WAR 03-11-2022-to-03-17-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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(283) 02-18-2022-to-02-24-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

(284) 02-25-2022-to-03-03-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

(285) 03-04-2022-to-03-10-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

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Posted by Jward today....

Can the Air Force Shield Its New ICBM from Cyberattacks?

As part of the development process for the Sentinel missile, the Air Force has been working with Northrop Grumman to engineer new command and control systems, computing infrastructure, and networking capabilities.

nationalinterest.org

ALERT - RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread

www.timebomb2000.com

WAR - CHINA THREATENS TO INVADE TAIWAN

no warm fuzzies recieved from this bit o' news. Taiwan defense ministry prepares practical changes to mobilization law List of students from age of 16 only to be used in emergency By Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer...

www.timebomb2000.com

WAR - Regional conflict brewing in the Mediterranean

Cohen: US must immediately issue credible military threat against Iran Charles Bybelezer The Israeli foreign minister’s call comes after IAEA inspectors discover uranium enriched to near weapons-grade in the Islamic Republic...

www.timebomb2000.com

ALERT - The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East

Navy Lookout @NavyLookout At summit today @RishiSunak & Emmanuel Macron agreed to coordinate Carrier Strike Group deployments in Indo-Pacific region to maintain a more persistent presence.@HMSQNLZ not expected to deploy to Pacific this year & FS Charles de Gaulle now in refit until December...

www.timebomb2000.com

As well as the rest......

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Posted for fair use.....

Biden Administration Allowing Iran's Mullahs to Join the "Nuclear Club"

Ever since the Biden Administration shifted Washington's Iran policy from maximum pressure to total appeasement, the ruling mullahs' nuclear advances have been remarkable. In the meantime, the Biden administration does not appear even slightly concerned

www.gatestoneinstitute.org

Biden Administration Allowing Iran's Mullahs to Join the "Nuclear Club"​

by Majid Rafizadeh
March 11, 2023 at 5:00 am

• Ever since the Biden Administration shifted Washington's Iran policy from maximum pressure to total appeasement, the ruling mullahs' nuclear advances have been remarkable.
• In the meantime, the Biden administration does not appear even slightly concerned that a regime which has frequently threatened to wipe two entire countries, America and Israel, off the map, is closer than ever to possessing nuclear weapons.
• General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the Iranian regime's plans vehemently clear. "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map," he announced on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. Khamenei has also published a 416-page book, "Palestine," about destroying Israel.
• Thanks to the Biden Administration's weakness, Iran's anti-American, genocidal mullah regime, which is still calling for "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!", is about to join the "nuclear club."
• This -- along with the surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan and the many green lights offered to the Chinese Communist Party -- will be the disastrous legacy of the Biden Administration.

Ever since the Biden Administration shifted Washington's Iran policy from maximum pressure to total appeasement, the ruling mullahs' nuclear advances have been remarkable.

The Iranian regime is rapidly forging ahead with uranium enrichment. Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), recently found uranium particles in Iran that were enriched up to 83.7%, just shy of the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. The enrichment has been taking place in Iran's underground Fordo nuclear site. Before the Biden Administration, the regime was enriching uranium at 3.5%. This is a remarkable nuclear escalation in just two years.

At this level of uranium enrichment, and based on the speed that Iran is advancing its nuclear program, the regime is reportedly just days away from possessing enough material for a single nuclear weapon.

Colin Kahl, a top Department of Defense official, told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks if it chose to do so:

"Iran's nuclear progress since we left the (deal) has been remarkable. Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the (deal), it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb's worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days."

In the meantime, the Biden administration does not appear even slightly concerned that a regime which has frequently threatened to wipe two entire countries, America and Israel, off the map, is closer than ever to possessing nuclear weapons.

One of the core pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been to destroy the Jewish state:
"YOU WILL NOT SEE NEXT 25 YEARS," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has tweeted to the "Zionist regime." "GOD WILLING, THERE WILL BE NOTHING AS ZIONIST REGIME BY NEXT 25 YEARS."

It is also one of the religious prophecies of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as his successor, Khamenei, that Israel will eventually be wiped from the face of the earth.

Israel a "cancerous tumor" that 'must be "removed and eradicated," Khamenei tweeted.

General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the Iranian regime's plans vehemently clear. "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map," he announced on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. Khamenei has also published a 416-page book, "Palestine," about destroying Israel.

This is a regime whose core principle is exporting its Sharia law and Islamist Revolution to other countries. As Ayatollah Khomeini famously stated:

"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry, 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle."

The foundation of the Islamic Republic is, in fact, anchored in prioritizing the pursuit of its revolutionary ideals, which include exporting its Islamist system of governance across the world. The regime's key mission is also incorporated in Iran's constitution, which states:

"The constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad. In particular, in the development of international relations, the constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community."

Finally, this is also a regime that, since 1984, been designated as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" by the US Department of State. The ruling mullahs have been setting up weapons factories abroad and manufacturing advanced ballistic missiles and weapons in foreign countries, including Syria. The weapons include precision-guided missiles with advanced technology to strike specific targets.

Since 1979, Iran's ruling clerics -- by deploying the IRGC and its elite branch, the Quds Force -- have managed to expand their influence throughout the Middle East from Yemen to Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip. The regime has been achieving this through its proxy militias, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a conglomerate of more than 40 militia groups. As a result, why would the regime not provide nuclear technology to its many terror allies and militia groups?

Thanks to the Biden Administration's weakness, Iran's anti-American, genocidal mullah regime, which is still calling for "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!", is about to join the "nuclear club."

This -- along with the surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan and the many green lights offered to the Chinese Communist Party (such as here, here and here) -- will be the disastrous legacy of the Biden Administration.

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

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

Recent Articles by Majid Rafizadeh

• Iran's Regime Days Away from Nuclear Weapons, 2023-03-04
• Thanks to Obama's 'Nuclear Deal,' Iran Now a Major Arms Exporter, 2023-02-25
• Is Biden A 'Manchurian President,' Facilitating Nuclear Cooperation between Iran's Mullahs and Russia?, 2023-02-18
• Iran's Military at the Panama Canal: Significant National Security Threat, 2023-02-11
• Biggest Gift to Iran's Mullahs, China and Russia: Biden Administration's Weak Leadership, 2023-02-04

15 Reader Comments​

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

An 'Un-Official Arms Race': Can US Modernize Its Arsenal Quickly Enough to Outpace China and Russia?

According to the Pentagon, China is adding to its nuclear arsenal at a rate that could surpass the U.S. by the end of the decade.

www1.cbn.com

ATIONAL SECURITY
CBNNEWS.COM

Displaying 30+ Stories​

An 'Un-Official Arms Race': Can US Modernize Its Arsenal Quickly Enough to Outpace China and Russia?​

03-10-2023​

Caitlin Burke​

​

According to the Pentagon, China is adding to its nuclear arsenal at a rate that could surpass the U.S. by the end of the decade.

The United States still holds a nuclear edge, but as of the end of 2022, the communist power had amassed more land-based intercontinental-range ballistic missile launchers or ICBMs.

"The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States," the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees nuclear forces, wrote the Senate's and House's Armed Services Committees on Jan. 26.

"So that means kind of the holes that they would be able to put long-range missiles incapable of striking the US homeland," explained Patty-Jane Geller, a senior policy analyst for Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense with The Heritage Foundation.

While many of China's ICBMs remain empty, their strategic partnership with Russia is a concern.

"Russia is providing fuel for China's reactors that produce nuclear material. These reactors produce plutonium, and plutonium is the important nuclear material that China needs for its nuclear buildup," Geller told CBN News.

U.S. intelligence officials predict Beijing will soon be able to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to increase its nuclear warheads stockpile as much as four-fold in the next 12 years. Those nuclear warheads would likely fill the now-empty ICBMs. That kind of build-up would also allow China to match arsenals currently deployed by the U.S. and Russia.

"China is refusing to sit down and negotiate with us. To me, that tells us that China is on an upward trajectory and it has no interest in negotiating or stalling its nuclear buildup," Geller said.

Shortly after the Chinese spy balloon dust-up, President Xi Jinping pressed military leaders for an even faster elevation of his armed forces. Meanwhile, Russia backed out of a nuclear arms control treaty with the U.S., leading experts to urge the Pentagon to develop a new strategy.

"We can't simply just try and try again for arms control. If it's not working well, we'll have to do everything we can to strengthen our own nuclear deterrence and make sure we're building the right capabilities that we need to deter Russia and China and make sure that they can't ever think that, even as they build up their nuclear weapons, that they can get away with using them," Geller said.

She said U.S. capabilities have thus far stayed the same, as Russia and China compete in an unofficial arms race to nuclear dominance.

"The problem is the leaders in the arms race are Russia and China. The United States has not quite entered it yet," Geller said.

A senior Pentagon official says the U.S. is working to modernize all three legs of its land, sea, and air-based arsenals. The question remains, whether the pace will be quick enough to keep our adversaries at bay.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/isis-congo-jihadis/2023/03/11/id/1111904/

ISIS: Killed Over 35 'Christians' in Congo​

Saturday, 11 March 2023 10:36 AM EST

The Islamic State group has issued a statement claiming responsibility for killing more than 35 people and wounding dozens in eastern Congo.

In the statement, posted Friday by Aamaq, the militants' news agency, it said it killed "Christians" with guns and knives and destroyed their property in Mukondi village in North Kivu province. It also published a photo of the houses on fire.

The announcement comes after local authorities confirmed that at least 45 people were killed last week in several attacks on different villages by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, a militia with links to ISIS.

Conflict has been simmering in eastern Congo for decades as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, influence and resources, and some to protect their communities. The ADF has been largely active in North Kivu province but has recently extended its operations into neighboring Ituri province and to areas near the regional capital, Goma.

Efforts to stem the violence against ADF have yielded little. A nearly year-long joint operation by Uganda and Congo's armies did not achieve the expected results of defeating or substantially weakening the group, said a report in December by a panel of U.N. experts. The ADF rebels are accused by the U.N. and rights groups of maiming, raping, and abducting civilians, including children. Earlier this month, the United States offered a reward of up to $5 million for information that could lead to the capture of the group's leader, Seka Musa Baluku.

On Thursday, AP reporters saw bodies lowered into a mass grave in Mukondi. Community members shoveled dirt over the bodies against a backdrop of destroyed houses and said the government wasn't doing enough to protect them.

"As you see in Mukondi, it is always the same. ADF, which is always ill-intentioned against the Congolese," said Col. Charles Ehuta Omeonga, military administrator for Beni region. "We lost many of our brothers," he said.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo has condemned the killings and is urging Congo's authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3213222/us-general-warns-islamic-state-army-detention-syria-and-iraq

World / Middle East

US general warns of Islamic State ‘army in detention’ in Syria and Iraq​

• The head of the US military’s Central Command visited several prisons and camps in northeastern Syria holding suspected jihadists and their relatives
• ‘In visiting the detention facility, I saw the looming threat posed by this group of detained ISIS fighters,’ General Michael Kurilla said in a statement

Agence France-Presse
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Published: 1:02am, 12 Mar, 2023

A US general warned on Saturday that the Middle East faces the looming threat of an Islamic State group “army in detention”, after visiting prisons and camps in northeastern Syria holding suspected jihadists and their relatives.

General Michael Kurilla, head of the US military’s Central Command, visited several detention facilities this week, including Ghwayran prison in the city of Hasakah, where hundreds were killed after jihadists stormed it early last year, a CENTCOM statement said.

“In visiting the detention facility, I saw the looming threat posed by this group of detained ISIS fighters,” Kurilla said in the statement, using another acronym for IS.

“Between those detained in Syria and Iraq it is a veritable ‘ISIS army in detention’. If freed, this group would pose a great threat regionally and beyond,” he added.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by a US-led coalition, spearheaded the fight against IS in Syria, driving the group from its last redoubt in the country in 2019.

Tens of thousands of people, including relatives of alleged jihadists, have been detained in the years since in camps run by the Kurdish authorities, including the notorious al-Hol camp, where around 10,000 foreigners are held.

Kurdish authorities have repeatedly called on countries to repatriate their citizens, but foreign governments have allowed only a trickle to return home, fearing security threats and domestic political backlash.

SDF commanders and administrators at Ghwayran prison described the detainees as “unrepentant, subject to further radicalisation to violence, and a ticking time bomb,” CENTCOM said.

Kurilla also visited the Kurdish-run camps of Roj and al-Hol, where relatives of suspected jihadists are held.

Children in al-Hol “are in daily danger of indoctrination to violence,” CENTCOM said, adding that teenagers with foreign parents “expressed a desire to return to their country of origin.”

Kurilla urged the “repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration of the camp residents back into their countries and communities of origin,” calling al-Hol a “flashpoint of human suffering”.

The jihadists were ousted from Iraqi territory in 2017 but retain sleeper cells in desert and mountain hideouts in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Suspected IS militants killed three truffle hunters and kidnapped at least 26 others in northern Syria on Saturday, a war monitor said.

The fight against the jihadists “is a fight for security and stability of not only Syria and Iraq, but the entire region”, Kurilla said.

“We absolutely cannot allow a resurgence of ISIS.”

 

[Housecarl]

Hummmm.....​

​

Peter Zeihan || Cartels Part 1: Americans Caught in the Crossfire​

RT 3:43

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcSveAyWBVk&ab_channel=ZeihanonGeopolitics

318,514 views Mar 8, 2023 #cartels #mexico #drugtrafficking
On March 7th, two of the four US citizens kidnapped shortly after crossing the border into Mexico were found dead. This raises several questions, but perhaps the most significant is how this will change the United States' policy on Mexican cartels.

2,129 Comments​

Peter Zeihan || Cartels Part 2: Origins of the Drug Trade​

RT 7:36

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3geNfcn85g&ab_channel=ZeihanonGeopolitics

221,477 views Mar 10, 2023 #cartels #mexico #drugtrafficking
Flashback to the 80s with me for a moment...we can leave out the big hair and leg warmers...but let's talk drugs. Most of the cartel activity came from one place, Colombia. If you've ever seen Miami Vice, you get the idea. But once the US caught onto the cartels' "distribution strategy," new ways of getting "product" into the US had to be created.

2,158 Comments​

 

[Housecarl]

INTL - Mexican president threatens to meddle in US elections with 'information campaign' against Republicans

foxnews.com Mexican president threatens to meddle in US elections with 'information campaign' against Republicans Adam Shaw Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday threatened to launch an "information campaign" in the U.S. against Republicans, telling...

www.timebomb2000.com

 

[jward]

Pentagon budget aims to max munitions production, make multiyear buys​

Joe Gould, Stephen Losey​

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WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon aims to rev up the munitions industrial base and max out production lines for several top priority missiles, according to the budget unveiled Monday.

With an eye on Russia and China, the Pentagon in fiscal 2024 would spend $30.6 billion for missiles and munitions ― 12% more than last year and 50% more than five years ago, when the U.S. was still fighting the Islamic State and Taliban.
The Pentagon budget would also break new ground by using multiyear procurement authorities generally reserved for ships and aircraft to buy munitions and expand production capacity over several years.
At Monday’s budget rollout, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady did not answer directly whether the Pentagon, like the NATO alliance, is raising stockpile targets due to the war in Ukraine. The move was aimed at deterring China and ensuring the health of the U.S. defense industrial base, they said.
“This latest budget expands production capacity even more, and procures the maximum amount of munitions that are most relevant for deterring and, if necessary, prevailing over aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” said Hicks, adding that one-third of the munitions budget request is for long-range fires.

