discussing a new U.N. resolution, the United States took tougher steps of its own against North Korea, tightening sanctions and announcing it will hold formal talks with South Korea on deploying a missile defense system that China fears could be used against it as well North Korea.

South Korea and Japan have also announced new measures against Pyongyang.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.newsweek.com/somali-president-al-shabaab-el-adde-430287

World

Al-Shabab Killed 180 Kenyan Troops in El Adde: Somali President

By Conor Gaffey
On 2/25/16 at 8:04 AM

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says that at least 180 Kenyan troops died in an Al-Shabab attack on their base in Somalia in January.

Al-Shabab militants claimed to have killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers and captured others alive when they attacked an African Union (AU) base at El Adde, in the Gedo region of Somalia near the Kenyan border. Kenya has not announced a death toll and a spokesman for the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) told Newsweek that he could not confirm Mohamud’s statement, which was made in an interview with Somali outlet Cable TV, the BBC reported on Thursday.

Mohamud was responding to criticism from Somalis on social media over his attendance at a memorial service for the fallen troops in Eldoret, Kenya, with some insinuating that the Somali president cared more about Kenyan lives than those of his own people. “When 180 or close to 200 soldiers who are sent to us are killed in one day in Somalia, it’s not easy,” he said, according to the BBC.

KDF spokesman Colonel David Obonyo declined to give a definitive death toll when asked by Newsweek . “I have seen this [Mohamud’s statement] but it never came from us. I don’t know where he got that information,” says Obonyo. “It is a head of state who himself talked about this, I don’t know his source of information so it is only him who can clarify.”

Obonyo adds that the families of the KDF soldiers who died have all been informed and burials have taken place for those whose bodies were recovered. “If you add those numbers of people who were buried, [it is] not even near 50,” says Obonyo.

If Mohamud’s death toll were to be confirmed, the attack would constitute Al-Shabab’s deadliest assault since its inception in the mid-2000s. Gunmen from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group killed 148 students and staff in April 2015 in an attack on Kenya’s Garissa University College. The group also continues to launch attacks inside Somalia, including a recent gun assault on the popular Lido beach in the capital Mogadishu in which 20 people were killed.

Kenya sent troops into Somalia in October 2011 in a bid to crack down on Al-Shabab, which had been coordinating cross-border kidnappings. Kenyan troops also make up a significant proportion of the AU’s mission in Somalia (AMISOM): Kenya contributes more than 3,600 troops to the 22,000-strong peacekeeping force.

 

[vestige]

Chinese, Russian Subs Increasingly Worrying the Pentagon

The commander of American forces in the Pacific is worried that the United States doesn’t have enough submarines to meet the rapidly modernizing fleets being put to sea by China and Russia — and that things will only get worse before they get better.

This was inevitable and predicted long ago. (by me for one)

The Chinese in particular weren't buying all that steel (recall the scrappers scrounging the entire U.S. a while back when steel prices were so high) and strategic metals for the purpose of making Prince Albert pipe tobacco cans.

They were preparing for the future and while that future may involve smoking it won't be meerschaum pipes.

They are capable of making ships (including carriers) like pop beads.

 

[Housecarl]

Another version of the article with foot notes.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18450#.Vs8PSZvMvIU

Op-Ed: Nuclear war or nuclear peace? Israel's post-Iran Pact options

Israel must plan for the perilous prospect of an enemy country that could sometime choose to behave as if it were a suicide bomber in macrocosm, acting without regard for rational decision-making.

Published: Thursday, February 25, 2016 7:21 AM

For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make (Proverbs 24,6)


The more things change, the more they remain the same. This is especially true in the Middle East. It follows, even after the July 2015 Vienna Agreement on Iran's nuclear program, that Israel's core survival problems remain pretty much what they have always been.


To deal adequately with these problems, Jerusalem will first have to recall that its most basic struggles in the region are matters of "mind over mind," not merely "mind over matter." For Israel, going forward, it will be vital to remember that its overriding security concerns ought always to be broadly intellectual, not narrowly tactical, or operational.


The geostrategic coordinates are clear. A small country, indeed, a microstate less than half the size of Lake Michigan, remains surrounded by several openly-genocidal enemy states - some of which plainly seek assorted weapons of mass destruction. Israel also remains beset by irredentist insurgent forces, both Sunni and Shiite, that are more-or-less sustained by these conspicuously adversarial states. Further, several of these relentlessly hostile groups are comprised largely of "Holy Warriors" or shahids, Islamist fighters still seeking a glorious martyrdom via terror or, perhaps in the future, mega-terror.


With its current strategic planning, Israel must also plan for the perilous prospect of an entire enemy country that could sometime choose to behave as if it were a suicide bomber in macrocosm. By definition, such dire behavior would involve acting without any ordinary or evident regard for rational decision-making. Faced, thereby, with conditions wherein more traditional threats of deterrence could effectively be immobilized, Israel's task must now become more expectantly multi-faceted.To be precise, Jerusalem should prepare capably for

(1) various still-feasible forms of preemption;

(2) steadily improved (multi-layered or tiered) active defenses; and

(3) pertinent nuclear policy revisions, doctrinal adaptations needed, inter alia, to suitably maintain the tiny country's long-term nuclear deterrent. In essence, Israeli nuclear weapons that are not suitably informed by antecedent doctrine could sometime fail in their indispensable mission of preventing existential loss.


In forging adequate doctrine, special challenges of strategic prediction must be met by Israel. Looking at the current area situation systematically, including the formidable rise of ISIS, and at the corollary collapse of order in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere, a truly basic question must be raised:What should Jerusalem now expect to happen, here, in this increasingly chaotic region?

To respond to the predictive challenge, a competent “strategic dialectic” will need to be fashioned. It will not be enough, in this complex task, to focus only on traditional "correlation of forces" data, or even on more usually exhaustive examinations of a prospective enemy's "order of battle." Rather, Israeli planners must specifically begin to inquire: How might a nuclear war (any nuclear war) actually begin in the Middle East?


Significantly, such necessary queries, though critically important, are still encountered only rarely in the (unclassified) strategic literature.


Why? This is hardly a minor matter.


U.S. President Barack Obama's oft-stated preference for "a world free of nuclear weapons" notwithstanding, nuclear weapons are not evil in themselves. Rather, Israel's presumptive nuclear weapons, unacknowledged and unthreatening, serve very quietly to prevent certain distinct forms of aggression. With little ascertainable doubt, this national deterrent force would never be used except in defensive reprisal for certain massive enemy first-strikes, especially for any Arab and/or Iranian attacks involving nuclear and/or biological weapons.


From the beginning, Israel's nuclear weapons have been conceived with a view to purposeful non-use. Or, to use the specific words of the Project DanielFinal Report, Israel's Strategic Future (May, 2004, Israel): "The primary point of Israel's nuclear forces must always be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post." Significantly, this point is consistent with the much earlier and markedly pre-nuclear counsel of ancient Chinese strategist, Sun-Tzu. Says Sun-Tzu in hisThe Art of War: "Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."


For the time being, at least, Israel's enemies are all still non-nuclear, but this could change in the foreseeable future. It is also true that non-Arab and non-Persian Pakistan is an already-nuclear Islamic state, and that this unstable country remains vulnerable to a Jihadist coup d'etat. Should such a coup ever be successful, Israel could quickly find itself living in a much less stable environment than it does today, or even than ever before.

Going forward, Israel's nuclear weapons could continue to reduce the risks of unconventional war, but only as long as those particular enemy states involved were to (1) remain rational; and (2) remain convinced that Israel would always retaliate massively, if attacked with nuclear and/or biological weapons of mass destruction.


Of course, the expected risk-reductions offered by Israeli nuclear forces and doctrine would likely be far smaller in the event of any terrorist (sub-national or enemy surrogate) adversaries. Already, there are good reasons to fear that Shiite Hezbollah and/or Sunni ISIS could acquire or exploit certain weapons of mass-destruction. In this connection, Israel's own Dimona nuclear reactor could possibly be exploited as such a weapon.


Hezbollah has several times threatened to strike Dimona with missiles in its next war with Israel. In 1991 and 2014, Iraq and Hamas respectively actually tried to penetrate Dimona with missiles and rockets, but without success. Earlier, Israel had destroyed Iraq's Osiraq (1981) and Syria's Kibar (2007) reactors, but without creating any nuclear fallout hazards.


A corollary problem could concern the implementation of Palestinian statehood, especially with the new state's attendant vulnerability to ISIS or other related forms of terrorist takeover. In this connection, it is improbable that any new Palestinian "army" could effectively stand up to advancing ISIS forces, a scenario that could come to pass with any future ISIS march westward across Jordan, and toward the now-porous borders of "Palestinian" West Bank (Judea/Samaria). For their part, the ISIS forces are sustained not only by some of the more usual forms of military ordnance, but also by the uniquely compelling promise of immortality. Much as this promise is generally overlooked by Americans and Europeans - because it is so flagrantly out of synch with our own culturally core beliefs and values - it does typically trump all other competing forms of power in the Arab and Islamic world.


Going forward with its nuclear doctrine, therefore, Israeli planners will need to include closer considerations of the promise of power over death.


During the preparation of its Final Report, the Project Daniel Group also explored a variant of the "power over death" problem, a nuance wherein an enemy state or combination of states does not actually seek "martyrdom," but because of these states' vast demographic advantage, is still willing to accept huge losses (because Israel's relative losses would expectedly be much greater). If, for example, an enemy state or states were to calculate that it could afford a 1-to-1exchange ratio with Israel, it/they could effectively compel Israel's losses to be in the high existential range. The plausible prospect of any such enemy calculation further underscores Israel's ultra-sensitivity to enemy weapons of mass destruction, and also the country's corollary imperative to adopt a life-saving policy of preemption, where otherwise appropriate.


All things considered, there will be many complex and intersecting problems for Jerusalem to identify, in advance, should a bellicose enemy state or states somehow be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. These problems belie the seemingly agreeable theoretic notions of stable nuclear deterrence. Whether for reasons of miscalculation, accident, unauthorized capacity to fire, coup d'état, outright irrationality, or the presumed imperatives of Jihad, such a state could sometime opt to launch a nuclear first-strike against Israel - this in spite of that enemy country's nuclear posture, whether ambiguous or unambiguous. Here, most assuredly, Israel would respond, to whatever extent still possible, with a nuclear retaliatory strike. Among other things, to more reliably ensure essential survivability of its nuclear retaliatory forces, Israel should continue with its presumptive program of nuclear sea-basing on board optimally configured submarines.[1]


Although, of course, nothing is publicly known about Israel's precise targeting doctrine, any Israeli nuclear reprisal could be launched toward an aggressor's capital city, or against other similarly high-value urban targets. In essence, there could be no authoritative guarantees, in response to any such blatantly egregious sorts of Arab or Iranian aggression, that Israel would intentionally limit itself to striking back against exclusively military targets, or even against that particular individual enemy state from which the initial aggression had been launched. Doctrinally, here, it could make considerable sense for Israel to clarify that in those confused circumstances wherein it is uncertain precisely where the responsibility for a WMD aggression lies (an example, perhaps, of Clausewitzian "friction"), the Jewish State could then choose to simultaneously launch its promised retaliation against several suspected adversary states in the region. According to the Project Daniel Final Report: "Regarding effective deterrence in such situations, the Group feels that Israel must identify explicitly, and early on, all enemy Arab states and Iran as subject to massive Israeli reprisal in the event of BN (Biological/Nuclear) attacks upon Israel."


When these words were first written, the Project Daniel Group specifically had in mind an "anonymous attack " circumstance (a complex or even chaotic situation, in which the attacking state does not identify itself, and where an Israeli identification of the pertinent aggressor is seriously problematic), but the logic of our argument can now be extended beyond this particular scenario. It could be purposeful for Israel to clarify further that even certain enemies which were not directly involved in the actual attack would remain subject to an Israeli nuclear retaliation, so long as these enemies were substantially complicit in making preparations for the anti-Israel aggression.


Now, what if enemy first-strikes were to involve "only" chemical and/or biological weapons? Here Israel might still launch a reasonably proportionate nuclear reprisal, but this would depend largely upon Israel's previously calculated expectations of follow-on aggression, and also on its associated determinations of comparative damage-limitation. Should Israel absorb a massive conventional first-strike, a nuclear retaliation could not automatically be ruled out. This is especially the case if: (1) the aggressor were perceived to hold nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in reserve; and/or (2) Israel's leaders were to believe that non-nuclear retaliations could not prevent national annihilation.


Recognizing Israel's evidently small size, and its tightly-concentrated infrastructures, the threshold of existential harms for the Jewish State is plausibly much lower than wholesale physical annihilation. To be sure, this key deterrence point should be communicated to all of Israel's pertinent enemies.


In principle, at least, when faced with imminent and potentially existential attacks, Israel could decide to preempt pertinent enemy aggression using solely conventional forces. Here, more than anything else, the designated targeted state's response would then determine Israel's subsequent moves. If this response were in any way nuclear, Israel would almost surely undertake nuclear counter-retaliation. If this enemy retaliation were to involve chemical and/or biological weapons, Israel could then determine to undertake some yet-to-be decided quantum escalatory initiative.


This sort of posture, known in proper military parlance as "escalation dominance," could prove essential, for Israel, in order to ensure adequate and optimally favorable intra-war deterrence.


If an enemy state's response to an Israeli preemption were limited to hard-target conventional strikes, it is improbable that Israel would resort to any forms of nuclear counter-retaliation. On the other hand, if the enemy state's conventional retaliation were an all-out strike directed toward Israel's civilian populations, as well as to Israeli military targets - an existential strike, for all intents and purposes - an Israeli nuclear counter-retaliation could not automatically be ruled out. Such a counter-retaliation could be excluded only if the enemy state's conventional retaliations were entirely proportionate to Israel's preemption, confined entirely to Israeli military targets, circumscribed by the legal limits of "military necessity," and accompanied by explicit and verifiable assurances of no further escalation.


It is unlikely, but still not inconceivable, that Israel could at some point decide to preempt enemy state aggression with a nuclear defensive strike. While circumstances could arise wherein such a defensive strike would be completely rational, and also completely acceptable under international law,[2] it is nonetheless improbable that Israel would ever permit itself to reach such fearful circumstances. More specifically, an Israeli nuclear preemption could be expected only if: (1) Israel's state enemies had unexpectedly acquired nuclear or other unconventional weapons, presumed capable of destroying the tiny Jewish State; (2) these enemy states had made explicit that their intentions paralleled their capabilities; (3) these states were authoritatively believed ready to begin a countdown-to-launch; and (4) Israel believed that non-nuclear preemptions could not possibly achieve the minimum needed levels of damage-limitation - that is, levels consistent with its own national survival.


Should nuclear weapons ever be introduced into a conflict between Israel and some of the countries that wish to destroy it, some form of nuclear warfighting could ensue. This would be the case so long as: (a) enemy state first-strikes against Israel would not destroy the Jewish State's second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy state retaliations for Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel's nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy enemy state second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliation for enemy state conventional first-strikes would not destroy enemy state nuclear counter-retaliatory capability. From the standpoint of protecting its security and survival, this means that Israel must now take proper steps to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and the unlikelihood of (c) and (d).


Israeli nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions of enemy unconventional aggressions could both lead to nuclear exchanges. This would depend, in part, upon the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons, and on the willingness of controlling enemy leaders to risk Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations. In any event, the likelihood of nuclear exchanges would be greatest where potential Arab and/or Iranian aggressors had been allowed to deploy ever-larger numbers of unconventional weapons without eliciting any appropriate Israeli and/or American preemptions. For the moment, following the July 2015 Vienna Pact, it would appear that such an allowance has already been made, at least in particular reference to Iran.


It is also reasonable to assume that because of the inherent limitations of all legal agreements in this realm, Sunni Egypt and/or Sunni Saudi Arabia may soon seek the bomb for acquiring nuclear "balance" with Shiite Iran. These limitations, moreover, are also more widely generic (not just confined to the Middle East), as already expressed insightfully by the seventeenth-century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. Observed Hobbes, in his great classic, Leviathan: "Covenants without the sword are but words."


Should enemy nuclear deployments be allowed to take place, Israel could effectively forfeit the non-nuclear preemption option. Here, its only alternatives to a nuclear preemption could then be a no-longer viable conventional preemption, or, instead, to wait quietly to be attacked itself. It follows that the risks of an Israeli nuclear preemption, of nuclear exchanges with an enemy state, and of enemy nuclear first-strikes could all conceivably be reduced by still-timely Israeli and/or American non-nuclear preemptions. More than likely, these preemptions would be directed at presumptively critical military-industrial targets, and/or at hostile regimes. The latter very problematic option could include dedicated elimination of enemy leadership elites, and/or of certain enemy scientists.


Always, the objective of Israel’s nuclear forces and doctrine must be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. In the final analysis, as everyone should finally understand, nuclear war resembles any other incurable disease. The only true remedies must lie in prevention.


Looking at the increasingly chaotic Middle East, where several Sunni Arab states and Shiite Iran (however much they might loathe each other) remain commonly sworn to "root out the Zionist cancer," the only durable remedy for Israel is to continually ensure the country's nuclear monopoly. Ideally, merely to survive, Israel should remain the only regional atomic power. But should this core objective, at some point, no longer be viable, Israel’s strategic planners should then do whatever is necessary to substantially upgrade the country’s nuclear deterrence posture.


This "upgrade" could include additional sea-basing of selected nuclear forces (especially if Palestinian statehood had created new threats to Israel's land-based retaliatory, or second-strike, nuclear forces), and also taking a variety of aptly measured steps away from "deliberate nuclear ambiguity." The principal point of any such steps would be not to reaffirm the obvious (merely, that Israel has nuclear weapons), but rather to ensure that these weapons are recognizably survivable, usable, and "penetration capable," that is, able to get through any deployed enemy systems of ballistic missile defense.[3]

Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. "If you want a nuclear peace, prepare for nuclear war."

Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is the author of many books and articles dealing with nuclear deterrence and nuclear war. His latest articles on these subjects have been published in the Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Parameters: The Journal of the U.S. Army War College;International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; the Brown Journal of World Affairs; The Atlantic; and Oxford University Press. Professor Beres' forthcoming book is titled Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). He was born in Zürich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II.


[1] On Israeli submarine-basing measures, see: Louis René Beres and Admiral (USN/ret.) Leon "Bud" Edney, "Israel's Nuclear Strategy: A Larger Role for Submarine Basing," The Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2014; and Professor Beres and Admiral Edney, "A Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent for Israel," Washington Times, September 5, 2014. Admiral Edney was a NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic.


[2] See Summary of the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 1996, International Court of Justice (8 July 1996).


[3] For Israel, most likely using German-supplied Dolphin-class diesel boats, the optimal path to survivable nuclear retaliatory forces at sea will likely involve nuclear cruise missiles deployed on board SSGs. The core issue for nuclear weapons survivability at sea relates to the stealth of the platform, and also the resilience of the national command authority that must ultimately control its pertinent decisions. In principle, at least, Israeli nuclear cruise missiles could achieve levels of penetration reliability very similar to U.S.-deployed nuclear ballistic missiles. Of course, because precise future developments in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) are problematic to predict, enemy missile defenses, going forward, could sometime prove less effective against one particular form of retaliatory missile, than another. Any such development would depend, inter alia, upon the specific capabilities each relevant form would possess, concerning primarily stealth, speed, decoys, and maneuverability.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wdam.com/story/31308993/us-military-taking-n-korean-nuclear-threat-seriously

US military taking N Korean nuclear threat seriously

Published: Wednesday, February 24th 2016, 7:19 pm PST
Updated: Wednesday, February 24th 2016, 7:32 pm PST

(CNN) - Top U.S. commanders in Asia warn North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is working aggressively to develop a nuclear weapon that can reach the U.S., and he would use it, if he had to, to save his regime.

With tensions on the Korean Peninsula at their highest level in decades, they say they fear the erratic young dictator will spark an escalation that could lead to an armed conflict akin to World War II.

It's a nightmare scenario: North Korea launches a nuclear tipped missile at the West Coast of the United States. And it's being taken seriously by the Pentagon.

A top U.S. military commander warning Kim would be willing to order the ultimate attack if he felt threatened and had the capability.

"Do you think if he had a missile that could reach the United States he would actually use it against us?” asked Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, at a hearing in the nation’s capital.

"I think that his stated purpose is to protect his regime and if he thought his regime were challenged, he states that he would use WMD (weapons of mass destruction),” said Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander U.S. Forces in Korea.

A dire prediction on the heels of North Korea's long-range missile launch earlier this month and what is believed to have been a test of components related to a hydrogen bomb in January.

The head of U.S. forces in the Pacific echoing the concern. "They pose a real threat to Hawaii and to the West Coast of the mainland United States and soon to the, to the, to the entire U.S.,” said Adm. Harry Harris, commander U.S. Pacific Command.

With tensions along the DMZ at an all-time high, the American military is flexing its muscle, flying stealth fighter jets over South Korea.

And deploying the 'Thaad' missile defense system, which is capable of shooting down long-range rockets.

The display of military might has Kim vowing revenge, and warning the U.S. and South Korea not to go ahead with their annual joint military drill next month.

The Pentagon focuses on deterring what top intelligence officials call the world's greatest nuclear threat.

But military commanders are bracing for the worst: Armed, ground combat with North Korea, the likes of which the U.S. hasn't seen since World War II.

"Given the size of the forces and the weaponry involved, this would be more akin to the Korean War and World War II, very complex, probably high casualty,” Scaparrotti said.


Copyright 2016 CNN. All rights reserved.

Additional Links:

UN diplomats: US and China agree on new NKorea sanctions
US-China tensions persist despite progress on NKorea
Tensions rising on DMZ, North Korean officer tells AP

 

[vestige]

A small country, indeed, a microstate less than half the size of Lake Michigan, remains surrounded by several openly-genocidal enemy states - some of which plainly seek assorted weapons of mass destruction. Israel also remains beset by irredentist insurgent forces, both Sunni and Shiite, that are more-or-less sustained by these conspicuously adversarial states. Further, several of these relentlessly hostile groups are comprised largely of "Holy Warriors" or shahids, Islamist fighters still seeking a glorious martyrdom via terror or, perhaps in the future, mega-terror.

So far... Israel has shown remarkable restraint under these horrendous conditions.

I personally would love to see Trump enter the White House and proceed to arm Israel to the extent that the Israeli countryside resembled the back of a porcupine.

Additionally, their armor hardstands would look like piss ant colonies from satellite images.

Naval prowess can be addressed by some shellback.

You have to take care of solid allies to have them take care of you.

After the damage done by this inept b*st*rd the Liberals installed in the White House years ago we will ourselves have difficulty undertaking such an endeavor.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/24/editorial-obamas-fearful-pursuit-of-peace/?

Home\Opinion\Editorials

The fearful pursuit of ‘peace’

President Obama continues to shred America’s reputation as a reliable ally

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - - Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Barack Obama is to nuclear deals as Charlie Brown to Lucy, with her elusive football snatched away to leave Charlie on his back. After missing badly last summer in his high-stakes game with Iran, the president has been played again, this time by the repressive North Korean regime armed with nuclear weapons. His Nobel Peace Prize was won with the rigged luck of the amateur. Actually making peace takes the skill of a pro with his eyes wide open.

The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice; a peace treaty was never signed and North Korea has been dangling the possibility of such an agreement before the United States since, though it’s not at all clear why Washington should be eager for one. After Mr. Obama led “world powers” to sign the sucker’s deal with the Islamic regime in Tehran, the North Koreans clamored for a deal like it. Mr. Obama obliged by dropping the longstanding condition that normalized relations must be preceded by North Korean denuclearization. The United States simply asks that the government in Pyongyang talk about nuclear weapons. Supreme leader Kim Jong-un, understanding that talk is cheap, answered with another nuclear-weapons test.

Mr. Obama wants to settle America’s outstanding disputes with its historic enemies — at least in his own mind — before he waves goodbye from the White House South Lawn next January. Making deals with rogue nations with nuclear ambitions, specifically Iran and North Korea, are at the top of his to-do list before he flies off to Havana to parley with the infamous Castro brothers.

Whatever else he may be, this president is not a poker player. In his haste to deal, he has shed doubt on America’s reputation as a reliable peacekeeper. American allies are feeling vulnerable and some are undertaking nuclear programs of their own. Among them are Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and both South Korea and Japan are considering building their own nuclear arsenals as a back-up against continued American fecklessness.

The world has become more, not less, dangerous on Mr. Obama’s watch. Iran manipulated the president into signing an agreement that purports to curtail its nuclear arsenal in the short term while expanding a nuclear threat in the future. North Korea toys with the president over armistice talks, and fires a nuclear test practically in his face and launches a satellite into earth orbit as a cover for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of sending a nuclear warhead to North America.

The American public, however, is clear-eyed about the nations that pose the threats. A Gallup poll this week finds that 16 percent of Americans put North Korea at the top of a list of perceived enemies, with Russia second at 15 percent, followed by Iran at 14 percent and China at 12 percent.

None of this skepticism dissuades Mr. Obama from his rounds trying to process peace. Steps to resolve enmity with rogues is laudable, but doing it foolishly has the look of capitulation. It’s worth a chuckle when Charlie Brown falls for Lucy’s trickery in the funny papers, but it’s not funny when a president falls for it every time.

 

[vestige]

The fearful pursuit of ‘peace’

President Obama continues to shred America’s reputation as a reliable ally

Timely post considering the opinion expressed above it.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/23/us-mulls-selling-weapons-vietnam-stave-china-milit/

U.S. mulls selling weapons to Vietnam to stave off Chinese ‘hegemony’

By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Comments 2

The top admiral in charge of U.S. military operations in Asia says Washington should drop its remaining restrictions on weapons sales to Vietnam in order to better defend against China’s military buildup in the South China Sea.

Navy Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the head of U.S. Pacific Command, told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that they’d have to believe the world was flat to think Beijing is not trying to militarily dominate the region.

“I believe China seeks hegemony in East Asia — simple as that,” he said in remarks likely to further inflame tensions that have risen between Washington and Beijing during recent days.

The two powers have traded rhetorical barbs since last week when reports emerged that Beijing had deployed anti-aircraft missiles on the Paracels Islands chain. The chain has been under Chinese control for decades but is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

On Monday, the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington think-tank, reported that China has also built new radar facilities in the Spratly Islands, another disputed chain further south than the Paracels in the South China Sea.

Some analysts have argued that Beijing is engaged in a yearslong strategy known as “salami-slicing” — effectively conducting a steady stream of small military actions that when compiled over time will amount to a major reorganization of the military power structure in the region.

During his testimony on Tuesday, Adm. Harris confirmed the new CSIS report about Chinese radar facilities. But he also asserted that the overall situation presents a “strategic opportunity” for the U.S. to beef up its alliances with nations on China’s periphery, including Vietnam, whose leaders have increasingly called on Washington to take a more aggressive posture.

The Obama administration has pushed for warmer relations with Hanoi during recent years. In 2014, the administration announced the partial lifting of the U.S. ban on weapons sales to Vietnam. The move was historic in that it came some 40 years after the end of the Vietnam war.

However, some restrictions were left in place. Administration officials have said only the sale of lethal maritime security and surveillance capabilities would be allowed and, to date, no weapons sales to Vietnam have been reported.

Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam veteran, who has long pushed for reconciliation between Washington and Hanoi despite the communist government in power in there, brought the weapons issue up during Tuesday’s hearing.

“Do you think it’s important for us to lift restrictions on the sale of weapons to Vietnam?” the Arizona Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman asked.

“Yes, senator, I believe that we should improve our relationship with Vietnam,” Adm. Harris responded. “I think it’s a great strategic opportunity for us, and I think the Vietnamese people would welcome the opportunity to work closer with us as their security partner of choice.”

 

[vestige]

“Yes, senator, I believe that we should improve our relationship with Vietnam,” Adm. Harris responded. “I think it’s a great strategic opportunity for us, and I think the Vietnamese people would welcome the opportunity to work closer with us as their security partner of choice.”

That didn't work out so well when I was young....

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/24/inside-the-ring-us-mulls-pledge-on-disputed-philip/

Inside The Ring

U.S. mulls pledge on disputed Philippines outpost

By Bill Gertz - - Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Comments 4

The U.S. military should consider offering new security guarantees to the Philippines similar to those promised to Japan in response to any military attacks by China in maritime disputes in Asia, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific said this week.

The idea behind the new guarantee would be to dissuade China from attacking a Philippines military outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands chain.

The declaration would be similar to U.S. military guarantees provided to Japan in the East China Sea over the past several years. Senior Obama administration officials have made several high-profile statements in recent years declaring that any attack on Japan’s Senkaku Islands, which China also claims as its territory, would prompt a U.S. military response.

The new declaration could be made under the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and would signal a shift in the current U.S. policy of declaring Washington does not take sides in the South China Sea maritime disputes.

The issue came up Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing led by Sen. John McCain with Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

Mr. McCain said he is concerned China may seek to expel the Philippines from Second Thomas Shoal, or build new infrastructure on nearby Scarborough Shoal. “Given this, we should consider clarifying how the United States will respond to an attack on the territory or armed forces of the Philippines under the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty,” the Arizona Republican said.

Asked about providing a direct U.S. military guarantee to the Philippines to protect the Spratlys, Adm. Harris said: “I think we should consider it, and we should have a discussion of it in the policy arena.”

“Our obligations under the treaty with the Philippines [are] pretty clear, and whether we extend that to Second Thomas Shoal, which we don’t hold is Philippine sovereign territory because we don’t have a position on sovereignty, we should have that discussion, I believe,” Adm. Harris said.

About a dozen Philippines Marines currently are stationed on Second Thomas Shoal aboard a 330-foot-long, U.S.-built tank landing ship that was deliberately run aground there in 1999 to counter Chinese activities on nearby Mischief Reef.

China has demanded the vessel be removed and threatened unspecified “further measures” against the ship after supplies were sent to the ship last summer.

Sen. Tom Cotton said he supports the idea of a new guarantee. “I think deterrence works best when deterrence is clear, as with relationships that we have with NATO and Taiwan,” the Arkansas Republican said.

Philippines is a leading challenger to Chinese encroachment in the Spratlys and fears China’s growing militarization on the newly created islands that are located fewer than 100 miles from the Philippines’ main islands.

Manila recently gave final approval for an enhanced defense cooperation agreement with the Obama administration that will pave the way for a much larger U.S. military presence and greater military cooperation.

Defense officials said the new guarantee has been discussed internally at Pacific Command and the Pentagon. A U.S. declaration that an attack on any Philippines’ facilities in the Spratlys will prompt a U.S. military response would be designed to deter growing Chinese military aggression in the region.

The idea was outlined publicly in a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in August.

The report recommends that Washington consider “offering an explicit guarantee that it will respond under the framework of the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty to an attack on Philippine troops, ships or planes in disputed waters or features in the South China Sea.”

The guarantee does not need to be the same as the one for Japan’s Senkakus. But it would include a public clarification that disputed waters and features in the South China Sea fall under the defense treaty’s Article V. The provision commits the United States to respond to any attack on Philippines armed forces, vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.

The declaration would give “an enormous boost” to U.S. ties with Manila and eliminate doubts in the Philippines on whether the United States is a reliable ally, the report said.

Scaparrotti headed to Europe

Defense officials tell Inside the Ring that Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, is the leading candidate to become the NATO alliance’s next Supreme Allied Commander Europe and U.S. European Command chief.

Gen. Scaparrotti has received wide praise within military and government circles for his role in maintaining U.S. forces’ readiness on the volatile Korean Peninsula at a time of sharp budget cutbacks under President Obama.

The four-star Army general would replace the current NATO commander, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who has been EUCOM commander and NATO chief since May 2013 and is expected to retire this year.

The likely replacement for Gen. Scaparrotti is said to be Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, currently head of U.S. Army Forces Pacific.

The military’s Korean command by tradition usually is held by an Army general, while the larger U.S. Pacific Command above the command normally is led by an admiral.

The shift of Gen. Scaparrotti from Asia to Europe is said to be based in part on growing Pentagon concerns over Russian military actions and threats. A general who specializes in ground warfare is viewed as better suited to dealing with the Russian threats to NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

A spokesman for Gen. Scaparrotti declined to comment.

Meanwhile, President Obama, as part of his drive for greater diversity and social engineering in the military, is said to be planning to name the first woman commander to lead one of the military’s nine unified commands before he ends his presidency.

Defense sources familiar with internal discussions say the next head of the U.S. Northern Command, based in Colorado, is likely to be one of two senior female officers.

The two candidates for the NORTHCOM post are Adm. Michelle Howard, currently vice chief of naval operations, and Air Force Gen. Lori J. Robinson, currently commander of Pacific Air Forces and air component commander at the Hawaii-based Pacific Command. Gen. Robinson also has been mentioned as the next Air Force chief of staff.

Current NORTHCOM commander Adm. Bill Gortney has been in charge of the Colorado Springs command, which oversees North American defenses and homeland military defense, since December 2014. Most unified command chiefs hold the position for two to four years.

Cyberwarriors deployed to Pacific

Both the U.S. Pacific Command and its subunit, U.S. Forces Korea, have created special cyberwarfare units to wage digital attacks during future conflicts.

Adm. Harry Harris, Pacific Command chief, told a Senate hearing Tuesday that a new CyberPAC is the command’s cyberwarfare group.

“Cyber is the new frontier. It’s the new threat vector. We are expending enormous resources across the department in getting after cyber,” Adm. Harris told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

CyberPAC’s mission is to conduct cyberattacks in wartime and to protect what the Pentagon calls the DoDIN, for Department of Defense Information Network, the global information system that can be used for everything from shooting down missiles to delivering supplies. The DoDIN is known to be a major target of adversaries like China and Russia, who plan to disrupt or destroy vital U.S. communications and other network links in a conflict.

A Russian intelligence-gathering ship was tracked as it sought to map out the DoDIN in the Atlantic last year.

“I have assigned to me at PACOM cybermission teams, and we’re learning how to use those teams,” Adm. Harris said. “Again, this is new, but it’s a very real threat not only to U.S. military forces but to America in general, in my opinion.”

Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, also has a new cyberwarfare team attached to his command to deal with the growing threat of North Korean cyberattacks.

“This is a domain that we’re learning that’s very challenging and in particular in the [Korean] Peninsula, because North Korea also has a very deliberate goal of increasing their cybercapability,” Gen. Scaparrotti said, citing the hack on Sony, as well as cyberattacks on South Korea’s banking and media sectors in 2013.

“It’s a great concern to me,” he said.

— Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter at @BillGertz.

 

[Housecarl]

“Yes, senator, I believe that we should improve our relationship with Vietnam,” Adm. Harris responded. “I think it’s a great strategic opportunity for us, and I think the Vietnamese people would welcome the opportunity to work closer with us as their security partner of choice.”

That didn't work out so well when I was young....

Yeah, selling arms to a Russian client state that still has a communist government with a bunch of human rights issues....Where's the Monty Python theme music.....

 

[naegling62]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/23/us-mulls-selling-weapons-vietnam-stave-china-milit/

U.S. mulls selling weapons to Vietnam to stave off Chinese ‘hegemony’

By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Comments 2

The top admiral in charge of U.S. military operations in Asia says Washington should drop its remaining restrictions on weapons sales to Vietnam in order to better defend against China’s military buildup in the South China Sea.

Navy Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the head of U.S. Pacific Command, told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that they’d have to believe the world was flat to think Beijing is not trying to militarily dominate the region.

“I believe China seeks hegemony in East Asia — simple as that,” he said in remarks likely to further inflame tensions that have risen between Washington and Beijing during recent days.

The two powers have traded rhetorical barbs since last week when reports emerged that Beijing had deployed anti-aircraft missiles on the Paracels Islands chain. The chain has been under Chinese control for decades but is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

On Monday, the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington think-tank, reported that China has also built new radar facilities in the Spratly Islands, another disputed chain further south than the Paracels in the South China Sea.

Some analysts have argued that Beijing is engaged in a yearslong strategy known as “salami-slicing” — effectively conducting a steady stream of small military actions that when compiled over time will amount to a major reorganization of the military power structure in the region.

During his testimony on Tuesday, Adm. Harris confirmed the new CSIS report about Chinese radar facilities. But he also asserted that the overall situation presents a “strategic opportunity” for the U.S. to beef up its alliances with nations on China’s periphery, including Vietnam, whose leaders have increasingly called on Washington to take a more aggressive posture.

The Obama administration has pushed for warmer relations with Hanoi during recent years. In 2014, the administration announced the partial lifting of the U.S. ban on weapons sales to Vietnam. The move was historic in that it came some 40 years after the end of the Vietnam war.

However, some restrictions were left in place. Administration officials have said only the sale of lethal maritime security and surveillance capabilities would be allowed and, to date, no weapons sales to Vietnam have been reported.

Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam veteran, who has long pushed for reconciliation between Washington and Hanoi despite the communist government in power in there, brought the weapons issue up during Tuesday’s hearing.

“Do you think it’s important for us to lift restrictions on the sale of weapons to Vietnam?” the Arizona Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman asked.

“Yes, senator, I believe that we should improve our relationship with Vietnam,” Adm. Harris responded. “I think it’s a great strategic opportunity for us, and I think the Vietnamese people would welcome the opportunity to work closer with us as their security partner of choice.”

Hmm...all you Vietnam vets may have wasted your time, limbs and lives for nothing. Our whole argument for the war against Communism was a joke. Let's see, it's your duty to fight the communist scourge in Vietnam so we can send your jobs to the biggest communist country on the planet (China). Then we need to sell the communists you gave your all to fight against (Vietnam), weapons to keep our biggest economic ally, communist China, in check.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._taipei_dprk_rockets_over_okinawa_109077.html

February 24, 2016

Connecting The Dots: SU-35s Over Taipei, DPRK Rockets Over Okinawa

By Peter Navarro

“The question at hand is simple and it's profound. Can China rise peacefully? My answer is no.”

Professor John Mearsheimer


If we are not yet at war with a rapidly militarizing China, we may soon be. This is an obvious conclusion to draw if we simply connect the flood of news dots now coming out of Asia.

Just consider this sampling of last week’s news clips from two of my favorite China compilations (besides RealClearDefense!) – Jim Fanell’s Red Star Rising blog and the Caucus Brief from U.S. Congressman Randy Forbes’ office.

Video

In Fanell, we read some old news – that China is buying a squadron of advanced Sukhoi SU-35 Russian fighter jets. The new analytical twist was Vassily Kashin’s observation that: “Even a single regiment of Su-35s may be enough to affect the balance of power in Taiwan. [The fighter’s] Irbis radar systems can detect airborne targets at a range of up to 400 kilometers, which will allow Beijing to monitor Taiwanese airspace from Mainland China.”

A report in the People’s Daily also claimed China’s Phased Array Radar is now able to detect America’s premier jet fighter, the F-22 – a key chess piece to ensure air dominance in a theater like the Taiwan Strait. A related report featured in the Caucus Brief quoted Pacific Air Forces Chief General Lori Robins as warning that China’s military is closing the technology gap with the U.S. How many times do we have to hear that before we believe it?

This last week, we also were besieged by a dirge of articles about China’s surface-to-air missiles in the South China Sea. In one, Beijing threatened to introduce even more missiles and planes into the theater after the U.S. sent a destroyer within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in a second “freedom of navigation patrol.”

Even more shrilly, a research fellow at Peking University urged Chinese forces to “fire warning shots or even deliberately collide with American warships that sail close to the Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea” in order to “teach the US a lesson” while a high-ranking Chinese military officer called for dredging deep-water ports and building more airstrips in the Spratlys and Paracels.

In their sobering counterpoint, Michael Green, Bonnie Glaser, and Zack Cooper waxed eloquent in the Caucus Brief on two strategic implications of Chinese SAMs running amuck in the Parcel Islands:

“First, it shows that Chinese leaders are militarizing South China Sea features despite efforts to convince Beijing to do otherwise. Second, recent history suggests that Chinese developments on disputed features in the Spratly Islands often mimic those on Woody Island, indicating that similar steps may be ahead in the more strategically important Spratlys.”

In last week’s news flow, Fanell’s blog also reminded us of China’s “growing empire of ports” – Colombo in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh, and various ports in Myanmar. The eternal question – the answer to which will likely come too late for effective U.S. strategic action – is whether this “string of pearls” is merely a boost to peaceful trade or part of the globalization of China’s navy.

On the hacking front, we likewise saw a report from the Internet security firm CrowdStrike. This two-alarm fire indicated a significant expansion of Beijing’s state-sponsored cyber espionage in the wake of a U.S.-China “truce” on the cyberwar front. The Christian Science Monitor described Beijing’s two-faced brazenness in this way:

“In the first three weeks after the US and China agreed to halt economic espionage, CrowdStrike in October detected several Chinese attempts to steal intellectual property and trade secrets from American companies in the technology and pharmaceutical sectors – including those by Deep Panda, a hacking group that has been linked with the military.”

In this same week, Bill Gertz broke yet more news. This time of Beijing’s new plan to further build up its cyber warfare capabilities in response to the buildup of U.S. cyber forces – which of course are being built up because of relentless Chinese attacks. Can anybody spell “escalatory spiral”?

And how about connecting this news dot: The Naval Academy is once again teaching its officers to “sail by the stars” in the event of cyberattacks. Could that have anything to do with the growing skills and capabilities of “usual suspects” China and Russia?

As for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – that’s the Kleptocracy in the North, not the real democracy to the South – China’s unruly vassal fired a rocket that buzzed Okinawa; and the satellite it carried wound up passing over Levi's Stadium in San Francisco shortly after Super Bowl 50 ended. Message received.

The North Korean army also fired an artillery round into the sea near a disputed maritime border with South Korea while a report in the Korea Herald warned of impending DPRK terror attacks on South Korea.

Children in diapers have more discipline then Kim Jong-un, and Beijing’s old men at Zhongnanhai Communist Party headquarters are certainly no “Tiger Moms” when it comes to reigning in their wild DPRK child. What may be most escalatory is Beijing’s propaganda response to the possible deployment of America’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) in South Korea.

In particular, in the Global Times – the tabloid version of the People’s Daily – we got this spin: “The push to deploy the THAAD missile system and other strategic military tools into this region is not only aimed at deterring North Korea but at the bigger target, China.”

Incredibly, we also learned from Fanell’s blog that North Korea has restarted its plutonium reactor and expanded a nuclear enrichment facility capability of generating weapons grade fissile material. These proliferations will not only help replenish Kim Jong-un’s basket of nuclear tricks. The facilities will generate fissile material that will likely spread to other rogue nations and possibly terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.

In another news items – and in a tip of the cap to its “Three Warfares” doctrine – Beijing coercively urged the Aussie government not to buy a new batch of Soryu submarines from Japan but instead opt for the German or French alternatives. Beijing’s gambit here is obvious: it seeks to deny the Japanese defense industry the ability to benefit from the economies of scale that would come from increased submarine production – while bolstering Japan’s own defense capabilities.

In fact, this decision should be a “no brainer” for the Aussies. The Japanese Soryu submarine is undeniably “best in class,” and the purchase would help strengthen the Asian alliance. That’s why the US is supporting that choice – but oh so meekly in the style the Obama administration has led us to become accustomed to.

And speaking of America’s lame duck, the Obama Administration last week also announced its opposition to a bill by Senator Ted Cruz to rename the area in front of the Chinese embassy “1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza” in honor of the Nobel Laureate now rotting in a Chinese prison. Don’t want to ruffle any authoritarian feathers, now do we?

And how about this on the Chinese political front from Fanell’s blog: It highlighted an opinion piece warning of a back to a Maoist future of one-man rule by the emerging strong man President Xi Jinping. The military catch here is that Xi may be pushing to place China’s nuclear forces on alert, meaning that the “weapons would be ready to fire on command.” Explained author Michael Sheridan: “That would be a shift of position for a nation that affirms it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict.”

All of this news was reported in just a single week – and this is just a partial list compiled by two blogs. Moreover, in terms of the flow of news, it was a “normal” week in the Asia-Pacific – as any careful read of Real Clear Defense on a regular basis would confirm.

Here’s the broader point and very big problem: When looked at in its totality, the news gestalt coming out of Asia paints a very clear picture of rising Chinese aggression and belligerence; a North Korea that is rapidly spinning out of control; a Goebbels’ world of spin, counter-spin, and escalatory spirals; and a steadily shifting of the balance of power in a region of the world where more than half the population lives and 70% of future economic growth will likely occur.

The underlying message should be this: We as analysts, journalists, and scholars must do a much better jobs of connecting the China news dots than we are currently doing. Otherwise, we will not fulfill our mission of informing the public, policymakers, and political leaders we purport to serve. Nor will our coverage ultimately help keep the peace.



Peter Navarro is a professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (Prometheus Books) and director of the companion Crouching Tiger documentary film series. For more information and to access film interview clips, visit www.crouchingtiger.net or see his book talk on CSPAN2.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/02/25/in_defense_of_missile_defense_109078.html

February 25, 2016

In Defense of Missile Defense

Taking the GAO Report on Missile Defense with a Grain of Salt

By Rebeccah L. Heinrichs


Skeptics of homeland ballistic missile defense will hold up the latest Government Accountability Office (GAO) report as proof positive that funding for the defensive program should be starved… again. This is especially troubling considering the latest developments in North Korea.

This month North Korea proved it has advanced its long-range missile capability by once again successfully launching, for the second consecutive time, a three-stage ballistic missile, putting a satellite into orbit- a satellite with reportedly twice the weight as the last one.

The most recent Pentagon report on North Korea’s military capabilities warns, “North Korea is committed to developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that is capable of posing a direct threat to the United States.” It also affirms previous assessments that the North Korean regime is setting out to improve the range of its missiles. It states “If successfully designed and developed, the KN08 likely would be capable of reaching much of the continental United States, assuming the missiles displayed are generally representative of missiles that will be fielded.” We have not actually seen the North Koreans successfully test an actual nuclear long-range missile due to significant challenges. Still, numerous U.S. military leaders warn North Korea is far enough along that the United States must prepare to defend against this pending capability.

It makes sense then, that the country might actually ensure its missile defense system is as good as it can possibly be, especially considering the erratic nature of the rogue regime. Instead, the Obama budget request to Congress for homeland missile defense is, curiously, $800 million less than last year’s enacted amount. This makes the timing for the most recent GAO report especially dire.

Some perspective on these GAO reports is in order. GAO is supposed to be a kind of “watchdog” over the Executive Branch on behalf of the Congress. It tracks how the various Executive Branch agencies are spending tax dollars and purports to measure competency or waste in an objective way, according to fair and balanced metrics. Unlike Congressmen, who have the sometimes fair, and I would suggest, often unfair reputation of being purely partisan, the GAO prides itself as existing outside the political realm.

It should go without saying, but, alas, it does need to be said: GAO report authors are not void of opinions about policy, politics, and programs. And unlike the Congress, they are not accountable to an electorate. In the GAO’s defense, some of the matters Congress mandates the GAO examine are nearly impossible to assess mathematically anyway, and so by requiring GAO analysts to report back on a complex, often inherently political subject, it is setting them up for failure.

To take one especially egregious example of a GAO report gone awry, in 2007, the Congress asked the GAO to take a look at the war in Iraq and assess the current state of success or failure of the Iraqi government in meeting 18 “benchmarks,” 14 of which were sanctioned by Congress less than a year before the publication of the report. The most obvious problem with this is the task itself. Depending on one’s overall opinion of the entire war effort, one might find it worth emphasizing the positive direction, progress, and cooperative efforts of the nascent Iraqi government. After all, the Iraqis were under enormous pressure to quickly form and operate a brand new government that only a few short years ago was run by a dictator. But that was not the tenor of the report. Instead, the title "Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks” splashed across the cover of the “objective and non-partisan” report for opponents of the war to denounce the Bush administration. Never mind senior military officers’ testimony, and never mind the large body of research analyses from a variety of other sources that provide other pieces of the story with varying degrees of positivity.

Reporting back on the status of a Pentagon program that has a complex past and represents a controversial strategic decision presents similar challenges. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system is currently the only missile defense system in place that is designed to intercept incoming long-range ballistic missiles headed toward the U.S. homeland. It was first deployed in 2004 after President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with the Russian Federation. It consists of large defensive missile interceptors with kill vehicles that detach from the interceptor in the exo-atmosphere and collide with an incoming missile’s warhead. This technology is called “hit-to-kill.”

When the system was first deployed, the intention of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was to continually update the system and ensure it was able to “stay ahead of the threat.” In other words, as rogue countries like Iran and North Korea improved their missiles both in number and in sophistication, the GMD system would continue to improve in discrimination and at reliably hitting incoming warheads with fewer attempts.

But some on the ideological Left have opposed the program, for fear that it might encourage adversaries to ramp up their offensive forces in an effort to defeat the system, (as if staying totally vulnerable to the missiles they already have is a more desirable status). Others opposed the program due to skepticism that the technology would ever mature to the point that the effort was worth the cost.

Regardless of the reasons for opposition, the need for the capability and the promise of GMD’s technology garnered enough support from Members of Congress and military strategists and operators to begin improving and expanding the program. In 2006, 2007, and 2008 the GMD system repeatedly proved-- and improved-- its capability by successfully intercepting test targets.

But when President Obama entered the White House, despite continued affirmation in the system’s necessity and mission from the most senior military officers, including every Northern Command Commander, he cut the approximately $2 billion (annually) GMD program in half.

Due to these cuts, the program had a spotty testing schedule and inevitably missed hitting a test warhead in three consecutive interceptor tests (although, notably, it did successfully intercept it in July 2014, bringing the record to a total of 9 of 17 successful intercepts). Implicitly admitting the cuts were a mistake, the administration agreed to a one-year plus up in funding for FY16 by adding about $700 million back to the program. The added boost enabled Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the MDA, to double the agency’s focus on GMD, address the challenges that caused previous problems, and improve its testing program. But then, the FY17 President’s budget submission shows the funding returns to levels similar to earlier Obama years. Put in context, it is hardly fair to hammer MDA for GMD’s remaining shortcomings.

But this was not the message the GAO authors intended to convey. Indeed, it seemed as though the authors wrote the report intending to scold the MDA before it had drafted a single letter. It included quotable lines like this: “MDA has demonstrated some of this capability but several other key aspects necessary to prove it can defend the U.S. homeland against the current ballistic missile threat have not been demonstrated.”

It left out the part about the Obama administration decimating the program and about how, in spite of the decimation, it has performed remarkably well, and continues to earn the confidence of the most senior military officers.

The GAO report concluded that “MDA concurred with many of our recommendations and has taken some actions to address them but several of our recommendations have not been implemented. We continue to believe these recommendations are valid and should be fully implemented.”

Well, here’s a recommendation that I hereby declare “valid:” take GAO’s report with a big grain of salt. At best it presents a tiny part of the story, at worst, it represents the opinions of analysts who are unsupportive of GMD’s mission.

GAO reports can present helpful information, but remember, real government accountability does not come from unelected “immune from opinion” individuals in a bureaucratic agency. It comes from the Constitution’s entire system of checks and balances between co-equal branches of government, and Congress has the power of the purse. And if Congress really wants to ensure the U.S. homeland defense system stays ahead of the North Korean threat, it better override the President’s indefensible spending cuts to GMD.


Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...a-may-be-a-smart-business-partner-for-israel/

The Great Debate

Why Russia may be a smart business partner for Israel

By Josh Cohen
February 23, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously lamented that Moses “took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil.” That all changed, though, in 2009, when a massive offshore natural gas field named Tamar was discovered. The following year, an even larger field named Leviathan was also discovered in Israeli waters, and another large find was just announced in January. Israel’s fields include more than 32 trillion cubic feet of gas — enough to supply the Israeli economy for 150 years, assuming the gas can actually be brought to market with the help of a suitable partner.

Since Israel possesses far more gas than it needs, Israeli leaders face an enviable dilemma: Where to export this bounty? Both economic factors — particularly the challenge of financing the development of Leviathan — as well as the Middle East’s geopolitical complexities make the choice trickier than it sounds.

Israeli commentators discuss three main partner options — Egypt, Greece and Turkey — each possessing their own upsides and downsides. Yet one less-obvious option Israel’s leaders should consider is Russia. Bringing in the Russian energy giant Gazprom would be controversial — and certainly not a standalone solution — but would arguably enhance Israel’s security and strengthen its broader geopolitical position.

Russia wants in on Israel’s gas windfall. Russia relies on Gazprom both to fund its budget and provide Moscow geopolitical leverage, and the Russians would surely prefer that Israel’s gas does not compete with Gazprom’s supply. This is particularly true vis-à-vis Gazprom’s core European market, which Moscow naturally remains keen to protect.

Consequently, over the past four years Russia has made several attempts to enter Israel’s gas market. In 2012 Gazprom bid for a 30 percent share of Leviathan, but lost out to Australia’s Woodside Petroleum. The following year Gazprom signed a deal to market liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Israel’s Tamar field, although that was nixed by Israel’s Ministry of Energy, which prioritized using Tamar to supply Israel’s domestic market. More recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin again pitched Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on allowing Gazprom to participate in developing Leviathan.

It’s easy to understand Russia’s interest in Israel’s gas, but what’s in it for Israel? For starters, under Putin’s leadership, the Israeli-Russian relationship remains strong. Given ongoing tension between Israel and the Obama administration, it’s not the worst thing for Israel to continue expanding its relationships with other major powers such as Russia, China or India.

Second, the Russian military remains firmly ensconced on Israel’s northern border, and Putin is committed to expanding Moscow’s political and military influence in the Middle East. Israel frets about Russia’s presence on its border, and one high-ranking Israeli military officer noted “Now we all have to contend with the Russian bear, which appears to be here to stay with boots and everything else on the ground, in the air and at sea.”

Israeli leaders, though, embrace a realpolitik view regarding their national security, and Netanyahu prefers to handle Israel’s security concerns regarding Russia’s presence in Syria — especially Israel’s “red line” on the transfer of advanced arms to Hezbollah by Iran or Syria — via military coordination and a search for common interests. In that context, inviting Russian participation in Israel’s gas industry would offer the Israelis tremendous leverage in pushing Putin to prioritize core Israeli security interests in the region.

Finally — and perhaps most intriguingly — allowing Gazprom a role in Israel’s energy industry could play a direct role in securing the safety and security of Israel’s offshore gas exploration infrastructure. Israel believes Hezbollah could target this infrastructure in a future conflict — something that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah already threatened — and the Israeli Navy recently purchased ships specifically to protect offshore drilling platforms. Fifty percent of Israeli power generation comes via gas from the Tamar field — and only a single pipeline connects Tamar to Israel — presenting a huge risk to Israel’s energy security.

Inviting the Russians in, though, could solve this problem in a stroke. Hezbollah remains a key piece of Russia’s “Shi’ite alliance,” an axis that greatly benefits from Russia’s airpower over Syria. This provides Moscow tremendous leverage over Hezbollah, which allows Moscow — if it so chooses — to instruct Nasrallah not to touch Israeli gas infrastructure. Indeed, if Russian citizens were located on the offshore drilling rigs, it is almost inconceivable that Hezbollah — or even Iran — would attack these installations and risk Russian civilian casualties.

Putin clearly understands this. While lobbying Netanyahu to allow Gazprom to become a partner in Leviathan, Putin promised to stop extremist groups from attacking any Israeli gas infrastructure because “no one messes with us” — a statement one Israeli energy expert described as a “Russian attempt to say that beyond the economic interest we can add another positive consideration.” This is an offer Israel should consider. In effect, Israel would offer Putin a trade: We’ll help you achieve one of your critical objectives — ensuring Gazprom participates in any sale of Israeli gas to Europe — in exchange for Russia’s acknowledgement of Israel’s special security interest’s vis-à-vis Hezbollah and Iran, plus guaranteed security for Israel’s Mediterranean gas infrastructure.

To be clear, a Russian-Israeli gas partnership is far from perfect and includes a number of pitfalls. For one thing, the United States would surely not welcome seeing Gazprom involved in Israel’s gas bonanza. Tensions between Washington and Moscow continue to exist, and both the United States and European Union seek to lessen Gazprom’s influence rather than increase it. The Israelis could therefore surely expect intense American pressure not to work with Gazprom.

Russia may not be the world’s best business partner, either. Putin uses Gazprom, long hobbled by corruption, as a weapon against his opponents, denying access to gas supplies as a form of political punishment. The Israeli government would need to ensure Gazprom does not use this type of tactic in Israel. Moreover, Israel would also surely want to avoid its gas bonanza becoming a prop in any of the Kremlin’s geopolitical games.

Finally, Russian involvement is far from a complete solution to Israel’s gas export conundrum. Short of Moscow’s commitment to spending tens of billions of dollars developing and transporting gas from Leviathan — something Russia, with its sinking economy, can hardly afford — Israel still needs to clinch a deal with a large customer such as Turkey to maximize its gas windfall. However, while Gazprom might be only one small piece of an Israeli gas game plan, the Russian security guarantees it brings to the table would promote core Israeli national security interests.

Israel’s political and military strategists should therefore consider fitting Russia into its gas puzzle.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...n-its-favorite-new-weapon-anti-ship-missiles/

The Great Debate

One area where the Pentagon is playing catchup with Russia and China

By David Axe
February 23, 2016
Comments 3

The Pentagon’s $583-billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2017, which the Defense Department released on Feb. 9, cuts back on new fighter jets, helicopters, warships and armored vehicles.

Military leaders say the reductions in equipment, valued at billions of dollars, would help pay for the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. They would also cover U.S. troop deployments in the Western Pacific and Europe to counter an increasingly aggressive China and Russia, respectively.

But on examination it’s clear that the Pentagon is not cutting back on one particular type of weapon — indeed, it’s doubling down with hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment.

Anti-ship missiles. All of a sudden, it seems, destroying enemy warships is a top Pentagon priority.

In stark contrast to cuts in other weapons, the U.S. Navy proposes to buy no fewer than three different kinds of new munitions specifically designed to sink enemy warships at great distance. The new anti-ship weapons in the budget are stealthier, fly farther and faster and pack more destructive power than the Navy’s current arsenal.

The Navy’s crash acquisition of hundreds of long-range, ship-killing missiles reflects the sailing branch’s determination to outgun what Robert Work, the deputy defense secretary, described as “a resurgent Russia and a rising China” on the high seas.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Work’s boss, laid out the argument. “We face competitors who are challenging us in the open ocean,” Carter said, “and we need to balance investment in those capabilities — advanced capabilities — in a way that we haven’t had to do for quite a while.”

During the Cold War, the Navy excelled at sinking enemy ships. It possessed two of the world’s best anti-ship missiles — the Harpoon and the Tomahawk.

The 13-foot, 1,500-pound Harpoon, launched by ship, submarine or airplane, can travel roughly 70 miles at wave-top height and slam into enemy vessels near their vulnerable waterlines.

The far larger Tomahawk — 20 feet long and weighing 3,000 pounds — can be fired from a ship or submarine. It can fly 600 miles before entering a circular search pattern, scanning for and then diving into its target.

With these two weapons, the U.S. Navy was prepared to engage Soviet warships if the Cold War had ever turned hot. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. fleet shifted its attention to land. It launched missile and air raids on Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya and Syria, among others.

“The U.S. has been neglecting its anti-ship capabilities since at least the early 1990s,” Eric Wertheim, an independent naval analyst and author of Combat Fleets of the World, told Reuters. Confident that at-sea combat was history, the Navy decommissioned all its Tomahawk anti-ship missiles and removed Harpoons from many ships and planes.

The result: a gap in American naval power. U.S. ships were adept at hitting targets on land but on the high seas they were all but powerless. When the Chinese navy began its build-up in the early 2000s, and, a few years later, Russia began restoring its own neglected fleet, both countries exploited the American gap. Moscow and Beijing equipped their ships, subs and planes with a wide range of highly capable anti-ship missiles with greater range and destructive power than the aging Harpoon.

Russia’s 27-foot-long Klub missile, for example, can travel as far as 400 miles and, during the final moments of its flight, can boost to supersonic speeds to maximize the damage it inflicts on its target. China’s YJ-18 is roughly equivalent to the Klub and might even be an illicit copy of the Russian munition.

Russian and Chinese ships armed with the far-reaching Klubs or YJ-18s can shoot at American warships before the U.S. vessels within range can fire their older Harpoons, which puts the Americans at a serious disadvantage.

This imbalance persisted for years. Then in 2011, President Barack Obama announced that his administration would “pivot” to the Pacific and dedicate more military, diplomatic and economic resources to the region as a counterweight to China. In 2014, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, a de facto announcement of Russia’s return to great-power status.

The U.S. Navy realized it could no longer assume it would never have to wage a war at sea. It also realized that it lacked the weaponry to do so. A few old, short-range Harpoons would no longer suffice.

Working under the radar over several years, military engineers and their civilian defense-industry counterparts devised a wide range of new anti-ship weapons. The 2017 budget proposal pays for the first significant production of the three new munitions.

The Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, is a sea-attack version of a cruise missile that Lockheed Martin developed for striking land targets. The 14-foot, 2,100-pound missile, launched by a ship or plane, has a range in excess of 200 miles, according to the military. And it’s stealthy: Its angular shape makes it hard for enemy ships to detect before it strikes.

The Pentagon’s 2017 budget proposal includes $30 million for the first 10 copies of this long-range missile.

The Navy also began experimenting with a new anti-ship version of the latest iteration of the Tomahawk, which is still the sailing branch’s primary weapon for attacking stationary land targets. In a January 2015 test off the California coastline, Navy and Raytheon engineers added a more sensitive tracker/seeker — one capable of following/honing in on a moving target — to a Tomahawk and launched it at a ship.

The test was an explosive success. Work, the deputy Defense secretary, called it a “game-changer.” “It’s a 1,000-mile anti-ship cruise missile,” he said in February 2015. “It can be used by practically our entire surface and submarine fleet.” The 2017 budget proposal buys another 100 Tomahawks for $187 million. Work said the Navy would modify all Tomahawks in its arsenal — hundreds or even thousands of missiles — with the new anti-ship seeker.

Then there’s the new SM-6. Twenty-one feet long and weighing 3,300 pounds, the Raytheon-manufactured missile is the Navy’s best missile interceptor. That is to say, it’s a missile designed to hit other missiles to protect ships, ground forces and even cities from attack.

In a surprise move that the Pentagon revealed as part of its budget proposal, the Navy and Raytheon tweaked the SM-6 software so that the missile can also target ships. The missile’s high speed — several times the speed of sound — gives it tremendous destructive power. The military hasn’t specified the SM-6’s range — how far it can fly — when it’s used as an anti-ship weapon, but it’s likely hundreds of miles. In any case, the budget includes $501 million to acquire 125 SM-6s.

Together, the three new weapons should begin to tilt the at-sea balance of power back in the U.S. Navy’s favor. “Of course, it would have been optimal if these issues had been addressed earlier,” Wertheim said, but “other priorities always seemed to win out.”

Now, however, the time for a new class of U.S. anti-ship weapons has finally arrived. If done right, they will help Washington blow the competition out of the water before they even know what’s coming.

_

3 Comments

Feb 23, 2016
3:58 pm UTC

This is a lie: “During the Cold War, the Navy excelled at sinking enemy ships.” We never sank any “enemy ships” during the cold war.

Posted by Bookfan | Report as abusive

Feb 23, 2016
12:10 am UTC

Don’t see these 3 new ASM is any better than KH-31 or China’s YJ-18 or their variants. They are largely on par. So that last paragraph is purely for morale booster and hope for the best.

Posted by prastagus | Report as abusive

Feb 23, 2016
1:06 am UTC

The lithium ion batteries in a smartphone or Tesla seem next gen and disruptive. Australia is about to release a major defense plan for at least 12 new submarines, for long range patrol and defense, and counterstrike. Likely as a joint venture with Japan, for their technology, and development and production expertise. Diesel-electric for lower cost than nuclear, but quiet and fast. Battery powered torpedoes could now be much longer range and smarter and avoid radar and antimissile.
No good for land targets, but missile cruisers and carriers and transports keep out.

Posted by Neurochuck | Report as abusive

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-up-against-russian-aggression-a-1078662.html

Opinion: Standing Up To Putin's Aggression

Russia is only as strong as the West is weak. Europe and the United States have no answer to Putin's aggressive approach in Syria and elsewhere because they themselves lack a clear strategy.

By Mathieu von Rohr
February 22, 2016 – 09:42 PM

So what is it that Russia wants? It wants to expand its influence in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and it wants to once again be on equal footing with the United States on the international stage. As recent events have shown, President Vladimir Putin is willing to use almost all means necessary in the pursuit of this aim. Russia doesn't even shy away from conducting airstrikes on residential areas in Syria, bombing hospitals in the process. It is likewise forcing the Sunni population to take flight, thereby increasing the flow of refugees and destabilizing Europe and Turkey. It has become obvious that Russia is not a partner to the West, not even, as some had hoped, in fighting the Islamic State.

On the contrary, Russia has become a destructive actor.

Hardly anything did more to irritate Russian leadership than the statement made by US President Barack Obama in 2014 that the country was no more than a "regional power." Ever since, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been working tenaciously to prove the opposite. When Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev speaks of a "New Cold War," as he did a week ago at the Munich Security Conference, it is representative of precisely this claim to importance. For there to be a New Cold War, there must be two opposing parties of equal strength.

It is surely no coincidence that Medvedev uttered his words in Germany, where fears of a confrontation with Russia run especially deep. With his choice of words, the prime minister is pursuing the same goal as the Russian fighter planes that are shadowing German Tornado reconnaissance jets over Syria or operating near the air space of NATO member states. They are gestures aimed at intimidating the West against trying to counter Russian aspirations to power.

Economically Insignificant

But today's Russia is not the Soviet Union. The country may have beefed up its military in recent years, but economically it remains relatively insignificant. Sanctions and the low oil price have thrown the country back even further. The fact that we are nevertheless being forced to reckon with Russia is solely the product of the determination and strategic savvy of the Russian leadership -- and the failure of the West. Ultimately, Russia is only as strong as the West is weak. Europe and the United States have no answer to Putin's aggressive approach because they themselves have no clear strategy. They are incapable of even agreeing on common goals.

Just take Syria. Two years ago, the US refrained from establishing a no-fly zone in the northern part of the country or providing massive support to those moderate rebels who were fighting against both Syrian President Bashar Assad and Islamic State. Doing so would have been perhaps the most effective measure in preventing the mass flight we are seeing now.

Russia, on the other hand, has a very clear aim: It wants to keep the mass-murderer Assad in office and strengthen his regime. It's a goal that Moscow is pursuing with few scruples.

The West, for its part, is now out of cards to play to apply pressure on Putin, and we will instead have to resign ourselves to the fact that Syria will remain a failed state, under Assad's leadership. Ukraine, which enthusiastically turned to the West two years ago, is also on the verge of being lost, with the corrupt elite and the war in the east making life difficult for reformers. There, too, Russia has a clear goal -- that of destabilizing the country -- and it is deploying weapons and soldiers to realize that aim. The West, on the other hand, lacks the resolve needed to back Ukraine.

Credible Pressure Needed

The Kremlin's threats, the strategic defeats against Putin and the fear of an armed conflict are now strengthening those in the West who wish to settle with Russia, no matter how high the price. Some German politicians would like to see sanctions against Russia lifted without getting anything in return. The latest trip by German politician Horst Seehofer -- governor of economic powerhouse Bavaria and the most vocal detractor of Merkel's refugee policies despite his Christian Social Union party being allied with her Christian Democrats -- also created the false impression that everything can be resolved by just exchanging more dialogue with Russia and voicing less criticism, ignoring the fact that a lack of talk is not the problem. With his visit and his cozying up to Putin, he allowed himself to become a cog in the wheel of Russia's propaganda machine.

The lessons from Syria and Ukraine are that the opposite is true: All attempts to move Russia through rapprochement and flattery have failed. The only thing that will impress Putin and move him to cooperate is credible pressure from the West. In Ukraine, he hadn't expected the harsh sanctions imposed by the West -- and it was only through those punitive measures that further Russian aggression could be stopped. Such clarity, however, has been missing when it comes to Syria. On the contrary, some Western politicians, unfortunately, even welcomed Putin's intervention.

This lesson is important. The West has underestimated Russia and must expect further foreign policy adventures from Moscow, be it in Eastern Europe or in its already tense relationship with Turkey. Putin needs these adventures in order to maintain his popularity, even though his own people are becoming poorer. If the West wants to avoid being outmaneuvered again in future conflicts, it cannot allow itself to be intimidated -- and neither can it strive for appeasement. The West must counter these attacks on the world order in a united way.


Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Putin vs. Erdogan: NATO Concerned over Possible Russia-Turkey Hostilities (02/19/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...ible-turkey-russia-hostilities-a-1078349.html
The War of Western Failures: Hopes for Syria Fall with Aleppo (02/17/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...em-of-western-failure-in-syria-a-1077140.html
Interview with Garry Kasparov: 'Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position' (11/10/2015)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/garry-kasparov-interview-putin-needs-wars-a-1061942.html
Russia's Superpower Play: Putin Bets Big on Aggressive Syria Policy (10/13/2015)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...essive-foreign-policy-in-syria-a-1057379.html
The Iranian Project: Why Assad Has Turned to Moscow for Help (10/06/2015)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...sian-protection-from-ally-iran-a-1056263.html
Fortress of Nationalism: Russia Is Losing Its Political Morals (03/31/2015)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...alism-and-political-immorality-a-1026259.html

 

[vestige]

For one thing, the United States would surely not welcome seeing Gazprom involved in Israel’s gas bonanza. Tensions between Washington and Moscow continue to exist, and both the United States and European Union seek to lessen Gazprom’s influence rather than increase it. The Israelis could therefore surely expect intense American pressure not to work with Gazprom.

Hummmm is right.

Obama hasn't done a lot to lessen tensions with Israel either....

vacuums normally don't exist long

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/2016/02/the-us-navys-real-china-challenge-an-anti-access-swarm-strike/

The US Navy’s real China challenge: An anti-access ‘swarm’ strike

By Harry Kazianis on February 25, 2016 in Asia Times News & Features, China

The United States Navy seems under siege from all sides when it comes to its inability to project power in Asia — thanks largely to the People’s Republic of China’s investment in various anti-ship weapons platforms.

Considering the challenge presented by China today, while not even factoring in the daunting nature of future threats that seem just over the horizon, US naval planners seem to have their work cut out for them.

Take for instance the most obvious example: the threat such weapons pose to America’s mighty aircraft carrier. The carrier is the very symbol of Washington’s power and influence around the world. Unfortunately, the US “flattop” seems to be under constant attack time and time again in article after article, report after report, for their inability to counter the growing threat of anti-ship weapons that can be launched from land, sea and air by Beijing.

From there, things get even worse. The mighty US Navy’s surface fleet, the protector of the global commons and trillions of dollars of international commerce, has its own problems with being unable to counter the sheer types and amounts of Chinese anti-ship weapons. While putting aside land or air-based weapons for the moment, where the challenges are certainly daunting, America’s surface fleet also suffers from a lack of firepower and range to counter Chinese naval anti-ship weapons — something it took for granted after the Cold War as no peer competitor appeared over the horizon.

‘Outsticked’ US Navy?

Beijing has taken advantage of this strategic mistake, and developed a number of naval-based anti-ship weapons with a much greater range and level of sophistication. At present, despite tremendous strides in the last few years to correct this problem, America’s surface fleet is largely out-ranged — sometimes referred to by many naval experts as “outsticked”– and in many respects simply outgunned by China on the high-seas.

And then there is the other anti-ship weapons threats we don’t talk about enough that threaten the overall US Navy in Asia. For example, China has developed over 80 Type 022 Missile Boats, sometimes also referred to as the Houbei class. While these smaller vessels — described in last year’s 2015 US Department of Defense report on China’s military as “wave-piercing catamaran missile patrol boats” — might not be as sexy or sophisticated as Beijing’s so-called anti-ship “carrier-killer” missiles, such vessels give China a unique ability to attack enemy surface combatants of many different types along the coast thanks to a large compliment of onboard anti-ship weapons.

When all of these different challenges to US carriers and surface combatants — really any US naval vessel — in Asia are combined, which is Chinese strategy all along, an interesting threat dynamic emerges.

China has the ability to launch anti-ship strikes with cruise and ballistic weapons from land, air and sea, and from ranges as far as possibly 2,500 miles away. US Carrier Strike Groups, in a crisis, would need to fight their way into a contested theatre of operations in the South China Sea, in and around Taiwan or around the East China Sea.

Beijing would be able to launch massive swarms of different types of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) missile platforms at US naval assets. With China sporting many more missiles of various types than US defense officials could defend against, Beijing would seemingly be able to deliver multiple mission kills against US naval vessels.

In fact, some researchers, like Toshi Yoshihara from the U.S. Naval War College, note that China may not need to produce mission kills against a surface fleet to complicate US strategy. He explains that Chinese missiles, especially advanced anti-ship ballistic missiles, “only need to reach the fleet’s defensive envelope for the Aegis [America’s naval based missile defense system] to engage the incoming threats, thus forcing the defender to expend valuable ammunition that cannot be easily resupplied at sea under combat conditions.”

Even if Beijing has not perfected the accuracy of its various A2/AD missile platforms, Beijing “could compel the Aegis to exhaust its weapons inventory, leaving it defenseless against further PLA actions.” One could see a strategy that “used in conjunction with conventional ballistic missile strikes against US bases and other land targets across Asia — strikes that would elicit more intercept attempts — ASBM raids could deprive the United States and its allies of their staying power in a sea fight.” Even if Washington decided to press ahead, and was willing to take on tremendous casualties, Beijing could deploy its sizeable surface assets, like the Type 022 mentioned above — knowing they could outrange the US fleet at present.

While the above is certainly a nightmare scenario, it is not a new tactic in naval warfare or revolutionary. Such A2/AD-styled, missile-based, swarm-style strikes were considered by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Iran is thinking along the same lines today as it develops its own A2/AD-based strategies and weapons platforms along with possibly Russia as Moscow works to modernize its military.

US naval commanders must work to develop strategies and tactics to negate this growing threat — a challenge that only looms larger everyday as China continues to push out its A2/AD envelope into the South China Sea and beyond.

Harry Kazianis (@grecianformula) is a non-resident Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest , a non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute as well as a fellow for National Security affairs at the Potomac Foundation. He is the former Executive Editor of The National Interest and former Editor-In-Chief of The Diplomat. The views expressed are his own.

 

[Housecarl]

Well here's a name from the past......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/2016/02/tinian-island-americas-backup-in-case-of-war-with-china/

Tinian Island: America’s backup in war with China

By AT Editor on February 25, 2016 in Asia Times News & Features, China
(From the National Interest)
By Robert Beckhusen

The United States can no longer count on its Pacific air bases to be safe from missile attack during a war with China. On the contrary, a 2015 paper from the influential RAND Corporation noted that in the worst case scenario, “larger and accurate attacks sustained over time against a less hardened posture could be devastating, causing large losses of aircraft and prolonged airfield closures.”

Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, due to its relative proximity, would be hardest hit. To up the stakes, China in September 2015 publicly revealed its DF-26 ballistic missile, which can strike Andersen Air Force Base in Guam—nearly 3,000 miles away—from the Chinese mainland. Andersen and Kadena are among the U.S. military’s largest and most important overseas bases.

Enter Tinian. The lush, small island near Guam is emerging as one of the Air Force’s backup landing bases. On February 10, the flying branch announced that it selected Tinian as a divert airfield “in the event access to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, or other western Pacific locations is limited or denied.”

In the Pentagon’s 2017 budget request, it asked for $9 million to buy 17.5 acres of land “in support of divert activities and exercise initiatives,” the Saipan Tribune reported. In peacetime, the expanded Tinian airfield will host “up to 12 tanker aircraft and associated support personnel for divert operations,” according to the Air Force.

Tinian is now a sleepy place.

During World War II, the 4th and 2nd Marine Divisions captured the island, which later based the B-29 Superfortresses Enola Gay and Bockscar which took off from Tinian’s North Field and dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An arsenal during the war, most of its airstrips are now abandoned and unused. The island’s other former air base, West Field, is a small, neglected international airport.

The Air Force first wanted Saipan for its airfield. Very close to Tinian, Saipan has 15 times the population, a larger airport and a harbor. But this proposal met opposition from local activists due to the effect on “coral, potable water, local transportation and socioeconomic factors on surrounding communities,” Stars and Stripes reported.

The opposition even included the pro-business Saipan Chamber of Commerce, which worried that Tinian’s rusty airport would miss out on the flood of Pentagon spending. Saipan’s airport is also overcrowded—with locals not happy about the prospect of hundreds of airmen flying in for military exercises lasting up to eight weeks ever year.

In a way, it’s a return to the past. The United States dispersed air bases to varying degrees—and in different parts of the world—during the Cold War, but as the threat of a Soviet missile attack evaporated and post-Persian Gulf War budget cuts hit hard in the 1990s, the trend shifted toward larger mega-bases that operate on economies of scale.

But dispersed bases are more survivable, RAND’s Alan Vick noted in his 2015 paper:

“Dispersing aircraft across many bases creates redundancy in operating surfaces and facilities. This enhances basic safety of flight by providing bases for weather or inflight-emergency diverts. It also increases the number of airfields that adversary forces must monitor and can greatly complicate their targeting problem (in part by raising the prospect that friendly forces might move among several bases).

“At the least, dispersal (because it increases the ratio of runways to aircraft) forces an attacker to devote considerably more resources to runway attacks than would be the case for a concentrated force. It also greatly increases construction and operating costs to spread aircraft across many major bases. To mitigate these costs, dispersal bases tend to have more-modest facilities and, at times, might be nothing more than airstrips.”

Robert Beckhusen is the managing editor of War is Boring, where this article first appeared.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...ext-red-october-russias-lethal-new-subs-15307

The Hunt for the Next Red October: Russia's Lethal New Subs

Dave Majumdar
February 24, 2016
Comments 277

Though the Project 705 Lira-class attack submarine—better known in the West as the Alfa-class—is perhaps most famous for starring as the main antagonist in the movie The Hunt for Red October, the ill-fated boats have left an outsized legacy independent of the silver screen. That’s because Moscow’s future submarine fleet will be far more automated than current designs—continuing a trend that was pioneered in the late 1970s by the Soviet Union’s Project 705 Lira-class attack boats.

While the Alfa-class boats were in many ways an unsuccessful experiment, the fast titanium-hulled submarines pioneered many innovative technologies. Their strong hulls gave them tremendous speed—close to 45 knots according to some sources—and they could dive to impressive depths. Indeed, the Liras had a never-exceed depth of around 3,900ft, but operationally rarely exceeded 2,000ft. Moreover, the submarines were relatively tiny—displacing only 3,200-tons submerged.

Other than the titanium hull—which was a huge innovation for the time—the Lira-class boats featured two other innovations. One was a very compact liquid-metal cooled reactor, which could generate enormous amounts of power. In all, two types of lead-bismuth cooled fast reactors were used on the Lira—the OK-550 and BM-40. Both reactors produced about 155-MW of power giving the boat more than 40,000shp. The result was blistering speed and acceleration—but at the price of being extremely noisy (though the boats had a pair of 100kW electrical propellers for low speed tactical maneuvering).

The other major innovation introduced by the Lira-class was automation. Because the Soviet wanted a small, fast interceptor submarine, a small crew-size was mandatory. The Soviets did manage to reduce the crew-size to about thirty-two officers, but no enlisted crew. Ultimately, however, the Lira-class was a technological bridge too far—safety was a major concern. “We spent twenty years using the Lira (Project 705) subs during the 1970s through 1990s. . . . It was a very promising project but it was eventually shelved due to the abundance of new technological ideas simultaneously implemented in one boat,” Lenta.ru quoted an unnamed defense source, according to state-owned Sputnik.

But while the Lira was a failure, the technology from those boats paved the way for the later Sierra (Project 945) and Akula-classes (Project 971Shchuka-B), and ultimately the Project-885 Yasen-class (Severodvinsk-class submarine). Indeed, compared to U.S. Navy submarines, the Russian submarines have a very small crew-size. The Yasen-class only carries ninety crew members while future Russian nuclear submarines such the new “interceptor” and “SSGN” designs that are currently in the works will have fewer still. “The crew of such a sub could be down to 50 or 55 people and could ultimately be reduced to between 30 and 40,” the source told Lenta.ru.

Of course, given Russia’s economic conditions, it is hard to say when those new submarines will materialize—if they ever do.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-brink-when-russia-would-use-tactical-nukes-nato-15281

The Buzz

On the Brink: When Russia Would Use Tactical Nukes on NATO

Dave Majumdar
February 22, 2016
Comments 197

While a recent RAND Corporation study concluded that Russia could overrun NATO’s member states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the Baltics within sixty hours, the war games did not simulate the use of nuclear weapons. If, however, a war were to breakout between NATO and Russia, nuclear weapons would certainly come into play—especially if the conflict were going poorly for Moscow.

Unlike the Soviet Union, which had a stated “no first use” policy, modern Russia explicitly rejected that pledge in 1993. In fact, as Moscow’s conventional forces continued to atrophy during the economic and social meltdown of the 1990s, Russia developed a doctrine called de-escalation in 2000. Simply put, if Russia were faced with a large-scale attack that could defeat its conventional forces, Moscow might resort to nuclear weapons. In 2010, Russia revised the doctrine somewhat as its conventional forces started to recover from the aftermath of the Soviet collapse—the current version states Moscow would use nuclear weapons in situations “that would put in danger the very existence of the state.”

While the RAND study shows that Russia would be able to take the Baltics fairly easily, the war game didn’t explore what would happen in the event of a NATO counter offensive. The RAND study simply states:

“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad: a bloody counteroffensive, fraught with escalatory risk, to liberate the Baltics; to escalate itself, as it threatened to do to avert defeat during the Cold War; or to concede at least temporary defeat, with uncertain but predictably disastrous consequences for the Alliance and, not incidentally, the people of the Baltics.”

A NATO counter-offensive would be bloody and fraught with escalatory risk—but it’s one of the probable outcomes of a Russian invasion. In that eventuality, Russian conventional forces—of which only a portion are well trained and well equipped—would likely be severely damaged or even destroyed. Moreover, if NATO forces hit targets inside Russia or crossed over into Russian territory, Moscow might conclude that there is a danger to the existence of the state. After all, Moscow has expressed concerns in the past that regime change by the West is an all too real danger. In that situation, Russia might counter advancing NATO forces with its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.

The Russian tactical nuclear arsenal is not nearly as large as the Soviet arsenal had once been, but concrete numbers are hard to come by. The Soviet Union was thought to have possessed between 15,000 and 25,000 tactical nuclear weapons of all types ranging from suitcase-sized containers and nuclear mines to short-range aircraft delivered missiles, nuclear gravity bombs and artillery shells—as well as short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile warheads.

While Moscow has been slowly eliminating its non-strategic arsenal since the end of the Cold War, Russia many still have as many as 4,000 tactical nuclear weapons, according to the Congressional Research Service. However, other analyses suggest that Russia has as few as 2,000 operational tactical nuclear weapons.

A more recent analysis by Royal United Service Institute’s Igor Sutyagin suggests that Russia has a maximum of 1,040 non-strategic nuclear weapons. Of those about 128-210 warheads are assigned to the Russian ground forces. The Russian navy has about 330 tactical nuclear weapons, while the Russian air force has 334 non-strategic weapons. Meanwhile, Russian air defense forces have a further sixty-eight to 166 tactical nuclear weapons mounted on various surface-to-air missiles.

Another report, this one by the Federation of American Scientists, suggests that Russia doesn’t have any deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons. “All are declared to be in central storage. Several thousand retired non-strategic warheads are awaiting dismantlement,” reads the FAS’s Status of World Nuclear Forces.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for the National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

 

[OldArcher]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/2016/02/the-us-navys-real-china-challenge-an-anti-access-swarm-strike/

The US Navy’s real China challenge: An anti-access ‘swarm’ strike

By Harry Kazianis on February 25, 2016 in Asia Times News & Features, China

The United States Navy seems under siege from all sides when it comes to its inability to project power in Asia — thanks largely to the People’s Republic of China’s investment in various anti-ship weapons platforms.

Considering the challenge presented by China today, while not even factoring in the daunting nature of future threats that seem just over the horizon, US naval planners seem to have their work cut out for them.

Take for instance the most obvious example: the threat such weapons pose to America’s mighty aircraft carrier. The carrier is the very symbol of Washington’s power and influence around the world. Unfortunately, the US “flattop” seems to be under constant attack time and time again in article after article, report after report, for their inability to counter the growing threat of anti-ship weapons that can be launched from land, sea and air by Beijing.

From there, things get even worse. The mighty US Navy’s surface fleet, the protector of the global commons and trillions of dollars of international commerce, has its own problems with being unable to counter the sheer types and amounts of Chinese anti-ship weapons. While putting aside land or air-based weapons for the moment, where the challenges are certainly daunting, America’s surface fleet also suffers from a lack of firepower and range to counter Chinese naval anti-ship weapons — something it took for granted after the Cold War as no peer competitor appeared over the horizon.

‘Outsticked’ US Navy?

Beijing has taken advantage of this strategic mistake, and developed a number of naval-based anti-ship weapons with a much greater range and level of sophistication. At present, despite tremendous strides in the last few years to correct this problem, America’s surface fleet is largely out-ranged — sometimes referred to by many naval experts as “outsticked”– and in many respects simply outgunned by China on the high-seas.

And then there is the other anti-ship weapons threats we don’t talk about enough that threaten the overall US Navy in Asia. For example, China has developed over 80 Type 022 Missile Boats, sometimes also referred to as the Houbei class. While these smaller vessels — described in last year’s 2015 US Department of Defense report on China’s military as “wave-piercing catamaran missile patrol boats” — might not be as sexy or sophisticated as Beijing’s so-called anti-ship “carrier-killer” missiles, such vessels give China a unique ability to attack enemy surface combatants of many different types along the coast thanks to a large compliment of onboard anti-ship weapons.

When all of these different challenges to US carriers and surface combatants — really any US naval vessel — in Asia are combined, which is Chinese strategy all along, an interesting threat dynamic emerges.

China has the ability to launch anti-ship strikes with cruise and ballistic weapons from land, air and sea, and from ranges as far as possibly 2,500 miles away. US Carrier Strike Groups, in a crisis, would need to fight their way into a contested theatre of operations in the South China Sea, in and around Taiwan or around the East China Sea.

Beijing would be able to launch massive swarms of different types of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) missile platforms at US naval assets. With China sporting many more missiles of various types than US defense officials could defend against, Beijing would seemingly be able to deliver multiple mission kills against US naval vessels.

In fact, some researchers, like Toshi Yoshihara from the U.S. Naval War College, note that China may not need to produce mission kills against a surface fleet to complicate US strategy. He explains that Chinese missiles, especially advanced anti-ship ballistic missiles, “only need to reach the fleet’s defensive envelope for the Aegis [America’s naval based missile defense system] to engage the incoming threats, thus forcing the defender to expend valuable ammunition that cannot be easily resupplied at sea under combat conditions.”

Even if Beijing has not perfected the accuracy of its various A2/AD missile platforms, Beijing “could compel the Aegis to exhaust its weapons inventory, leaving it defenseless against further PLA actions.” One could see a strategy that “used in conjunction with conventional ballistic missile strikes against US bases and other land targets across Asia — strikes that would elicit more intercept attempts — ASBM raids could deprive the United States and its allies of their staying power in a sea fight.” Even if Washington decided to press ahead, and was willing to take on tremendous casualties, Beijing could deploy its sizeable surface assets, like the Type 022 mentioned above — knowing they could outrange the US fleet at present.

While the above is certainly a nightmare scenario, it is not a new tactic in naval warfare or revolutionary. Such A2/AD-styled, missile-based, swarm-style strikes were considered by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Iran is thinking along the same lines today as it develops its own A2/AD-based strategies and weapons platforms along with possibly Russia as Moscow works to modernize its military.

US naval commanders must work to develop strategies and tactics to negate this growing threat — a challenge that only looms larger everyday as China continues to push out its A2/AD envelope into the South China Sea and beyond.

Harry Kazianis (@grecianformula) is a non-resident Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest , a non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute as well as a fellow for National Security affairs at the Potomac Foundation. He is the former Executive Editor of The National Interest and former Editor-In-Chief of The Diplomat. The views expressed are his own.

When I got back from the war, in 1971, I was put on staff duty. One of the things we were worried about, was the Russians swarming our "bird farms," aka CBGs. From all directions, all altitudes, with a TOT type attack... In those days, it was TU-16's, armed with early, nuclear armed, cruise missiles. Additionally, Soviet submarines would also converge along the line of advance, using a modification of WWII wolf pack tactics. Again, torpedoes, also nuclear tipped, would endeavor to stress/overwhelm ASW assets... Very effective, these attacks would have been, should they have come to pass... Fortunately, they did not. Today, technology has advanced an extraordinary amount, but the tactics seem to be similar, and just as unfortunately, likely to be successful. As Sam Clemons said, "History may not repeat itself, but it sure knows the tune..."

May God help us, as our leaders are no better prepared now, than they were then...

Maranatha

OA

PS China has invested immense financial, technical, and industrial assets, to build up a near blue water navy. The PLAN cannot, yet, go toe to toe beyond their nascent missile shield. Once that option is available to them, things will get very, very, unstable...

 

[Housecarl]

When I got back from the war, in 1971, I was put on staff duty. One of the things we were worried about, was the Russians swarming our "bird farms," aka CBGs. From all directions, all altitudes, with a TOT type attack... In those days, it was TU-16's, armed with early, nuclear armed, cruise missiles. Very effective, should it have come to pass... Fortunately, it did not. Today, technology has advanced an extraordinary amount, but the tactics seem to be similar, and just as unfortunately, likely to be successful. As Sam Clemons said, "History may not repeat itself, but it sure knows the tune..."

May God help us, as our leaders are no better prepared now, than they were then...

Maranatha

OA

Yeah, the earlier version would be a Kriegsmarine U-boat "wolf pack" working in conjunction with some Condors on chewing up a convoy or a MTB/PT Boat squadron working over a coastal convoy.

Considering how many cruise missile "shots" each carrying unit (vessel, aircraft or shore battery) can now carry due to their shrunken size and increased performance even without the nukes it would be ugly in the extreme.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...asses-deep-sea-tests/articleshow/51098650.cms

India’s first nuclear submarine INS Arihant ready for operations, passes deep sea tests

By Manu Pubby, ET Bureau | Feb 23, 2016, 06.50 AM IST

NEW DELHI: India's first nuclear armed submarine is now ready for full fledged operations, having passed several deep sea diving drills as well as weapons launch tests over the past five months and a formal induction into the naval fleet is only a political call away.

Multiple officials closely associated with the project to operationalize the INS Arihant nuclear missile submarine have confirmed to ET that the indigenously-built boat is now fully-operational and over the past few months, several weapon tests have taken place in secrecy that have proven the capabilities of the vessel.

The Arihant, which is the first of five nuclear missile submarines or SSBNs planned for induction, has also undergone deep sea dives off Vishakhapatnam where it was build. A Russian diving support ship —the RFS Epron that arrived on October 1 — has been accompanying the Arihant on its deep sea dives and launch tests, officials told ET.

The Epron — a Prut class submarine rescue vessel — was also the Russian representation for the recently concluded International Fleet Review (IFR) in Vishakhapatnam. India does not currently possess a submarine rescue vessel of this class - a vital requirement during weapon firing tests where all possibilities need to be catered for. The Arihant incidentally did nottake part in the IFR even though it was ready due to security concerns. The presence of 24 foreign warships, equipped with sensors and equipment that could pick up vital electronic intelligence being the main deterrent.

The Navy has managed to keep under wraps several weapon launch tests from the Arihant over the past five months. The submarine is to be equipped with K 15 (or BO-5) shortrange missiles with a range of over 700 km and the K 4 ballistic missile with a range of 3,500 km. "It has passed all tests and in many things has surpassed our expectations.

Technically the submarine can now be commissioned at any time," a senior official said. Sources told ETthat the commissioning date could be as early as next month if the Modi government desires. A communication facility to interact with the submarine has already been commissioned into the Navy.

At present, work is already in progress on two more Arihant class submarines at the Ship Building Center (SBC) in Vishakhapatnam which will be larger and more advanced than the first boat. The navy is also accelerating work on INS Varsha - a new strategic naval base with underground pens on the Eastern Coast near Kakinada - where the nuclear assets would be based.

The Navy's Submarine Design Bureau is also presently working on a new class of nuclear powered attack submarines (SSNs) that it hopes to induct within the next 15 years. The plan is to build at least six SSNs in India, with financial sanction given last year for the project that could cost upwards of Rs 90,000 crore. At present, the only nuclear powered platform in service is the INS Chakra, a Akula class SSN on lease from Russia.

 

[Housecarl]

Well they've been busy.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-militants-idUSKCN0VZ0J3

World | Fri Feb 26, 2016 1:18am EST
Related: World

Philippine army kills 42 Islamist militants in battles in south

MANILA

Philippine security forces killed as many as 42 Muslim rebels claiming links with Islamic State and captured their stronghold during five days of fighting in the mountains of a southern island, an army spokesman said on Friday.

Three soldiers were killed and 11 wounded when the forces seized the bastion of an affiliate of Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian network of Islamist militants, in the province of Lanao del Sur.
"Our troops were able to seize a stronghold of the terrorists on Thursday night," the spokesman, Major Filemon Tan, told reporters by telephone from the southern island of Mindanao, estimating that about 42 militants had been killed.

"We are still pursuing the rebels, using armored assets."

Tan said the army was shelling rebel positions with 105-mm howitzers on Friday, while air force planes dropped bombs and helicopters fired rockets near the town of Butig, a base of the country's largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
.
But the MILF stayed away from the skirmishes and helped about 8,000 people displaced from their homes when the fighting began on Feb. 20, the military said.

The Philippines signed a peace deal with the MILF in March 2014, ending 45 years of conflict that killed more than 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and stunted growth in the poor but resource-rich south.

Army and police officials believe some Muslim rebel factions, including the small but violent Abu Sayyaf group, have pledged allegiance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, but say they have found no evidence to support this.

Elsewhere in Mindanao, soldiers were also chasing the Abu Sayyaf group, which is holding captive several foreigners, including a Japanese, a Dutch national, two Canadians and a Norwegian.
(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-talks-idUSKCN0VZ0NZ

World | Fri Feb 26, 2016 2:12am EST
Related: World

Syria peace talks may restart March 7 in Geneva: Russian official

MOSCOW

International talks to resolve the Syria crisis may restart in Geneva on March 7, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity on Friday.


(Reporting by Denis Dyomkin; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)