WAR 02-24-2024-to-03-01-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

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Hummmm..........

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G7 leaders admonish Russia for ‘irresponsible nuclear rhetoric’ on second anniversary of Ukraine war

The Group of Seven (G7) leaders reprimanded Russia Saturday for its use of “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” on the second anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Russia’s irr…

thehill.com

INTERNATIONAL

G7 leaders admonish Russia for ‘irresponsible nuclear rhetoric’ on second anniversary of Ukraine war

BY FILIP TIMOTIJA - 02/24/24 4:58 PM ET

The Group of Seven (G7) leaders reprimanded Russia Saturday for its use of “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” on the second anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, its posture of strategic intimidation and its undermining of arms control regimes are unacceptable,” the intergovernmental political and economic forum leaders said Saturday in a statement, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Threats by Russia of nuclear weapon use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in the context of its war of aggression against Ukraine are inadmissible,” the group added.

The leaders also reiterated their full support for Ukraine and vowed to impose more sanctions on Russia, targeting companies and individuals who help the Russian military acquire weapons or aid the Kremlin with production.

Their rebuke comes just a day after President Biden announced more than 500 new sanctions targeting Russia, anyone connected to Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment or death and the country’s financial sector and defense industrial base.

“We will continue to apply significant pressure on Russian revenues from energy and other commodities,” the group — comprised of leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. — said the statement. “We will continue to take steps to tighten compliance and enforcement of the oil price cap.”

But as the G7 leaders reaffirmed their commitment to Zelensky, the country’s military base is running dry on ammunition to carry out their defense against Russia.

In the early months of Russia’s invasion, supplying Ukraine with military and financial aid had bipartisan support on Congress. But now, on the two-year anniversary of the war, the chambers are stuck in gridlock.

The last time Washington provided significant military aid was in December.

House Republicans have argued that any chance for foreign aid to pass through the lower chamber would have include funding to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Republicans, however, blocked a bipartisan border package earlier this month.

In a second attempt to move Ukraine funding, the Senate passed a separate bill — but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has refused to bring it to a vote on the House floor, giving Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military needed time to regain momentum.

A new bill coupling Ukraine and the border was introduced last week, but no progress has been made thus far on it.

Ukraine lost the eastern city of Avdiivka this week after Kyiv’s military had to retreat. Zelensky has argued extensively that the delay of aid is making life “extremely difficult” for Ukrainian troops.

Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

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www.nytimes.com

DEALBOOK NEWSLETTER

The Cost of Nuclear War in Space

Putting a weapon into orbit is not just a military threat. It’s also a risk to the billions of dollars pouring into the space economy.

By Ephrat Livni and Vivienne Walt
Feb. 24, 2024Updated 1:25 p.m. ET

Just before the Russian-Ukrainian war reached its two-year milestone today, U.S. intelligence agencies warned that Russia might aim a nuclear weapon at an unusual target: not any place on Earth, but satellites orbiting in space.

Putting a weapon into orbit is not just a military threat. It’s also a risk to the space economy — and the one on the ground. There is a little-known but fast-growing industry that insures satellites, but it doesn’t provide insurance against nuclear arms.

What’s at stake: hundreds of billions (and probably trillions) of dollars when including the services that rely on satellites, according to David Wade, an underwriter at the Atrium Space Insurance Consortium, which insures satellites for Lloyd’s.

Of more than 8,000 satellites in orbit, thousands belong to private companies, according to Orbiting Now, a site that compiles real-time satellite tracking data from NASA and other sources. The Russian weapon is said to be designed to target satellites in low Earth orbit, where most commercial satellites operate.

SpaceX’s Starlink dominates the space-based internet services industry, and Amazon also has big aspirations in space. But the sharp drop in launch costs in recent years — driven largely by SpaceX — has made entry possible for many smaller players, leading to a satellite-business frenzy that prompted the Federal Communications Commission to open a Space Bureau last year.

Wade estimated the total value of all insured satellites in orbit at $25 billion. That doesn’t include the revenue they generate. The Satellite Industry Association estimated revenues for nongovernmental satellite services at $113 billion in 2022.

Investment in the space economy is increasing quickly. Space activity could total $620 billion this year, according to the most recently available estimate. That’s up from $545 billion in 2022, according to an estimate from the Space Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes space education and enterprise.

Aspirations for the space economy include mining for rare minerals and water, tourism, communications, and data transfer infrastructure. On Thursday, a lunar lander from Intuitive Machines, traveling on a SpaceX rocket, became the first private craft to land on the moon, which some are hopeful leads to mining for water that could be used to make fuel for more distant industrial missions.

A space weapon would cast a pall across other businesses, too. Industries from agriculture to tech depend on satellites, and sectors like shipping, transport, banking and supply chain management rely on GPS, which uses satellites. The threat would also have “a depressive effect” on space company valuations broadly, said Donald Moore, C.E.O. of the Space Finance Corporation and a space policy lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School.

The new threat could also put a dent in the U.S. government’s plans to rely on private players just as the Department of Defense is expected to release details of a new strategy to integrate commercial satellites in national security, noted Brian Weeden, the chief program officer for the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that works on space policy.

Some are skeptical of the risk. The precise effects would depend on unknowns about the weapon, company contingency planning and other factors. “We could still communicate,” said Henry Hertzfeld, a space policy professor at George Washington University and former chief economist at NASA. “We still have some landlines,” he added, speaking from his office phone. And he doubts that Russia will introduce this menace, as it would also endanger its space activities. Notably, it would also violate an international space treaty.

But the risk is not covered by insurance. “Exclusions for acts of war, antisatellite devices and nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination (except for radiation naturally occurring in the space environment) are typically listed in a space insurance policy,” Wade said in an email.

The U.S. space model depends heavily on commercialization, noted Russell Sawyer, a space insurance broker at Lockton in London. The government has pushed risk out onto private companies, he said, and this trend could shift if this nuclear threat really is serious: “The government would be needed.” — Ephrat Livni

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Reddit files to go public. The company is seeking a valuation of at least $5 billion, and it sees artificial intelligence as helping to turbocharge its ad-sales business and generate new licensing revenue. This week it confirmed it had signed a deal with Google that’s reportedly worth $60 million a year to help the search giant train its A.I. models..........

........................... Why Russia still has plenty of money
Even as Vladimir Putin faces new U.S. sanctions after Aleksei Navalny’s death, the Russian president emerged this week with two big corporate concessions that could strengthen his hand. Danone, the French food conglomerate, agreed to sell its Russian assets to a Putin crony, at a steep discount, while the snack maker Mondelez said it would remain in Russia.

Putin is on something of a winning streak at the two-year anniversary of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite a price cap on Russian oil exports, the International Monetary Fund predicts solid growth in Russia’s gross domestic product this year. What is more, Putin can afford to play for time as he waits to see if Donald Trump wins in November, perhaps bringing warmer relations and sanctions relief.

“I have very bad news,” Alexandra Prokopenko, a Russian economist who spent years at the Central Bank in Moscow before leaving Russia in 2022, told DealBook. “For the next 12 to 18 months, Putin definitely has the money to maintain the current level of war.”
Vivienne Walt reports for DealBook on the cards that Putin holds:

He has important friends, and is making new ones. After Europe’s ban on Russian oil, Putin found eager buyers in India and China. The supply of discounted fuel is just one way that ties between Moscow and Beijing have deepened. The Chinese have also supplied Russia with key equipment to drill for natural gas in the Arctic after Western companies cut off its access to the technology. Elsewhere, Russia is relying on a shadow fleet of tankers from friendly countries to move its oil around the world, earning billions a month, according to Bloomberg data.
Many Russian professionals who fled after the invasion are returning, having found a chilly reception abroad. Meanwhile, restricted goods like semiconductors, some U.S.-sourced, arrive relatively seamlessly via a newly constructed supply chain that threads from China through the Persian Gulf countries to Turkey. “Russia has switched to a war economy early and with significant success,” Holger Schmieding, an economist at Berenberg Bank, told DealBook.
The Russian economy has been rebuilt around war. Defense and security spending makes up about 40 percent of the country’s budget, after Putin increased Russia’s military budget this year. “Russia is hooked on military steroids,” Prokopenko said.

Pain could still set in. Russians could slowly begin to feel the war’s economic toll. “Putin has enough money for continuing this war for another year,” Sergei Guriev, a Russian economist and provost of Paris’s Sciences Po university, said in an email. “After this he will have to cut nonmilitary spending, like education and health care,” he said. “At some point it will create problems for Putin.”

What it costs the West to enforce sanctions

An $82 million mansion in London’s Hampstead Heath modeled after Versailles. Villas on the French and Italian Riviera. A $325 million superyacht, the Amadea, impounded in San Diego, and artworks galore.

The value of Russian assets, including business property, seized by the West since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine is in the billions. It’s costing Western countries millions more to manage and look after the loot.

Worse still, selling off the sum of frozen Russian assets, as some countries are calling for, could create even bigger financial and legal problems.

Some U.S. officials say it is time to sell off the assets, rather than continue the expensive upkeep. This month, they petitioned a Manhattan court for permission to sell the Amadea, which is owned by a Putin crony, Suleyman Kerimov, and costs taxpayers about $600,000 per month to clean and maintain. In Britain, the authorities have estimated over $1 million in upkeep costs for the frozen Hampstead Heath property.

Some $300 billion in frozen sovereign funds are even more of a headache. They are part of Moscow’s vast investment portfolio that Western banks and financial institutions froze after the outbreak of war. The White House has called for using the funds to rebuild Ukraine.

Some European leaders think that would be a bad idea. Italy, France and Germany worry that such a move would violate international law, harm Europe’s reputation among investors and mess with international trade.

Prokopenko, the Russian economist, said: “It could undermine trust in Europe. Gulf and Asian countries have reserves in Europe. The euro would be less favorable.”

Group of 7 leaders meet this weekend virtually to discuss how to aid Ukraine. One idea is seizing the profits from Russian assets. The payoff could be big. Last year, Euroclear, a clearinghouse in Brussels holding two-thirds of the assets, made a 4.4-billion-euro profit by reinvesting matured Russian securities.

Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

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Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine

How have Russia’s nuclear narratives evolved over the course of the war in Ukraine? To address this question and evaluate future nuclear risks, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues conducted a study on Russian nuclear signaling during the first 18 months of the war.

www.csis.org

The Long Shadow: Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine

Brief by Heather Williams, Kelsey Hartigan, Lachlan MacKenzie, and Reja Younis

Published February 23, 2024

The Issue

Russian nuclear threats have cast a long shadow over the war in Ukraine. As the conflict enters its third year, it is crucial to understand the objectives of Russia’s nuclear signaling at various stages and the effectiveness of U.S. and allied responses thus far. To explore these issues, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues recently compiled a database and released a digital report Russian nuclear narratives and their evolution during the first 18 months of the war.[1] This brief builds on that work and finds that Russian officials noticeably calibrated their nuclear signaling at key points in the war. It also concludes that the risks of nuclear use will likely rise if Russia faces significant battlefield setbacks in the future or the conflict expands in new or unexpected ways. Accordingly, Washington should work to maintain international pressure against nuclear use in Ukraine while combatting narratives that downplay or rationalize Russia’s nuclear threats.

Introduction

A nuclear shadow has loomed over the war in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022.[1] Following a large-scale nuclear exercise, Putin announced a “special military operation” as Russian troops crossed the border and threatened, “No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”[2]

Russia’s nuclear signaling—its deliberate efforts to influence foreign decisionmaking through the implicit or explicit threat of nuclear use—is part of its wider strategy to deter direct Western intervention and support for Ukraine. Moscow has used explicit threats, including mention of crossing a “red line” in September 2022 if the United States supplied longer-range missiles to Ukraine, as well as implicit threats such as frequent reference to Russia’s nuclear doctrine.[3] Russia has also used disinformation campaigns, exercises, and new nuclear force deployments to Belarus to manipulate risks and attempt to weaken Western support for Ukraine.

Russia’s nuclear rhetoric and posturing have made the risk of nuclear weapons use the highest it has been for decades and revived calls for new risk reduction efforts.[4] Amidst these rising nuclear risks, however, Russia is working to weaken the institutions and norms designed to manage those very risks. Since the February 2022 invasion, Russia has blocked consensus on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, suspended the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START0, and withdrawn its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).[5] The success or failure of Russia’s nuclear signaling in Ukraine will have wider strategic implications. In a December 2023 speech, U.S. secretary of defense Austin stated, “If we do not stand up to the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos.”[6] Indeed, other countries are likely watching and learning from how Russia is brandishing its nuclear weapons.

On the one hand, Russia’s nuclear signaling may have successfully deterred the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states from directly engaging in the war, particularly in the early stages.[7] On the other hand, NATO may have never been willing to put “boots on the ground” in Ukraine—meaning the United States and NATO were never deterred from doing something they never intended to do.[8] A more nuanced understanding of how Russia’s nuclear signaling has evolved since the February 2022 invasion, along with the impact of messaging from NATO and external actors—particularly China and India—can shed light on Russia’s reliance on nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war and beyond. Russia’s nuclear signaling, including rhetoric and actions, has evolved since the beginning of the war and is not static. Instead, officials in Moscow noticeably calibrated their nuclear messaging, ramping up their threats in the face of setbacks on the battlefield while at times showing a receptiveness to external pressures. With the war far from over, Washington, Kyiv, and NATO should expect to see continued calibration in the coming months and years.

Russia’s nuclear rhetoric and posturing have made the risk of nuclear weapons use the highest it has been for decades and revived calls for new risk reduction efforts. Amidst these rising nuclear risks, however, Russia is working to weaken the institutions and norms designed to manage those very risks.

This brief assesses the impact of Russian nuclear signaling on the war in Ukraine, the effectiveness of Western de-escalation efforts, and whether or not Putin would consider using nuclear weapons in the future. It draws on a wider CSIS study of nearly 450 public statements, policy announcements, and military developments in the first 18 months of the war.[9] The brief first provides background of the nuclear shadow leading up to the war in Ukraine, with a summary of Russian nuclear capabilities and doctrine. It then summarizes Russian nuclear activities across three phases of the conflict: February–July 2022, August–October 2022, and November 2022–July 2023, although arguably, Russian nuclear signaling began even before the invasion, such as with the nuclear exercise in February 2022. The brief concludes with findings and recommendations for Western policymakers on how to respond to Russian nuclear bullying and de-escalate crises with the potential for nuclear use.

This brief’s overarching finding is that leaders in Moscow escalated their nuclear signaling when facing battlefield setbacks, a trend that will almost certainly continue. Russia has relied on a range of signals and implicit and explicit nuclear threats in an attempt to deter NATO intervention in Ukraine and divide the alliance. As the intelligence community assessed in its 2023 annual threat assessment, “Moscow’s military forces have suffered losses during the Ukraine conflict that will require years of rebuilding.”[10] As a result, U.S. intelligence sources conclude, “Moscow will become even more reliant on nuclear, cyber, and space capabilities as it deals with the extensive damage to Russia’s ground forces.”[11] Navigating these challenges will require policymakers to assess and manage the enduring nuclear shadow looming over the war in Ukraine.