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord said the munitions request was “Ukraine informed, even if not Ukraine specific.” To replenish U.S. stockpiles depleted by the war in Ukraine, Pentagon officials said they will rely on supplemental appropriations from Congress, which granted the Pentagon $35.7 billion in FY23.
“These are not the kind of missiles that are key to the Ukraine fight, they are key to Indo-Pacific deterrence,” McCord said. “What [Hicks] has been pushing us to do is to think about lessons we’re learning today and apply them to future scenarios, think about what would I have done four years ago if I had a crystal ball, to think about things that might be coming.”

The Pentagon’s $170 billion procurement budget request ― touted as the largest ever ― would use a new “large lot procurement pilot” strategy to maximize production capacity for several munitions used across the services: Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) ― and the Raytheon Technologies-made RIM-174 Standard Missile (SM-6), AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AAMRAM).
Though not in the pilot program, the Pentagon is also using multiyear contracting to buy roughly 103 Naval Strike Missiles at $250 million. The Marine Corps’ new, low-signature Marine Littoral Regiments and their Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System are slated for 90 of the ground-based missiles, which Raytheon manufactures.

RELATED​

Of the $30.6 billion for munitions, more than half ― $17.1 billion ― is for tactical missiles, while $7.3 billion is for strategic missiles, $5.6 billion for conventional ammunition and $600 million for technology development. The plans separately call for $15.1 billion more spread across the next five years to cover upfront costs for long-lead item procurements.
Another $1 billion dollars would allow industry to procure long-lead items for the weapons, and otherwise “put that money up front to send the demand signal to our industry partners,” according to Maj. Gen. Michael Greiner, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for budget.

To further spur defense firms to expand production capacity, defense officials said they will seek congressional approval for future multiyear buys of the Raytheon-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system and the Lockheed-made Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, a surface-to-surface medium-range rocket fired from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The U.S. has given all three systems to Ukraine.
U.S. Army officials have said their 2024 budget will request authority to buy more munitions in bulk over multiple years as the U.S. and its allies work to refill their inventories and help Ukraine’s forces defend themselves.
“In these ramp-ups, the reason we’re taking a really maximalist foot on the floor all the way down approach is that we don’t know how long the conflict will last, we don’t know how low our stocks will be, we don’t know the full amount we will have to help replenish,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush said earlier this month.

RELATED​

The Air Force budget proposal would double missile spending, from $2.3 billion in 2032 to $4.7 billion in 2024. “The munitions buys are focused on ... the targets that we would have to be concerned about in a China scenario of some kind,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters in a March 10 briefing at the Pentagon.
The Air Force would include $161 million to buy 48 Joint Strike Missiles, made by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Defence Aerospace and Raytheon, for the first time. A top Air Force budget official, Maj. Gen. Michael Greiner, said those long-range missiles, which can be fired from the F-35 against land and ship targets, will help bridge the gap as LRASM continues to come online.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies report last month found the U.S. defense-industrial base is unprepared for a notional battle with China over Taiwan, as it would run out of key long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week. The report spotlighted U.S. military aid to Ukraine and criticized bureaucratic hurdles for defense contracting and U.S. arms sales overseas.

Other highlights from the budget proposal include:
- $1.8 billion for 550 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range, more than twice the $902 million Congress enacted for FY23.
- $1.2 billion for 830 AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, up from $740 million in FY23.
- $1 billion for 118 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles, up from $550 in FY23.
- $386 million for 1,165 Joint Air-to-Ground Muntions, up from $297 million in FY23.
- $447 million for 1,170 of the Raytheon-made Small Diameter Bomb II, down $555 million for FY23.
- $1.6 billion for 125 of the Navy’s RIM-174 Standard Missile, up from $799 million for FY23.
- $1 billion for 5,064 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, down from $1.3 billion in FY23.
- $934 million for 34 Raytheon-made Tactical Tomahawk Cruise missiles, down from $905 million.
- $206 million for 3,236 Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, down from $328 million.
- $30 million for 40 Lockheed-made Hellfire missiles, down from $116 million.
Jen Judson and Megan Eckstein contributed to this report.

Joe Gould is the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He served previously as Congress reporter.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.

Pentagon budget aims to max munitions production, make multiyear buys

Pentagon officials say they will maximize production lines for top priority munitions as part of its $170 billion procurement budget proposal for FY24.

www.militarytimes.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

South Korea Could Get Away With the Bomb

The global norm against nuclear proliferation is strong, but Seoul’s political and economic ties are stronger.

foreignpolicy.com

ARGUMENT​

An expert's point of view on a current event.

South Korea Could Get Away With the Bomb​

The global norm against nuclear proliferation is strong, but Seoul’s political and economic ties are stronger.​

By Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance.

MARCH 16, 2023, 2:41 PM

In January, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol commented that his country may have to consider developing its own nuclear weapons in response to the escalating nuclear and missile threat it faces from North Korea. Although the government soon clarified that South Korea is not actively pursuing this policy, the remarks were echoed by Chung Jin-suk, the leader of Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, and even more recently by Oh Se-hoon, Seoul’s mayor and a possible 2027 presidential candidate. South Korea’s nuclear debate is no longer held only on the fringes of its politics and cannot be simply wished away. In fact, with Pyongyang’s continued military provocations, it might even be coming to a head.

Prior to North Korea’s 2006 nuclear test, there was limited public debate in South Korea about developing its own arsenal. Over the past decade of polling, there has been reliable support—held among roughly two-thirds of the South Korean public—for an indigenous nuclear weapons program. Today, support hovers around 70 percent, according to various polls, meaning the country’s leaders could develop the bomb without fear of a significant domestic backlash. Even though Kyiv never had operational control over Soviet nuclear systems, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine merely three decades after the latter decided to voluntarily relinquish its nuclear weapons has reinforced the perception among many that a nuclear deterrent is the only credible protection against a determined invader.

The question South Korea is now asking itself is not whether it is capable of building nuclear weapons, but whether the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. Not only can Seoul withstand these costs, but they would likely be far less severe than those publicly discussed by the nonproliferation community.

For more than half a century, the treaties, agreements, arrangements, and verification tools that make up the global nonproliferation regime—in particular, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—have largely prevented new states from developing nuclear weapons. Key to eliciting compliance with this bargain are the penalties and punishments imposed if states are found violating their safeguards agreements—above all, economic sanctions. Iran and North Korea, the most notable NPT pariahs, are among the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and as a global economic powerhouse, South Korea would stand to lose a great deal if it were subject to similar retribution.

Yet South Korea’s current security environment is so fraught that its decision may be understandable to many. While Seoul continues to respect the January 1992 joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang has gone in the opposite direction, to put it lightly.

It is precisely this threat that could help Seoul maintain moral and legal high ground—and avoid the kind of backlash Pyongyang faced for its actions. As enshrined in Article X of the NPT, South Korea has the “right to withdraw” in the case that it “decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.” In September of last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that his country’s nuclear status is “irreversible,” and the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly passed a law that month enshrining Pyongyang’s (self-anointed) right to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to lay claim to the whole of the Korean Peninsula. This publicly established threat would give South Korean leaders a powerful legal case to argue that withdrawal from the NPT to develop nuclear weapons is a matter of pure survival.

Withdrawal from the NPT in and of itself may make South Korea the target of criticism. But there’s good reason to believe that the way in which it develops its nuclear program could mitigate some of the reputational costs and diplomatic fallout.

Israel, for example, is widely acknowledged to possess nuclear weapons even though it has refrained from publicly conducting a nuclear test. Nuclear tests are particularly inflammatory because they serve as a vivid reminder to other countries of the threat they face—not to mention the environmental harm these tests cause. Yet Israel’s (test-free) nuclear status has not prevented it from becoming one of Washington’s strongest allies. While the South Korean Army would ideally want to conduct at least one nuclear test to assess and collect valuable data on its technology, it could instead follow Israel’s lead and rely on its civilian nuclear energy know-how, computer modeling, and data gathered from other countries’ nuclear tests—including North Korea’s—to quietly develop its own program. This would certainly reduce the reputational hit Seoul would take.

Further, as the case of India shows, the backlash from conducting a nuclear test would not necessarily be insurmountable. The Clinton administration criticized New Delhi’s 1998 tests and imposed a series of economic sanctions on India. But for the United States, strengthening relations with India eventually became more important than upholding the nonproliferation regime. Sure enough, by 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had issued a joint statement lifting a three-decade-old nuclear trade moratorium, and the countries continue to cooperate across a range of issues today.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........The source of the "study" is as interesting as its "conclusions".......

Posted for fair use.....

North Korean ICBM could hit central US in 33 minutes, China claims

Scientists in Beijing have simulated the ICBM launch and believe Pyongyang would be able to hit the country should the U.S.'s nuclear defence fail to intercept the missile.

www.dailymail.co.uk

North Korean ICBM could hit central US in 33 minutes due to gaps in America's missile defence 'kill chain', China claims​

• North Korea would be able to hit the United States, the Beijing study said
• The study said the missiles would be 'sufficient to hit the entire US homeland'

By CHRISTIAN OLIVER

PUBLISHED: 13:11 EDT, 15 March 2023 | UPDATED: 13:14 EDT, 15 March 2023

North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States that would hit the country in just 33 minutes, China has claimed.

Scientists in Beijing have simulated the ICBM launch and believe Pyongyang would be able to hit the country should the U.S.'s nuclear defence fail to intercept the missile.

The team of scientists from the Beijing Institute of Electronic System Engineering said North Korea's nuclear-capable Hwasong-15 missile with a range of over 8,000 miles (around 13,000 kilometres) would be 'sufficient to hit the entire US homeland'.

The simulation also suggested that there were gaps in the U.S. nuclear defence armoury.

The scientists said their tests showed the existing US missile defence network had gaps in its 'kill chain' and would struggle to identify and defend against an attack.

The new research and simulation published by China's top institute for aerospace defence was led by scientist Tang Yuyan and released in the Modern Defence Technology Journal for February.

The simulation started with a launch from Sunchon, a North Korean city south of capital Pyongan, and targeted Columbia in Missouri. The specific location was selected for its centrality in the middle of America.

Running the tests, the team said a theoretical launch would cause the U.S. to receive an alert 20 seconds later.

Within 11 minutes, the U.S.'s nuclear defence would fall into action as intercepting missiles would blast out of Fort Greely in Alaska's Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.]

A second phase of missiles would then launch Vandenberg Space Force Base in California should the first defence fail.

Tang's team said the U.S. defence was impressive but they said the simulation identified some gaps in the 'kill chain' that a nation such as North Korea could exploit.

The study claimed that the reason for the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. nuclear defence capabilities.

The most recent simulation follows another Chinese study released earlier this year which marked potential targets for China's hypersonic weapons.

The first wave of a hypothetical attack would aim at some of the largest ground-based radars in the U.S., the study said.

It would target Beale Air Force Base in California’s Yuba county and the Cape Cod peninsula.

Those bases were identified as they would be vulnerable to hypersonic weapons that are able to move unpredictably and strike at five-times the speed of sound, the study said.

The study also follows continued launching and testing of several ballistic missiles by North Korea.

For some months, North Korea has conducted tests firing short-range ballistic missiles into the sea.

The nation's dictator Kim Jong Un has also been incredibly public with the testing, combining it with appearances of his rarely seen daughter.

Analysts have dubbed the combined appearance of the girl and the missile testing as an effort to remind the world he has no intentions to voluntarily surrender his nuclear weapons, which he apparently sees as the strongest guarantee of his survival and the extension of his family's dynastic rule.

Western countries have strongly condemned the testing. South Korea called the repeated missile launches a grave provocation threatening the region's peace and security, and a U.S. State Department spokesperson criticised the launches as violation of multiple United Nations Security Council Resolutions.

Comments 157

 

[energy_wave]

Imo, North Korea would be in the process of being destroyed before their missile ever reached the US.

 

[Housecarl]

Imo, North Korea would be in the process of being destroyed before their missile ever reached the US.

Yeah but the fact that they got to launch them would be a failure on our part....

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....(now if they are going to use this as the template for CONUS metro areas.....)

Missile Defense Agency details evolving, 'incremental' vision for Guam air defenses - Breaking Defense

“[It] is an incremental path. There is no end state,” according to MDA chief Vice Adm. Jon Hill, who noted the military would "beautify" incoming platforms to make them more palatable to locals.

breakingdefense.com

• LAND WARFARE, NAVAL WARFARE, PENTAGON

Missile Defense Agency details evolving, ‘incremental’ vision for Guam air defenses​

“[It] is an incremental path. There is no end state,” according to MDA chief Vice Adm. Jon Hill, who noted the military would "beautify" incoming platforms to make them more palatable to locals.​

By ASHLEY ROQUE on March 16, 2023 at 11:52 AM

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to take a continuous, iterative approach to providing the US territory of Guam with integrated missile defense architecture, but specifically aims to have capabilities to detect and defeat higher-end Chinese threats fielded by 2024, according to the Missile Defense Agency’s top official.

Appearing at the McAleese FY24 defense programs conference on Wednesday, MDA chief Adm. Jon Hill outlined his evolving Guam plans that expands defenses from solely focusing on a threat from North Korean ballistic missiles to higher-end ones from “near-peers” like China — think less predictable, faster cruise missiles.

“[It] is an incremental path. There is no end state,” he told reporters. “If you ask me what the [initial operational capability] IOC is, I’ll look at you and say there is no IOC because we’re going to deliver capability as it’s ready and we’re going to continue to build it out.” However, he noted that the first new “stream” of capabilities is poised to arrive on the island next year.


Hill’s comments come as Pentagon leaders spent the week discussing their roadmap to spend $842 billion in fiscal 2024. Their “Defense of Guam” plans have many moving pieces inside the MDA, Army and Navy budget requests that total nearly $1.5 billion, according to the Department of Defense Comptroller. For the MDA, that pot is $801.7 million — $632.1 million in research, development, test and evaluation activities, and $169.6 million in procurement. The services have not yet released all of their budget justification books that are expected to offer more details, but Hill offered a peak at what might be buried inside those documents.

For now, the plan will use the Army’s delayed Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) once it is ready to deploy it and the service has enough soldiers available to operate it. Tied in will be four Long Range Discrimination Radars placed along the “periphery of the island, so that gives us 360-degree coverage,” Hill said. LRDR is currently in Alaska and used as part of the US Ground-Based Midcourse Defense anti-ballistic missile system.

MDA is also levering a version of the land-based Aegis ashore system to include the missile launchers and enhanced mobile radars dubbed the “AN/TPY-6.” (The “S” in Raytheon’s SPY-6 radar stands for “surface” while the “T” refers to the terrestrial radar.)

“We’re taking radars that are normally on a deck house of a ship, or in a big facility like we have in Alaska, and we’re putting in erectable trailers so that we can move them around and emplace them,” Hill explained.


The evolving plan also includes a mix of launchers tied into the IBCS like the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, currently on the island, as well as Patriot launchers, and the aforementioned land-based variant of the Aegis vertical launch system. That list also includes the Army’s future Enduring Shield air defense missile launcher (also called the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2, or IFPC Inc 2) paired with either Raytheon’s ground-launched AIM-9X Sidewinder missile or a second interceptor not yet identified.

For now, Hill said his top two challenges for executing this plan are finding the right sites for each piece of equipment, especially since this is an island where people live and tourists visit, and dealing with “environmental electromagnetic interference issues.”

“We [have] land radars, we don’t want to screw up existing air operations,” Hill added. “We don’t want to conflict with medevac helicopters coming out of the hospital.”

He also noted the military would take steps to make the launchers not look so intimidating, or just be an eyesore, for locals.

“So, we have to take care of all those things, and we [are] committed to beautify them,” he said. “So we make [the] launchers look beautiful. And we’re gonna put big bubbles over the radars to keep them from looking so lethal, right? The reality is, that’s what it is.”

 

[jward]

(now if they are going to use this as the template for CONUS metro areas.....)

No. I already put up with entirely too much that is borderline indefensible. Not living with any missile platforms, beautified or otherwise. Life at what price is not merely rhetorical questioning, but something them there smart boys best start asking themselves. Ideally, before we scraggly few survivors find ourselves back in the caves, telling our creation myths by the glow of our open fires, and recording our histories in ochre upon it's walls.

 

[jward]

ISIS-K in Afghanistan could hit Western interests in Europe and Asia within six months​

Neirin Gray Desai

---

A division of the Islamic State based in Afghanistan will be able to target US citizens in Europe and Asia within six months, a senior US general told a Senate committee.

General Michael Kurilla, head of US Central Command, told Congress that 'at least hundreds of thousands' of US citizens could be vulnerable to an attack by ISIS-K, which has the 'ultimate goal to strike on the American homeland'.
ISIS-K - the Islamic State in Khorasan - is an ISIS affiliate based in Afghanistan and a sworn enemy of both the Taliban and the United States.

The group has claimed responsibility for the Kabul airport attack during the US evacuation in August 2021 which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US soldiers. It continued launching attacks throughout 2022, including on mosques and schools.
Kurilla's comments were made during an address on Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee requesting funds for fiscal year 2024.

US general says ISIS-K could hit Europe within six months
'It is my commander's estimate that they can do an external operation against US or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,' Kurilla said during the address this week.

'ISIS-Khorasan grows emboldened, seeking to expand its ranks and inspire enable and direct attacks in the region and beyond - with the ultimate goal to strike on the American homeland,' he added.

He was then asked about the likelihood of an attack on US soil.
'It would be harder for them to do that against the American homeland,' he said.

'If you asses six months against Europe or Asia what would you asses would be the timeline against the homeland?' senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked him.
'I think it's hard to put a timeline on that,' said Kurilla. 'I think it is a higher probability overseas than it is in the homeland.'

When asked how many US citizens (including troops, tourists and people working abroad) are in regions vulnerable to attack he agreed there would be 'at least hundreds of thousands'.
The commander also confirmed to the committee that there was a need for munitions that can hit 'hard and deeply buried' ISIS-K targets in Afghanistan.

Similar assessments have been made by other US officials recently.
'It's a matter of time before they may have the ability and intent to attack the West,' the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, said during a hearing last week.

In January the National Counterterrorism Center Director, Christine Abizaid, described ISIS-K as the 'threat actor I am most concerned about'.
'We see concerning indications of ISIS-Khorasan in Afghanistan and its ambition that might go beyond that immediate territory,' she said.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked during the address on Thursday when the group would likely be able to carry out an attack on US soil

ISIS-K was created in January 2015 by disillusioned Taliban members in eastern Afghanistan. Khorasan refers to the historic name of the region between Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

What is ISIS-K?

ISIS-K is one of six or seven regional offshoots of the Islamic State - the K stands for the Khorasan region, which historically encompasses parts of modern day Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
ISIS-K was created in 2015, as a splinter group from the Pakistani Taliban, and its original leaders were from Pakistan.

It was soon recognized by ISIS's leaders in Iraq and Syria, and in January 2016 declared a terrorist organization by the State Department.
Its strongholds are eastern Afghanistan, straddling the border with Pakistan in Nangarhar province, and the north of Afghanistan.

In 2018 the group was weakened in the north of Afghanistan, and in 2019 severely beaten back in the east. But in 2020 they regrouped and launched a series of devastating terror attacks.
The group previously fought the Western-backed government that fell in August 2021.

It is unclear how much control ISIS exerts over ISIS-K, but the main group does claim attacks carried out in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its stated aim is to impose an Islamic Caliphate in the region.
In Afghanistan ISIS-K it has emerged as the primary threat to the Taliban's efforts to instill peace in the country.

ISIS-K is generally considered to be an international problem, having attacked foreign targets, in the bombing of Kabul airport as well as in separate attacks on Chinese citizens in Afghanistan.

Last year the State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the capture of ISIS-K leader, 28-year-old Sanaullah Ghafari and for help finding those behind the airport attack.
Ghafari was appointed by the Islamic State's core leadership in the Middle East as head of its Khorasan affiliate in June 2020, according to the State Department.

It said Ghafari was responsible for approving all ISIS-K operations throughout Afghanistan and arranging funding to conduct operations.
Some reports suggest he was born in Iraq - based on his nickname of al-Muhajir or 'the migrant - but US government documents list his birthplace as Afghanistan.

He was believed to have been a mid-level commander in the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network, before joining the Islamic State affiliate.

ISIS-K has been responsible for a string of bloody attacks across Afghanistan. In October 2021, it claimed a mosque attack that killed and wounded dozens of people in Kunduz
It was estimated that after the collapse of the Western-backed government its membership had risen from 2,200 to closer to 4,000 following the release of several thousand poisoners.

Shortly after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan SU intelligence officials were particularly concerned about potential attacks by ISIS-K. The perceived threat from the group is therefore not new.
In October 2021 Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl made similar comments and said that the US had to remain vigilant against the threat from both Al Qaeda and from the ISIS offshoot.

'I think the intelligence community currently assesses that both ISIS-K and Al Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the United States, but neither currently has the capability to do so,' he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

'We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere between six or 12 months. I think the current assessments by the intelligence community is Al Qaeda would take a year or two to reconstitute that capability,' he added.

ISIS-K could hit US targets in Europe and Asia within six months

A division of the Islamic State based in Afghanistan will be able to target US citizens in Europe and Asia within six months, a senior US general told a Senate committee.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[jward]

Australia Cleared To Gain Tomahawk Cruise Missile Capability​

Howard Altman​

---

The State Department on Thursday approved a potential $895 million deal to sell up to 200 Tomahawk Block V and up to 20 Tomahawk Block IV All Up Rounds (AUR) cruise missiles and related equipment to Australia.
A source familiar with the deal told The War Zone that this is a new introduction of the Tomahawk Weapons Systems for Australia’s Hobart class destroyers.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee (DDG 90) launches a Block V Tomahawk, the weapon’s newest variant, during a three-day missile exercise in December 2020. This event marked the first time a Block V Tomahawk missile was operationally tested. (U.S. Navy photo by Ens. Sean Ianno/Released)
Back in September 2021, then-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared his nation’s intention to acquire the Tomahawks. You can read more about that in our coverage here.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on Thursday notified Congress that Australia requested to buy the Tomahawks, as well as support for all three segments of Australia’s Tomahawk Weapon System (TWS) including the All Up Round (AUR), the Tactical Tomahawk Weapon Control System (TTWCS), and the Theater Mission Planning Center (TMPC).

“The proposed sale will improve Australia’s capability to interoperate with U.S. maritime forces and other allied forces as well as its ability to contribute to missions of mutual interest,” according to the DSCA release.
The Royal Australian Navy has three Hobart class destroyers, which it received between 2017 and 2020.
A Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning conducts a flypast over HMAS Hobart during Exercise TASMAN SHIELD 21, off the east coast of Australia. Both these platforms are now set to receive new long-range strike missiles., Australian Department of Defense

These modern-designed, 7,000-ton-displacement warships have been optimized primarily for air defense duties. Tomahawks would add powerful new long-range land-attack and maritime strike capabilities and bolster Australia’s anti-access/area-denial deterrent ability against potential future opponents like China.
“By deploying the Tomahawk Weapon System, Australia will contribute to global readiness and enhance the capability of U.S. Forces operating alongside them globally,” according to DSCA. “Australia will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense.”

Though the announcement about the potential sale of Tomahawks today is specifically related to plans to arm the Hobart class destroyers, it does come just days after Australia, the U.S. and U.K., unveiled a three-phase plan to create an Australian nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarine capability. This will come via the purchase of at least three and as many as five Virginia class nuclear submarines by Australia and ultimately, the creation of a joint Australian-U.K. class of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines dubbed SSN-AUKUS.

The Tomahawk is a key component of the arsenal of U.S. Navy Virginia class submarines and this is very likely to be the case with the future Australian boats. The support and training components of this proposed sale could only help Australia start laying the groundwork for a broader capability with these weapons in the future.
It is yet another move by the U.S. to ensure that Australia has the means necessary to defend itself, and U.S. and allied interests, against any potential threat from China.

Australia Cleared To Gain Tomahawk Cruise Missile Capability

The sale of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Australia will bolster that nation's ability to defend itself against any future threat from China.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use.....

Republicans warn of ‘direct threat’ from Russia helping China make nukes

House Republican leaders on Friday warned Biden administration officials of a “direct threat” to the US posed by a Russian energy firm that is helping China produce nuclear weapons.

nypost.com

Republicans warn of ‘direct threat’ from Russia helping China make nukes​

By Josh Christenson
March 17, 2023 5:23pm Updated

House Republican leaders on Friday warned Biden administration officials of a “direct threat” to the US posed by a Russian energy firm that is helping China produce nuclear weapons.

Three GOP committee chairmen in a letter to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Rosatom, a Kremlin-backed nuclear energy organization, was “helping the People’s Republic of China (PRC) acquire enough weapons grade plutonium to fuel its strategic nuclear breakout.”

The House members — