WAR 03-06-2021-to-03-12-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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(459) 02-13-2021-to-02-19-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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(458) 02-06-2021-to-02-12-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 02-06-2021-to-02-12-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (459)...

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Chinese spies in Afghanistan tells a lot about Beijing’s counterterrorism approach

A car bomb attack in October 2013 at Tiananmen Square arguably laid the groundwork for Beijing’s decision to ethnically re-engineer the Xinjiang province.

theprint.in

• Opinion

Chinese spies in Afghanistan tells a lot about Beijing’s counterterrorism approach
A car bomb attack in October 2013 at Tiananmen Square arguably laid the groundwork for Beijing’s decision to ethnically re-engineer the Xinjiang province.

Kabir Taneja 5 March, 2021 10:33 am IST

The recent detention of alleged Chinese spies in Afghanistan, who were reportedly in contact with the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network, gave a rare glimpse of Beijing’s counterterror operations and policies. Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor in the country’s far north Badakhshan Province — a narrow strip of land that meets around Tajikistan, Pakistan, and China — has long been Beijing’s area of interest with regard to its attempts to control the Uyghur population and the insurgencies that emit from it. For this, China has previously reported thinking of setting up a military base in Afghanistan, already having a base just 12 kilometres from Wakhan in Tajikistan and a strong outreach to the Taliban, both officially and unofficially.


China has a problem with its approach to countering terrorism, and much of that begins with the fact that it has very rarely defined the kinds of threats, violence, and effects posed by non-state actors to Chinese society and politics. With the absence of clarity in Chinese threat perceptions on terrorism, and next to no opportunities for independent corroboration of the same, Beijing’s counterterrorism thinking largely remains elusive.

However, this does not mean China has not been concerned about terrorism, or that it has not acted upon protecting itself and its interests. With China’s exponential rise, and an economic and political reach now countering that of the US, as showcased today by its mammoth Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project, Beijing’s views on terrorism are not going to be restricted to its geography, and have increasingly become expansive in order to protect its own interests, both nationally and internationally.



Also read: Better US-India ties is bad news for Pakistan. Expect lip service on Kashmir, no aid



China started to move aggressively against the Uyghurs and related groups beyond its borders around 2014, with a mass knifing attack in Kunming in March, followed by a car bomb attack in Urumqi two months later in May, killing dozens. A car bomb attack in October 2013 at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, claimed as a “jihadist operation” by the Turkestan Islamic Party (also known as the East Turkestan Islamic Party or the ETIM — amongst other names) arguably laid the groundwork for Beijing’s decision to ethnically re-engineer the Xinjiang province, called by some scholars such as Amy H. Liu and Kevin Peters as the “Hanification” of Xinjiang. This was despite, publicly, China refusing to accept ETIM’s claim, saying while the blast was a deliberate act, it had nothing to do with terrorism.




Some examples of the above have been visible on how Beijing has approached the issue of Uyghur Muslims. In its restive province of Xinjiang, China has developed “re-education camps” where Uyghurs are held and are educated as per the Communist party’s diktats in attempts to move them away from practising Islam. As part of this, many mosques and religious infrastructure in Xinjiang have been destroyed by Beijing. To expand its internationally denounced policies against Uyghurs, China has even targeted the ethnic group beyond its borders.



However, the plight of the Uyghurs has found next to no commonality for China with the international community, placing it on an isolated path as Western states such as Canada and The Netherlands move to label Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide. In November 2020, the then US President Donald Trump delisted the ETIM from the US terrorism designation list, a move hailed by Uyghur organisations. Beijing criticised the move as “double standards” in how Washington looked at international terrorism. This was despite the fact that in 2018 the US air strikes targeted Uyghur militants as part of its offensive against the Taliban.



China has identified its fight against the Uyghurs as its main terrorism challenge, and it has deployed instruments and state capacity to deal with the same beyond its geography as well. The ETIM is not a new organisation and was placed on the UN terror list back in 2002 for having ties with the likes of Al-Qaeda. More recently, in 2017, ETIM fighters were seen aligning themselves with the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh in Arabic), with the group highlighting the deaths of hundreds of Uyghurs in Xinjiang over the past years as a major part of its propaganda.




Beijing’s outreach against the ETIM has been largely clandestine and has often traversed into geopolitical spaces with the few countries China can genuinely call as a partner. In 2013, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) released a video showing young children training with weapons at a camp purported to be inside China’s close ally Pakistan and spreading beyond into Afghanistan as well. However, China has not concentrated on the ETIM only based on the group’s activities against Xinjiang but has highlighted its terror activities, both in Central Asia and South Asia as well, in an attempt to mobilise a broader consensus. Nonetheless, clarity on ETIM’s hierarchies and structures remain largely elusive, and the group and its factions are known to change names and avatars frequently.



Also read: If China-Pakistan came to peace table, BJP’s failed national security strategy helped too




However, the ETIM’s closeness to transnational jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS should ideally be a point of convergence between multiple stakeholders, including China. Despite the understood points of contact between Al-Qaeda and ETIM, it is interesting to note that Al-Qaeda itself has never vehemently orchestrated an ideological push against China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. This aligns with the fact that much of the Islamic world, including Saudi Arabia (home to the two holy mosques) has in fact defended Beijing’s moves in Xinjiang. While there is no outright correlation between these two points, a general lack of push against China’s treatment of Uyghurs from the Islamic world has been witnessed.

It is also interesting to note here that Islamist groups have often pitted the US against China. Researcher Elliot Stewart, for example, has highlighted that ISIS, after promoting videos of Uyghurs amidst its ranks in 2014 for reach and propaganda value with the then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi naming “East Turkestan (Xinjiang)” as a region where rights of Muslims were being forcefully seized, has today stopped mentioning China and Xinjiang. Stewart has attributed this as a strategic play by ISIS, with the jihadist group recognising China as “the greatest enemy of its (ISIS) greatest enemy,” i.e., the US. This, arguably, also opens a chance for Beijing to reach out to ISIS, much like it has done with the Taliban, to refuse Uyghurs both sanctuary and rank within its insurgency and keep Xinjiang out of their aims, narratives, and propaganda. The legitimacy the Taliban has received over the past two years in Afghanistan via a cocktail of military victories and a tired American military and political presence in the country will be aspirational to other jihadist groups as well. And these aspirations will be ripe to be co-opted by other geopolitical actors who seek space and influence in these theatres.



The change of guard in Washington DC, with President Joe Biden taking the helm, is expected to not see much of a difference in some of the harsher China policies that had taken shape under the Trump administration. The new chief-in-waiting of the CIA, William Burns, has said that pushing back on a “formidable authoritarian adversary” in China would be the central focus of his stint as the new top spook. Despite having common adversaries in the likes of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, Beijing’s counterterrorism policy will largely remain isolated from the rest of the world for the foreseeable future as the US now leads an increasing convergence against China in the Indo-Pacific to create a new security order.


Kabir Taneja @kabirTaneja is a Fellow with ORF’s Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on India’s relations with West Asia, specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics, terrorism, non-state militant actors and the general security paradigm of the region. Views are personal.


The article first appeared on the Observer Research Foundation website.

 

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WSJ News Exclusive | Biden Officials Propose Afghan, Taliban Summit to Form Interim Government

The Biden administration has proposed a new path forward to end the war in Afghanistan, officials said, moving to set aside a deal negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban and to delay a planned U.S. troop withdrawal beyond May.

www.wsj.com

Biden Officials Propose Afghan, Taliban Summit to Form Interim Government
A U.S. envoy has proposed a gathering of Afghan and Taliban leaders, likely setting aside deal negotiated between Trump administration and Taliban and delaying a U.S. troop withdrawal

By Jessica Donati and Nancy A. Youssef

Updated March 5, 2021 8:36 pm ET

WASHINGTON—The top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan proposed the idea of a grand conference of Afghan and Taliban leaders to create an interim government, U.S. and Afghan officials said, reflecting a growing consensus in the Biden administration that peace talks between representatives of the two sides in Doha are moving too slowly.


The idea, suggested during a visit to the region this week by Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. envoy for Afghan peace, would replicate the format of the 2001 conference held in Bonn, Germany, which selected a leader for Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted following the Sept. 11 attacks.


A key difference: The Taliban weren’t invited to join the first talks. If they were to agree to participate now, they would take a seat at the table with more influence than at any time in the past 20 years of war.


The new effort would likely set aside a deal negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban. It would also likely delay a U.S. troop withdrawal by May that was part of the deal.............

 

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Shabaab mounts prison break in northern Somalia | FDD's Long War Journal

Shabaab says it freed more than 400 prisoners from the central prison of Bosaso in northern Somalia, however, this number remains unconfirmed. The group also reiterates that prison assaults are one of its main goals in its fight against the Somali state.

www.longwarjournal.org

Shabaab mounts prison break in northern Somalia

By Caleb Weiss | March 5, 2021 | weiss.caleb2@gmail.com | @Weissenberg7


Shabaab, al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa, has claimed responsibility for attacking Bosaso’s central prison in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland earlier today.

Somali officials have not yet given a precise number of militants freed in the prison break, but Shabaab has claimed it “liberated more than 400” inmates.

Shabaab was quick to claim responsibility for the prison break via its local radio stations and through its Shahada News Telegram channel.

“Fighters of Shabaab succeeded in liberating more than 400 prisoners from the central prison of Puntland in Bosaso,” Shabaab’s statement from Shahada News begins. The al Qaeda branch adds that “many of the prisoners were members of the movement and some had been imprisoned for more than 10 years.”

The jihadist group also reports it freed women and young girls from detention, though this detail is entirely unconfirmed. Likewise, Shabaab often exaggerates the total success of its operations.

Bosaso residents reported gunfire and explosions near the prison early this morning. Puntland officials were slow to confirm an attack on the prison was taking place, but initially only confirmed scant details to the media.

In an early statement to local Puntland media, the regional police chief confirmed that at least one soldier was killed in the assault while two others were wounded.

A prison guard speaking to Reuters, however, painted a different picture.

“There was a hellish battle… As I fought inside, we lost five soldiers,” the guard is reported saying. He also added that two additional soldiers who had arrived at the scene as back up were also killed.

He also confirmed to the wire news service that explosives were used to breach the prison and that “they [Shabaab] freed the prisoners and took most with them.”

Puntland police officials later confirmed most of the guard’s testimony, though they again did not give any estimate for the total number of freed inmates.

Shabaab’s Prison Breaks
Today’s assault in Bosaso is not the first time Shabaab has mounted a prison break in recent months. In Aug. 2020, Shabaab militants inside Mogadishu’s central prison attempted to shoot their way out of the prison after raiding its armory with help from sympathetic guards.

Going back further in 2017, it also conducted a suicide bombing on the Mogadishu prison but damage was limited thanks to the intervention of a security guard. And in 2013, Shabaab attempted to free militants from the same Bosaso prison as today but that attack was thwarted.

Shabaab’s statement today makes it clear that the group views prison breaks as one of its main objectives.

For instance, the statement is explicit that today’s assault came from the orders of its emir, Abu Ubaidah Ahmed Omar. “It should be noted that the liberation of prisoners is a primary goal of [Shabaab]…which was previously announced by our emir,” the message reads.

The communique then quotes Abu Ubaidah as saying “we say to Muslim prisoners everywhere: we feel what you feel…be patient and endure, freeing you from captivity is a debt in the necks of your mujahideen brothers. And I say to the mujahideen, let the liberation of Muslim prisoners be at the top of your priorities.”

Prison breaks are a cornerstone of jihadi operational strategy. Shabaab, like many other jihadist groups around the world, utilizes these raids to not only free its members and leaders from detention, but to also demonstrate the weakness of the state and thereby gain a major propaganda victory.

Caleb Weiss is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

 

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Analysis: Iranian state textbooks incite terrorism | FDD's Long War Journal

Unsurprisingly, Iran's official government textbooks continue to incite hatred, extremism, and terrorism.

www.longwarjournal.org

Analysis: Iranian state textbooks incite terrorism

By David Andrew Weinberg | March 5, 2021 | dweinberg@adl.org | @DavidAWeinberg

The United States Government has routinely identified Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, going back to the 1980s and across successive American administrations. Furthermore, Tehran’s efforts to export its revolution are widely known, as are its shameless promotion of antisemitic propaganda, such as cartoon contests to encourage Holocaust denial.


But comparatively little attention has been paid to Iran’s incitement of hatred, extremism, and terrorism in its official government textbooks. Whereas credible and comprehensive studies of incitement in the Saudi state curriculum have been published each one of the last five years, for example, the last such expert study of the Iranian curriculum was only published in 2016.


For this reason, ADL (Anti-Defamation League) just published a new monograph that surveys Iran’s official textbooks from the 2020-21 school year, the full text of which is downloadable here from ADL’s website.


While identifying extremist content in the Iranian curriculum is by no means surprising, some of the forms that such extremism takes are instructive. Furthermore, documenting the pervasive and ongoing nature of such educational indoctrination provides information that can be of use for informing policymakers, intelligence officials, journalists, and the public debate. It also underlines that the challenges posed by Iran’s policies to the international community extend well beyond just a single issue area and offer no easy answers.

Image from a current Iranian state textbook, in a lesson titled “Cultural Attack”. Grade 9, Heaven’s Messages: Islamic Education and Training, p. 105
Demonizing America


The current Iranian curriculum teaches that Tehran is the Islamic faith’s standard-bearer in an existential and “perpetual battle” against imperialism, with the United States of America today at its forefront. Israel, Europe, and Arab states are seen as accomplices in this global fight, with both the Soviets and Great Britain also cited as notable historical enemies. This construct is used in the curriculum in order to justify the regime’s ongoing sponsorship of international violence.


For example, current Iranian textbooks for middle school and high school grades teach that U.S.-led sanctions against Iran (even those that are multilateral and approved by the United Nations) merely represent a “satanic plan” to target Islam itself and follow in the footsteps of tribesmen who imposed an economic siege on the Prophet Muhammad and his followers in the 7th century.

Image from a current Iranian state textbook, Grade 10, Defense Preparation, p. 120. The text in red translates to “Sanctions”. The text in black says “Iran”.
The curriculum also teaches that Sunni terrorist groups such as the Islamic State are in fact American fabrications to weaken and defame true Islam, in conspiratorial partnership with America’s allies in the region, including both Saudi Arabia and Israel. They teach that America also seeks to subvert Iran and other Muslim societies through a “soft war” or “cultural attack” of spreading drug use, fornication, anti-Islamic films and video games, in a role that the textbooks say was historically played by Freemasons and Christian missionaries as a pawn of the West.