Russian Nuclear Forces and Doctrine

Nuclear weapons play a fundamental role in Russia’s deterrence strategy. The declaratory policy governing their use has gone through four iterations since the end of the Cold War. The Kremlin implemented the first changes to its nuclear policy in the 1993 military doctrine, which eliminated mention of the “no first use” policy that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union. This omission suggested that Russia could use nuclear weapons to counter significant conventional aggression, and it likely reflected the Kremlin’s concerns about Russia’s diminished conventional military power and U.S. precision strike capabilities demonstrated during the Gulf War.[12] Russia’s 2000 military doctrine—released less than a year after NATO’s intervention in Kosovo—stated that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to nuclear attacks, attacks using other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and certain types of conventional attacks on its territory.[13] Building on this policy, the 2010 military doctrine stated that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to an attack against Russia or its allies using WMDs, or in response to a large-scale conventional attack against Russia that threatens “the very existence of the state.”[14] This language went unchanged in Russia’s 2014 military doctrine.[15]

In 2020, the Kremlin published its first declassified nuclear doctrine (as opposed to military doctrine), which made explicit two additional factors that could provoke a Russian nuclear response. This document lists four scenarios for nuclear employment[16]:

Receipt of reliable data about the launch of ballistic missiles against Russia or its allies
Use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against Russia or its allies
Attacks against Russian nuclear command, control, and communications infrastructure
Aggression against Russia with conventional weapons that threatens “the very existence” of the Russian state

Numerous questions remain about the specifics of Russia’s nuclear doctrine. Of particular importance is the question of whether Putin draws a distinction between the Russian state and his own regime. Given the risks that Putin has taken in his efforts to gain political control over Ukraine, it is possible that he believes defeat would pose a threat to the “very existence” of his rule.[17] Independent of its declaratory policy, experts assess that the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons in a regional conflict to control escalation and signal resolve.[18]

Continued......

Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

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As of summer 2023, Russia had an estimated stockpile of approximately 4,489 active nuclear warheads for use on strategic and theater-range delivery systems—1,197 on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 896 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), 580 on bombers, and 1,816 on a wide range of nonstrategic systems. Only 1,674 warheads, however, are currently deployed.[19] “Deployed” warheads are mated to delivery systems and ready for immediate use. “Reserve” warheads are kept in storage, often partially disassembled.[20]

The current composition of Russia’s strategic nuclear force reflects an ongoing, decades-long modernization program that has gradually replaced Russia’s Soviet-era arsenal with more modern weapons.[21] This program has impacted each leg of the nuclear triad differently. Since the 2000s, Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces have slowly replaced the ageing SS-18, SS-19, and SS-25 ICBMs with the more modern SS-27 mod 1 and SS-27 mod 2 (both of which have silo-based and road mobile variants), as well as the SS-29 ICBM and the Avangard boost-glide vehicle.[22] The Russian navy began replacing its Delta IV ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) with new Borei Class boats in 2013, and it introduced the SS-N-32 SLBM in the same year.[23] The Russian air force deployed a new model of nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) in 2012, and it is in the process of extensively modernizing its fleet of Tu-160 strategic bombers.[24] Several additional delivery systems are currently under development, including a stealth bomber, a nuclear-powered cruise missile, and an intercontinental torpedo. According to Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, modern weaponry now comprises 95 percent of Russia’s nuclear triad.[25]

Given the risks that Putin has taken in his efforts to gain political control over Ukraine, it is possible that he believes defeat would pose a threat to the “very existence” of his rule.

The Long Shadow

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine followed several unsuccessful efforts to exert political control over the country. The current conflict traces its origins to the winter of 2013–2014. In late 2013, Putin pressured pro-Russia Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to abandon the path to partnership with the European Union in favor of a deal with the Kremlin for $15 billion in aid and cheaper energy prices.[26] Protests against Yanukovych’s decision forced him to flee the country in February 2014. Putin responded by illegally seizing Crimea (home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet) and providing military support to separatists in Donbas. Between 2015 and 2022, the frontlines in Donbas were largely static, but Ukraine’s ties to the West grew stronger, as did the Ukrainian military.[27] The Kremlin became increasingly strident in its opposition to Ukraine’s ties to NATO.[28]

In the leadup to the second invasion in February 2022, Russia made several demands of the United States and NATO[29]:

Cease NATO expansion
Seek Russian permission for NATO exercises in Eastern Europe
Withdraw NATO forces from former Warsaw Pact state
Remove U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe

For example, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned in December 2021, “We will not allow anyone to drag out our initiatives in endless discussions. If a constructive response does not follow within a reasonable time and the West continues its aggressive course, Russia will be forced to take every necessary action to ensure a strategic balance and to eliminate unacceptable threats to our security.”[30] Western responses emphasized the need for diplomacy, while also emphasizing the enduring principle of sovereignty and Ukraine’s right “to choose their own security arrangements and alliances,” as stressed by U.S. secretary of state Anthony Blinken.[31]

Russian Nuclear Calibration February 2022–July 2023

Phase 1: The Invasion and Deterrence, February–July 2022
On February 24, 2022, following months of military buildup and in the wake of a large out of cycle nuclear exercise, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[32] The invasion was intended to topple the Western-aligned government of Volodymyr Zelensky within 72 hours.[33] As Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border, Vladimir Putin issued the first of many implicit threats against direct NATO intervention in the conflict: “I would now like to say something very important for those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside. No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”[34]

On February 27, Belarusian resident Aleksandr Lukashenko held a referendum to approve a new Belarusian constitution that eliminated Belarus’ non-nuclear status, thereby opening the door for Russian nuclear weapons to be stationed in the country.[35]

On the same day, Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on “high combat alert.” Specifically, Putin stated, “You see that Western countries are not only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country . . . but top officials of the leading NATO countries are indulging in aggressive statements directed at our country. Therefore, I order the Defence Minister and Chief of the General Staff to put the Russian Army’s deterrence forces on high combat alert.”[36] Putin claimed that this decision was a response to the “illegitimate sanctions” and “aggressive statements” from the senior officials of NATO member states.[37] It is unclear exactly which statements Putin was referring to. He may have been referencing a statement by Liz Truss, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary at the time, on February 27 about the need to defeat Russia in Ukraine, or a statement by French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on February 24 about NATO’s nuclear status.[38] On February 28, 2022, the Russian defence minister Shoigu, stated that in accordance with Putin’s order the Ministry of Defence had increased manning levels at command posts of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.[39]

Putin’s announcement of this special alert status drew immediate condemnation from White House and NATO officials as “provocative,” “dangerous,” and “add[ing] to the risk of miscalculation.”[40] In response to a question posed a day later about whether U.S. citizens should be concerned about a nuclear war breaking out, President Biden responded with a resounding “no.”[41] The military significance of this shift was unclear. U.S. officials stated that they did not fully understand the meaning of the announcement and observed no “muscle movements” in Russia’s nuclear forces.[42]

U.S. officials also took steps to de-escalate the situation. Days after Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to go on “high combat alert,” on March 2, 2022, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced that “in an effort to demonstrate that we have no intention of engaging in any actions that can be misunderstood or misconstrued, the secretary of defense has directed that our Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test launch scheduled for this week to be postponed.”[43] A month later, the U.S. Air Force canceled the postponed test.[44] While this kind of public posturing may have appealed to some Western audiences and U.S. allies, Russia largely ignored the move and instead continued with its own tests and exercises, including an April 20 test of Russia’s new Sarmat ICBM that Putin himself announced. Ultimately, Washington resumed testing and highlighted the routine nature of such tests in its messaging. In June, the U.S. Navy tested four unarmed Trident II (D5LE) missiles, and the U.S. Air Force later conducted its ICBM test launch in August 2022 and then again in September.[45]

On the ground, Russian forces quickly became bogged down, withdrew from around Kyiv in late March, and began a grinding offensive in Donbas.[46] Throughout the spring and summer and into the fall of 2022, Russia also generated international concerns about a nuclear incident by occupying, hazardously managing, shelling, and allegedly sabotaging the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.[47]

During the first phase of the war, Russia used a combination of threats and signals, including through exercises, tests, and nuclear modernization updates, to warn NATO against intervening directly in Ukraine.[48] This focus likely reflected the Kremlin’s initial expectation that, barring NATO intervention, Russia could swiftly occupy Ukraine. Russian officials made repeated references to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, both to deny that Russia would use nuclear weapons and to create ambiguity about the exact conditions that might prompt nuclear use. For example, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on March 28, 2022:

"We have a security concept that very clearly states that only when there is a threat for existence of the state in our country, we can use and we will actually use nuclear weapons . . . But, at the same time, if you remember the statement of the president when he ordered the operation on the 24th of February, there was a part of his statement warning different states not to interfere in the affairs between Ukraine and Russia during this operation . . . I think that everyone understands what he meant.”[49]"
Nonetheless, the Kremlin was clear that direct NATO intervention would be likely to prompt a nuclear response.[50]

In response to these signals, Western leaders sought to balance efforts to punish Russia and support Ukraine with the need to avoid escalation during the initial phase of the war. To do so, the West adopted an incremental approach, wherein Western states gradually increased the amount and sophistication of aid for Ukraine.[51]

During the first phase of the war, Russia used a combination of threats and signals, including through exercises, tests, and nuclear modernization updates, to warn NATO against intervening directly in Ukraine.

Phase 2: Counter-Offensive and Heightened Risk of Nuclear Use, August–October 2022
In a shift in narrative, Russian officials launched a diplomatic offensive in August to coincide with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Russian leaders, including Putin, repeatedly stated, “There can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed.”[52] During the NPT meeting, the Russian diplomat stated, “We would like to firmly reject absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable allegations of Russia allegedly threatening to use nuclear weapons.”[54] And Shoigu said, “From a military point of view, there is no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve the set goals.”[53] Kremlin officials quickly abandoned this narrative following the failure of the NPT meeting, where Russia alone blocked consensus among 191 states.

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Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

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The Kremlin resumed its menacing rhetoric in September. Ukrainian forces went on the offensive in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts in August and September 2022, respectively. Ukraine had success on both fronts, and Russian rhetoric escalated as Ukrainian forces advanced. Foreign ministry officials began to warn of the nuclear risks created by Western aid for Ukraine. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, for example, cautioned, “The more the United States is involved in supporting the Kiev regime on the battlefield, the more they become a party to a military confrontation with Russia, which means they risk provoking a direct armed clash between the largest nuclear powers, fraught with catastrophic consequences.”[55] Russian officials also signaled that Russia could use nuclear weapons to defend illegally annexed territory in Ukraine. Lavrov, for example, declared in late September that “the entire territory of the Russian Federation, which is enshrined and could be further enshrined in the constitution of the Russian Federation, unquestionably is under the full protection of the state . . . all of the laws, doctrines, concepts, and strategies of the Russian Federation apply to all of its territory.”[56]

As Russia’s battlefield situation further deteriorated in October, the Russian narrative took a dramatic shift on October 23, 2022, and focused on the alleged threat of a Ukrainian dirty bomb. Shoigu and chief of the Russian general staff Gerasimov called their counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom to discuss the alleged threat of a dirty bomb, while Putin, Lavrov, and Peskov echoed this narrative in addresses and comments. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations wrote a letter to the UN secretary general to the same effect, and the Russian Ministry of Defence also announced preparations to operate in a radioactive environment.

There were fears that this narrative may have been intended to either provide pretext for nuclear use or to cover for a false flag operation. Western leaders challenged Russia’s narrative and warned publicly of severe consequences for nuclear use while privately threatening to retaliate with conventional weapons.[57] The NATO secretary general attempted to dismiss these claims on October 24, stating, “The allegation that Ukraine is preparing to use dirty bombs in Ukraine is absurd . . . This is part of a pattern we have seen before from Russia—in Syria, but also at the start of the war, or just before the war started in February. And that is that Russia is accusing others [of] doing what they intend to do themselves.”[58] Non-Western leaders also weighed in. During a call with Shoigu on October 26, Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh warned his Russian counterpart against nuclear use and cautioned that nuclear use “goes against the basic tenets of humanity.”[59]

Russian warnings about a Ukrainian dirty bomb coincided with large-scale Russian nuclear exercises and followed warnings that attacks on the illegally annexed territories could prompt nuclear use. False Russian claims that Ukraine and its Western partners might stage a “provocation” using a nuclear or radiological device were not new; the dirty bomb or Ukrainian nuclear weapon narrative dates back to the beginning of the invasion.[60] What was different this time were claims that the threat was imminent, along with the seeming coordination in messaging and the sheer number of statements to this effect. Kremlin officials issued these warnings as the Russian army appeared near to collapse, generating concern in the West and internationally that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons to avert a rout. A November New York Times article reported that Russian military leaders discussed the conditions for nuclear employment in October, although these conversations did not involve President Putin.[61]

Russian warnings of an imminent dirty bomb attack ended shortly after Singh’s call to Shoigu on October 26. In an address on October 26, Putin reiterated claims that Ukraine was preparing to use a dirty bomb while simultaneously asserting that Russia had “no need” to use nuclear weapons.[62] Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, reiterated the Kremlin’s claims about a dirty bomb the next day, after which the Kremlin’s warnings abruptly ended.[63] In a seeming effort to reduce tensions, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement on November 2 reaffirming that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, while Russian officials, including Peskov, made similar comments.[64]

Of all the phases of the war, the risk of nuclear use appears to have been highest during this period of significant Russian battlefield losses.[65]

Phase 3: Digging-In and Nuclear Calibration, November 2022–July 2023
In December 2022, Russian forces began an offensive across the frontline in Eastern Ukraine. This push, paired with an ongoing strike campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, made limited gains at enormous cost throughout the winter and spring. After a period of de-escalatory signaling in November, Russian officials resumed their nuclear rhetoric (including suspending participation in New START) and actions (such as deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus). Russian officials also threatened against the West’s supply of depleted uranium ammunition and F-16s to Ukraine, Ukrainian strikes against Crimea and the Russian homeland, efforts to retake Crimea, and the possibility of Russian defeat.[66] To the alarm of the West, Putin announced on February 21, 2023, that he would suspend Russia’s participation in New START. Putin framed the decision as a response to U.S. support for Ukraine and other, unspecified, hostile actions: “Now, they are using NATO to give us signals . . . whereby Russia should, no questions asked, implement everything that it agreed to, including the New START Treaty, whereas they will do as they please. As if there is no connection between strategic offensive weapons and, say, the conflict in Ukraine or other hostile Western actions against our country.”[67]

Of all the phases of the war, the risk of nuclear use appears to have been highest during this period of significant Russian battlefield losses.

The nuclear landscape shifted again on March 25, 2023, when Putin announced that Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. In his justification for the move, Putin pointed to NATO’s nuclear mission: “We are not handing over [the weapons]. And the U.S. does not hand [them] over to its allies. We're basically doing the same thing they’ve been doing for a decade. They have allies in certain countries and they train . . . their crews. We are going to do the same thing.”[68] Moscow and Minsk had already laid the groundwork for the deployment. Lukashenko modified the Belarusian constitution to eliminate its non-nuclear status in February 2022, and Putin agreed in June 2022 to provide Belarus with dual-capable delivery systems. Putin’s March announcement drew a critical but restrained response from the West. In his justification for the deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus, Putin pointed to NATO’s ongoing nuclear mission as precedent and justification. This increased diplomatic pressure on the United States and NATO allies to justify nuclear sharing agreements, while deflecting international pressure on Russia.

Continued.....

Housecarl · Feb 24, 2024

Continued......

By July 2023, Russia’s nuclear rhetoric had proven to be evolutionary, whereby it changed with developments on the ground in the war in Ukraine, along with Western and international pressure.

Findings and Recommendations

Initially, when the Kremlin believed that it could seize Kyiv in a matter of days, Russian officials used the threat of nuclear use in an attempt to deter direct NATO intervention in the war. As it became clear that the war would drag on, the Kremlin attempted to use nuclear signaling to deter a wider range of activities. Although Russian officials maintained a steady drumbeat of menacing nuclear rhetoric from late 2022 through mid-2023, the urgency and intensity of this signaling paled in comparison to that of September and October 2022. Russian officials downplayed the risks of nuclear use in November and offered muted reactions as Ukraine launched strikes deep into Russia, and NATO supplied new types of military aid. Western officials took Russian warnings seriously, but they increasingly cited a decreased risk of nuclear use. In the absence of more aggressive nuclear threats, Russia soon began manipulating risk by other means. The Kremlin suspended participation in the final strategic arms control treaty between Russia and the United States and announced plans to station nuclear weapons in Belarus.

While the Kremlin’s narrative was not static, it also was not inconsistent. Russia’s nuclear messaging has consistently pointed to Russia’s nuclear arsenal as the ultimate security guarantor, and it has used nuclear signals—whether explicit rhetoric and messaging or posturing—as part of a wider strategy. This nuclear calibration is an important trait of Russia’s war in Ukraine and will likely continue to shape its actions going forward. There are a variety of factors that may have contributed to these shifts and calibrations in Russia’s nuclear rhetoric: Western signaling, intervention by India and China, events on the ground and Russia’s failure to deliver a quick, decisive victory, and, of course, the fighting of the Ukrainians themselves. This brief does not attempt to assess which of these, if any, was the decisive driver, but it acknowledges that they likely all contributed to—and will continue to shape—shifts and calibrations in Russia’s nuclear signals.

This study set out to answer three primary questions. First, to what ends has Russia used nuclear signaling, and what impact has it had? Russian nuclear signaling appears to have been intended to deter three developments: 1) direct NATO intervention in Ukraine, 2) Western aid for Ukraine, and 3) attacks on Crimea and Russia. It is possible that Russian nuclear signals deterred NATO intervention and slowed military aid. But these messages have not deterred incremental military aid for Ukraine nor have they enabled Russia to achieve its goals in Ukraine.

Although Russian officials maintained a steady drumbeat of menacing nuclear rhetoric from late 2022 through mid-2023, the urgency and intensity of this signaling paled in comparison to that of September and October 2022.

Second, have Western efforts to prevent nuclear use been effective? Western deterrence signaling appears to have played a role in the de-escalation of Russian rhetoric. This is particularly true following a period of alarming signaling in October 2022. Western officials repeatedly warned of severe consequences if Russia used nuclear weapons but largely stopped short of specifying publicly what a response might entail. While the United States, United Kingdom, and France reportedly warned the Kremlin that they would respond to nuclear use with conventional weapons, most messaging from President Biden and senior U.S. officials was ambiguous and highlighted the certainty of a response, not the nature of it.[69] For example, in September 2022, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan stated, “We have communicated directly, privately, at very high levels to the Kremlin, that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the United States in our allies will respond decisively.”[70] External actors, namely India and China, also seem to have played a role.[71] An improved understanding of what deterred Russia from nuclear escalation during the war in Ukraine may point to ways for the United States and NATO to continue to strengthen deterrence—including through financial and military aid to Ukraine and through bolstering NATO’s conventional and nuclear force postures—without being overly concerned about escalation.

Third and finally, would Putin consider using nuclear weapons if Russia were facing defeat in Ukraine? Based on the connection between Russian nuclear rhetoric and events on the ground, along with open-source reporting, it appears that Putin likely would consider nuclear use in Ukraine. Russia relies on nuclear weapons to manipulate risk over the war in Ukraine. Nuclear rhetoric is tied to developments on the battlefield and appears intended to deter Western intervention and support for Ukraine. The Kremlin’s nuclear signaling was most intense when Russian forces faced collapse in the fall of 2022. There is reason to believe that Russian nuclear signaling would intensify, and the risks of nuclear escalation might rise, if Russia faces a similar battlefield situation in the future, or if the conflict expands in new or unexpected ways, such as sustained Ukrainian strikes on Russian critical infrastructure. These signals could include nuclear exercises or military testing that could risk misperceptions and lead to unintended escalation. Russian nuclear rhetoric, however, is seemingly responsive to international pressure, as it became more conciliatory in November 2022 after clear international warnings against nuclear use in September and October. The Kremlin also cares about its international image: officials deny that Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons at international fora and strike a comparatively reassuring tone when discussing nuclear risks with non-Western media.

As Russia calibrates its nuclear signaling and reliance on nuclear weapons, an important question is what lessons Russia has learned from the first two years of the war. Arguably, Russian signaling has had limited success in achieving its goals in Ukraine, as U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine has incrementally increased since the war began. But Russian nuclear threats should nonetheless be taken seriously, since Russia could consider nuclear use if its forces face collapse or the nature of the conflict changes significantly in the future. The Western response to Russia’s messaging has delicately balanced support for Ukraine with the need to avoid escalation and nuclear use. Patterns and trends in Russian and Western nuclear signaling since the start of the war point to opportunities for the United States and NATO to continue to strike this balance.

There is reason to believe that Russian nuclear signaling would intensify, and the risks of nuclear escalation might rise, if Russia faces a similar battlefield situation in the future, or if the conflict expands in new or unexpected ways, such as sustained Ukrainian strikes on Russian critical infrastructure.

The United States and its allies should consider the following recommendations to minimize the risks of nuclear use as the war continues:

Better understand the impacts of international pressure on Russian decisionmaking. It is unclear exactly what impact U.S., NATO, Indian, and Chinese messaging had on Putin’s thinking about nuclear use. The U. S. government should prioritize efforts to develop a better understanding of who, if anyone, influenced thinking in the Kremlin about the utility of nuclear weapons. Doing so would help the United States and NATO to better calibrate their own deterrence signals and messaging.
Continue to signal certainty of retaliation while preserving ambiguity as to the nature of the response. Western leaders have consistently emphasized that Russian nuclear use will be met with severe consequences. However, they have not specified the exact nature of the response. Maintaining the credibility of this signal will require continued consultation and coordination among NATO allies on messaging, including the nuclear sharing mission.
Coordinate with India and China to maximize international pressure against nuclear use. U.S. leaders should seek to ensure that India and China continue to make clear that nuclear use would be met with severe consequences for Moscow. This could be done through bilateral channels or through a multilateral risk reduction dialogue.
Combat Russian narratives that downplay or rationalize the Kremlin’s nuclear threats. The United States and its allies have used public messaging and intelligence disclosures to counter Russian disinformation since the outset of the invasion. The U.S. government should build on these efforts. It should also ensure that the international community (beyond the West) fully understands the dangers posed by the Kremlin’s irresponsible rhetoric and behavior. Doing so could help to deprive Russia of the tacit political support that it currently enjoys from many developing states and could help to decrease the risks of nuclear use.
Remain prepared for potential use scenarios. While fears of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine have subsided considerably, Russia’s increased reliance on its nuclear weapons could still pose a threat to Ukrainian and Western forces if the nature of the conflict changes. Western leaders need to remain prepared to deal with possible use scenarios, and they must take steps to continue to enhance preparedness. This includes prioritizing efforts to strengthen chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) defenses and making good on the commitments made during the Vilnius summit to “strengthen training and exercises that . . . facilitate greater coherence between conventional and nuclear components of NATO’s deterrence and defence posture across all domains and the entire spectrum of conflict.”[72]

Many of these efforts are already underway, but they will face challenges over time. Maintaining NATO unity and staying ahead of Russian disinformation will be two of the greatest hurdles for confronting Russian aggression and controlling the risks of nuclear escalation.

Russian nuclear weapons have been a constant shadow over the war in Ukraine. Russia has relied on them to deter Western intervention and support for Ukraine. Russia has also attempted to manipulate nuclear risk when it faces battlefield setbacks. These trends are unlikely to change anytime soon. In fact, Russia will likely rely increasingly on nuclear threats to offset its conventional losses and to advance its broader strategic objectives. Navigating these signals and managing escalation will be a continued priority for Western leaders as they continue to confront Russian aggression in the coming months and years.

Heather Williams is the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Kelsey Hartigan is the deputy director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS. Lachlan MacKenzie is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at CSIS. Reja Younis is an associate fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at CSIS.

Please consult the PDF for references.

This brief is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this brief.

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

jward · Feb 24, 2024

euronews.com

AI models preferred to launch nuclear strikes in wargames test

Large language models (LLMs) acting as diplomatic agents in simulated scenarios showed "hard-to-predict escalations which often ended in nuclear attacks.

When used in simulated wargames and diplomatic scenarios, artificial intelligence (AI) tended to choose an aggressive approach, including using nuclear weapons, a new study shows.
The scientists, who aimed to who conducted the tests urged caution when using large language models (LLMs) in sensitive areas like decision-making and defence.

The study by Cornell University in the US used five LLMs as autonomous agents in simulated wargames and diplomatic scenarios: three different versions of OpenAI’s GPT, Claude developed by Anthropic, and Llama 2 developed by Meta.
Each agent was powered by the same LLM within a simulation and was tasked with making foreign policy decisions without human oversight, according to the study which hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet.

“We find that most of the studied LLMs escalate within the considered time frame, even in neutral scenarios without initially provided conflicts. All models show signs of sudden and hard-to-predict escalations,” stated the study.
“Given that OpenAI recently changed their terms of service to no longer prohibit military and warfare use cases, understanding the implications of such large language model applications becomes more important than ever,” Anka Reuel at Stanford University in California told New Scientist.

‘Statistically significant escalation for all models’

One of the methods used to finetune the models is Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) meaning that some human instructions are given to get less harmful outputs and be safer to use.
All the LLMs - except GPT-4-Base - were trained using RLHF. They were provided by the researchers with a list of 27 actions ranging from peaceful to escalating and aggressive actions as deciding to use a nuclear nuke.
Researchers observed that even in neutral scenarios, there was “a statistically significant initial escalation for all models”.
The two variations of GPT were prone to sudden escalations with instances of rises by more than 50 per cent in a single turn, the study authors observed.

GPT-4-Base executed nuclear strike actions 33 per cent of the time on average.
Overall scenarios, Llama-2- and GPT-3.5 tended to be the most violent while Claude showed fewer sudden changes.
Claude was designed with the idea of reducing harmful content. The LLM was provided with explicit values.
Claude AI's constitution included a range of sources, including the UN Declaration of Human Rights or Apple’s terms of service, according to its creator Anthropic.

James Black, assistant director of the Defence and Security research group at RAND Europe, who didn’t take part in the study told Euronews Next that it was a “useful academic exercise”.
“This is part of a growing body of work done by academics and institutions to understand the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) use,” he said.

Artificial intelligence in warfare

So, why should we care about the study’s findings?
While military operations remain human-led, AI is playing an increasingly significant role in modern warfare.
For example, drones can now be equipped with AI software that helps identify people and activities of interest.
The next step is using AI for autonomous weapons systems to find and attack targets without human assistance, developments on which the US and China are already working, according to the New York Times.

However, it’s important to “look beyond a lot of the hype and the science fiction-infused scenarios,” said Black explaining that the eventual implementations of AI will be progressive.
“All governments want to remain in control of their decision-making,” he told Euronews Next, adding that AI running what is often compared to a black box in that we know goes in and comes out but not much is understood about the process between.

AI will probably used in a way that is “similar to what you get in the private sector, in big companies” to automate some repetitive tasks.
AI could also be used in simulations and analytics but the integration of these new technologies poses many challenges, data management and the model’s accuracy being among them.
Regarding the use of LLMs, researchers said that exercising caution is crucial if using LLMs in the decision-making processes related to foreign policy.

AI models preferred to launch nuclear strikes in wargames test

Large language models (LLMs) acting as diplomatic agents in simulated scenarios showed "hard-to-predict escalations which often ended in nuclear attacks.

www.euronews.com

Housecarl · Feb 25, 2024

Taking Nuclear War Seriously: Gingrich | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Taking Nuclear War Seriously: Gingrich

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Salem AlKetbi

Salem AlKetbi is an Emirati political analyst and a former candidate to the UAE’s Federal National Council.

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The forgotten part of war: Iran's nuclearization

The ability of the US and Israel to monitor, let alone deter, the development of Iran's nuclear program has diminished significantly. The report spoke of the role of conflicts in the Middle East in neglecting the Iranian nuclear threat.

By Salem AlKetbi

Published on 02-25-2024 08:51
Last modified: 02-25-2024 08:52

Iran's persistent pursuit of nuclear capabilities is not a surprise to anyone in our region or in the world. Nor is the possibility of militarizing these capabilities and converting them from conventional weapons to weapons of mass destruction a new issue for the experts. That is why the contents of the latest report by the Institute for Science and International Security are perhaps not much of a discovery.

The report warned of the nuclear threat posed by Iran, pointing out that with its "remaining stock of 60 percent enriched uranium and its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium," Iran can produce six nuclear bombs within a month and twelve bombs within six months.

The report addressed the growing threat from Iran's nuclear program since May 2023, which was exacerbated by Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. According to the report, the tense situation in the region provides Iran with a unique opportunity and an exaggerated internal justification for possessing nuclear weapons.

The ability of the US and Israel to monitor, let alone deter, the development of Iran's nuclear program has diminished significantly. The report spoke of the role of conflicts in the Middle East in neglecting the Iranian nuclear threat.

Despite the real possibility of possessing a nuclear weapon, the institute raised the Iran Threat Geiger Counter from 140 degrees in May 2023 to 180 degrees, placing it in the Extreme Danger category for the first time. The details of the published report are unremarkable, at least to observers and experts.

Talk of the possibility of raising the uranium enrichment level from 60% to 90% within a week has been around for a long time. It is only a question of political decision because the technical knowledge and the necessary equipment are available.

Relying on the inspection and control measures of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is difficult, as many Iranian nuclear facilities are secret and inspectors do not visit regularly due to differences between Tehran and the organization. The bottom line is that it all comes down to the will of the Iranian regime whether it wants to have military nuclear capabilities or not.

All efforts by successive American administrations have failed to contain Iran's pursuit of an advanced nuclear program that can be turned into a military program whenever the Iranian Supreme Leader decides to do so. This is a leader who, in a politically correct tone of voice, keeps talking about the ban on possessing a nuclear bomb.

However, there is always a way out, namely taqiya or political pretense, which allows this spontaneous commitment to be circumvented if the Iranian regime really feels its fate is threatened. When we talk about the likelihood of creating the conditions for Iran's nuclear weaponization, we need to agree on a few essential points.

First and foremost is the distinction between the Iranian state, the people, and the threat that could compel the regime to take this step, on the one hand, and the threat perceived by the regime itself, on the other. The latter is more serious and has a greater impact on the Iranian leadership than the former.

If human assets such as the Revolutionary Guard or the regime's first line of leadership or facilities such as the main nuclear facilities are exposed to a major threat, the supreme leader will most likely be forced to protect the regime, whatever the consequences may be.

Another important point is the Iranian leadership's awareness of the danger factors and sources of threat in the current regional and international strategic environment. The Iranian regime feels increasingly threatened, although the US is careful not to cross any red lines in its relations with its adversaries.

What worries Tehran most at present is the course of confrontations between its terrorist proxies in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria on the one hand and Israel and the US on the other. Tensions are increasing between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's main arm in the Middle East.

An international trend is also emerging that highlights Iran's responsibility for the chaos and unrest in the Middle East and the consequences of holding Iran accountable or working to limit its role in this regard. In any case, Iran can no longer deny the chaos caused by the missile attacks and drone operations of the so-called axis of resistance.

It must therefore expect a backlash, especially from Israel and to a lesser extent from the US. This scenario can materialize if the right conditions are in place, be it when Israel ends the war in Gaza, gets the security crisis with Hezbollah on its northern borders under control and its residents in the north and south can return to their homes, or at the end of the year when the American presidential election take place.

Tehran is aware of the high probability that former President Donald Trump could return to power. Overall, a strategic conflict is raging in the Middle East between the axis of moderation, which includes many Gulf and Arab countries, and the so-called axis of resistance, which includes Iran and its sectarian and militia terrorists.

At the same time, Tehran is in a race against time to maintain its influence and the strategic advantages it has gained in recent years. Iran is seeking to improve the survivability of its operatives, neutralize influential regional parties and prevent its regional isolation.

These goals depend on the outcomes of the current wars and conflicts in the geostrategic Middle East as well as other factors of varying relevance. These include the growing self-confidence of countries in the region and their ability to deal with and manage sources of threat, the declining confidence in the US deterrence capability, which has reached its lowest level in decades, and the growing role of China and Russia, which offer countries in the region new alternatives for strategic partnerships.

Housecarl · Feb 27, 2024

NATO and EU countries are 'considering sending troops to Ukraine', Slovakia's pro-Moscow PM Robert Fico claims

NATO and EU countries are 'considering sending troops to Ukraine'

Slovak leader Robert Fico said today that he learnt of the idea via notes ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Paris.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Posted for fair use......

Task Force Marne, NATO allies build interoperability during combined arms live-fire exercise

BEMOWO PISKIE, Poland — U.S. Army Soldiers from Task Force Marne and fellow allied troops from NATO's enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Poland are...

www.army.mil

Task Force Marne, NATO allies build interoperability during combined arms live-fire exercise

By Sgt. Cesar Salazar Jr.February 26, 2024

BEMOWO PISKIE, Poland — U.S. Army Soldiers from Task Force Marne and fellow allied troops from NATO's enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Poland are training shoulder-to-shoulder to build interoperability in a combined arms live-fire exercise at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, that runs Feb. 20 to March 1, 2024.

Infantry, armor and artillery assets from the 3rd Infantry Division, alongside their NATO allies from the United Kingdom, Romania, Croatia and Poland participated in the massive combined arms live-fire exercise, or CALFEX. A CALFEX provides troops the opportunity to employ the full spectrum of combat capabilities while training alongside allies and other units in simulated combat scenarios with a wide range of weapons, vehicle systems and tactics.

Troops with eFP Poland participated in large breaching exercises which saw U.S. engineers clearing obstacles while tracked vehicles suppressed simulated enemy positions and armor as infantry moved to clear enemy trenches.

This CALFEX represented the first iteration of a multinational combined arms exercise led by 2nd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division since the unit arrived in Poland in September. The exercise incorporated British reconnaissance, Croatian field artillery and Romanian air defense artillery, according to U.S. Army Maj. Alexander Boroff, the battalion’s operations officer.

“What’s great about our allies is that they’re all very capable,” Boroff said. “It was refreshing to come out here and see all of them as excited to train as the U.S. Army is. When we do these battle group live fires, you have expectations of how our allies will interact with our American units. When they mesh together, it really comes together to be a good exercise in interoperability.”

U.S. and NATO allied commanders had to come together to plan the exercise and execute the mission, which incorporated engineers, infantrymen, tanks, and anti-air assets, among many other units and capabilities into the tasks.

“All the planning and preparation that went into the combined arms exercise was amazing,” said Capt. Tevin Edmonds, commander of Bravo “Bad” Company, 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. “Getting to see their different perspectives from their own specific jobs then coming together and making one solid plan that we were able to execute was amazing.”

The CALFEX allowed U.S. Soldiers and NATO allies to train alongside one another while learning more about each other’s equipment and tactics and how they would operate in real-world scenarios. The CALFEX provided an opportunity to strengthen the allied countries’ unity and interoperability, despite each nation having different standards and procedures.

“Integrating all of that together and taking into account each nation’s separate safety responsibilities just makes it a challenge [from] the planning perspective for training,” Boroff said. “However, once you kind of work through all that, you come out with a great outcome.”

Watch: Task Force Marne Soldiers conduct combined arms live-fire exercise at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland

jward · Feb 27, 2024

jward · Feb 27, 2024

jward · Feb 28, 2024

Indo-Pacific News - Geo-Politics & Defense News
@IndoPac_Info
#Pentagon’s #AI integrated war system ready to roll

CJADC2 warfare concept emphasizes AI-driven interoperability in bid to outmaneuver and outpace tech-savvy rivals like #China

The US Department of Defense’s (DOD) Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) system, a tech-driven plan to enhance military interoperability and artificial intelligence (AI) integration across all warfare domains with allies and partners, is initially ready.

C4ISRNET reported this month that the DOD has achieved a basic version of CJADC2, which aims for strategic and operational dominance in warfighting through the connection of sensors from all branches of the armed forces into a unified network. US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks made the announcement.

The DOD’s fiscal 2024 budget blueprint allocates US$1.4 billion for CJADC2 to transform how the military operates, especially alongside foreign partners.

The DOD seeks to digitally tether forces across land, air, sea, space and cyber to outwit and outmaneuver tech-savvy adversaries like China. The quicker battlefield information can be collected, analyzed and disseminated using AI and other pattern-recognizing programs, the faster targets can be identified and hit.

The DOD’s chief digital and AI officer, Craig Martell, said that the goal is to create an information-fluent force capable of dominating networks and bombarding targets from a sprawl of locations with a wide range of weaponry.

CJAD2 is an evolution of the older Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept, with the former building on the latter’s framework while adding the element of interoperability with allies and partners.

A January 2022 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report says previously each US military branch developed its own tactical network, which in cases were incompatible with each other. Meanwhile, the DOD recognized that future conflicts would require quicker decision-making, necessitating a more streamlined process.

The CRS report says that the DOD’s current C2 architecture is insufficient to meet the demands of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which prioritizes interoperability, enhanced capabilities, new operating concepts, and combined and collaborative force planning with coalitions.

In a June 2023 article for National Defense, Chris Sax points out that US allies must be included in discourse about JACD2 to implement the concept fully and enable the US to operate in multiple theaters with peak effectiveness.

Jaspreet Gill mentions in a May 2023 Breaking Defense article that CJADC2 is effectively a rebranding of JADC2 with new emphasis on “combined” efforts with international partners and across different military commands.

Gill notes that the “combined” in CJADC2 highlights that the system’s capabilities are designed to be interoperable with allies and partners from the beginning and not just about “jointness” between different US military branches.

Further dissecting the CJACD2 concept, Bryan Clark and Dan Patt mention in a September 2023 Hudson Institute article that CJACD2 has two core functions: joint command and control (C2) and integration.

The writers say that joint C2 formulates and executes plans, which against peer adversaries will depend increasingly on new concepts that orchestrate widely distributed units across domains.

Barry Rosenberg, in a December 2020 Breaking Defense article, says that CJACD2’s enabling technologies will include leading communications, navigation and identification (CNI) systems; resilient, secure, software-defined, all-domain networking terminals; data fusion and processing technologies; advanced waveform offerings; and emerging communications, AI and networking capabilities.

A potential Taiwan conflict provides an interesting case study of how CJADC2 may be operationalized to mitigate US disadvantages through a technocentric approach.

In a December 2023 Defense News article, Maximilian Bremer and Kelly Grieco note that the sheer distance of the US compared to China’s proximity to Taiwan, constrained basing options in the Pacific and long travel times from the US to Taiwan all work against the US and its allies in a potential Taiwan conflict.

Bremer and Grieco point out tremendous US logistical requirements regarding scale and complexity on top of those issues. Instead of addressing those logistics problems individually, they suggest the US develop an approach that simultaneously addresses the challenges.

Thane Clare mentions in a January 2024 War on the Rocks article that if US military logistics systems are linked electronically and executive-level insights are automatically extracted from them, commanders and logisticians will better understand the location and availability of important supplies.

Clare emphasizes that real-time situational awareness for logisticians at all levels will be crucial for success in a protracted war. Taiwan is most vulnerable to defeat in the first 90 days of a possible Chinese invasion and thus a US intervention would be required to repel Chinese forces within that timeframe.

Apart from logistics, Clare says that the CJADC2 is applicable for missile defense and long-range strikes. He says that integrating US and allied civilian sensors with military shooters (i.e., a commercial aviation radar to a Patriot missile battery) can improve US missile defense far beyond legacy capabilities. However, he says the technical compatibility of systems will be a challenge.

Clare also notes that combining old and new technologies under the CJADC2 framework can mitigate vulnerabilities in using unmanned systems, noting that the US has used high-frequency radio to control the MQ-9 Reaper drone, eliminating the need for satellites that are increasingly vulnerable to China and Russia’s anti-satellite capabilities.

However, CJADC2 has certain holes. Stew Magnuson notes in National Defense this month that, at the joint level, each US military branch still pursues its own tactical network project, with the lines of effort in each service varying in terms of clarity and feasibility.

Magnuson points out doctrinal challenges in implementing CJADC2, noting that information shared among the joint force was previously done at higher echelons, making it imperative to push decision-making to the lowest level possible.

He also mentioned that including allies in CJADC2 will bring new challenges, as other militaries have different ways of doing things.

Moreover, China has developed its Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (MDPW) concept in response to the US JADC2 and now the CJADC2. China’s MDPW aims to employ AI and big data to quickly identify weaknesses in the US operational system, then combine forces from multiple domains to launch precision strikes on those vulnerabilities.

Pentagon's AI-integrated war system ready to roll - Asia Times

The US Department of Defense’s (DOD) Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) system, a tech-driven plan to enhance military

asiatimes.com

Housecarl · Feb 29, 2024

ALERT - RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread

https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/the-deep-states-army The Deep State’s Army For the last ten years, the CIA have been using Ukraine to build their own military force, outside the scope of US MIL and Executive control. Using taxpayer dollars, under the guise of foreign aid, the CIA...

www.timebomb2000.com

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/world/europe/putin-nuclear-threats.html

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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/feb/29/chinas-nuclear-expansion-is-breathtaking-in-number/

China’s nuclear expansion is ‘breathtaking’ in number of weapons and pace, Stratcom general says

Nuclear war dangers seen growing from military links between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran

By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Thursday, February 29, 2024

China is showing no signs of slowing the furious pace of its program to develop nuclear weapons delivery systems, a sign that Beijing is shifting away from a strategy of minimum deterrence, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command told Congress on Thursday.

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the speed of China’s nuclear force buildup in recent years is a major worry that keeps him awake at night.

“For me, it’s [China’s] capacity, capability to build out their weapons systems, their arsenal,” Gen. Cotton said. “It’s that simple.”

Chinese military leaders are speeding up the deployment of nuclear forces, including sharp increases in land-based missiles, missile-firing submarines and a new bomber capable of launching a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile, he said.

The commander also warned in his prepared testimony that nuclear war dangers are increasing due to strategic cooperation between China and other U.S. adversaries, notably Russia, North Korea and Iran. Chinese and Russian nuclear bombers recently conducted joint patrols, an indication the two authoritarian allies are prepared to combine their nuclear power, he said.

Air Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of the Space Command, also told the Senate panel that China’s space weaponry poses a strategic threat to American satellites, both military and civilian, that are used for an array of vital functions.

China’s military “clinically studied” U.S. space systems with an eye to finding vulnerabilities that could be attacked in a crisis or conflict, Gen. Whiting said.

“And now [Beijing] is rapidly building systems to hold that architecture at risk,” Gen. Whiting said.

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, disclosed during the hearing that the Chinese nuclear arsenal has expanded by more than 100% since Chinese President Xi Jinping took power in 2012 and that the Pentagon estimates the expansion will increase by 500%. before it is through. China’s Communist regime, until very recently, had maintained a much smaller nuclear arsenal compared to those of Russia and the United States, contending it only needed enough missiles to deter a nuclear strike by a hostile power.

“The breakout that we saw, and the advancement and how quickly the advancements we are seeing on China to create a viable triad are breathtaking,” Gen. Cotton said, noting that the rapid fielding of weapons is “unprecedented.”

China’s land-, air- and sea-based nuclear array includes H-6 bombers, a new H-20 stealth bomber and six missile submarines with advanced JL-3 missiles “capable of striking the continental United States from littoral waters,” he said.

Strategic Command officials reported to Congress a year ago that China’s arsenal of land-based strategic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers now exceeds the number of U.S. Minuteman III launchers.

“Today, the PRC likely has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads and, should it continue building weapons at its current pace, could have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030,” Gen. Cotton said in his statement.

Three large ICBM fields were built in 2022, with at least 300 solid-fueled DF-31A missiles armed with multiple warheads.

China is now building a new generation of road-mobile ICBMs and has 1,000 medium-range missiles that can be armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads that have the range to threaten the U.S. island of Guam and allied nations in the region.

“These developments, combined with the [China’s] increasing counter-space and cyber capabilities, pose a complex but not insurmountable challenge to U.S. strategic deterrence,” Gen. Cotton said.

Beyond ‘minimum’

Gen. Cotton testified that China’s large nuclear buildup, contrary to what its leaders say, no longer ranks as a “minimum deterrent” force. China also appears to have abandoned a decade-long strategy of concealing its military capabilities as the country grew to be an economic superpower rivaling the U.S..

Now “they’re showing us their capabilities and showing us how fast they can grow,” Gen. Cotton said.

Gen. Cotton said the growing ties between China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea create the possibility that U.S. commanders will be faced with the challenge of simultaneous crises and increased aggression on multiple fronts. Chinese and Russian bombers flew joint patrols in the western Pacific in November and a joint maritime patrol near the Aleutian Islands last summer.

North Korea and Iran are delivering arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine, helping Moscow reclaim the initiative on the battlefield over outgunned Ukrainian forces.

“This increasing cooperation and the risk of simultaneous crisis or conflict place a premium on credible, robust and flexible joint force response options that signal our readiness and commitment to potential adversaries, allies, and partners,” Gen. Cotton said.

The four-star general urged senators to support the modernization of aging U.S. nuclear forces that are being upgraded with new missiles, bombers and submarines.

Gen. Cotton said despite nuclear advances by both China and Russia, America’s strategic forces are more powerful and remain fully capable of deterring potential adversaries.

“Today, we’re still superior, he said. “No adversary should ever doubt our capability today,” Gen Cotton said, even while acknowledging that current threats are “unlike anything America has encountered.”

Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, a former chairman and now the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, noted that a congressional strategic commission last year called for rapidly updating nuclear and space programs to counter the threats from China and Russia, a call he said the Biden administration has failed to heed.

“Unfortunately, the current administration has naively maintained the status quo,” he said. “While the United States has stayed complacent, Russia and China have advanced by leaps and bounds in their nuclear and space programs.”

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.

Housecarl · Feb 29, 2024

Posted for fair use......

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/march/next-taiwan-crisis-will-almost-certainly-involve-nuclear-threats

The Next Taiwan Crisis Will (Almost) Certainly Involve Nuclear Threats

General Prize Essay Contest—Second Prize
Sponsored by Andrew and Barbara Taylor

China’s expanded nuclear arsenal may embolden its behavior. The U.S. military must be ready.
By the Honorable James H. Anderson
March 2024

Proceedings

Vol. 150/3/1,453

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would prompt a major crisis between China and the United States, with significant repercussions for the Indo-Pacific region and the rest of the world. Such a crisis almost certainly would include implicit or explicit Chinese nuclear threats, despite Beijing’s longstanding no-first-use (NFU) policy. The United States can diminish the potential for China to leverage nuclear threats during a Taiwan crisis, but only if it moves with alacrity to strengthen conventional and nuclear deterrence. The Navy has a key role to play in achieving this goal.

Renewed interest in China’s nuclear program spiked after the 2021 discovery of three new missile fields in north central China. In January 2023, U.S. Strategic Command officially notified Congress that China has more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States.1 Yet, when it comes to assessing specific Taiwan invasion scenarios, Western analysts often downplay the nuclear dimension. In January 2023, for example, a major Center for Strategic and International Studies Taiwan wargame focused exclusively on conventional warfare, altogether sidestepping the potential for nuclear escalation.2 The Pentagon’s 2023 annual assessment of China’s military power makes a passing reference to the possibility of “nuclear activities” in a Taiwan scenario, but only in the context of a “protracted conflict.”3

NFU Policy

China’s NFU policy is one reason nuclear threats in Taiwan invasion scenarios have not received adequate scrutiny. For decades, China has declared it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. It would be a mistake, however, to take China’s NFU policy at face value. For starters, predicting China’s behavior in crisis situations is far from an exact science. As Center for a New American Security analyst Jacob Stokes argues, “Decisions with such grand strategic importance are likely to be informed by the worldview of China’s leadership—especially Xi [Jinping] himself for the foreseeable future—in ways that supersede official doctrine or other strategic analysis written by military bureaucracies or analysts.”4

At the very least, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would provide a major stress test of its NFU policy if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) struggled to subdue the island with conventional force. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders might even consider failure an existential threat. As defense analyst Mike Sweeney at Defense Priorities put it:

Any battle over Taiwan will not just be a question of territorial aggression but a fight over the core conception of modern China’s soul. And for the leaders who launch such an endeavor, their political futures will hinge on the outcome, as will, possibly, their physical safety and that of their families in the event of failure. Under such circumstances, nuclear use might not be palatable, but it could seem far more plausible if military defeat were to equate to loss of domestic power and possible death anyway.5

It has become conventional wisdom among China watchers that if China’s leaders decide to invade Taiwan, there is nothing anyone can do to change their minds. If true, this provides another reason to consider potential Chinese nuclear threats, since the “stop at nothing” narrative logically entails escalation if conventional means fail to achieve success.

These considerations raise the question of how China might use nuclear threats in a Taiwan invasion. Notably, there is evidence that not all Chinese military theorists believe using nuclear weapons on their own soil (which they consider Taiwan to be) would constitute a violation of the NFU policy.6 That said, it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which China might be tempted to use nuclear weapons on the island itself. It is more plausible to imagine Beijing launching an electromagnetic pulse attack over Taiwan.7 In theory, such a weapon could paralyze the island’s communication networks. Inflicting such a sudden and massive psychological blow might, in turn, shock Taipei’s political leaders into capitulation.

China also could use nuclear threats to dissuade the United States from rendering military assistance to Taiwan during a crisis. Here, it is worth recalling that senior Chinese officials have already issued such threats against the United States, as happened during the Taiwan crisis in 1996 and again in 2005.8 What is more, Chinese military publications and journals have mentioned—on multiple occasions—the potential for nuclear first strikes against the United States as part of various Taiwan invasion scenarios.9

China might seek to leverage its nuclear weapons in a future Taiwan crisis without resorting to explicit nuclear threats. Since a good portion of the PLA’s nuclear forces are based on mobile platforms, it could disperse them during a crisis to assume a more threatening posture.10 It also could adjust nuclear alert levels to signal intent. If these measures did not deter third-party intervention, China could resort to more dramatic action, such as firing a nuclear demonstration shot near Taiwan, Okinawa, Guam, or even Hawaii during an invasion crisis.

One might counter that China is unlikely to cross the nuclear threshold in a Taiwan conflict for fear of international condemnation. This may well be the case, at least initially. But China could reconsider its position, especially if third-party intervention threatened to derail its invasion plans. It is worth remembering that China did not intend to issue nuclear threats when it instigated its 1969 border war with the Soviet Union. But eventually Beijing did exactly that after it feared the Soviets might escalate the conflict.11

China’s Growing Nuclear Arsenal

The growth of China’s nuclear arsenal may increase its willingness to issue nuclear threats in the future. To understand why, it is important to recall China’s nuclear history. At the dawn of the Nuclear Age, China sought to diminish the importance of nuclear weapons. In 1946, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong famously denigrated the bomb as nothing more than a “paper tiger.” Mao made a virtue of necessity because China did not have the technological means to develop nuclear weapons until 1964. For decades afterward, China appeared content with a small nuclear arsenal, confident it could deter the United States—and later the Soviet Union—with an assured second-strike capability. But the discovery of China’s new missile fields in 2021 suggests Beijing’s nuclear doctrine is changing.

China’s decision to dramatically expand its nuclear capabilities is the most consequential development in the PLA’s ongoing modernization efforts. As the Pentagon’s 2023 annual report put it, “Over the next decade, the PRC will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces. Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity [emphasis added].”12

Over time, China’s nuclear arsenal expansion may embolden its behavior—including the propensity to issue nuclear threats.13 As the 2021 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report asserts, “It could also be intended to support a new strategy of limited nuclear first use. Such a strategy would enable Chinese leaders to leverage their nuclear forces to accomplish Chinese political objectives beyond survival, such as coercing another state or deterring U.S. intervention in a war over Taiwan.”14

The United States still maintains an advantage in terms of strategic warheads, but the PLA is closing the gap. In its 2023 report on Chinese military power, the Pentagon estimates China “will probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.”15 The fact that the U.S. nuclear arsenal will remain larger than China’s for at least the next few years provides no guarantee that Beijing will refrain from nuclear threats in the near term. Historically, China has demonstrated a willingness to instigate crises, even against stronger military powers, to achieve political aims.16 Moreover, Chinese writings have long focused on the political nature of nuclear weapons, especially their potential to inflict psychological shock. All this should be front of mind when considering the potential for China to resort to nuclear threats during a Taiwan invasion, whether in the near or distant future.

Continued......

Housecarl · Feb 29, 2024

Continued......

The nature of the PLA’s force structure also increases the odds that the next major crisis over Taiwan will include a nuclear dimension. The dual-use capability of selected Chinese missiles, such as the DF-26 “carrier killer,” means the PLA can exchange conventional warheads for nuclear ones in short order. This would present special intelligence and operational challenges for the U.S. Navy during a conflict over Taiwan. In addition, the PLA’s commingling of conventional and nuclear weapons raises the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation since the Pentagon’s playbook normally involves precision strikes deep into enemy territory.17

Nuclear Threats Extend to U.S. Allies

The United States also must consider the possibility that China may issue nuclear threats against one (or more) U.S. allies in a Taiwan scenario. Washington’s greatest strength in the Indo-Pacific theater is its extensive web of allies and partners. China understands this full well, which explains its relentless efforts to sow discord among them. In the event of a Taiwan crisis, China will intensify these efforts.

China knows that Japan is the most important U.S. ally when it comes to Taiwan, because Washington depends on Japan for military basing and diplomatic support. It should come as no surprise that Chinese officials already have sanctioned a crude nuclear threat against Tokyo. In July 2021, a video surfaced on a CCP-approved channel linked to the PLA that declared, “We are warning Japan and informing the world that if Japan interferes militarily in our domestic affairs—including the unification of Taiwan with the mainland—nuclear weapons will surely be used against them.”18

Japan is not the only U.S. ally that China has threatened with nuclear weapons. China also has threatened Australia over its participation in a nuclear submarine deal with the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2021, an article in the CCP mouthpiece Global Times asserted that such developments “will potentially make Australia a target of a nuclear strike.”19 These examples highlight the need for Washington to coordinate with key allies to neuter the potential impact of Chinese nuclear saber rattling.

Washington’s interest in counterproliferation is another reason to take the growth of China’s nuclear arsenal seriously. In this vein, recall that Taiwan pursued a nuclear weapons program for decades before relinquishing its nuclear ambitions in the 1980s. Taipei’s leaders may be tempted to restart the island’s long-defunct nuclear program if they conclude no other course of action can deter a Chinese invasion. Then-President Lee Teng-hui declared Taiwan was reconsidering its nuclear option during the July 1995 crisis with China, though he walked back his statement a few days later. Taiwan has given no indication it is presently reconsidering its nonnuclear status, but its calculus could change over time.20

What is to be Done?

Clearly, the safest way to deal with a potential nuclear crisis is to prevent it from arising in the first place. For this reason, the United States must redouble its efforts to make Taiwan an indigestible porcupine from China’s perspective. This means ensuring Taiwan’s defensive quills are long, sharp, and numerous.

Beyond strengthening Taiwan’s defenses, the United States should take additional measures to bolster deterrence, most of which could be implemented quickly and at low cost.

• Senior U.S. civilian leaders need to participate more often in wargames focused on Taiwan invasion scenarios. More precisely, they need to think through the dynamics of Chinese nuclear threats and how best to respond to them during a crisis, regardless of how uncomfortable these scenarios make them. A sustained and focused effort along these lines would help raise the “nuclear IQ” among decision-makers and staff members who advise them.

The White House should require participation from senior officials at the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security and the intelligence community and other relevant agencies. Moreover, the White House also should invite senior leaders from key allied countries in the Indo-Pacific theater to participate. There is no excuse for senior civilian leaders not to have thought through the potential nuclear dynamics of a Taiwan invasion.

• The United States must keep its strategic nuclear modernization efforts on track. It is vital to sustain the bipartisan consensus for replacing the aging land-, air-, and sea-based legs of the nuclear triad. Washington will be less likely to achieve its political-military goals in the Indo-Pacific region—or anywhere else—if its strategic deterrence credibility erodes. Maintaining a strong strategic deterrent is more important than ever given the growing sophistication of both Chinese and Russian strategic capabilities, as well as the possibility of military collaboration between them during a crisis.

• Congress should continue to fund the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) for U.S. attack submarines. The Navy used to have nuclear-armed Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM-N), but President George H. W. Bush ordered them removed from surface ships and submarines in 1991. While this decision made sense in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, it no longer does today. As former defense officials Robert Soofer and Walter Slocombe have argued:

Fielding SLCM-Ns would demonstrate that the United States has optimal capabilities to respond to small-scale nuclear use by an adversary. The current relative lack of flexible options for a nuclear response may leave adversaries with the mistaken notion that they could “get away with” small-scale nuclear use without facing unacceptable consequences.21

In other words, equipping the Navy with this capability would add an important rung to the escalation ladder, providing U.S. leaders with more options in a crisis. Equally important, it would complicate PLA war planning and, thereby, strengthen nuclear deterrence.

• To further defang the potential coercive power of Chinese nuclear threats, the Navy must strengthen its capacity to hold PLA nuclear assets at risk in the Indo-Pacific theater. The Navy has a key role to play in tracking the PLAN’s submarines—a challenge that has become more difficult with increasingly long-range PLAN deployments in the South China Sea and elsewhere.22

• The Navy should strengthen its Aegis ballistic-missile defense system by increasing the number of SM-3 interceptors it can deploy. The Navy also should practice surging its missile-defense capabilities in the event of a crisis. This should include increasing the size, scope, and duration of missile-defense exercises, preferably in concert with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, which also has Aegis missile-defense destroyers.

• The Navy–Marine Corps team must strengthen its capabilities to fight in—and through—nuclear contaminated environments. Such efforts could help dissuade Chinese decision-makers from concluding they could easily intimidate U.S. forces stationed in, or surged to, the Indo-Pacific region with nuclear threats.

Deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is no easy undertaking. Strategists and military planners must lean into hard problems, not away from them. No single measure outlined above is likely to change China’s decision-making about whether to invade Taiwan or pursue its subjugation by other means. But if the United States implements these measures with a sense of urgency, it will help enhance deterrence.

In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis took Kennedy administration officials by surprise. Today’s leaders have no excuse for getting caught flat-footed. The broad contours of a Taiwan invasion crisis are already visible on the horizon—and they will almost certainly include nuclear storm clouds. The time to prepare is now.

1. Greg Hadley, “China Now Has More ICBM Launchers than the U.S.,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, 7 February 2023.

2. The CSIS wargame simulated military command authorities but “no political and nuclear decision-making.” Mark Cancian et al., The First Battle of the Next War (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Security and International Studies, January 2023).

3. U.S. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, annual report to Congress (October 2023), 140.

4. Jacob Stokes, Atomic Straits: How China’s Nuclear Buildup Shapes Security Dynamics with Taiwan and the United States (Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, February 2023), 9.

5. Mike Sweeney, “Why a Taiwan Conflict Could Go Nuclear,” Defense Priorities, 4 March 2021.

6. Kenneth W. Allen, “China’s Perspective on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control,” in Jeffrey Larsen and Kurt Klingenberger, eds., Controlling Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Air Force Academy, CO: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2001), 162.

7. Peter Pry, China: EMP Threat, EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, 10 June 2020.

8. Barton Gellman, “U.S. and China Nearly Came to Blows in ’96,” The Washington Post, 21 June 1998; and Joseph Kahn, “Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs If U.S. Intrudes,” The New York Times, 15 July 2005.

9. Mark Schneider, The Nuclear Doctrine and Forces of the People’s Republic of China (Fairfax, VA: National Institute of Public Policy, November 2007), 7–8.

10. “China’s Nuclear Forces: Moving Beyond a Minimal Deterrent,” report to Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (November 2021), 350, 357.

11. Caitlin Talmadge, “The U.S.-China Nuclear Relationship: Growing Escalation Risks and Implications for the Future,” testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on China’s Nuclear Forces, 7 June 2021, 8, 9.

12. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments, viii.

13. Michael Tkacik, “Will China Embrace Nuclear Brinkmanship as It Reaches Nuclear Parity?” The Diplomat, 5 August 2023.

14. “China’s Nuclear Forces,” 340.

15. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments, VIII.

16. Mark Burles and Abram N. Shusky, Patterns in China’s Use of Force: Evidence from History and Doctrinal Writings (Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2000).

17. Caitlin Talmadge, “Beijing’s Nuclear Option: Why a U.S.-Chinese War Could Spiral Out of Control,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 6 (November/December 2018).

18. See Jamie Seidel, “China Threatens to Nuke Japan If Country Intervenes in Taiwan Conflict,” news.com.au, 19 July 2021.

19. Yang Sheng, “Nuke Sub Deal Could Make Australia ‘Potential Nuclear War Target,” Global Times, 16 September 2021; see also Ben Graham, “‘Brainless’ Australia a Target for ‘Nuclear War,’ Warns Top China Expert,” news.com.au, 21 September 2021.

20. See Alex Littlefield and Adam Lowther, “Would a Nuclear-Armed Taiwan Deter China?” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 24 December 2020; and Kyle Mizokami, “China’s Greatest Nightmare: Taiwan Armed with Nuclear Weapons,” The National Interest, 12 September 2019.

21. Robert Soofer and Walter B. Slocombe, “Congress Should Fund the Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile,” Atlantic Council, 3 August 2023.

22. Gabriel Honrada, “China Intensifies Nuclear Strike Threat in South China Sea,” Asian Times, 5 April 2023.

Housecarl · Feb 29, 2024

I've been talking about this for how long?.....(For images see article source. HC)

Posted for fair use......

Return To ICBMs Armed With Multiple Warheads Suggested By STRATCOM Boss

U.S. Minuteman III ICBMs are currently loaded with just one warhead, and so will future Sentinel ICBMs, as a result of arms control deals.

www.twz.com

Return To ICBMs Armed With Multiple Warheads Suggested By STRATCOM Boss

U.S. Minuteman III ICBMs are currently loaded with just one warhead, and so will future Sentinel ICBMs, as a result of arms control deals.

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK | PUBLISHED FEB 29, 2024 6:47 PM EST

The head of the U.S. Strategic Command has called for "serious consideration" of a return to deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, with multiple nuclear warheads. The U.S. Air Force's LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs have this capability, but operational examples are presently only loaded with one warhead due to arms control agreements with Russia. The plan has been that the service's future LGM-35A Sentinel ICBMs will also only have a single warhead for the same reasons.

U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) boss Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton highlighted the importance of looking into returning to deploying ICBMs with more than one warhead, also known as a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration, while testifying before members of the Senate earlier today. STRATCOM oversees the U.S. military's triad of nuclear deterrent forces, which include silo-based ICBMs, nuclear-capable bombers, and nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

"I do believe that we need to take serious consideration in seeing what uploading and re-MIRVing the ICBM looks like, and what does it take to potentially do that," Cotton told the assembled members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Cotton was responding to a question about which of the 81 recommendations in a report from the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States that was published last year he felt deserved prioritization. The STRATCOM head also pointed to that report's discussion about the need for more planning for integrated strategic-level nuclear-conventional operations as being of particular note, especially in the Pacific and Europe.

The Strategic Posture Commission's specific recommendation regarding MIRVing is to "plan to deploy the Sentinel ICBM in a MIRVed configuration."

The Air Force has previously disclosed that the Sentinel ICBM design allows for a MIRV configuration, should a decision be made to deploy the missiles in this way.

However, the present plan is that each LGM-35A ICBM will be loaded with a single W87-1 nuclear warhead inside a Mk 21A re-entry vehicle when they enter service, which is expected to start in the 2030s. It is unclear what the W87-1's exact yield is, but the original W87 warhead has a reported baseline yield of 300 kilotons. W87's second stage is understood to be modifiable to increase the weapon's yield to 475 kilotons.

This is in line with the current configuration of the 400 LGM-30G Minuteman IIIs that the U.S. Air Force has deployed now and that the Sentinels are set to replace on a one-for-one basis. Each LGM-30G either has one W87 warhead in a Mk 21 re-entry vehicle or a single W78 in a Mk 12A re-entry vehicle. The older W78 has a reported yield of around 335 kilotons.

When the Minuteman III first entered service in 1970 it had a MIRV configuration with three W62 warheads. Those were subsequently replaced by the W78s. The Air Force's LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM, which was first operationally deployed in 1986, was also a MIRV type capable of carrying up to 11 W87s.

Successive U.S.-Russian arms control agreements led to the LGM-118As being removed from service in 2005 and the total number of warheads in each of the remaining LGM-30Gs being reduced to one. The W87s now used on Minuteman IIIs also came from decommissioned Peacekeepers.

The U.S. Air Force has fired MIRVed Minuteman IIIs without live nuclear warheads as part of routine testing in recent years, demonstrating that those missiles retain that capability.

A MIRV configuration not only increases the total number of targets that a single missile can strike, but also complicates things for enemy defenders by increasing the volume of threats they have to contend with. Modern ICBMs typically carry decoys (also known as penetration aids) and have other countermeasures to make detection, discrimination, and any attempted intercepts of the missile and/or the re-entry vehicles it releases even more complex.

The U.S. Air Force video below gives a good general look at how a MIRVed ICBM, loaded with a mixture of warheads and penetration aids, functions.

It is worth noting that the Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles carried by the U.S. Navy's Ohio class ballistic missiles submarines, or SSBNs, have MIRV configurations. The Navy's future Columbia class SSBNs are also set to be armed with improved variants of the D5.

Russia and China, America's current main nuclear competitors, also both field road-mobile and silo-based ICBMs with MIRV configurations.

The main limiting factor currently to the U.S. military returning to using MIRVed ICBMs is the New START treaty, which imposes limits on how many total strategic warheads, as well as delivery platforms, the United States and Russia can have deployed at any one time. The treaty defines each re-entry vehicle on an ICBM or SLBM, as well as individual nuclear-capable heavy bombers, as counting as a single "warhead." You can read more about the agreement's provisions in this previous article.

So, under New START, in order to deploy MIRVed Sentinels, or even re-MIRV existing Minuteman IIIs, the U.S. military would have to make "warhead" trades elsewhere across its nuclear triad. There are certainly potential ways that this could be done more readily, such as down-loading Trident D5s or fielding a smaller number of uploaded LGM-35As to replace the Minuteman IIIs.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1434682481408712708

View: https://twitter.com/thenewarea51/status/1434682481408712708?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1434682481408712708%7Ctwgr%5E8cc6fa54baf981d2a41c76a6f7e89ddfbad1fdf9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twz.com%2Fnuclear%2Freturn-to-icbms-armed-with-multiple-warheads-suggested-by-stratcom-boss

By the time the first LGM-35A actually arrives, this could well be moot. The Sentinel program is currently experiencing significant cost increases and schedule delays, which could push back the deployment date for the new ICBMs, as you can read more about here.

New START will sunset in 2026 and there is no guarantee in the current geopolitical climate that a new similar treaty will be successfully negotiated with Russia to take its place. The Russian government already suspended its participation in New START last year in retaliation for the U.S. government's continued support for Ukraine. Separate U.S. efforts to bring China into a new trilateral nuclear arms control arrangement along with the Russians have so far yielded no real results.

"Would I love to see China step up and want to have a negotiation with us, would I love to see Russia come back? Absolutely," STRATCOM's Gen. Cotton said at the hearing today. "But I'm also a realist who understands that that may or may not happen. So as a combatant commander, my job is to understand how do I build a force that I could present to the President if that doesn't happen."

Altogether, when and if the U.S. military returns to fielding ICBMs with multiple warheads, and how that might be done, remains to be seen. Still, the comments today from STRATCOM's Gen. Cotton, which support the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission's recommendations on the matter, point to clear renewed U.S. interest in MIRVed ICBMs.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

jward · Feb 29, 2024

O I do not know just "how long" but it seems like forever :: smiles ::

So nice to come to post something and see you've beaten me to it; can you pull that trick on the dishes or litter box chores, too? :: hopeful look ::

Housecarl · Mar 1, 2024

Posted for fair use.....

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-inaugurates-alexander-stubb-president-nato-era-2024-03-01/

Europe

NATO's nuclear deterrent must be real for Finland, says new president

By Anne Kauranen
March 1, 2024 8:16 AM PST Updated 6 hours ago

HELSINKI, March 1 (Reuters) - NATO'S nuclear deterrent must be real for Finland, the country's president Alexander Stubb said on Friday as he took office following his win in a close-fought election on Feb. 11.

During his campaign ahead of the vote, Stubb said he saw no limits for Finland's participation in NATO and would be ready to let nuclear weapons be transported through Finland - though not stored there - as the country abandoned decades of military non-alignment.

When asked about his views on nuclear weapons at his first news conference as president, Stubb said it would be for the Finnish government and parliament to decide if Finland wants to alter its current legislation that bans nuclear weapons on Finnish soil, including their transfer.

"I would start from the premise that we in Finland must have a real nuclear deterrent, and that's what we have, because NATO practically gives us three deterrences through our membership," Stubb told reporters.

"The first is military, i.e. soldiers, the second is missiles, i.e. ammunition, and the third is a nuclear deterrent, which comes from the United States," he added.

At his official inauguration in parliament, Stubb said he stood ready to oversee a new era after Finland joined NATO in response to neighbouring Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We are now facing a new era. As a result of our military alignment and NATO membership, we have taken the final step into the Western community of values, where our republic has spiritually belonged throughout its independence," Stubb said in his address to parliament during the inauguration.

Stubb listed democracy, rule of law and human rights as the core values that Finland's foreign policy would be based on under his leadership.

Stubb replaces outgoing president Sauli Niinisto, who steps down after two six-year terms in which he earned the nickname "the Putin Whisperer" for his previous close ties with the Russian leader.

A day before Stubb's inauguration, Putin said Russia must boost the troops it has deployed along its western borders with the European Union in response to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Stubb condemned the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose funeral took place in Moscow the same day, and called for Russian leadership to take responsibility for his "political murder".

"Navalny's death is a kind of symbol of the state Russia is in at the moment. Human life does not seem to have any kind of significance to the current Russian leadership," Stubb said.

Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Louise Breusch Rasmussen in Copenhagen; Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2024

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use......

Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear

A wargame reveals how Israel and Iran could quickly consider using nuclear weapons if ever drawn into a direct conflict.

thebulletin.org

Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear

By Henry Sokolski | February 27, 2024

With the Gaza crisis, a nuclear Rubicon of sorts has been crossed: Elected Israeli officials—a deputy minister and a ruling party member of Parliament—not only publicly referenced Israeli possession of nuclear weapons, but suggested how such weapons might be used to target Gaza. This is unprecedented.[1]

More recently, Iran directly attacked an Israeli-manned intelligence outpost in Iraq. Iran also has inched within weeks of making several nuclear weapons and has made its military ever more immune to first strikes against its key missile and nuclear facilities. Iran and its proxies also now have long-range, high-precision missiles that could easily reach key Israeli targets.[2]

None of these developments is positive. For decades, most security analysts assumed Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons were only deployed to deter attacks and that Iran would not dare to attack Israel directly. This after-action report describes a war game originally designed nearly two years ago. It directly challenges these assumptions and suggests that military strikes between Israel and Iran—including nuclear ones—are possible.

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center held the game and its preparatory meetings—five separate sessions—in November and December of 2023. The 35 participants included Republican and Democratic Hill staff; US Executive Branch officials and analysts; leading academic scholars; national security and Middle Eastern think tank experts; and US military personnel.

The game consisted of three moves. After receiving a war brief and instructions from the Israeli prime minister, teams representing the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and intelligence community formulated their preferred options for launching nuclear strikes against Iran. The prime minister selected one. Move two begins after the Israeli military carries out this strike. In move two, the teams were reconstituted to represent Israel, friendly Arab nations, and the United States and its European allies. Control played Iran, Russia, and China. Each team responded diplomatically and militarily to Israel’s initial nuclear strike against Iran. The game’s third and final move was a “hot wash” where participants discussed their insights.

The game starts in 2027 with Israeli intelligence reports that Iran is mating nuclear warheads to its long-range missiles. This prompts Israel to ask Washington to collaborate in a conventional military strike targeting key Iranian nuclear facilities and missile bases. Not wanting to be drawn into a major war with Iran, the United States demurs and instead offers Israel US standoff hypersonic missiles.

Israel uses these to target Iran’s key nuclear and missile sites. Almost immediately, Tehran’s proxies—Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels—respond with devastating conventional missile strikes against Israel. These attacks kill at least as many Israelis as during the October 7, 2023, Hamas raid. In response, Israel attempts to preempt further proxy military strikes by launching aerial strikes against proxy military strongholds. These attacks kill more than 2,000 Arabs.

Iran responds directly and takes advantage of the Israeli missile defenses being now degraded to strike key Israeli nuclear and government defense ministry buildings in Tel Aviv, killing more Israeli civilians. At the same time, Iran also announces that it has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), thereby signaling its readiness to use nuclear weapons.

Israeli intelligence then learns that Israel’s previous conventional strikes against Iranian nuclear and missile sites failed to retard Iran’s integration of nuclear warheads with its missiles. When Israel shares this information with US officials and again asks them to approve a joint US-Israeli follow-on raid, Washington only offers “continued assistance” and tells Israel it should stop attacking Iran lest the fighting escalates to a nuclear exchange.

Israel swallows hard. Sensing that it now is isolated and that further Israeli conventional strikes are unlikely to scotch an Iranian nuclear strike, Israel’s prime minister decides attacking Iran with nuclear weapons is Israel’s only option. After consulting his war cabinet, he approves a non-lethal nuclear demonstration detonation over a remote location in Iran combined with conventional strikes against main Iranian nuclear facilities and military sites. Israel also launches cyber-attacks against Iran’s military communications networks and uses its back channels to make a private diplomatic appeal to Tehran to stand down further offensive action against Israel.

Israel’s actions, however, fail to bend Iran’s will to continue to wage war. Worse, the United States now urges Israel to stand down. Isolated and desperate, Israel concludes it has no choice: It launches a “precision” follow-on nuclear strike of 50 weapons against 25 Iranian military targets (including Russian-manned air defense sites). The aim is to cripple Iranian offensive forces and perhaps induce enough chaos to prompt the Iranian revolutionary regime to collapse. Almost immediately after the Israeli strike, however, Iran launches a nuclear attack of its own against an Israeli air base where American military are present.

With this move, the game ends.

Many critical questions remain unanswered. Would Israel or Iran conduct further nuclear strikes? Would Israel target Tehran with nuclear weapons? And vice versa, would Iran target Tel Aviv with nuclear arms? Would Russia or the United States be drawn into the war? These many basic unknowns helped inform each of the game’s four major takeaways:

The strategic uncertainties generated after an Israeli-Iranian nuclear exchange are likely to be at least as fraught as any that might arise before such a clash. An unspoken hope among security experts is that nuclear deterrence can work between Israel and Iran. Such optimism, however, discourages clear thinking about what might happen if deterrence fails and both countries use nuclear weapons. During the game’s play and hot wash session, participants emphasized how difficult it was to develop appropriate policy responses to Israeli or Iranian nuclear use as neither contingency was adequately considered before use. Precisely how much damage might Israeli nuclear strikes inflict against Iran’s population and underground military assets? Would Iran’s key nuclear and missile capabilities be knocked out or are they buried deep enough to resist nuclear strikes? What precisely might the political, diplomatic, military, and economic impacts be of such nuclear strikes? Would the world’s economies be “knocked out” or just “jolted” as a result? How would the United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear-armed countries respond to Israeli and Iranian nuclear use? Would they be drawn into the conflict? Would demands for proportionality guide US and allied responses? How likely would Israel be to share details of what targets it hit with precisely what weapons with outside parties including with its closest allies? After the game, none of the participants felt confident that they could answer any of these questions. To narrow these “unknowns” gaming possible Middle Eastern nuclear wars—both publicly and in classified settings—are needed. Ideally, such simulations would include officials and outside experts from Israel and neighboring Middle Eastern states. An explicit goal for these games would be to devise ways to deter first and subsequent, retaliatory nuclear weapons strikes. Such official gaming, however, has yet to take place publicly. And it is not clear either if it has been conducted in classified settings.

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Narrative warfare: How disinformation shapes the Israeli-Hamas conflict—and millions of minds

Continued.....

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2024

Continued.....

Although Israel and Iran might initially seek to avoid the nuclear targeting of population, such self-restraint is tenuous. Military analysts have rightly argued precision-guided munitions enable combatants to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Meanwhile, most nations have ratified the 1977 Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which discourages targeting civilians and civil objects. Perhaps for these reasons, both Israel and Iran—neither of which is a party to Protocol 1—initially avoided targeting civilians with their nuclear weapons. In the game, however, even Israel’s initial decision to fire a harmless nuclear demonstration shot was considered controversial. The game’s Israeli defense minister and others wanted instead to strike Tehran to maximize chaos in hopes of inducing regime change. This option in the game’s second move was again promoted as being as reasonable as trying to limit civilian casualties. Ultimately, the Israel team chose instead to strike 25 military targets with 50 nuclear weapons. Israeli and US intelligence, though, could not clearly determine what collateral and military damage these “limited” military strikes inflicted. After Iran replied with a nuclear military strike of its own against a strategic Israeli airbase, the game ended. Yet, a third follow-on Israeli nuclear strike was a serious possibility now that the nuclear threshold was passed. But what might Israel target next? Much would depend on the power of arguments in Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran for and against conducting further nuclear strikes and attacking population centers. In this regard, both US and Israeli officials appear to share a similar jus ad bellum (legal justifications for war) view of military proportionality. This shared view considers extensive collateral harm to innocents acceptable so long as it is necessary to achieve major military goals. This view, however, is not universally supported. Many of the United States’ closest allies, for example, believe that when there is a choice between inflicting less or more military damage to civilians and civil objects to achieve a military objective and an option that inflicts more harm is chosen over less harmful options, the damage inflicted should be viewed as being excessive to achieving legitimate military goals. To complicate matters, Washington officials often emphasize the importance of reducing indiscriminate harm as much as possible. This patchwork of views on military proportionality is confounding. Certainly, part of any effort to deter the future use of nuclear weapons against cities in the Middle East would benefit from public clarification of just what military proportionality might demand in such cases. Initially, this might be accomplished with track-two talks between former senior officials from the United States and Israel and, if possible, Iran. Yet another reason to hold such talks is to understand Iranian and Israeli messaging. In the game’s hot wash session, Israel was asked to reconsider its decision to make a second 50-weapon nuclear strike. The Israeli team was given a different Iranian diplomatic response to Israel’s move one demand that Tehran cease all offensive actions against Israel. The Israeli team was asked what they might do if Iran offered to cease offensive operations in exchange for an Israeli commitment to engage in mutual talks to eliminate Iranian and Israeli nuclear weapons. This softer reply made a significant difference: The Israel team said if it had received this response, it would have accepted Iran’s offer and would have held off launching a second nuclear strike.

Multilateral support for Israeli security may be essential to deter Israeli nuclear use but will likely hinge on Israeli willingness to discuss regional denuclearization. An isolated and desperate Israel is far more likely to use nuclear weapons than an Israel surrounded by friendly, supportive neighbors. This should inform further expansion of the Abraham Accords and other efforts at integrating Israel into the region’s economic and security affairs. Washington will continue to provide Israel much of the military assistance and cooperation it needs. Yet, Israel’s increasing diplomatic dependence on the United States should be a source of concern. In the game, Israel is disappointed when it asks for Washington to join in its major military operations against Iran. The United States’ unwillingness to be dragged into a major war with Iran and rejection of Israel’s request markedly increased the Israeli team’s desperation. If Israel’s security and economic future was much more integrated with its neighbors, such anxiety would likely be diffused. A desirable feature of such integration would be joint military training and exercises with Abraham Accord members to deter military provocations by Iran and its proxies. Yet another improvement could be to announce that, if Iran’s leadership continues to inch toward nuclear weapons, the West will no longer remain neutral regarding its overthrow and might well engage in information campaigns to undermine Iranians’ continued support of the regime. All these efforts could help deter Iran and dissuade Israel from resorting to nuclear weapons use. Yet, such regional security and economic collaboration is unlikely to happen unless the most important security goal—that of avoiding nuclear war and nuclear proliferation—is made explicit. This will require not only being more candid about the nuclear weapons risks associated with any “peaceful” nuclear energy program and the financial and security risks of building nuclear power facilities in the region, but also opening up the diplomatic aperture to reduce nuclear weapons threats. The later would necessarily require Israel and its closest ally, the United States, to be much more open to participating in regional denuclearization talks.

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Houthi attacks from Yemen show need for controls on advanced missile technology proliferation

Little progress is likely in reducing Middle Eastern nuclear threats as long as the United States continues its public policy of denying knowledge of Israeli nuclear weapons. The current US policy is of not admitting that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. This policy[3] dates back to the Cold War when any admission of Israeli nuclear weapons would have likely prompted the Soviet Union to help Egypt or other Arab states get nuclear capabilities of their own. Those days are behind us. Yet, the Pentagon recently refused entirely to declassify early, official considerations of what multilateral talks about Middle Eastern denuclearization (including Israel’s) might entail.[4] Moreover, there is still an executive order making any public mention of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons a security violation that could result in the revocation of an official’s security clearances and de facto put an end to the US military support to Israel under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[5]

Considering the strategic risks and uncertainties that a possible nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran revealed in this game, the formulation of proportionate military, political, and economic policies to deter nuclear use appears crucial. This requires gaming and careful planning—both efforts that the United States’ outdated policy toward Israel nuclear-related classification all but precludes.

Notes

[1] See Kawn Wei Kevin Tan, “An Israeli lawmaker is urging her government to use ‘everything in its arsenal,’ including ‘doomsday’ weapons, against Hamas,” Business Insider, October 11, 2023, available at An Israeli lawmaker is urging her government to use 'everything in its arsenal,' including 'doomsday' weapons, against Hamas; “Israel minster renews call for striking Gaza with ‘nuclear bomb,’” MEMO Middle East Monitor, January 24, 2024, available at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/2...ews-call-for-striking-gaza-with-nuclear-bomb/; and Scott Ritter, “Israel’s Nuclear Weapons In the Spotlight,” Energy Intelligence, November 13, 2023, available at Israel’s Nuclear Weapons in the Spotlight.

[2] See David Albright, “How quickly could Iran make nuclear weapons today?” ISIS, January 8, 2024, available at https://isis-online.org/uploads/isi...Iran_make_nuclear_weapons_today_January_8.pdf; Parisa Hafezi and Timour Azhari, “Iran says Revolutionary Guards attack Israel’s ‘spy HQ’ in Iraq, vow more revenge,” Reuters, January 16, 2024, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...ked-espionage-centers-iraqs-erbil-2024-01-15/; Joseph Dempsey, “Silo mentality – Iran’s Haji Abad missile base,” IISS, May 4, 2021, available at Silo mentality – Iran’s Haji Abad missile base; and Jon Gambrell, “An Iranian nuclear facility is so deep underground that US airstrikes likely couldn’t reach it,” Associated Press, May 22, 2023, available at An Iranian nuclear facility is so deep underground that US airstrikes likely couldn’t reach it.

[3] See Adam Entous, “How Trump and Three Other U.S. Presidents Protected Israel’s Worse-Kept Secret: Its Nuclear Arsenal,” The New Yorker, June 18, 2018, available at How Trump and Three Other U.S. Presidents Protected Israel’s Worst-Kept Secret: Its Nuclear Arsenal.

[4] See National Security Archive, “Memorandum of Conversation, “Task Force. Meeting No. 1-Arms Control of the Near East,” 27 March 1063, Top Secret, Excised copy,” December 6, 2023, available at Memorandum of Conversation, “Task Force Meeting No. 1 – Arms Control of the Near East,” 27 March 1963, Top Secret, Excised copy, | National Security Archive and “Recent Nuclear Declassifications and Denials: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” December 6, 2023, available at Recent Nuclear Declassifications and Denials: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly | National Security Archive

[5] For a rare, official public reference to “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities,” see United States Department of Energy Office of Hearings and Appeals, In the Matter of Grant F. Smith, August 25, 2015, Case No. FIC-15-0003, available at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/FIC-15-0003.pdf.

Editor’s note: This article is a product of a wargame, “Gaming Israeli Nuclear Use: Pandora Unleashed,” organized by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC). The full report is available here.

jward · Mar 2, 2024

B-52 Armed With Hypersonic Missile Makes Appearance In Guam

Joseph Trevithick, Thomas Newdick

A live AGM-183A ARRW hypersonic missile under the wing of a B-52H bomber on Guam on February 27, 2024. USAF
The pictures of the live AGM-183A, as denoted by the presence of two yellow bands painted on the front and rear of the weapon, were released along with a brief Air Force news item about what was described as "hypersonic weapon familiarization training" at Andersen on February 27. In one of the pictures, the missile's serial number, AR-AUR-005, can also be seen.

A close-up picture of the ARRW showing its serial number, as well as one of two yellow bands that denote it is a live weapon. USAF
From the pictures available, it's unclear what unit supplied the B-52H Stratofortress onto which the weapon was loaded. B-52 crews from the 23rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana both took part in the familiarization training on Guam.
USAF

"The participating crews received expert academics and training on hypersonic fundamentals and participated in tactical discussion on hypersonic operations to increase operational readiness and prepare multiple Air Force aircraft communities for hypersonics including the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, and other programs under development," according to the Air Force news item. "The crews focused on the fundamentals of hypersonics, operational and logistics considerations, and in-depth tactical discussions."

Why exactly ARRW, and a live round at that, was lugged out to Guam for this training isn't clear. There are no indications currently that the Air Force intends to conduct a live-fire ARRW test from Guam, but it is possible. Such a test would be a show of force in the Pacific region that would send signals to potential adversaries, especially China, as well as allies and partners. The War Zone has reached out to the Air Force for more details about this training event and about the presence of the live AGM-183A.

Another live ARRW, serial AR-AUR-004, as well as a glimpse of a secretive air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile the Air Force has been developing, were also seen in pictures from a similarly described hypersonic weapons training event at Edwards Air Force Base in California last year.

Another live AGM-183A, with the serial AR-AUR-004, during another "hypersonic weapon familiarization training" event at Edwards Air Force Base in California in September 2023. USAF
ARRW consists of two main components, an unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle in the nose and a large rocket booster at the rear. The booster accelerates the entire missile to an optimum speed and altitude, at which point the boost-glide vehicle is released.
A rendering depicting the nose cone of an AGM-183A breaking in half to reveal the unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle about to be released. Lockheed Martin

True to its name, the vehicle then glides at hypersonic speeds, defined as anything above Mach 5, along a relatively shallow, atmospheric flight path to its target. The vehicle is also designed to be maneuverable, giving it the ability to erratically change course. The result is a weapon that presents particular challenges for opponents both in terms of any intercept attempts and just trying to otherwise react to the incoming threat by trying to relocate assets or seeking cover.
The flight profile of a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle is notably different from that of an air-breathing hypersonic missile. When the Air Force announced its intention to pull the plug on ARRW in March 2023, the service also said its hypersonic weapon development priorities would shift to its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) program. ARRW had previously been expected to be the first operational U.S. hypersonic weapon, but years of flight testing, including multiple end-to-end live-fire launches, had produced decidedly mixed results.

A graphic offering a general look at the differences in flight trajectory between a traditional ballistic missile, an unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle like ARRW, and an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile like HACM. GAO
The first full end-to-end test occurred on December 9, 2022, and was deemed successful. That test did experience "difficulties with the terminal phase telemetry and imagery, which prevented measurement of warhead function and effects," according to the most recent annual report on ARRW from the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E.

A low-quality image of an ARRW after launch during a previous live-fire flight test. USAF
The Air Force has also continued to carry out live-fire testing of ARRW in the past year. At least three more end-to-end tests have taken place since March 2023. The first, in March of last year, ended in failure. Details about subsequent test launches in August and October 2023 are limited.
"In the March 2023 flight test, the [ARRW] AUR [all-up round] incurred a failure when the shrouds failed to fully eject properly during booster-glide vehicle separation, as one of two shroud ejector motors appears to have not fired," according to DOT&E's latest report. "Due to that failure, the Air Force could not obtain data for the glide and terminal phases of flight. The program instituted additional continuity verification to the ejector motors to avoid a similar failure in the future."

"Initial quick look data analysis indicates the flight test in August 2023 achieved nominal conditions, to include proper glide vehicle flight as well as warhead detonation," DOT&E's report adds.
A view of the rear end of another live AGM-183A missile included in DOT&E's most recent report on the ARRW program. DOT&E

DOT&E's report only covers work on ARRW through the 2023 Fiscal Year, which ended on September 30, 2023. It makes no mention of the October test. It does say that, overall "the various intermittent failures within the overall weapon system are not currently meeting system specifications, but the Air Force continues to improve reliability with software and hardware fixes, along with process improvements in manufacturing."

More interestingly, DOT&E's report says that the Air Force is looking to conduct an operational demonstration of ARRW, despite its previously stated plans to close out the program.
"The [ARRW] program intends to conduct additional testing in FY24 [Fiscal Year 2024]. These flights will validate the envelope of the launch conditions as well as the ARRW’s flight characteristics. AUR test flights will impact land targets," according to DOT&E. "The Air Force plans to conduct an operational demonstration to assess the operational capabilities and limitations of the system. The program is working with DOT&E to develop an Operational Demonstration Plan that governs the execution of the demonstration."

“There are different approaches to delivering hypersonic capability. And we have not ruled out any of those approaches for the Air Force in the future,” Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, notably told DefenseScoop in an interview last year. In that same interview, Hunter also spoke about "challenges" and "risks" associated with HACM.
A rendering from Raytheon, which is currently on contract from the Air Force to develop HACM, of an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile. Raytheon

Air Force and other senior U.S. military officials have made it clear in the past that it views the acquisition of air-launched hypersonic missiles of some kind as a key component of its future plans. At the same time, hypersonic weapons are also expected to be extremely expensive. A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published in January 2023 estimated that the average unit price for ARRW could be between $14.9 and $17.5 million. For comparison, a single current-generation Tomahawk land attack cruise costs around $2.5 million, according to U.S. military budget documents.
Given the high costs and likely small overall inventories of future hypersonic missiles, they would be reserved for use against very high-value and heavily defended targets. This could include key air defense and other command and control nodes, and ones housed inside hardened bunkers.

Still, hypersonic weapons have been described as being particularly important as part of U.S. military planning for a potential major conflict, especially one against China in the Pacific. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy are pursuing land and sea-based versions, respectively, of a common hypersonic missile design that has a boost-glide vehicle payload and that could be deployed in the Pacific.

Though the Air Force is very actively pursuing new expeditionary and distributed concepts of operations and is working to expand its available operating locations, Guam, where the hypersonic weapon familiarization training took place this week, remains central in planning around a possible high-end fight in the Pacific. Guam's location and existing facilities mean that even if friendly forces were further dispersed, it would still be a central hub for deployments in the region and it serves as the main installation for supporting long-range bomber operations in the Pacific.
A map showing, left to right, the general locations of the U.S. Pacific island territories of Guam, Tinian, and Wake Island, and then the U.S. state of Hawaii. This provides a good sense of Guam's strategic position for the U.S. military in the Western Pacific. Google Maps

At a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee just yesterday, Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), highlighted the importance of conventional weapons, as well as nuclear ones, in strategic-level operational planning. "Part of that is looking at and ensuring that we have the right long-range stand-off conventional weapons, as well, that can be placed on a bomber as an example," Cotton said.
"STRATCOM began advocating for hypersonic weapon capabilities in 2003, and the Department of Defense formally recognized the need for a prompt global strike capability in 2006," Gen. Cotton also wrote in response to a written question from Mike Turner, a Republic representative from Ohio, following a separate hearing last year. "The challenge of holding adversary targets at risk continues to grow as advanced offensive and defensive systems hinder our ability to employ fires in highly contested environments. ... Hypersonic strike weapons will provide a highly responsive, long-range, conventional capability for distant, defended, and/or time-critical threats when other forces are unavailable, denied access, or not preferred."

"Hypersonic weapon systems will provide senior leaders additional credible strike options to influence all stages of conflict without crossing the nuclear threshold," he added.

Air Force personnel load an inert ARRW test article onto a B-52 during earlier developmental testing of the missile. USAF
Whether the Air Force's plans for the AGM-183A have changed, as well as how this ongoing ARRW testing might be feeding into other hypersonic weapons developments, remain unclear. More details a certain to emerge in the Pentagon's forthcoming budget request for the 2025 Fiscal Year, which is expected to be rolled out later this month.
Whatever the case, the recent training event at Andersen on Guam underscores that the Air Force isn't completely done with ARRW just yet and still has live AGM-183As in its inventory.

B-52 Armed With Hypersonic Missile Makes Appearance In Guam

jward · Mar 2, 2024

Chinese space, nuclear development is ‘breathtakingly fast,’ DOD officials warn

China’s advancements in space technology—and its nuclear triad—are proceeding with incredible speed, while Russia remains an unpredictable and dangerous threat, top officials from U.S. Strategic Command and Space Command told lawmakers Thursday.

What “China and Russia are doing, particularly building with their counterspace weapons, they're moving breathtakingly fast,” Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of U.S. Space Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
U.S. forces rely heavily on space assets. China and Russia know that, and it's becoming a growing vulnerability, Whiting said.

“Our forces today are optimized for a benign space environment. The systems were either built or the requirements were largely laid down during a time when we didn't face the threats we now see. So now we really have to focus on making sure we have the systems to protect and defend our existing architectures, even as we make our current architecture more resilient, and that we have the systems to protect the joint force from the space-enabling capabilities.”

Whiting didn’t talk specifically about the Russian nuclear anti-satellite weapon that’s been much in the news, but he did—indirectly—address the notion that Russia would have no strategic reason to use such a weapon, since it would destroy Russian satellites as well.
The Russian military is simply less dependent on space for their operations, he said, as “they are a continental power and they expect to be able to run fiber and to do microwave shots and those kinds of things. And they don't have the same global…military that we do, so they are less dependent.”
Russia also has a large number of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons it uses to threaten adversaries. A report this week in the Financial Times shows the criteria Russia has used to determine whether to launch a strike with a tactical nuclear weapon, such as an enemy incursion into Russian territory or the destruction of 20 percent of its strategic ballistic missile submarine fleet.

The Biden administration has moved to scrap the development of a U.S. tactical nuclear weapon—the sea-launched cruise missile—much to the chagrin of some Republicans.
China, on the other hand, is far more dependent on space assets and so has a strong disincentive to launch a space attack that would harm satellites indiscriminately, Whiting said.
“They have replicated in many ways what we have done in space, because as they try to push us out from the first island chain and the second island chain in the Pacific, they have gone to space for the advantages it brings.”
China is also rapidly advancing its own nuclear triad capability, including a stealth bomber.

“The breakout that we saw and the advancements, and how quickly the advancements that we're seeing in China to rapidly create a viable triad, are breathtaking,” said Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, deliberately borrowing Whiting’s term.
China's nuclear arsenal is set to have as many as 1,500 warheads by 2035, compared to about 500 today.
Beyond China and Russia, Cotton said that other nuclear players like North Korea and (soon) Iran are benefiting from their partnership with Russia in ways that make them larger threats.

“In regards to the relationship that we see, the transactional relationship between Russia and the DPRK has manifested itself in different ways over the past few months,” he said.
Both officials pushed for full funding in order to modernize the U.S. nuclear triad, including a bomber replacement program, replacement of the Ohio nuclear submarine with the larger Columbia class, and the replacement of ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, a vast effort expected to ultimately cost $1.5 trillion over the net 30 years.
But that funding has already become controversial, particularly the program to modernize the U.S. ICBM intercontinental ballistic missiles. Dubbed Sentinel, the program is set to cost 37 percent more than previous estimates, triggering a review of the program.

“I am very concerned that Pentagon officials are already saying quote, ‘They will make the trade offs it takes to keep the Sentinel program funded. analysis be damned.’ I'll be watching closely to see if the DOD takes this review that is required now by law because of the cost overruns. I will be looking to see if they take this review seriously,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Chinese space, nuclear development is ‘breathtakingly fast,’ DOD officials warn

Heads of STRATCOM, Space Command discuss growing nuclear, space dangers.

www.defenseone.com

jward · Mar 2, 2024

taiwannews.com.tw

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time

Taiwan News

American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu

Green Beret with 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (right), instructs a Soldier with 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division&nb...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The United States has reportedly taken the unprecedented step of stationing special forces in Taiwan on a permanent basis to conduct continuous training missions in the country.

Following the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA) in the U.S., American military advisors have begun being permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu this year, reported UDN. They are conducting periodic training sessions with various Taiwanese special forces units.

Since last year, U.S. special forces have been assisting Taiwan special forces in learning to operate the Black Hornet Nano, a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and aiding in the development of guidelines and instructional materials. The Aviation and Special Forces Command has submitted a proposal to explore the procurement of this weapon from the U.S. through arms sales channels.

The NDAA includes plans for sending officials to Taiwan. Currently, there are no reported plans for civilian officials to be stationed in Taiwan. However, it is reported that the U.S. military's Special Operations Forces Liaison Element (SOFLE) is proactively expanding its training program in Taiwan.

This involves sending three-person teams from the Army Green Berets, specifically from the 1st Special Forces Group, 2nd Battalion, Alpha Company, to be stationed at bases of Taiwan's 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion and Airborne Special Service Company for continuous joint training, serving as resident training observers. Contrary to the past, when the U.S. military frequently visited the Army Airborne Training Center (now located at the new site in Pingtung) and the Guguan Special Forces Training Center, there were no U.S. personnel previously stationed at these locations.

Since last year, the SOFLE was stationed at Taiwan's special operations command base in Taoyuan City's Longtan District. According to the newspaper, all U.S. special operations personnel in Taiwan are under the guidance, support, and control of the SOFLE post in Taoyuan, and it manages high-value equipment or training materials temporarily stored in Taiwan.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of the Division of Defense Strategy and Resources at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, was cited by TVBS as saying "The Green Berets a defensive type of special forces, employed to counteract enemy infiltration, especially when integrated with Taiwan's amphibious reconnaissance battalions. They include the 1st Reconnaissance Company in Kinmen, 2nd Reconnaissance Company in Matsu, and 3rd Reconnaissance Company in Penghu, as well as at the mouth of the Tamsui River."

In an interview with CNN in 2021, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) became the first Taiwanese president in 40 years to acknowledge that there are U.S. troops deployed in the country. This latest news about the Green Berets, marks the first report of the U.S. permanently stationing miltiary personnel in Taiwan.

When asked by Taiwan News to comment on the report, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) stated that the content of the NDAA is aimed at assisting Taiwan in developing comprehensive training and institutionalized capabilities. "Exchanges with foreign militaries will carried out according to annual plans, and no comments will be made on the details of such activities," stated the ministry.

The MND added that the military will "continue to make concerted efforts to train and prepare for war to ensure national security and regional stability."

The Pentagon has yet to respond to a request from Taiwan News for comment.

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time | Taiwan News | Mar. 2, 2024 18:37

www.taiwannews.com.tw

jward · Mar 3, 2024

Ian Ellis
@ianellisjones
·
These headlines concern me because it feels like a move away from strategic ambiguity & toward clarity. Beijing could view this as a change in political status quo, which has “potentially dire consequences for all parties involved.”

“If they don’t feel that assurance, they’ll feel like time is not on their side—& you’ll force them into a war of necessity. That’s what could be cataclysmic about all of this.”

Ian Ellis
@ianellisjones
·
Apple map showing location of U.S. forces in Taiwan

Big news recently—Taiwanese media reporting U.S. troops will be permanently stationed in a move described as unprecedented.

Kinmen, surrounded by Chinese coast guard ships, has a large military garrison with U.S. presence.

jward said:
taiwannews.com.tw

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time

Taiwan News

Home

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American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu

Green Beret with 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (right), instructs a Soldier with 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division&nb...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The United States has reportedly taken the unprecedented step of stationing special forces in Taiwan on a permanent basis to conduct continuous training missions in the country.

Following the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA) in the U.S., American military advisors have begun being permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu this year, reported UDN. They are conducting periodic training sessions with various Taiwanese special forces units.

Since last year, U.S. special forces have been assisting Taiwan special forces in learning to operate the Black Hornet Nano, a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and aiding in the development of guidelines and instructional materials. The Aviation and Special Forces Command has submitted a proposal to explore the procurement of this weapon from the U.S. through arms sales channels.

The NDAA includes plans for sending officials to Taiwan. Currently, there are no reported plans for civilian officials to be stationed in Taiwan. However, it is reported that the U.S. military's Special Operations Forces Liaison Element (SOFLE) is proactively expanding its training program in Taiwan.

This involves sending three-person teams from the Army Green Berets, specifically from the 1st Special Forces Group, 2nd Battalion, Alpha Company, to be stationed at bases of Taiwan's 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion and Airborne Special Service Company for continuous joint training, serving as resident training observers. Contrary to the past, when the U.S. military frequently visited the Army Airborne Training Center (now located at the new site in Pingtung) and the Guguan Special Forces Training Center, there were no U.S. personnel previously stationed at these locations.

Since last year, the SOFLE was stationed at Taiwan's special operations command base in Taoyuan City's Longtan District. According to the newspaper, all U.S. special operations personnel in Taiwan are under the guidance, support, and control of the SOFLE post in Taoyuan, and it manages high-value equipment or training materials temporarily stored in Taiwan.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of the Division of Defense Strategy and Resources at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, was cited by TVBS as saying "The Green Berets a defensive type of special forces, employed to counteract enemy infiltration, especially when integrated with Taiwan's amphibious reconnaissance battalions. They include the 1st Reconnaissance Company in Kinmen, 2nd Reconnaissance Company in Matsu, and 3rd Reconnaissance Company in Penghu, as well as at the mouth of the Tamsui River."

In an interview with CNN in 2021, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) became the first Taiwanese president in 40 years to acknowledge that there are U.S. troops deployed in the country. This latest news about the Green Berets, marks the first report of the U.S. permanently stationing miltiary personnel in Taiwan.

When asked by Taiwan News to comment on the report, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) stated that the content of the NDAA is aimed at assisting Taiwan in developing comprehensive training and institutionalized capabilities. "Exchanges with foreign militaries will carried out according to annual plans, and no comments will be made on the details of such activities," stated the ministry.

The MND added that the military will "continue to make concerted efforts to train and prepare for war to ensure national security and regional stability."

The Pentagon has yet to respond to a request from Taiwan News for comment.

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time | Taiwan News | Mar. 2, 2024 18:37

www.taiwannews.com.tw

Housecarl · Mar 3, 2024

jward said:
Ian Ellis
@ianellisjones
·
These headlines concern me because it feels like a move away from strategic ambiguity & toward clarity. Beijing could view this as a change in political status quo, which has “potentially dire consequences for all parties involved.”

“If they don’t feel that assurance, they’ll feel like time is not on their side—& you’ll force them into a war of necessity. That’s what could be cataclysmic about all of this.”

Ian Ellis
@ianellisjones
·
Apple map showing location of U.S. forces in Taiwan

Big news recently—Taiwanese media reporting U.S. troops will be permanently stationed in a move described as unprecedented.

Kinmen, surrounded by Chinese coast guard ships, has a large military garrison with U.S. presence.

View attachment 463557

The term "tripwires" comes to mind......

WAR 02-24-2024-to-03-01-2024__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

On TB every waking moment

(333) 02-03-2024-to-02-09-2024__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

(334) 02-10-2024-to-02-16-2024__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

(335) 02-17-2024-to-02-23-2024__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

G7 leaders admonish Russia for ‘irresponsible nuclear rhetoric’ on second anniversary of Ukraine war​

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The Long Shadow: Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine​

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Introduction​

Russian Nuclear Forces and Doctrine​

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The Long Shadow​

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Findings and Recommendations​

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AI models preferred to launch nuclear strikes in wargames test​

‘Statistically significant escalation for all models’​

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The forgotten part of war: Iran's nuclearization​

The ability of the US and Israel to monitor, let alone deter, the development of Iran's nuclear program has diminished significantly. The report spoke of the role of conflicts in the Middle East in neglecting the Iranian nuclear threat.​

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Task Force Marne, NATO allies build interoperability during combined arms live-fire exercise​

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The Next Taiwan Crisis Will (Almost) Certainly Involve Nuclear Threats​

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B-52 Armed With Hypersonic Missile Makes Appearance In Guam​

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US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time​

American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu​

passin' thru

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time​

American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu​

On TB every waking moment

WAR 02-24-2024-to-03-01-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

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

(334) 02-10-2024-to-02-16-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

(335) 02-17-2024-to-02-23-2024__THEWINDSofWAR

G7 leaders admonish Russia for ‘irresponsible nuclear rhetoric’ on second anniversary of Ukraine war

The Cost of Nuclear War in Space

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

What it costs the West to enforce sanctions

The Long Shadow: Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine

The Issue

Introduction

Russian Nuclear Forces and Doctrine

The Long Shadow

Russian Nuclear Calibration February 2022–July 2023

Findings and Recommendations

AI models preferred to launch nuclear strikes in wargames test

‘Statistically significant escalation for all models’

Artificial intelligence in warfare

Salem AlKetbi

The forgotten part of war: Iran's nuclearization

The ability of the US and Israel to monitor, let alone deter, the development of Iran's nuclear program has diminished significantly. The report spoke of the role of conflicts in the Middle East in neglecting the Iranian nuclear threat.

Task Force Marne, NATO allies build interoperability during combined arms live-fire exercise

China’s nuclear expansion is ‘breathtaking’ in number of weapons and pace, Stratcom general says

The Next Taiwan Crisis Will (Almost) Certainly Involve Nuclear Threats

NFU Policy

China’s Growing Nuclear Arsenal

Nuclear Threats Extend to U.S. Allies

What is to be Done?

Return To ICBMs Armed With Multiple Warheads Suggested By STRATCOM Boss

NATO's nuclear deterrent must be real for Finland, says new president

Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear

B-52 Armed With Hypersonic Missile Makes Appearance In Guam

Chinese space, nuclear development is ‘breathtakingly fast,’ DOD officials warn

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time

American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu

US Green Berets reportedly permanently based in Taiwan for 1st time

American military advisors permanently stationed in Army amphibious bases in Kinmen and Penghu