This year’s textbooks even added in new conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, claiming that “foreign media” tried to stop Iranians from attending crowded regime rallies in February 2020 by exaggerating the COVID threat and that runs on medical goods were created by Western media.


Militancy and Terrorism


Perhaps the most striking use of militant language in the Iranian curriculum was actually its reference to the country’s nuclear program. The curriculum also glorifies both child soldiers as well as known terrorists.


Notably, the regime’s 11th grade textbook History of Contemporary Iran proclaims that “in spite of the constant conspiracies and oppositions of the enemies of the Islamic Republic, Iranian nuclear scientists have achieved many successes.” Immediately afterwards, the text proceeds with a quote from Iran’s previous Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that cloaks its reference to the nuclear program in militancy: “I advise the dear nation of Iran to know that you have achieved a blessing with your great jihad and the blood of your bounteous youths.”

Image from a current Iranian state textbook, Grade 10, Defense Preparation, p. 45. The text on top translates to “LESSON 6: TEMPLATES AND MODELS OF STEADFASTNESS AND RESISTANCE”. Among the six depicted in the graphic are Qassem Soleimani (center top), who led the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (second right), who led Kata’ib Hizballah in Iraq. Both organizations are U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and both men were personally under U.S. sanctions at the time of their deaths in 2020.
One theme that was actually updated in the 2020-21 textbooks is the curriculum’s longstanding emphasis on known terrorists as martyrs, which was revised in several places to include references to the late Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, as a “martyr” and a “model.” Also glorified in this regard are the late terror chief of Lebanese Hezbollah Mustafa Badreddine and late commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.


Additionally, the Iranian curriculum continues to present child soldiers, primarily from the Iran-Iran War, as contemporary role models. For example, the texts show children wielding firearms and rocket launchers, encouraging recruitment and martyrdom in the service of the regime’s Basij paramilitary, and quoting a child soldier from the Iran-Iraq War who encouraged youths to protect the regime “until the last drop of blood.”

Image of what seems to be a child holding a rocket launcher, in a textbook lesson titled “A Culture of Sacrifice and Martyrdom” in a current Iranian state textbook, Grade 10, Defense Preparation, p. 37.
The books also teach students how to assemble Kalashnikov assault rifles and encourage them to learn about cyberwarfare. While lip service is given to the notion of achieving peace through strength, the emphasis is clearly on preparing Iran’s next generation for what is portrayed as inevitable war, instead of any possibility of peace.

Graphic from a current Iranian state textbook in a lesson on cyber warfare. Grade 10, Defense Preparation, p. 126.
Advocating Hatred and Regime Overthrow


Although the Government of Iran routinely professes that its opposition is strictly toward the State of Israel or the ideology of Zionism, that principle is contradicted by the textbooks that it produces for schoolchildren. Positive blandishments are used to describe the loyalty of the community of Jews that remain in Iran, as well as anti-Zionist Jews outside of Israel, but otherwise all Jewish people who identify as Zionists are described categorically as “the enemies of Islam.” Furthermore, Jews are consistently depicted as evil, greedy, and hostile schemers in the curriculum’s history textbooks, covering periods before the development of modern Zionism.


Also of note is that the Iranian curriculum applies these sorts of messages to other countries and minority groups as well, not just to the Jews. For example, Baha’is come in for particular demonization in the textbooks. Their faith is described as a “deviant sect” created as “one of the tricks of colonialism to destroy the cultural foundations of Islamic countries,” as well as “creating unrest and insurgency.” The curriculum also suggests that Baha’is, Buddhists, and Sunni Muslims who adhere to the Salafist creed of Wahhabism may also be physically unclean.

Graphic from a current Iranian state textbook with the quotation “Israel Must be Wiped Out,” from the deceased founder of Iran’s Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Grade 5, Heaven’s Gifts: Islamic Education and Training, p. 102.
Additionally, the curriculum calls for overthrowing two regimes in particular, one Jewish and one Arab. Textbooks repeat Khomeini’s teaching that “Israel must be wiped out,” in addition to glorifying the chant “death to Israel.” They also advocate the overthrow of the Bahraini monarchy, lamenting that “the Bahraini revolution has not yet come to fruition.”

Graphic and text from a current Iranian state textbook which depicts Pearl Roundabout in Manama and states that “due to foreign support of the regime and severe oppression, the Bahraini revolution has not yet come to fruition”. Grade 11, History of Contemporary Iran, p. 251.
Conclusion


While it is by no means surprising that the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism incites hatred, extremism, and terrorism in its government-published school textbooks, it is still quite significant. They confirm that Tehran has not only continued to teach such dangerous content since the last time it was documented nearly half a decade ago, they also demonstrate new ways in which such content has been added or adapted in response to recent events, including the war in Syria, the killing of Qassem Soleimani, and even the global pandemic. Such findings also emphasize the need for governments and civil society to address to the full array of harmful activities that the Government of Iran pursues, as well as the long-term difficulty of doing so.


David Andrew Weinberg is the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington Director for International Affairs.

 

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Biden signals support to replace war power authority

The Biden administration announced its position after a bipartisan bill was introduced that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the wars in Iraq.

www.defensenews.com

The Americas
Biden signals support to replace war power authority

By: Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press   18 hours ago

The Biden administration appears to support Congress' efforts to rein in war powers. (Evan Vucci/AP)



WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signaled support to replace decades-old authorizations for the use of military force in the Middle East, a little more than a week after he relied on the authorizations to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against an Iranian-backed militia in eastern Syria.

The Biden administration announced its position after a bipartisan bill was introduced earlier this week that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the wars in Iraq that presidents from both parties have relied on for legal justification to carry out strikes in the region.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden was committed to working with Congress to “ensure that the authorizations for the use of military force currently on the books are replaced with a narrow and specific framework that will ensure we can protect Americans from terrorist threats while ending the forever wars.”

Biden spurred bipartisan backlash last week after he ordered the strikes against facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah. The strikes were in response to a rocket attack earlier in February targeting U.S. troops and civilian personnel in northern Iraq without first seeking congressional approval. The U.S. has blamed the militia for numerous attacks targeting U.S. personnel and interests in Iraq in the past.

Sen. Tim Kaine, a lead sponsor of the bill, said the reliance on the decades old authorizations for use of military force “serve no operational purpose, keep us on permanent war footing, and undermine the sovereignty of Iraq.”

“Last week’s airstrikes in Syria show that the Executive Branch, regardless of party, will continue to stretch its war powers,” said Kaine, a Virginia Democrat.

Administration officials defended the airstrikes as legal and appropriate, saying they took out facilities that housed valuable “capabilities” used by Iranian-backed militia groups to attack American and allied forces in Iraq.

But several leading members of Congress, including members in Biden’s own party, denounced the strikes — the first military action he has authorized. Kaine and others argued offensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional absent extraordinary circumstances.

The White House signaled support to replace the authorizations even as it warned the U.S. may consider military action following a rocket attack earlier this week that hit an air base in western Iraq where American and coalition troops are housed. A U.S. contractor died after at least 10 rockets slammed into the base early Wednesday.

“If we assess further response is warranted, we will take action again in a manner and time of our choosing,” Psaki said.

 

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Jalisco cartel shows off its fire power, parades narco-tank in Michoacán

Six heavily-armed men and one women rode on the tank as it was paraded in broad daylight in El Aguaje, a town in Aguililla.

mexiconewsdaily.com

Jalisco cartel shows off its fire power, parades narco-tank in Michoacán

An armored vehicle towed the tank in broad daylight through a community in Aguililla

https://mk0mexiconewsdam2uje.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/tank.jpg

Published on Friday, March 5, 2021

A video in which members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) show off an armored “narco-tank” apparently seized from a rival criminal organization has surfaced on social media.

The video shows an armored vehicle emblazoned with the CJNG initials towing a homemade tank, which was seized from the Viagras crime gang in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán, according to local media reports.

Six heavily-armed men and one women ride on the stolen tank as it is paraded in broad daylight down a street in El Aguaje, a town in the municipality of Aguililla.

“Another little gift,” one of the men says, while other cartel members declare that they are “pura gente del señor Mencho,” or “only Mencho’s people.”

El Mencho is the nickname of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the fugitive leader of the CJNG and Mexico’s most wanted drug lord.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1366889818446307333

View: https://twitter.com/MeganoticiasZAM/status/1366889818446307333?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1366889818446307333%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmexiconewsdaily.com%2Fnews%2Fjalisco-cartel-shows-off-its-fire-power-parades-narco-tank-in-michoacan%2F


The CJNG, widely considered Mexico’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organization, frequently makes videos to show off its vast firepower. One posted online last July showed some 75 masked gunmen alongside a long convoy of armored vehicles.


The Jalisco cartel is involved in vicious turf wars with other criminal organizations in different parts of Mexico including the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel in Guanajuato and the Viagras in Michoacán.

The CJNG has recently gone on an offensive in Michoacán’s Tierra Caliente, attacking several towns in the region. Just last week, a drone captured footage of 11 armored CJNG vehicles moving into the municipality of Tecaltepec, which borders Aguililla, from nearby communities in Jalisco.


According to local media reports, the cartel is attempting to capture or kill Juan José Farías, allegedly a criminal/self-defense force leader known as El Abuelo (The Grandfather) who heads up the eponymous Cartel del Abuelo.


Michoacán was Mexico’s sixth most violent state in 2020 in terms of the number of homicides. The only states with more murders were Guanajuato, Baja California, México state, Chihuahua and Jalisco.


Armored vehicles similar to those that appear in the new cartel video have been seen previously in Michoacán and other parts of the country. Just over a year ago, the army seized a “narco-tank” in Michoacán nicknamed “El Monstruo” (The Monster) that allegedly belonged to the Viagras. Another “monster” was found by community police in Guerrero in 2019.


Source: Proceso (sp), El País (sp)

 

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The Air Force Says Its First Hypersonic Missile Will Make Its Inaugural Flight Within 30 Days

The new schedule comes after an Air Force official said just recently that the first flight test of the AGM-183 would take place this past week.

www.thedrive.com

The Air Force Says Its First Hypersonic Missile Will Make Its Inaugural Flight Within 30 Days
The new schedule comes after an Air Force official said just recently that the first flight test of the AGM-183 would take place this past week.

By Joseph Trevithick March 5, 2021

• The War Zone

he U.S. Air Force has again pushed back the date for the first flight of its AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW. The launch was supposed to finally occur this week, after being delayed due to unspecified issues last year, but is now expected to take place sometime within the next month or so.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida announced on March 5, 2021, that the first ARRW flight, dubbed Booster Test Flight 1 (BTF-1), should occur "in the next 30 days." On Feb. 26, during a presentation as part of the Air Force Association's 2021 Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, Air Force Brigadier General Heath Collins, the service's Program Executive Officer for Weapons, had declared BTF-1 would happen by the end of this week. Before that, this test was supposed to take place before the end of December 2020.

No specific reasons were given for the new delay, but unspecified "technical findings" and the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were cited as factors. "The BTF-1 test vehicle is complete and is progressing through ground testing to verify its readiness for flight," General Collins said in a statement.

AGM-183A booster flight test is next week, says Brig. Gen Heath Collins, PEO for Weapons. #vAWS2021

The booster flight test will use a hypersonic glide body for weight and aerodynamic similarity, but no separation is planned.
— Steve Trimble (@TheDEWLine) February 26, 2021​

The Air Force says the test missile was delivered to Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 1. "Immediate work began on pre-flight ground tests and checks to obtain certification for the flight to proceed as scheduled," the service said.

Since 2019, there have been seven captive carry tests involving B-52H bombers carrying instrumented test articles, but not actually releasing them. One such test in December 2020, when the first flight had also previously been expected to take place, did involve going through all of the necessary procedures for an actual launch.







Air Force Says New Hypersonic Missile Will Hit Targets 1,000 Miles Away In Under 12 Minutes By Thomas Newdick Posted in The War Zone

Check Out This B-52 Stratofortress Carrying Two AGM-183 Hypersonic Test Missiles By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Air Force Is Buying Eight Of These Missiles That Are Set To Become Its First Hypersonic Weapons By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

Behold The First Flight Of A B-52 Bomber Carrying The AGM-183A Hypersonic Missile By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

Test Aircraft Have Been Lugging DARPA's Prototype Hypersonic Cruise Missiles Around By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone


The Air Force has also now provided a full description of the BTF-1 test plan, which is as follows:

The ARRW BTF-1 will demonstrate the booster’s ability to reach operational speeds and collect other important data. In addition to booster performance, the test vehicle will also validate safe separation and controllability of the missile away from the carrier B-52H, through ignition and boost phase, all the way up to separation of a simulated glide vehicle. The simulated glider will not sustain flight, and will safely disintegrate soon after separation. The 412th Test Wing will conduct the ARRW BTF series over the Point Mugu Sea Range in California.

The complete AGM-183A weapon consists of a nose section holding an unpowered boost-glide vehicle attached to a large rocket booster. The rocket brings the vehicle to the optimal speed and altitude, after which it glides along a relatively level flight trajectory at hypersonic speed, defined as anything above Mach 5, toward its target.

Lockheed Martin

An artist's conception of the nose cone on an AGM-183A breaking away before the hypersonic boost-glide vehicle it carries then separates from the rocket booster completely.


The ability of the wedge-shaped boost-glide vehicle to make more unpredictable movements compared to traditional ballistic missiles, while also following a largely atmospheric flight profile, makes it particularly well suited to penetrating enemy air and missile defenses to strike time-critical or otherwise high-value targets with little to no advance notice. This all makes it, at best, very difficult for an opponent to defend against these weapons or even try to relocate critical assets or seek cover before they strike.

While we don't know what the exact issue or issues are that have been delaying the BTF-1 test, wedge-shaped hypersonic boost-glide vehicles have proven to be challenging to develop in the past. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy are notably developing a common conical boost-glide vehicle that will go on top of ground-based and sea-launched missiles.

US Army

A mockup of the Army-Navy Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) vehicle.


However, the Air Force's disclosure that the BTF-1 launch will not include an actual boost-glide vehicle and that the simulated glider is supposed to break up shortly after it is released would seem to point to difficulties with the booster.

"To ensure ARRW is mature for a production decision, the Air Force and Lockheed Martin took deliberate steps to achieve a high level of manufacturing readiness," the Air Force also shared in its release regarding the new flight test schedule for the weapon. "Assembly of the ARRW booster test vehicle on production-representative manufacturing lines is a major step toward this production readiness goal."

The service presently plans to buy at least eight full-up prototype AGM-183As, at least four of which it expects to launch during live-fire testing that is still scheduled to begin later this year. Depending on how successful those tests are, any leftover missiles could be used to help field an early operational capability in 2022.

As it stands now, the B-52H is expected to be the primary launch platform for the AGM-183A. One of these bombers could carry up to four of these weapons at a time, two under each wing. Boeing is reportedly in the process of developing new underwing pylons, dubbed Hercules, each of which would be able to hold three ARRWs, or combinations of other ordnance totaling up to 20,000 pounds. That work appears to follow on from an Air Force requirement that emerged in 2018 for new Heavy Release Capability (HRC) pylons, which the service wanted to be able to accommodate 20,000-pound-class weapons, for the B-52H.

Boeing is designing a new pylon for the B-52 that will carry 3 HGVs on each wing. Each pylon will be rated to carry 20,000lb, giving those two pylons alone nearly the same payload capacity as a C-130J.

Would you like to know Boeing's name for the new pylon?

Hercules. pic.twitter.com/GVAWKpeUKd
— Steve Trimble (@TheDEWLine) February 19, 2021​

There has also been discussion about potentially integrating the AGM-183A onto the B-1B bomber in the future. At the same time, the Air Force is working with Boeing now to restore the ability of those aircraft to carry various types of additional weaponry on up to six external hardpoints.

View: https://youtu.be/4zzajMP6xws





How the Air Force ultimately fields ARRW, which is set to be the U.S. military's first operational air-launched hypersonic weapon, will be very dependent on the success of the forthcoming flight test program, which will hopefully kick off later this month.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

 

[jward]

The unintended consequence of Ethiopia’s civil war might be a border war with Sudan
AfricaSource by Cameron Hudson

Ethiopia is at war with itself—and the international community is struggling to respond. In nearly four months of fighting across Ethiopia’s Tigray region, more than sixty thousand Tigrayan refugees have fled into neighboring Sudan and 80 percent of the region’s six million citizens have been cut off from life-saving humanitarian access. Despite rolling media and internet blackouts, a steady trickle of stories has emerged that paint a gruesome picture of mass atrocities, widespread rape, summary executions, and the wholesale destruction of the region’s critical infrastructure.

In recent weeks, the United States and its European allies have launched a diplomatic campaign to convince Ethiopia’s once-venerated prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, to relent in his campaign to vanquish militarily his greatest political threat in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). I once feared the onset of a bloody struggle for control over Tigray that would pit near-equally matched foes against each other in something approximating conventional, interstate war. But what has instead emerged is a widespread TPLF insurgency that could drag on and take as many lives through deprivation as it does through combat.

The stakes in Tigray are high and the civilian toll could be considerable. But there’s another scenario, with the potential to exact an even higher toll, that many observers are overlooking: conventional war that could break out at any moment between Sudan and Ethiopia and their many allied proxies. Indeed, it is this possible unintended consequence of Abiy’s “law and order operation” in Tigray that could well do the most extensive damage in the region. In contrast to the conflict in Tigray, however, it is not too late for the United States and its allies in the region and beyond to do something to prevent a border war that would amount to a historic strategic blunder.

The seeds of this potential calamity were planted at the start of the last century when the border between Ethiopia and Sudan was first agreed to, though never formally demarcated, by modern Ethiopia’s founding father, Emperor Menelik II, during the British-Sudanese condominium. Since 1993, a patch of agricultural land on the Sudanese side of the border, referred to as the al-Fashqa Triangle, has been occupied by Amhara farmers. Many of them were relocated there by the Sudanese government in recognition of historic claims to the area by this powerful minority group. Since 2008, a de-facto agreement has existed whereby Ethiopia has acknowledged the historic legal boundary putting al-Fashqa inside Sudan, while Sudan has granted Amhara farmers continued rights to cultivate the land. Efforts to definitively demarcate the border have been stalled since the last meeting of an ad-hoc border commission last year, but Sudan’s designs on the region have never abated. Indeed, as recently as August 2020, in remarks by the head of the Sudanese army and chairman of the transitional government’s Sovereign Council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to the Army General Command, he predicted that they would “raise the flag of Sudan above al-Fashqa… and not waste one inch of the homeland.”

What has broken that decade-plus status quo is the onset of conflict in Tigray and a series of strategic and tactical calculations by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Unlike many outsiders, senior-level Sudanese officials claim not to have been surprised by the brutal assault by the TPLF on the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) Northern Command outpost in Mekelle, the Tigrayan regional capital, on the night of November 4. Only a week prior, a delegation led by the deputy head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council and head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, General Mohammed “Hemedti” Dagalo, met with Abiy in Addis, where the restive Tigray region, mounting border tensions, and the stalemated negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) were all reportedly topics of discussion.

More surprising to the Sudanese was the Ethiopian government’s near-immediate need for supplementary troops—pulled in from Ethiopian deployments in Somalia and, most notably, the al-Fashqa Triangle—to respond to the TPLF attack in Mekelle. The subsequent entry into the Tigray conflict of Eritrean forces and Amhara state militias further indicated that the ENDF was unable to subdue the TPLF uprising on its own and was operating from a greater position of relative weakness than was perhaps anticipated.

By December, as primarily SAF forces gathered along the Sudanese side of the border to monitor the crossing of Tigrayan refugees and possible retreating TPLF forces, SAF and ENDF troops found themselves in closer proximity than ever before—increasing the risk of clashes. Multiple ENDF surprise assaults on SAF army officers prompted SAF forces to move in on the night of December 29. In that incursion, SAF forces reportedly destroyed Ethiopian army outposts and administrative centers while also displacing Amhara farmers and destroying crops in their successful bid to reclaim the entirety of the al-Fashqa Triangle.

Sudan has presented its tactical decision as a legitimate response in light of the ENDF’s own unprovoked incursions against Sudanese patrols and Khartoum’s historic and legal claims to the area. But there is no question that the SAF, which has witnessed its traditional importance in Sudan’s body politic decline substantially under the country’s civilian-led transitional government, see in their defense of Sudan’s territorial integrity an opportunity to once again assert its primacy as the protector of the Sudanese state.

It is also true that in its effort to change facts on the ground, whether justified or not, the SAF has now further aggravated an inherently unstable situation in the region and may have disrupted the delicate balance among security forces inside Sudan that has kept the transition there on track.

As bellicose rhetoric by both sides has increased in recent weeks, Khartoum and Addis have come to frame the threat of territorial loss in national-security and even existential terms—similar in certain respects to how each side has recently described the contentious and protracted GERD talks. Sudan’s ambassador to Ethiopia was recently recalled to Khartoum, and various peace envoys and proposed mediators from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Sudan, and the African Union (AU) have all largely seen their willingness to help the parties achieve a negotiated solution rebuffed. Even Eritrea, whose peace agreement with Ethiopia has emerged as more of a mutual-security pact, tried unconvincingly to paint itself as a peacemaker in a letter last week from President Isaias Afwerki to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Sudan’s newly appointed foreign minister, Mariam al Saddig, suggested in late February that Sudan would be open to talks under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). But that regional body, currently chaired by Hamdok and historically controlled by Ethiopia, has not yet offered its good offices and likely lacks the independence to offer impartial mediation.

In the absence of concerted external mediation, both sides risk turning their cold war much hotter. And with such intertwined politics and long histories, both sides have the points of leverage to do it. Ethiopia currently supplies the totality of troops (more than five thousand) to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Abyei, the highly contested region along the Sudan-South Sudan border that remains at the heart of the tensions between those two countries. Concerns abound that Ethiopia could withdraw those troops, potentially forcing the SAF to fill a security vacuum there that could well spark renewed conflict with Juba. There are also worries that Sudan could unilaterally expel those forces out of fear that Ethiopia could use these forces as a fifth column in the event of a sustained outbreak of violence along its border—opening a new front against Sudan and vastly expanding their zone of conflict. Addis, for its part, is right to fear Khartoum’s ability to re-arm and re-supply TPLF rebels should Sudan wish to open its own additional front in a border conflict.

Adding to the volatility has been an influx of allied armies and militias into the border zone between Sudan and Ethiopia. On the Ethiopian side, it is not just the ENDF, but also Amhara militias and Eritrean Defense Forces. Similarly, on the Sudanese side of the border, the SAF, the RSF, and local militias have also been identified in increasingly large numbers.
Given the lack of interoperability among many of these forces, coupled with the fact that the vast majority of this mobilization is occurring in a narrow band along the border that is only a few kilometers wide, the chances are high that the slightest misstep or miscalculation could result in a large-scale outbreak of violence and a rapid escalation among three national armies and many state and national militias. This is particularly true inside Sudan, where the SAF, the RSF, and local militias have even turned on each other in the past year in areas like Darfur and Kordofan when they have been deployed in close proximity.

Absent some kind of international monitoring, there are simply too many well-armed forces in too close proximity with too little experience working with each other to discount the risk of a cataclysmic conflict breaking out.
The tense standoff has bred rumors that additional outside forces could light the spark that ignites that conflict. Egypt, which has grown increasingly frustrated with the state of GERD negotiations, is often identified as a prime potential instigator. But while there is no question that Egypt has sought to use its historic ties to Sudan to produce a GERD outcome to its liking, Egyptian officials privately express a clear-eyed understanding that an Ethiopia wracked by internal war and interstate conflict will be incapable of focusing on, let alone reaching, a binding political and technical agreement on the demanding issues that the GERD presents.

So where do we go from here? It seems unlikely that ad-hoc bilateral demands for de-escalation and withdrawal from contested areas will be sufficient at this stage. Late last month, AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat dispatched retired Mauritanian diplomat Mohamed Lebatt to Addis and Khartoum to probe each side’s willingness to accept outside meditation on the brewing border conflict. While no progress was made, it is a conversation worth building on.
Coordinated, high-level outside mediation is urgently required to avert the potentially dire consequences of a conflict for not just the civilian populations in the border area, but also the countries at the center of the dispute and the Horn of Africa as a whole. Sudan recently proposed outside mediation for the final phase of the GERD negotiations that would include the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and the African Union. Some sponsorship of border mediation by this grouping—under the leadership of an eminent, empowered figure—is worth pursuing given the substantial risks to international peace and security and the potential for the parties’ largest donors to bring financial leverage to efforts to reach a resolution.

While all these disputes are linked, there is no single process, individual, or institution that will be able to untangle the overlapping and complicated politics of the competing conflicts. What is essential is coordination. Any process that can be put in place to help with the de-escalation of war in Tigray should be kept on its own track. So too with the GERD. And so too with a process for unwinding the military buildup and tensions on the border, which should be narrowly defined and time-limited so as not to be exploited as a potential leverage point in any other mediation processes. But these must all be coordinated by a central Contact Group with the power, leverage, and legitimacy to advance options for resolution and enforce outcomes that contribute to overall peace.

Such processes must be jumpstarted now to avoid a downward spiral, and there are several immediate steps that Washington can take to do just that. In a fortunate coincidence, the United States took up the presidency of the UN Security Council in March. The newly installed US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, should prioritize a special session of the Security Council to discuss the manifold crises emerging in the Horn of Africa, with added attention to the still-unfolding conflict in Tigray and the stalemated GERD talks. Given the many competing interests at play in the Horn from all manner of external powers, the session should include discussion of an International Contact Group that can promote dialogue and transparency and ensure that potential spoilers remain in the tent rather than outside of it.

To support and complement this effort, the United States should also appoint a Horn of Africa envoy who is capable of both setting the policy agenda in Washington and corralling leaders in Europe and the region in the near term. In the long run, an envoy can only succeed if he or she is equipped with a clear set of policy objectives and the tools to advance them. In contrast to its approach in the Great Lakes or Sahel regions, Washington has for too long viewed the countries in the promising but volatile Horn of Africa in a vacuum or else simply provided wide berth to the area’s anchor state, Ethiopia, to project its power and influence to police regional disputes. With Addis having lost the ability to play that role any longer, the burden has shifted to Washington to become more actively involved in protecting its interests in the region.

That process promises to be complicated and messy. But preventing a war is surely more attractive an enterprise than ending one.

Cameron Hudson is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. Previously he served as the chief of staff to the special envoy for Sudan and as director for African Affairs on the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. Follow him on Twitter @_hudsonc.

Posted For Fair Use

The unintended consequence of Ethiopia’s civil war might be a border war with Sudan

Ethiopia is at war with itself—and the international community is struggling to respond. The stakes in Tigray are high and the civilian toll could be considerable. But there’s another scenario, with the potential to exact an even higher toll, that many observers are overlooking: conventional war...

www.atlanticcouncil.org

 

[jward]

Dr. Jonathan Schroden
@JJSchroden

Another scoop for
@TOLOnews
: draft of the US proposed peace agreement for #Afghanistan. Consists of 3 parts: 1. Guiding Principles for AFG’s Future 2. Transitional Peace Govt & Political Roadmap 3. Permanent & Comprehensive Ceasefire https://tolonews.com/pdf/pdf.pdf

28022021The following discussion draft of a peace agreement is intended to jumpstart Afghanistan Peace Negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the Taliban. It sets forth principles for governance, security, and rule of law and presents options for power sharing that could help the two sides reach a political settlement that ends the war. The draft reflects a variety of ideas and priorities of Afghans on both sides of the conflict andis intended to focus the negotiators on some of the most fundamental issues they will need to address. Ultimately, the two sides will determine their own political future and the contours of any political settlement.* * * * *AFGHANISTAN PEACE AGREEMENTThe following Peace Agreement between the two sides to Afghanistan Peace Negotiations is made in three parts. First are agreed guiding principles for Afghanistan’s Constitution and the future of the Afghan State. Second are agreed terms for governing the country during a transitional period of no more than [xx] months and a roadmap for making Constitutional changes and addressing security and governance matters critical to a durable and just settlement. Third are agreed terms for a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire and its implementation Part One: Guiding Principles for Afghanistan’s FutureThe two sides agree on the following principles to guide the outcome of their talks and to serve as the basis of a new Constitution and of the Afghan State:

1. Afghanistan’s official religion will be theholy religion of Islam. A new High Council for Islamic Jurisprudence shall be established to provide Islamic guidance and advice to all national and local government structures.
2. The ability of all Afghans to live peacefully will be paramount. Afghanistan will be a safe home for all of its ethnic groups, tribes, and religious sects. The safe, dignified, and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons will be prioritized.
3. The dignity, life, and property of all Afghans, as well as the protection of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights – including the rights to free speech and to choose their political leaders – will be respected and enshrined in the future Afghan Constitution. The future Afghan state will respect and uphold the will of the people, Islamic values, social and political justice, national unity, and the sovereignty and integrity of Afghanistan’s territory.
4. The future Constitution will guarantee the protection of women’s rights, and the rights of children, in political, social, economic, educational, and cultural affairs. 5. Afghanistan’s national entities and other public bodies – including educational and security institutions – will be recognized and strengthened as national assets that belong to and benefit all Afghans. This includes providing for the security of, and support to, public infrastructure, including schools, madrassas, hospitals, markets, dams, and other public offices.

280220216. The future Afghan state will honor and support all victims of the past 42 years of conflict, especially the wounded, orphans, widowed, and disabled. A national policy of transitional justice will be developed that focuses on truth-seeking, reconciliation, healing and forgiveness in accordance with applicable Afghan and international law. 7. Afghanistan will seek commitments from the international community to support and assist in the rebuilding and reconstruction of the country. 8. Afghanistan will have a non-aligned foreign policy and will seek friendly relations with all countries and the international community. Afghanistan will adhere to international law, including treaties to which it is a party. No one will be allowed to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of Afghanistan’s neighbors or any other country. Afghanistan will insist that all countries not interfere in its internal affairs. 9. The 2004 Constitution will be the initial template from which the future Constitution will beprepared. 10. The future Constitution will provide for free and fair elections for Afghanistan’s national political leadership in which all Afghan citizens have a right to participate. Ultimate authority to take decisions of paramount national importance will rest with the country’s elected government officials. 11. The future Constitution will set forth the structure of government and the balance of power among the different branches of national government and between the national and local levels of government. 12. Ultimate authority to resolve constitutional and other legal disputes – including over the interpretation of Islamic law –shall rest with the independent judiciary. The High Council for Islamic Jurisprudence shall have a role inadvising the judiciary. 13. Afghanistan will adhere to the highest standards of accountability and transparency and shall take all necessary steps to fight corruption and to counter the scourge of illicit narcotics. 14. The future Constitution will establish a singular, unified and sovereign Afghan state under a single national government, with no parallel governments or parallel security forces.

28022021Part Two: Transitional Peace Government and Political RoadmapI. General ProvisionsA) A transitional Peace Government of Afghanistan shall be established as of the date of this Agreement. The Peace Government shall exist until it transfers power to a permanent Government following the adoption of a new Constitution and national elections. This transfer of power shall occur no later than [xx] months from the date of this Agreement. B) The Peace Government shall include the following separate and co-equal governing branches: (1) an Executive Administration; (2) a National Shura; and (3) a Judiciary with a Supreme Court and lower courts. It shall also include a High Council for Islamic Jurisprudence and a Commission to Prepare a New Constitution. C) All appointments to the Peace Government shall be made according to the principle of equity between the two Parties to this Agreement, with special consideration for the meaningful inclusion of women and members of all ethnic groups throughout government institutions. D) The following legal framework shall be applicable throughout Afghanistan until the adoption of new Constitution: (1) Afghanistan`s current Constitution, to the extent its provisions are not inconsistent with this Agreement; and (2) Afghanistan`s existing laws, decrees and regulations–provided that the Peace Government shall have the power to amend or repeal such laws, decrees and regulations – or any new laws, decrees and regulations adopted by the Peace Government, to the extent they are not inconsistent with (a) this Agreement, (b) Afghanistan’s international legal obligations or (c) applicable Constitutional provisions. E) Subject to Afghanistan’s international legal obligations, members of the Parties, including their forces, will not be prosecuted for treason or other political crimes, as defined by the two Parties, during the tenure of the Peace Government in order to promote national reconciliation. F) The Peace Government shall represent Afghanistan in its external relations, including at the United Nations andother international institutions and conferences. II. The Executive AdministrationA) Governance. The Executive Administration of the Peace Government shall be entrusted with the day-to-day conduct of the affairs of the State and its President shall have the right to issue decrees and orders for the peace, stability, and good governance of Afghanistan. B) Composition. Option (1): The Executive Administration shall consist of a President, [xx] Vice-Presidents, cabinet ministries, independent directorates, and other bodies.

28022021Option (2): The Executive Administration shall consist of a President, a Prime Minister, [xx] Vice- Presidents, [yy] Deputy Prime Ministers, cabinet ministries, heads of independent directorates, and other bodies.**Note: This document sets forth a roadmap pursuant to Option (1) above. If the Parties choose Option (2), this document will need modifications to set forth the respective authorities of the President and Prime Minister.The President and Vice Presidents [and cabinet] are named in Annex A, were selected based on agreement between the two Parties and are acceptable to both sides. The President [and Vice Presidents] shall only serve during the tenure of the Peace Government and shall be precluded from serving at any point in the future as Head of State or Head of Government in Afghanistan. The President and Vice Presidents may only be removed according to procedures in the current Constitution. C) Security. The President serves as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Under the President’s authority, the Executive Administration will be responsible for internal and external security in Afghanistan and shall exercise command and control over all units of the armed forces. The President will establish a Joint Military & Police Board, which will include representatives from both Parties to this Agreement, to make necessary adjustments to the chain of command structure and propose other security sector reforms, including policies on integration of forces. D) Foreign Relations. The President shall lead Afghanistan’s foreign relations. The Peace Government commits (i) to a policy of non-alignment and non-interference in the affairs of other countries, (ii) not to host terrorists nor to permit any terrorist-related activity on its soil that poses a threat to any other country, (iii) to seek positive relations with the international community to help with Afghanistan’s reconstruction, and (iv) to increase cross-border trade and investment.E) Joint Committees. Within [xx days] of this Agreement taking effect, the Executive Administration will establish Joint Committees, with equitable representation of the two Parties to this Agreement, to develop national policies on other issues critical for peace, including (i) transitional justice, with an emphasis on the rights of victims on both sides, truth and reconciliation; (ii) rehabilitation, livelihoods and reintegration of former combatants; (iii) economic development; (iv) counter-narcotics; (v) refugees and displaced persons; (vi) traditional dispute resolution; and (vii) any other issues as deemed necessary. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission established pursuant to the current Constitution shall remain intact and will be expanded to include [Taliban representation] [x members appointed by the Taliban]. III. The National ParliamentOption (1): A bicameral National Shura shall be composed of: (1) a [xxx]-member lower house, including the 250 members of the current Wolesi Jirga and [xx] additionalmembers to be named by the Taliban; and (2) a [xxx] member Senate,

see link for rest of proposal...

https://tolonews.com/pdf/pdf.pdf

see link for rest of proposal...

https://tolonews.com/pdf/pdf.pdf

 

[Zagdid]

Guam gets a Standoff Missile Complex in $42M contract award - UPI.com

DEFENSE NEWS

FEB. 26, 2021 / 3:14 PM
Guam gets a Standoff Missile Complex in $42M contract award
By Ed Adamczyk

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- A Standoff Weapons Complex will be built at U.S. Joint Region Marianas-Andersen base on Guam under a $42 million contract announced by the Defense Department.

Granite-Obayashi JV of Watsonville, Calif., will construct the complex for the U.S. Air Force at Yigo, the southernmost point of Guam, the U.S. island territory in the western Pacific Ocean.

A completion date of March 2023 on the 400-scare site was announced on Thursday. The company is currently contracted to build a Marine Corps base on the island, part of a planned drawdown of troops on Okinawa.

"The work to be performed provides for construction of an adequately sized and configured missile maintenance and assembly complex for loading, unloading, transferring, storing, testing and preparing missiles for operational use," the announcement said.

The contract includes road construction and facilities to store standoff weapons and pre-loaded strategic rotary launchers.

Standoff weapons include cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and bombs with flight control surfaces offering a flatter flightpath known as glide bombs.

Rotary launchers are typically carried in the bomb bay of a bomber aircraft, allowing precise positioning of the weapon.

The Guam base does not currently include a permanent bomber squadron, but hosts regular visits by B-52 and B-1 bomber task forces.

Andersen Air Force Base's 36th Wing offers a staging and supply platform for missions in the Indo-Pacific theater of operations, and also has the Pacific Air Forces' largest stockpile of munitions.

The Pentagon statement noted that the contract was awarded ahead of schedule and under budget, and the first Air Force military construction project of the new fiscal year.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

China's Desert Storm Education

China took lessons from Operation Desert Storm and remade itself with foreign technology to build a formidable joint military force with expeditionary ambitions.

www.usni.org

China's Desert Storm Education

China took lessons from Operation Desert Storm and remade itself with foreign technology to build a formidable joint military force with expeditionary ambitions.

By Commander Michael Dahm, U.S. Navy (Retired)

March 2021

Proceedings

Vol. 147/3/1,417

Featured Article
Comments

THE 1991 GULF WAR was a harbinger of change for the Chinese military. In just 42 days, a United States–led coalition eviscerated the Iraqi military and expelled it from Kuwait. Before Operation Desert Storm, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was aware of its shortcomings relative to the West, but the war underscored the magnitude of the problem. The similarities between the PLA and the vanquished Iraqi military—an army-centric force organized for a defensive campaign—created a sense of urgency, as Beijing realized its military was ill-prepared to face a modern foe like the United States. The transformations in Chinese military strategy, technology, and force structure born out of the Gulf War have been seismic, shifting the balance of power in East Asia and portending global challenges for the U.S. military.

The 30th anniversary of the Gulf War is an appropriate time to examine where the PLA was three decades ago and what it may become. Chinese President Xi Jinping recently set a goal for the PLA to become a “world class military” by 2049, the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. What the U.S. military accomplished in Operation Desert Storm certainly represents a world-class standard in terms of joint force, expeditionary operations. Well before Xi’s edict to achieve this status, however, China understood its military needed a complete overhaul to achieve three outcomes: a joint force featuring a substantially improved air force and navy; precision-strike capabilities; and a modern command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system. As impossible as those lofty goals may have seemed in 1991, in just a few decades, the PLA has made stunning progress toward them.

Chinese researchers have referred to the Gulf War as the “epitome” of information warfare.1 Alongside stealth, precision-strike, and joint operational capabilities, the war showcased psychological operations, electronic warfare, and computer network operations. PLA lessons learned from the Gulf War led almost inevitably to China’s 2004 shift in military strategy toward “informationized warfare”—warfare transformed by information—which is still the prevailing form of war that drives PLA force structure and strategy. Informationization and information-control are not a Chinese sideshow, they are central to PLA operational concepts and campaign design.2

The Gulf with Wars Past
Until the Gulf War, Chinese military strategies had been based on a “People’s War” concept—a total war, counterinvasion approach that emphasized large ground formations and national mobilization. Potential strategic adversaries included the United States (following the Korean War) and Soviet forces arrayed along China’s northern border since the 1960s. China’s 1979–91 conflict with Vietnam also primed the PLA for a shift in military strategy. The four-week-long 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War is often mistakenly cited as the PLA’s most recent combat experience. Despite Beijing declaring victory in its punitive campaign against Vietnam in March 1979, border clashes continued for more than a decade. PLA forces from across China rotated through its southern frontier well into the 1980s; millions of artillery rounds were exchanged; thousands died on both sides. The conflict culminated in 1988, with China’s seizure of Vietnamese-claimed reefs in the South China Sea that later would be built into massive artificial islands.3

Other developments also served as catalysts for changes to PLA strategy in the 1990s. China’s strategic nuclear deterrent reduced the chances of a large-scale foreign invasion. Following the Soviet Union’s decline in the late 1980s, China’s threat axis pivoted away from its northern border. Attention shifted to the possibility of conflict over Taiwan independence and the threat of U.S. intervention.

The 1991 “highway of death” in Kuwait—on which U.S. combined arms destroyed between 1,000 and 3,000 Iraqi Russian- and Chinese-made tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks, and other vehicles—vividly illustrated for China that its aging military equipment was no match for Western technology. U.S. Marine Corps
But based largely on lessons from the Gulf War, China’s Central Military Commission issued new Military Strategic Guidelines in 1993 that represented a wholesale reevaluation of PLA strategy. While the PLA had been intently studying conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli wars and the Falklands War, in the minds of PLA scholars, the Gulf War heralded a profound shift in the character of modern warfare. Regional wars fought with modern weaponry were identified in the new Chinese strategy as “local wars under high-technology conditions.” However, in the 1990s, the Chinese military had little in the way of high technology to deal with what it had just witnessed in Iraq.

The Post–Gulf War State of the PLA
Given the PLA’s status as a “near-peer competitor” of the U.S. military today, the backwardness of China’s military in 1991 is striking. Even Chinese assessments put the PLA 30 to 40 years behind Western militaries. Most Chinese equipment at the time was based on 1960s-era Soviet technology. In the 1980s, Chinese defense industries were known for producing large volumes of low-tech Soviet knock-offs that were sold across the developing world. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) had been particularly lucrative. China supplied more than $7 billion in arms to Iraq and Iran, some of which Iraqi forces employed during the Gulf War, but with little effect.4

The PLA had a decidedly “brown-water” navy in 1991. The PLA Navy (PLAN) consisted of hundreds of patrol boats and a handful of destroyers and frigates based on 1950s Soviet designs. Chinese shipyards built dozens of antiquated diesel-electric submarines and a small number of noisy, indigenously produced nuclear-powered submarines. Virtually all PLA Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft were copies of Soviet MiG-19s and MiG-21s. A Chinese version of the Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile provided what passed for strategic air defense. PLA ground forces were built around antiquated Soviet-designed armor and were only beginning to experiment with combined-arms operations. PLAN marines offered few expeditionary capabilities.

Any advanced military technology found in China in 1991 had likely come from the West. Near the end of the Cold War, the United States and Western Europe sold military technology to the PLA as an “enemy-of-my-enemy” hedge against the Soviets. In 1985, the United States supplied China with 24 Sikorsky S-70/H-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Other helicopters were French designs. China’s YJ-8 antiship cruise missile bore a strong resemblance to France’s Exocet.5 A late-1980s U.S. initiative proposed outfitting 50 Chinese J-8 air-superiority fighters with advanced avionics, including the F-16 AN/APG-66 radar.

Most Western arms sales were suspended in June 1989, however, when the PLA violently put down protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Chinese kept what they had acquired pre-sanctions, of course, including Western technology to outfit a Type 052 Luhu-class destroyer commissioned in 1994—U.S. gas turbines, German diesel engines, French sonar and electronics, and an Italian torpedo system. Interestingly, the United States issued a waiver from the Tiananmen sanctions to continue the J-8 upgrades. However, $200 million in U.S. defense contractor cost overruns achieved what international condemnation of the PLA could not. Beijing unilaterally canceled the so-called Peace Pearl contract in 1990.6 The PLA would need to look elsewhere for 21st-century military technology.


PLA Leapfrog Development
In applying lessons from the Gulf War, the PLA focused on developing joint capabilities, which necessarily meant drawing down its two-million-man army while building up a technologically advanced navy and air force. The PLA also realized that it required significant long-range precision-strike capabilities to enable greater defense in depth and to support offensive operations. To locate enemy targets and coordinate the joint force, the Gulf War demonstrated that the PLA required robust, survivable C4ISR networks.

Acquiring high-technology platforms, weapons, and C4ISR became an urgent priority, and China’s defense industrial base in the early 1990s was not up to the task of originating such equipment. Indigenous Chinese design is not how the PLA first evolved following the Gulf War. China instead pursued a strategy to reverse engineer technology acquired from foreign sources, principally from a defanged and cash-strapped Russia. Overt arms purchases from Russian, European, and Israeli sources were supplemented by aggressive covert actions to acquire military technology from the United States and elsewhere.7

Well into the 2000s, Chinese research and development was directed not at inventing, but instead on integrating and improving acquired technologies, in a strategy referred to as “leapfrog development.” China continues to capitalize on its lagging position in many areas, acquiring foreign technology to advance its standing in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence.8 Still, there is no doubt that China’s defense industries have made significant and demonstrable progress in some high-technology fields in recent years—space and missile technologies stand out as examples.

The tables below—Chinese Weapons Development, 1990–2020—depict when different military systems were acquired by the PLA and the technological leaps in Chinese manufacturing that followed, showing how many major Chinese systems trace their lineages to foreign acquisitions.9 Foreign military systems acquired in the 1990s significantly improved PLA capabilities. In the 30 years since the Gulf War, PLA innovation has been all about adaptation and improvement, with little in the way of originality.

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[Housecarl]

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Naval acquisitions in the 1990s and early 2000s included four Russian Sovremenny-class destroyers and 12 Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines. The purchases offered a trove of weapons, electronics, and propulsion technology to improve indigenous Chinese development. PLAN leaders had been impressed by the U.S. Navy’s “high-speed mobility and multidimensional combat capability” supporting air and ground operations in the Gulf War.10 In 1992, eager to emulate aircraft carrier battle groups, the PLAN initiated discussions to purchase an unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier (the Varyag, an Admiral Kuznetsov–class carrier built in Ukraine).11 Following a painful and expensive refit in China, the ship eventually was commissioned as the Type 001 aircraft carrier Liaoning in 2012. China’s burgeoning commercial shipyards have produced a number of PLAN ship classes, especially smaller patrol boats and corvettes.12 China commissioned more than 300 ships and submarines between 2000 and 2020, making the PLAN the world’s largest navy.



While in recent years China has revealed ostensibly unique designs, such as the stealthy J-20 fighter, most PLAAF aircraft have decidedly Russian origins. There also is evidence of Israeli involvement in the development of China’s first “indigenous” fourth-generation fighter, the J-10, which bears a striking resemblance to Israel’s Lavi fighter.13 China continues to incorporate high-tech Russian and European components into its aircraft and missiles.14It still purchases, integrates, and exploits cutting-edge equipment, such as Russia’s Su-35 fighter and S-400/SA-21 surface-to-air missile system—to say nothing of technology stolen from Western defense contractors in cyber hacks that continue to be a staple of PLA development.15

Precision-Strike with Gulf War Characteristics
The Gulf War highlighted another Chinese requirement: long-range precision-strike capabilities. These enable what the PLA calls “noncontact warfare.” Noncontact warfare does not mean “nonkinetic.” Instead, it refers to warfare in which enemy forces are not in direct contact. Chinese cruise missile programs may have received benefits from the first use of U.S. Navy Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles during the Gulf War. Tomahawks that failed to reach their targets were rumored to have been harvested from crash sites in Iraq and reverse-engineered into Chinese cruise-missile designs. In subsequent years, China almost certainly obtained updated Tomahawk technology from missiles fired into Afghanistan that fell short and crashed in Pakistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.16

China has pursued independent development of ballistic-missile technology and has excelled in that field. However, in 1991, the PLA had just three types of conventional ballistic missiles. Subsequent generations of a variety of Chinese ballistic missiles have featured significantly increased accuracy using satellite navigation, active and passive seekers to enable maneuvering reentry vehicles, and hypersonic glide vehicles.17The table on p. 24 depicts the evolution of Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles.

For Chinese observers, the Gulf War reinforced the PLA’s conviction that command and control must be highly centralized. According to Chinese analyses, combining a strong C4ISR network and a “highly centralized defense leadership organ” was the only way to integrate ground, air, and maritime forces in fast-moving, large-scale operations like Desert Storm.18 The disarray and destruction that followed U.S. strikes on Iraqi C4ISR provided a complementary lesson—Chinese adversaries would mercilessly target PLA C4ISR; therefore, it must be redundant and resilient.

In the 1990s, the PLA began building substantial C4ISR networks to support joint military operations and deliver battlespace information dominance. Given China’s limited aerospace industry at the time, developing terrestrial networks became the priority. Beginning in 1994, the PLA embarked on a decade-long renovation of its National Defense Communications Network to high-speed fiber-optic cable.19 Between 1996 and 2003, a war-zone C4ISR network was installed in southeast China, a “theater electronic information system” known by the Chinese abbreviation “Qu Dian.”20 Qu Dian control had expanded nationwide by 2008.21 In the early 2000s, Chinese research institutes developed an “integrated command platform (ICP),” an enterprise architecture to ingest and process large amounts of information, aid in command decision-making, and enable an interoperable joint force.22 By the late 2000s, China had also fielded its own version of the U.S. Link-16 datalink, the “Joint Information Distribution System.”23

The PLA’s foray into space began in 2000, with the launch of its first military communications satellite, its first imaging satellite, and the first Beidou navigation satellite. Since then, China’s military space capabilities have only expanded, especially as the PLA has begun leveraging nominally civil satellites for military use (though even these are nearly all the property of state-owned enterprises). Chinese satellite launches since 2015 have included high-throughput satellites supporting on-the-move communications and dozens of low-earth orbit communication and intelligence-collection satellites.24 The Beidou-3 navigation constellation achieved global coverage in 2020.

China was still building diesel-electric Type 033 attack submarines (left)—known to NATO as the Romeo class—as late as 1984. Despite significant improvements in sound emissions, the Romeos (which first entered service in the late 1950s) were noisy and easy to detect. In 1998, China’s first locally designed class of submarines—the Type 039, NATO reporting name: Song—began to enter service. By most accounts, the Songs are as quiet and capable as any Western diesel-electric sub. Alamy/Reuters (Guang Niu)

By the mid-2000s, special mission aircraft with substantial C4ISR and electronic warfare capabilities emerged as significant force multipliers for PLAAF and PLAN operations. In the past several years, Chinese unmanned aerial systems have integrated with PLA forces to significantly enhance C4ISR capabilities.25 This is to say nothing of the dizzying array of Chinese land- and ship-based radars and electronic warfare systems that together cover a huge swath of the electromagnetic spectrum.26

Forecasting the Next PLA
China took many lessons, large and small, from the Gulf War, ranging from insights about combat logistics to the use of night-vision technology. Beyond any individual lesson, though, the Gulf War showed the PLA how modern wars were fought and provided a road map to become a world-class military. China’s 2015 Military Strategy explicitly states how the PLA expects to fight and win modern wars: “Integrated combat forces will be employed to prevail in system-of-systems operations featuring information dominance, precision strikes on critical nodes and joint operations [emphasis added].”27

The PLA reorganized in 2016 to align with priorities identified in the 2015 strategy and the many lessons of the Gulf War. The military region construct that had provided the defensive foundations of the people’s war was finally abandoned. A PLA joint staff was created, and China was organized into five theaters staffed by all services to facilitate offensive joint operations. A new military service–level element, the Strategic Support Force, was created to integrate information capabilities, including cyber, electronic warfare, and space capabilities. The Second Artillery Corps, responsible for nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles and a large proportion of long-range strike capabilities, was elevated to a military service and renamed the PLA Rocket Force. A PLA Army staff also was created, finally distinguishing ground forces from the other services, creating equivalency and jointness with the PLAN and PLAAF.

Where will the PLA be in 30 years? Will China ever be able to execute an overseas operation approaching the size and scale of Operation Desert Storm? Much has been made of a handful of Chinese ships on counterpiracy patrols and a small garrison of PLA troops in East Africa as hallmarks of Beijing’s military aspirations. Better indicators of PLA priorities may be found in the country’s investments in nuclear attack submarines, aircraft carriers, cruisers, big-deck amphibious ships, heavy-lift aircraft, and global C4ISR coverage. These long-range expeditionary capabilities may have some utility in a local conflict like a Taiwan or South China Sea scenario, extending China’s defensive lines farther into the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. However, defending China’s overseas interests is an increasingly important mission for the PLA.
Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative significantly extends Chinese economic interests into South and Southwest Asia, Africa, and South America. Looking back at the lessons China learned from the Gulf War and closely monitoring Chinese investments over the next 30 years will provide the best indication of how and where the PLA may try to realize its “world-class” ambition.



1. Wang Pufeng, [Meeting the Challenge of Information Warfare], [China Military Science] 41, no. 1 (1995): 15.
2. See, for example, CDR Mike Dahm, USN (Ret.), “Needed: A Design for Maritime Information Superiority,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 145, no. 11 (November 2019).
3. China’s seventh South China Sea outpost is built atop the Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef that was occupied by the PLA in 1995.
4. $4.2 billion to Iraq and $3.3 billion to Iran in late 1980s (~$9 billion and $7 billion in 2020 dollars respectively). Richard Bitzinger, “Arms to Go: Chinese Arms Sales to the Third World,” International Security 17, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 87.
5. Dennis Gormley, Andrew Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, A Low Visibility Force Multiplier: Assessing China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2014), 16.
6. Jim Mann, “China Cancels U.S. Deal for Modernizing F-8 Jet,” Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1990.
7. Shirley Kan, China: Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND) and Defense Industries, CRS Report No. 96-889F (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 1997), 7.
8. Gregory Allen, “Understanding China’s AI Strategy,” Center for a New American Security, 6 February 2019.
9. PLA Army systems excluded. Strategic systems, such as ballistic-missile submarines and nuclear missiles, are also excluded. Some army technologies and nuclear weapons improvements were directly linked to the Gulf War, such as advancements in tank and armor technologies. Sources include the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Naval War College, IHS Jane’s reference publications and periodicals, the CSIS Missile Defense Project, the Union of Concerned Scientists satellite database, Gunter’s Space Page, and other open-source research by the author.
10. Gordon Jacobs, “Chinese Naval Developments Post–Gulf War,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 5, no. 2 (February 1993): 82.
11. Jacobs, “Chinese Naval Developments Post–Gulf War,” 84.
12. For example, Chinese commercial shipyards produced 60 Type 022 (Houbei) guided-missile patrol boats (PTG) in just five years (2004–09) and 58 Type 056 (Jiangdao) FFL/corvettes between 2013 and 2020, with several more FFLs still fitting out.
13. Robert Hewson, “Chinese J-10 ‘Benefited from the Lavi Project,’” Jane’s Defence Weekly 45, no. 21 (21 May 2008): 5.
14. Robert Hewson, “China’s Z-10 Helicopter Built on Western Expertise,” Jane’s Defense Weekly 42, no. 15 (6 April 2005): 32.
15. For example, Dustin Volz, “U.S. Spy Agency Warns that Chinese Hackers Target Military, Defense Industry,” Wall Street Journal, 20 October 2020.
16. Gormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low Visibility Force Multiplier, 32.
17. Ian Williams and Masao Dahlgren, More Than Missiles: China Previews Its New Way of War, CSIS Briefs (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2019), 4.
18. Patrick Garrity, LA-12592 Why the Gulf War Still Matters: Foreign Perspectives on the War and the Future of International Security (Los Alamos, NM: Center for National Security Studies, 1993), 79.
19. Yue Jiucheng, [30-Years’ Experience Building the National Defense Communication Network], [Xinhua Monthly] no. 8 (2008), www.wenxue100.com/baokan/58246.thtml.
20. Andrew Erickson and Ryan Martinson, China’s Near Seas Combat Capabilities, CMSI Red Book no. 11 (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College, 2014), 89.
21. [Western Paradise Taoist], “Chinese Air Force Project 1125,” Sina (blog), 24 January 2020, blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_670e43e40102v3xo.html.
22. Kevin Pollpeter et al., Enabling Information-Based System of System Operations, The Research, Development, and Acquisition Process for the Integrated Command Platform, SITC Policy Briefs no. 9 (San Diego, CA: Study of Innovation and Technology in China, 2014).
23. J. Michael Dahm, SCS MILCAP Study: Inter-Island Communications, NSAD-R-20-048 (Laurel, MD: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [JHU/APL], 2020).
24. J. Michael Dahm, SCS MILCAP Study: Undersea Fiber-Optic Cable and Satellite Communications, NSAD-R-20-046 (Laurel, MD: JHU/APL, 2020).
25. J. Michael Dahm, SCS MILCAP Study: Special Mission Aircraft and Unmanned Systems, NSAD-R-20-090 (Laurel, MD: JHU/APL, 2020).
26. J. Michael Dahm, SCS MILCAP Study: Air and Surface Radar, NSAD-R-20-047 (Laurel, MD: JHU/APL, 2020).
27. China Ministry of National Defense, “III. Strategic Guidelines for Active Defense,” in [China’s Military Strategy], [PRC State Council Information Office] (May 2015), www.mod.gov.cn/regulatory/2015-05/26/content_4617812_4.htm. Author’s translation.

 

[Housecarl]

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Hits & Misses In Biden’s Interim National Security Guidance - Breaking Defense

“Seemingly gone is the naivety of the Obama era” about Russia and China, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Tom Spoehr in this op-ed. But the retired three-star general still sees some worrying woolly-mindedness.

breakingdefense.com

• Allies, Pentagon, Threats

Hits & Misses In Biden’s Interim National Security Guidance
“Seemingly gone is the naivety of the Obama era” about Russia and China, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Tom Spoehr in this op-ed. But the retired three-star general still sees some worrying woolly-mindedness.

By Thomas Spoehr on March 05, 2021 at 10:20 AM
25 comments

President Joe Biden has released his interim National Security Strategic Guidance to “convey my vision for how America will engage with the world.” Unfortunately, much of the document’s 24 pages are dedicated to topics such as voting rights, clean energy, climate change, and racial justice that are only tangentially related to national security. Still, it covers enough defense and foreign policy issues to give a good idea of where the new administration intends to head.

First things first: the administration deserves kudos for coming out so early with guidance. With only a skeleton crew of confirmed political appointees the administration has, in just 45 days, produced guidance designed to shape the President’s first budget requests and policy decisions until more formal reviews can be completed.


Second, and most encouraging: Seemingly gone is the naivety of the Obama era when the administration hoped for “deeper and more effective partnerships” with countries like China and Russia. Biden’s interim guidance rightly calls out China for becoming more “assertive” and identifies Beijing and Moscow as having “invested heavily in efforts meant to check U.S. strengths and prevent us from defending our interests and allies around the world.”

Areas of continuity with the Trump administration include identification of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran as potential adversaries. Alliances and allies enjoy great importance in the Biden guidance, with its call to “reinvigorate and modernize our alliances and partnerships around the world.” Unfortunately, accompanying that sound guidance are some lingering traces of campaign rhetoric, e.g., “America cannot afford to be absent any longer on the world stage. And under the Biden-Harris Administration, America is back. Diplomacy is back. Alliances are back.” Such political sloganeering seems jarringly out of place in a strategy document.


The interim guidance identifies three national priorities: protect the security of the American people; expand economic prosperity and opportunity; and realize and defend the democratic values at the heart of the American way of life. The first two—security and prosperity—nest nearly exactly with the first two pillars of President Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy and deserve top billing in any American national security document. Biden’s third priority, defending democratic values, was mentioned in the Trump strategy in a sub-section under “Advance American Influence.” But Biden affords democratic values higher prominence.


The third pillar in Trump’s National Security Strategy was “Preserve Peace Through Strength,” acknowledging how a strong military “ensures our diplomats are able to operate from a position of strength.” Biden’s guidance takes great pain to state the administration will make “responsible use of our military, while elevating diplomacy as our tool of first resort [emphasis added].” This, too, comes across as virtue-signaling, as one would be hard-pressed to think of a time when America used its military as a “tool of first resort.”

In the relatively short section discussing national defense as traditionally defined, the interim guidance contains some puzzling thoughts regarding nuclear weapons. For example, it states the administration will “head off costly arms races.” Absent is acknowledgment that our two primary nuclear competitors, Russia and China, have already embarked upon—and largely completed—modernizations of their nuclear arsenals, while the U.S. continues to rely on antiquated platforms and aged weapons. Indeed it isn’t out of a desire for an “arms race” that the U.S. is belatedly pursuing nuclear modernization; it is now a matter of preserving deterrence itself, and potentially of national survival.

The nuclear section goes on to state the U.S. will “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.” It seems rather at odds with statements made by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who testified at his confirmation hearing that nuclear deterrence is “DOD’s highest priority mission.” How can the administration reduce the role of nuclear weapons if it is the DOD’s highest priority mission? Perhaps this refers to backing off some of the new “low-yield” weapons that Trump proposed and Democrats consistently rejected as destabilizing, but with so few details we can only speculate.


Further guidance on the military reassuringly identifies investment in people as the highest priority, and that the administration will sustain readiness and “ensure the U.S. Armed Forces remain the best trained and equipped force in the world.”


Unsurprisingly, the guidance also takes up the increasingly common call for the military to “shift our emphasis from unneeded legacy platforms and weapon systems to free up resources for investments in the cutting-edge technologies….” Missing is any acknowledgement that the legacy platforms proposed for divestment would be essential to defend America from adversaries today, should the need arise. Divesting arms in hand on the mere promise of a future technology is foolhardy.

_______________

Recommended
Biden Taps Two Admirals To Face China Challenge
If confirmed by the Senate, Adm. John Aquilino and Vice Adm. Samuel Paparo will enter their jobs amidst increasing competition in fleet size, precision missiles, hacking, & espionage.
By Paul McLeary
_______________

Also carried forward from the Presidential campaign is the mantra that the United States “should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.” The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is performing several functions, such as advising Afghan forces and conducting counter-terrorism operations, but fighting a “forever war” is not one of them. The term “forever war” should be retired, and the decision to retain a U.S. presence in Afghanistan should be considered on the merits, not a bumper sticker slogan.


National security guidance, especially early in an administration, provides useful insight into a president’s vision and views. That it came out so quickly speaks well of the processes in the nascent Biden National Security Council.


The administration will have the opportunity to refine it when they publish the required full National Security Strategy within a year of the inauguration. Let’s hope that the full strategy will focus more on nuts-and-bolts national security and foreign policy goals and less on other topics, which, fresh off an election, clearly weigh on their minds now.





Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general, directs the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense. He’s a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors.

 

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COMMENTARY: So far, Biden’s Iran policy isn’t Trump’s — or Obama’s

When it comes to President Joe Biden’s Iran policy, the safest thing to say is that it’s a work in progress.

www.kenoshanews.com

Commentary
COMMENTARY: So far, Biden’s Iran policy isn’t Trump’s — or Obama’s

• Eli Lake
• 5 hrs ago

• Comments

When it comes to President Joe Biden’s Iran policy, the safest thing to say is that it’s a work in progress.

On the one hand, the Biden administration is trying to quietly induce Iran to reenter negotiations over the 2015 nuclear accord the previous president abandoned in 2018. On the other, the administration authorized air strikes in Syria recently against facilities it said were associated with Iranian-backed militias that launched rocket attacks last month against a U.S. base in northern Iraq.

One way to divine Biden’s true intentions is to examine the records of his foreign policy nominees — specifically, Colin Kahl and Wendy Sherman. Veterans of former President Barack Obama’s administration, both played important roles in negotiating the nuclear deal. Once out of government, both predicted that the decision to withdraw from that deal would prove to be disastrous.

This is why it’s worth noting that both Kahl and Sherman — he is nominated for undersecretary of defense for policy, she for deputy secretary of state — have gone out of their way in their confirmation hearings to placate concerns about the deal from both Republicans and centrist Democrats. Both have said that Biden intends to address the deal’s many flaws, not simply to restore it.

When pressed last week by Sen. Mitt Romney on the nuclear bargain she helped negotiate, Sherman was more conciliatory than she was six years ago. Since the agreement’s limits on uranium enrichment expire over time, Romney argued, the nuclear deal does not prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon so much as delay it.


As a member of the Obama administration, Sherman might have simply brushed off this criticism. Last week, she said that while she still viewed the objective of the agreement as preventing Iran from obtaining a weapon, “I do completely understand” why many members of Congress did and do not. “If Iran continued to make fissile material, the stuff that goes inside the nuclear weapons,” she said, “having that ability gives them the option should they choose to go there.”

Sherman herself has said repeatedly since leaving government that there was no real chance of getting a better deal than the one she helped negotiate. She has now promised to work with Congress to eventually strengthen that deal.

Kahl’s hearing was also instructive. Outside of government, Kahl was a prolific tweeter. Many Republican senators reminded him of some past tweets that have aged poorly — from predicting that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would make Israeli-Arab cooperation much harder to his warning that the 2020 air strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani would lead to a regional war.

On Thursday, Sen. James Inhofe asked if Kahl believed the world was a better place without Soleimani in it. “I think it probably is,” Kahl responded. At the time of the strike, he explained, he “was concerned about the escalatory dynamics.” Later in the hearing, Kahl praised U.S.-Israeli cooperation and said he did not favor moving the U.S. embassy from Jerusalem.

Of course, Kahl and Sherman have an incentive to be conciliatory right now. In a 50-50 Senate, if Biden loses even a single Democrat, their nominations could be scuttled. That’s what happened to Neera Tanden, Biden’s choice to run the Office of Management and Budget.

At the same time, progressive foreign policy groups are beginning to worry about Biden’s intentions on Iran. Last week 32 progressive organizations wrote Biden and urged him to reverse course and drop his demand that Iran return to compliance before lifting nuclear sanctions. Prominent arms control analyst Joe Cirincione tweeted last week that he hoped Sherman’s response to Romney was just an effort to win confirmation and lamented that she “refuses to defend the Iran deal she negotiated.”

How much is Biden willing to defend the 2015 nuclear deal as his administration seeks to both deter Iran’s regional escalations and lure Iran back to nuclear negotiations? It will be a delicate balancing act — one that was previewed last week in Kahl and Sherman’s confirmation hearings.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

 

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Strategic interests bind Pakistan, Turkey

The growing bilateral relations between Pakistan and Turkey are fairly well documented. These include an increasing frequency of high-level visits, military exchanges and exercises, purchase of defence equipment, political support for each other’s disputes with neighbouring countries and so on

www.tribuneindia.com

Strategic interests bind Pakistan, Turkey
It is clear that Pak-Turkey relations have been taken to the next level under the leadership of Erdogan and Imran Khan. For Turkey, taking potshots at India is well worth Pakistan’s support for the ambitions of Erdogan to emerge as the leader of the Ummah, replacing Saudi Arabia. Getting nuclear technology from Pakistan would be the icing on the cake. But with Imran on a shaky domestic wicket, it remains to be seen if Pakistan can stay this dangerous course.

• Updated At: Mar 08, 2021 07:00 AM (IST)

Tilak Devasher


Member, National Security Advisory Board

The growing bilateral relations between Pakistan and Turkey are fairly well documented. These include an increasing frequency of high-level visits, military exchanges and exercises, purchase of defence equipment, political support for each other’s disputes with neighbouring countries and so on. While the uptick in relations dates from at least the time of Pervez Musharraf, under Imran Khan, the relationship seems to have been taken to a new level.

For several decades, during bilateral visits and talks, both India and Turkey had agreed that Kashmir was a bilateral issue to be resolved through the Simla Agreement. Lately, however, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has started talking about UN resolutions as also raising the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly. For example, in his address to the 74th session of the UNGA in September 2019, Erdogan, apart from talking about UN resolutions, mischievously called Kashmir a neighbour of India. On a visit to Pakistan in February 2020, Erdogan said that the Kashmir issue was as important to Turkey as it was to Pakistan. Recalling the events of the Turkish War of Independence, Erdogan said, “And now, we feel the same about Kashmir today. It was Çanakkale yesterday and Kashmir today; there is no difference between the two.”

Apart from Turkey’s support for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir at almost every international fora, two recent reports point to a more ominous dimension of this relationship.

The first report is from the Mediterranean-Asian Investigative Journalists titled ‘Turkey-Pakistan: Secret Army of Mercenary Journalists’ that details how Pakistan and Turkey are creating a joint propaganda team. The key driver of this effort is Erdogan’s ambitions to claim the leadership of the Muslim world and the realisation of the grand Ottoman dream. For this, he needs to be projected globally as the champion of the Ummah.

For its part, Pakistan has moved away from the Arab world, miffed at the lukewarm attitude of Saudi Arabia and the UAE towards the Kashmir issue. On the rebound, it has found favour with Turkey that, as a quid pro quo for Pakistan’s support in the propaganda effort, is willing to join Pakistan’s tirade against India and especially Kashmir.

According to the report, Turkish intelligence agency MIT was working with the ISI and the ISPR to build up a propaganda network centred on the TRT World and Anadolu Agency. These two Turkish media outlets have been hiring several Pakistani and Indian Kashmiri journalists, some of who would be permitted to settle in Turkey. As part of this effort, on March 14, 2019, Anadolu Agency opened its bureau in Pakistan for coordinating the movement of media professionals between both the countries and generating suitable content.

An analysis of the content generated shows that TRT World published more than 30 negative stories when India abrogated Articles 370 and 35A related to Jammu and Kashmir. The give-away was when Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry recommended 14 of them.

Additionally, in September 2019, Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia declared their intention to set up a new TV channel under the leadership of Turkey. The report quoted a source working in the Turkish Foreign Ministry confessing that the plan of creating a new media house by Turkey-Pakistan-Malaysia for tackling ‘Islamophobia’ was actually a propaganda plan to advance the ambitions of Erdogan to edge out Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Islamic world. Quite likely, recruitment of Malaysian journalists would soon begin as soon as the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

The second report from MEMRI in January 2021 raises concerns that the Turkey-Pakistan partnership could escalate into the nuclear realm with Turkey seeking nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan. Turkey currently has two nuclear reactors-Tr-1 and Tr-2-run by the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority. According to a transcript published by MEMRI TV, Erdogan, in 2019, expressed Turkey’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons, stating: “Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, and not just one or two. I, however, am not supposed to have missiles with nuclear warheads. I do not accept this.”

In this context, the 2019 annual report of the German State of Baden-Württemberg noted that Pakistan and North Korea were making efforts to procure dual use items for nuclear technology/weapons from Germany that could “be routed to Pakistan and North Korea through their close ally China besides Turkey.”

Much like Pakistan, Erdogan has zeroed in on nuclear weapons to enable the rise of Turkey and the revival of the Ottoman Caliphate. The only Islamic country that could provide Turkey with nuclear technology is Pakistan that has an established track record of nuclear smuggling and proliferation.

Three other elements of the relationship are important. First, the Turkish supply of drones to Azerbaijan was an important factor in its recent war with Armenia. Pakistan is buying drones from Turkey that could be deployed on the border with India. Second, Pakistan and Turkey are considering providing dual nationality to the citizens of the two countries. Third, in its bid to cosy up to Turkey, Pakistan blatantly violated the UN rules when it illegally passed confidential information to Turkey about Turks who had sought refugee status with the UNHCR in Islamabad. The UNHCR office in Islamabad passed the confidential information to the Pakistani government, which in turn handed the list over to the Turkish embassy.

It is clear that Pak-Turkey relations have been taken to the next level under the leadership of Erdogan and Imran Khan. For Turkey, taking potshots at India is well worth Pakistan’s support for the ambitions of Erdogan to emerge as the leader of the Ummah, replacing Saudi Arabia. Getting nuclear technology from Pakistan would be the icing on the cake. It, however, remains to be seen if an impoverished Pakistan and Imran Khan on a shaky domestic wicket will have the heft to stay this dangerous course.

Views are personal

 

[jward]

The Dangerous US/NATO Strategy In Europe

by Tyler Durden
Thursday, Mar 11, 2021 - 2:00
Authored by Manlio Dinucci via Global Research,

The NATO Dynamic Manta anti-submarine warfare exercise took place in the Ionian Sea from February 22 to March 5.
Ships, submarines, and planes from the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Belgium, and Turkey participated in it. The two main units involved in this exercise were a US Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine and the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle together with its battle group, and a nuclear attack submarine was also included.

Soon after the exercise, the Charles de Gaulle carrier went to the Persian Gulf. Italy, which participated in the Dynamic Manta with ships and submarines, was the entire exercise “host nation”: Italy made the port of Catania (Sicily) and the Navy helicopter station (also in Catania) available to the participating forces, the Sigonella air station (the largest US / NATO base in the Mediterranean) and Augusta (both in Sicily) the logistics base for supplies. The purpose of the exercise was the hunt for Russian submarines in the Mediterranean that, according to NATO, would threaten Europe.

At the same time, the Eisenhower aircraft carrier and its battle group are carrying out operations in the Atlantic to “demonstrate continued US military support for allies and a commitment to keep the seas free and open.” These operations – conducted by the Sixth Fleet, whose command is in Naples and base is in Gaeta – fall within the strategy set out in particular by Admiral Foggo, formerly head of the NATO Command in Naples: accusing Russia of wanting to sink with its submarines the ships connecting the two sides of the Atlantic, so as to isolate Europe from the USA. He argued that NATO must prepare for the “Fourth Battle of the Atlantic,” after those of the two World Wars and the cold war. While naval exercises are underway, strategic B-1 bombers, transferred from Texas to Norway, are carrying out “missions” close to Russian territory, together with Norwegian F-35 fighters, to “demonstrate the readiness and capability of the United States in supporting the allies.

Military operations in Europe and adjacent seas take place under the command of US Air Force General Tod Wolters, who heads the US European Command and at the same time NATO, with the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, this position is always covered by a US General.

All these military operations are officially motivated as “Europe defense from Russian aggression,” overturning the reality: NATO expanded into Europe with its forces and even nuclear bases close to Russia. At the European Council on February 26, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg declared that “the threats we faced before the pandemic are still there,” placing first “Russia’s aggressive actions” and, in the background, a threatening “rise of China.” He then stressed the need to strengthen the transatlantic link between the United States and Europe, as the new Biden administration strongly wants, taking cooperation between the EU and NATO to a higher level. Over 90% of the European Union’s inhabitants, he recalled, now live in NATO countries (including 21 of the 27 EU countries). The European Council reaffirmed “the commitment to cooperate closely with NATO and the new Biden administration for security and defense, “making the EU militarily stronger. As Prime Minister Mario Draghi pointed out in his speech, this strengthening must take place within a complementarity framework with NATO and in coordination with the USA.

Therefore, the military strengthening of the EU must be complementary to that of NATO, in turn, complementary to the US strategy. This strategy actually consists in provoking growing tensions with Russia in Europe, so as to increase US influence in the European Union itself. An increasingly dangerous and expensive game, because it pushes Russia to militarily strengthen itself. This is confirmed by the fact that in 2020, in full crisis, Italian military spending stepped from 13th to the 12th worldwide place, overtaking the place of Australia.

Posted For Fair Use

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Biden Administration’s Afghan ‘Peace Plan’ Is an Act of Desperation

It puts pressure on the Afghan government while whitewashing the Taliban, for starters.

vitalinterests.thedispatch.com

Vital Interests
The Biden Administration’s Afghan ‘Peace Plan’ Is an Act of Desperation
It puts pressure on the Afghan government while whitewashing the Taliban, for starters.

Thomas Joscelyn Mar 11

49

59

On Sunday, March 7, an Afghan media outlet, TOLOnews, published a leaked letter from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani. TOLOnews also published an eight-page “peace” proposal by the State Department. While Foggy Bottom hasn’t yet officially acknowledged the authenticity of either document, American press outlets have cited anonymous officials confirming that both documents are genuine.

Per the February 29, 2020, agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, the U.S. has until May 1, 2021, to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan. If the Biden administration fails to do so, then U.S. forces could be more frequently targeted by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and allied jihadists once again. For the past year, the jihadists have been willing to let the Americans leave. That could change quickly if May 1 comes and goes without a withdrawal extension. Thus far, the Taliban has rejected any suggestion that U.S. or allied forces stay past the agreed upon withdrawal date.

It is with that fast-approaching date in mind that the two State Department documents were written. The proposed “peace” plan is an act of desperation filled with holes. Let’s examine several of them, as well as the problems with Blinken’s letter to Ghani.

The Taliban doesn’t want a “political settlement,” other than through its own victory and the resurrection of its totalitarian Islamic Emirate.
The premise of the “peace plan” is that the Taliban and the Afghan government want to “share power.” In his letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Secretary Blinken states that the two warring sides should jointly develop the country’s “future constitutional and governing arrangements” in a “new, inclusive government.”
The Taliban has stated—over and over again, in no uncertain terms—that it doesn’t want this.

The Taliban has fought to restore its Islamic Emirate, which controlled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, for nearly 20 years. All of its public messaging is focused on the return of this strict sharia-based regime. For instance, the Taliban released a speech from its deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, in late February. Haqqani, a U.S.-designated terrorist, is the leader of a notorious jihadi network that incubated al-Qaeda and remains intertwined with the group to this day. “The Islamic Emirate is the home of our faith and our religion, in which we are all united in a sacred bond,” Haqqani told a gathering of his mujahideen. Much of Haqqani’s speech was dedicated to the need for jihadist “unity” under this emirate. Haqqani discussed the emirate’s various commissions, which govern people under the Taliban’s rule, and the problems they have faced. His address was premised on the idea that the Islamic Emirate is on the verge of rising once again and these governing bodies need to be prepared to rule.

The State Department’s “peace plan” assumes that Haqqani doesn’t really mean this – that the Taliban has been lying about its political goals for the past 20 years. That is, the State Department is trying to assume away the central problem of the Afghan War: The Taliban doesn’t want peace, other than through victory. The Taliban’s leaders have consistently rejected the legitimacy of the Afghan government, telling its followers that they are not fighting for “some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power” with Kabul. The jihadists mean it, even if America’s diplomats don’t want to believe it.

The eight-page peace proposal envisions an interim government based on Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution, which the Taliban has consistently rejected as sacrilegious. According to some U.S. officials, who spoke on background, the plan would have the Taliban assume control over this interim regime’s religious authority. But that doesn’t make sense. The Taliban seeks to impose its religious rule through its political regime. For the Taliban, Afghanistan’s political regime and its radical religion are inseparable.

The Taliban may very well send a delegation to Turkey, the proposed site for the expanded “peace” talks. But it’s not clear why anyone would expect the group to relent on its longstanding political goals, especially now that the U.S. is so close to completely withdrawing. The Taliban’s leaders didn’t seek true peace with Kabul when there were more than 100,000 Americans in country. It is unreasonable to expect them to do so now.

There is no good reason to pressure the Afghan government, America’s putative ally, as the U.S. withdraws its forces.
Secretary Blinken’s letter was widely interpreted as an attempt to pressure Ghani. For example, a headline in NPR reads: “U.S. Warns Kabul It May Withdraw All Forces By May 1 If Peace Talks Do Not Progress.” This is how the letter was interpreted in Kabul.
But why is the State Department pretending that Ghani and the fractious Afghan government is the main obstacle to peace? This is a warped view of the war.
Blinken writes that he wants Kabul and the Taliban to come to “terms” on a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.” Many Afghans are understandably desperate for a ceasefire after decades of war. Ghani has called for one. The U.S. and foreign representatives have as well. It’s the Taliban that has rejected numerous ceasefire overtures. Yet, the State Department doesn’t blame the Taliban.

In his letter to Ghani, Blinken laments the “high” level of violence in Afghanistan, but at no point does he make it clear that the Taliban is chiefly responsible. Consider that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that the Taliban was responsible for 45 percent of civilian casualties in 2020, while violence carried out by the local ISIS branch accounted for 8 percent and other “undetermined anti-government elements” were responsible for 9 percent. In sum, the forces arrayed against Kabul caused approximately 62 percent of the civilian casualties in 2020, with the Taliban leading the way. By comparison, UNAMA attributed only 22 percent of civilian casualties to the Afghan government’s actions and another 3 percent to pro-government forces. The bottom line is that the Taliban launched multiple offensives in 2020 as part of its quest to restore its Islamic Emirate. And the Afghan security forces are playing defense.

Against this dire backdrop, Blinken asks Ghani to “broaden” his “consultative group,” “such that Afghans regard it as inclusive and credible” and “to build consensus on specific goals and objectives for a negotiation with the Taliban about governance, power-sharing, and essential supporting principles; and to agree on overall tactics and public messaging that will demonstrate unity of effort and purpose.”

The implication is that the main obstacle to peace is Ghani’s decision to hoard power for himself and his cronies. Ghani could “broaden” his advisory circle as much as Blinken wants. It wouldn’t change the Taliban’s oft-stated goals. While the Afghan government is problematic and corrupt, it may not even exist in the coming years if the Taliban and al-Qaeda get their way. At best, therefore, Blinken’s menacing request of Ghani is myopic.

Near the end of his letter, Blinken finally states the obvious – that the “Taliban could make rapid territorial gains” after the American withdrawal. But everything that comes before this statement assumes that somehow Ghani can magically make a completely unrealistic “peace plan”—which the Taliban doesn’t want—work.

“I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone regarding the collective work outlined in this letter,” Blinken concludes. It’s a bizarre admonition—one that places the responsibility for the failed peace talks on America’s own supposed ally. The Taliban was never serious about negotiating a peace with Kabul. Ghani’s government was cut out of the bilateral talks between the U.S. and the Taliban. Those talks resulted in the U.S. agreeing to withdraw all of its forces by May 2021. In return, the Taliban granted no concessions to the Afghan government. Instead, the jihadists merely agreed to begin “intra-Afghan talks”—an amorphous phrase that conspicuously avoided recognizing Kabul’s legitimacy. Not once throughout this entire process has the Taliban said that it is willing to share power with Ghani’s government, or any similar regime.

America’s rivals, enemies and frenemies aren’t going to deliver peace in Afghanistan.
Secretary Blinken writes that the State Department intends “to ask the United Nations to convene Foreign Ministers and envoys from Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, and the United States to discuss a unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan.” Blinken then adds: “It is my belief that these countries share an abiding common interest in a stable Afghanistan and must work together if we are to succeed.”

It is not clear how anyone could believe such a thing. Pakistan, a duplicitous American ally (or frenemy) has long harbored the Taliban’s senior leadership and facilitation networks. The Pakistanis do not share any “common interest” with the Indians regarding Afghanistan, as their two nations remain dangerously opposed to one another. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment directly aided the Taliban in the 1990s, helping the jihadists establish their first Islamic Emirate, which was overthrown by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. The Taliban’s top leadership has plotted to overthrow Kabul from Pakistani soil ever since. One realistic concern is that Pakistani terrorists will increase their targeting of India after helping their Afghan jihadi brethren achieve victory.

The Iranians have consistently aided the Taliban’s insurgents, even while maintaining ties to Kabul’s elite. The Russians have provided a low level of support as well and reportedly even offered bounties to kill Americans in Afghanistan. (Though, it still isn’t clear if the Russian-offered bounties had any effect.) The Pakistanis, Iranians, and Russians have had nearly two decades to prove that they are interested in stabilizing Afghanistan. They chose to back the Taliban’s insurgency instead. Nor is it clear why anyone would think that China, which has positioned itself as America’s greatest rival, would back the desperate U.S. diplomatic effort now. China also has its own friendly ties with Pakistan and tense rivalry with India.
These countries very well may meet to discuss Afghanistan’s future. The idea that they will deliver peace is fanciful.

Blinken doesn’t mention the Taliban’s unbroken relationship with al-Qaeda.
In his letter to Ghani, Blinken makes no mention of the Taliban’s supposed counterterrorism assurances. The Trump administration claimed that the Taliban was going to decisively break with al-Qaeda as a result of the February 29, 2020, withdrawal deal signed in Doha. As I’ve written previously, the language of the agreement itself is more circumspect. That deal fails to provide any concrete verification or enforcement mechanisms.

Nevertheless, American officials concede that there has been no break between the two. Blinken does not raise the issue at all in his missive to Ghani. He does not assure the Afghan president that the U.S. is aware of the Taliban’s failure to deliver on any of its supposed counterterrorism assurances, which included prohibiting anti-American terrorists from operating inside its territory. Al-Qaeda terrorists have been hunted downinside Taliban turf multiple times since February of last year. It is obvious that the Taliban and al-Qaeda remain blood brothers, with Kabul in their crosshairs.

In sum, the Biden administration is pinning its hopes for peace on a plan that ignores the Taliban’s central political goal and ideological beliefs. Secretary Blinken wants America’s rival nations and enemies to somehow stabilize Afghanistan, after some of them have done much to destabilize the country for the past two decades. Blinken apparently sees Ghani as an obstacle to peace, while Ghani’s besieged government clings onto territory the marauding jihadists are preparing to conquer in their final push for victory. Meanwhile, the Taliban remains closely allied with al-Qaeda and hasn’t delivered anything on its supposed counterterrorism assurances.

That the U.S. moved forward with this “peace plan,” despite all of these problems, says much about the failed war effort.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Pentagon Mulling Aircraft Carrier Reduction as Part of FY 2022 Budget Review - USNI News

This post has been updated to include a statement from Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.). The Pentagon is again considering a reduction in aircraft carrier force structure as part of the upcoming Fiscal Year 2022 budget submission to Congress, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. In...

news.usni.org

Pentagon Mulling Aircraft Carrier Reduction as Part of FY 2022 Budget Review

By: Sam LaGrone and Mallory Shelbourne


March 10, 2021 7:29 PM • Updated: March 11, 2021 11:52 AM

This post has been updated to include a statement from Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.).

The Pentagon is again considering a reduction in aircraft carrier force structure as part of the upcoming Fiscal Year 2022 budget submission to Congress, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

In order to meet a proposed $704 billion to $708 billion topline for the first Biden Defense Department budget – the Trump administration’s FY 2022 budget proposed $722 billion – the Office of the Secretary of Defense is weighing how it could build in savings by reducing the carrier force, the two sources familiar with the ongoing internal discussion told USNI News on Wednesday.

While the Pentagon has not acknowledged the $704 billion to $708 billion budget topline, Politico and Bloomberg reported OSD was operating under the assumption it would have to design a budget within those totals.

The search for cost savings could include revisiting a 2019 Trump administration proposal to take aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) out of the inventory rather than conduct a mid-life refit and refueling, a legislative source told USNI News.

A separate source familiar with the carrier review said that, additionally, the entire scope of the shipbuilding budget was under scrutiny.

The idea of retiring an active carrier has circulated on Capitol Hill to the point where House Armed Services seapower and projection forces ranking member Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) asked a senior admiral on Wednesday if retiring an aircraft carrier ahead of the overhaul was a good idea.

“In your best professional military judgment, do you believe – considering the current stress on the aircraft carrier force – that taking out an aircraft carrier from service just before its mid-life refueling would be a smart thing to do?” Wittman asked U.S. Indo-Pacific Command commander Adm. Phil Davidson on Wednesday.

Davidson responded, “there is no capability that we have that can substitute for an aircraft carrier in my view. You can see by the strain of the deployments over the course of the last year that they are in high demand by all the combatant commanders, and sustaining that capability going forward in my view is critically important. I’m in support of the law which calls for the number of carriers in the United States.”

When asked about the exchange between Wittman and Davidson and if cutting carriers was a consideration, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told USNI News on Wednesday that DoD would not comment on the budget ahead of its rollout. USNI News understands the Biden budget will be ready by early May.

In a Wednesday statement to USNI News, a Wittman spokesman said the question was hypothetical and based on previous moves by the Pentagon to cut the carrier force.

“These hypothetical concerns are prompted by the prior administration putting a range on aircraft carriers under which we could only reduce assets. Should we face a declining defense budget, that range will require the new administration to make some difficult decisions on force structure, and Congressman Wittman wants to ensure those decisions are made as wisely as possible should the need arise,” reads the statement.

Late last month, USNI News reviewed a memo that directed the Pentagon’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) to evaluate the Navy’s shipbuilding budget as part of a holistic review of the Trump administration proposal.

“Due to the limited amount of time available before the Department must submit its FY 2022 President’s Budget Request, the process to re-evaluate existing decisions will focus on a very small number of issues with direct impact on FY 2022 and of critical importance to the President and the Secretary,” the memo reads.

Navy shipbuilding was at the top of the list for review.

The 2019 proposal to decommission Truman rather than refuel the carrier after 25 years of service was paired with a two-carrier deal to buy the third and fourth Ford-class carriers, Enterprise (CVN-80) and Doris Miller (CVN-81). At the time, the Navy said it could save $1.5 billion from 2020 and 2023 in planning costs alone for the Truman refueling and complex overhaul.

Congress blessed the two-carrier buy for an estimated savings of $4 billion but stopped the Truman decommissioning and inserted specific language in the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to prevent the move.

It’s unclear how much money the Pentagon would save if it got rid of Truman instead of refueling the carrier. The cost of the refueling and complex overhaul is about $5.5 billion. But according to a report in Defense Daily from 2014, the cost to decommission a Nimitz-class carrier at the time was about $2.5 billion.

The Navy and shipyard Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding are still in the early stages in learning the best way to decommission and scrap a nuclear carrier. The hull of the first atomic carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), has been at the pier at Newport News since 2013. While inactivation was completed in 2018, the service is still working through how it will scrap the hull.

While it’s not clear how much the Navy would have to spend to decommission a carrier, the Navy would recoup savings if it would maintain fewer carrier air wings.

In 2019, those proposals fell by the wayside when the Trump administration reversed course on the Truman decision announced during a visit by former Vice President Mike Pence to the carrier.

“We are keeping the best carrier in the world in the fight. We are not retiring the Truman,” Pence said in 2019. “The USS Harry S. Truman is going to be giving ‘em hell for many more years to come.”

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a former Navy nuclear-qualified surface warfare officer whose district includes portions of Norfolk, Va., said U.S. defense spending needs to increase and that the Pentagon should not reduce the carrier force in a statement issued after an earlier version of this post.

“As we look to expand the U.S. Navy’s presence in response to malign Chinese activity and illegal maritime claims, the last thing we should consider is cuts to our carrier fleet,” Luria said.

“Now is not the time to cut defense spending. Our defense budget should grow at 3 to 5 percent above inflation to counter an increasingly threatening China,” she continued. “One cannot place a value on the unparalleled power projection and deterrence provided by our fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and their embarked air wings. I urge the Biden administration to immediately drop this from consideration.”



Related
Pentagon Plan to Sideline Carrier Truman Will Net Just $17M in FY 2020
February 28, 2019
In "Aviation"
White House Pushing Against Proposed Pentagon Carrier Cut
January 30, 2014
In "Budget Industry"
Pentagon Leaders Have Taken Lead in Crafting Future Fleet from Navy
June 24, 2020
In "Budget Industry"

 

[jward]

Air Force Makes Extremely Rare Mention Of Deployment Of RQ-170 Stealth Drones
More than 10 years after the Air Force publicly acknowledged the existence of these stealth drones, information about their exploits remains limited.

By Joseph Trevithick March 12, 2021

USAF via FOIA
Joseph Trevithick View Joseph Trevithick's Articles@FranticGoat


The U.S. Air Force has made an extremely unusual decision to publicly disclose a deployment of RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drones sometime in the last six months or so. More than a decade after the service officially acknowledged the existence of this unmanned aircraft, details about its operations remain highly classified.
The Air Force's 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada quietly revealed the RQ-170 deployment earlier this week. The disclosure was tucked in with other information relating to a visit to Creech by General Mark Kelly and Chief Master Sergeant David Wade, the commander and command chief of Air Combat Command (ACC), respectively. The 432nd conducts training and other non-combat operations inside the United States, as well as combat operations overseas. The Air Force refers to crews conducting missions downrange remotely as being under the direction of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW) and often describes the Wing collectively as the "432nd Wing/432nd Air Expeditionary Wing."

Matthew C. Hartman
An RQ-170 Sentinel in a test configuration seen flying out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2017.

"Since Kelly’s visit in October, the 432nd AEW has begun flying MQ-9 Reaper sorties out of Romania, successfully deployed and redeployed RQ-170 Sentinel forces, and broke ground on the 25th Attack Group’s forthcoming headquarters and operations building at Shaw AFB, South Carolina," the 432nd's Public Affairs Office wrote in an official news item.
"RPAs [remotely piloted aircraft] are meeting the needs of Combatant Commanders today – in both contested and non-contested environments," Air Force Colonel Stephen Jones, the Wing's commander, said in a statement. "The wide array of mission sets the MQ-9 and RQ-170 are asked to perform remains our hallmark – we do not shy away from these tough tasks; we remain ready to take them on in all environments."

Stealth Is Put To The Test In Huge Exercise Teaming RQ-170s, F-35s, B-2s With Other Jets By Joseph Trevithick and Jamie Hunter Posted in The War Zone

Details Emerge About The Secretive RQ-170 Stealth Drone's First Trip To Korea By Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Notoriously Shy RQ-170 Spy Drone Lands At Its Skunk Works Birthplace By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Everything New We Just Learned About The 2020 Iranian Missile Attack On U.S. Forces In Iraq By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

North Korea’s New Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile Is Its Biggest Yet By Thomas Newdick Posted in The War Zone


The Air Force news item did not say where the RQ-170s had deployed or when that deployment took place. While it is known that Sentinels have and continue to operate overseas, we here at The War Zone cannot remember another time in which the service has proactively offered any sort of information about a specific operational deployment of these drones. The vast majority of the official details about the exploits of these unmanned aircraft have been obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), though various reports about their activities have also emerged based on information from anonymous sources.

Submission
Pictures previously provided to The War Zone of an RQ-170 landing at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, in July 2020.


While the exact size of the Sentinel fleet is unknown, there are understood to be between 20 and 30 of these drones in service. At present, only two units are publicly known to operate RQ-170s, the 30th and 44th Reconnaissance Squadrons, both of which are assigned to the 432nd Wing's 732nd Operations Group. The War Zone was the first to report in-depth on the 44th, which officially stood up on Apr. 1, 2015, and the Air Force only acknowledged last year that the RQ-170 was at least one of the types that it flies.

The Air Force is only known, with absolute certainty, to have deployed these stealth drones for operations over four countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and South Korea, as well as out over areas of the Western Pacific flying from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. Based on the known South Korean deployments, it is all but certain that they have flown over, or at least very near, North Korea. These drones are widely understood to have surveilled then-Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, before and during the U.S. raid that led to his death in May 2011, as well. An RQ-170 infamously went down and was subsequently captured in Iran six months later.

Uncredited

A picture of what was originally referred to as the Beast of Kandahar in Afghanistan. The name was a reference to repeated sightings of RQ-170s at Kandahar Airfield in that country.

While we don't know where this newly revealed deployment may have taken some of the RQ-170s, the general time frame the Air Force has provided may offer some clues. Most notably, concerns were building within the U.S. military and Intelligence Community in late 2020 that Iran or its proxies might seek to mark the first anniversary of the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani with attacks on U.S. interests, or those of its allies and partners, across the Middle East or elsewhere.

The U.S. military had killed Soleimani, then head of the Quds Force, the arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tasked with operations outside the country, in a drone strike outside of Baghdad International Airport in Iraq in January 2020. Just days later, Iran had launched an unprecedented ballistic missile strike aimed at facilities hosting U.S. troops in Iraq. By all accounts, it was a miracle that no U.S. service members, or anyone else, died.
As already noted, RQ-170s are known to have been employed over Iran in the past. They would still present a very viable asset for penetrating past that country's air defenses with a low likelihood of detection to monitor for things like the deployment of ballistic missiles on mobile transporter-erector-launchers or other similar signs of impending strikes.

Having the Sentinels on station could have provided additional early warning if any such strikes had come. If the drones had found any such threats, they could have then provided information to help target them and conduct post-strike assessments, as well, should any decision to act have been taken by the U.S. government. We know that the U.S. military was poised to retaliate in January 2020 had any Americans died in the Iranian strikes on targets in Iraq.

We also know that the Air Force has at least explored the use of the RQ-170 to conduct bomb damage assessments following strikes from stealthy B-2 bombers. This kind of surveillance would be particularly valuable after strikes on deeply buried targets where high-fidelity assessments would be critical to determining whether the operation was a success or failure.
In addition, North Korea, another country the RQ-170 is very likely to have already operated over already. There were reports earlier this year about concerns that the Hermit Kingdom might have been preparing to conduct a major new missile test of some kind and the regime in Pyongyang has also been continuing to expand its nuclear weapons program.

While the United States has a number of different means of gathering various types of intelligence about what is happening in North Korea from stand-off distances, RQ-170s would offer a potential way to get closer looks at items of interest, such as a missile test facility. In 2017, there were reports that pointed to the use of an RQ-170, or another similar asset, to conduct persistent surveillance of North Korea's first test of its Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile.
Of course, the RQ-170s could have been sent somewhere completely different, as well. There is certainly no shortage of hotspots around the globe where the United States might be interested in discreetly gathering intelligence.
Regardless, the Air Force's public acknowledgment of a deployment of these drones, which remain some of its most secretive assets, is rare and notable itself.

Please see source for video and additional photos
Posted for fair use

Air Force Makes Extremely Rare Mention Of Deployment Of RQ-170 Stealth Drones

More than 10 years after the Air Force publicly acknowledged the existence of these stealth drones, information about their exploits remains limited.

www.thedrive.com

 

[jward]

View

The US military has put scores more ship-killer missiles under contract as Pacific tensions continue
Defense News
Defense News

The US military has put scores more ship-killer missiles under contract as Pacific tensions continue
David Larter

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy and Air Force signed a contract last month for dozens of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles, a closely watched program that seems to introduce a new sophisticated guidance system into lethal ship-killing missiles.
The $414 million deal buys 137 LRASMs, support equipment, systems engineering, logistics and training support, Lockheed Martin spokesman Joe Monaghen said in an email.
LRASM has a published range of about 300 nautical miles, is jam resistant, and designed to locate targets with onboard sensors rather than relying on guidance from another source such as a drone’s sensors or another ship. The missile is also difficult to detect.

As China expands navy, US begins stockpiling ship-killing missiles
The contract comes as tensions have continued to simmer in the Western Pacific between China and the United States, and between China and others in the region, concerning China’s ever-expanding fleet. The People’s Liberation Army Navy, which is expected to grow to 425 ship by 2030 has driven the U.S. to accelerate procurement anti-ship missiles, including the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps. Both services are seeking the ability to threaten ships at sea from long ranges.
Last February, Defense News reported that the military had put about 850 anti-ship missiles in the five-year defense spending projections, up from 88 anti-ship missiles programmed into the 2016 budget five years earlier.
In a press release announcing the contract, Lockheed said the buy, which was for lots four and five of the missile, showed LRASM’s “increasing significance to our customers’ missions.”

In January, the Pentagon’s weapons tester, the director of operational test and evaluation, said the Navy should ramp up testing of the newest iteration of the missile.
Citing “multiple hardware and software failures” in the first version of the LRASM missile, the DOT&E report called on the Navy to put the new LRASM 1.1 through a rigorous testing process under realistic combat conditions to ensure it will “demonstrate mission capability in operationally realistic environments.”

Lockheed Martin’s website says the missile is designed to use its “multi-modal sensor suite, weapon data link, and enhanced digital anti-jam Global Positioning System to detect and destroy specific targets within a group of numerous ships at sea,” meaning it can pick out what ships are its intended targets from a group of ships.
In the release, the company said the missile “reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links and GPS navigation in electronic warfare environments. LRASM will play a significant role in ensuring military access to operate in open ocean, owing to its enhanced ability to discriminate and conduct tactical engagements from extended ranges.”
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The US military has put scores more ship-killer missiles under contract as Pacific tensions continue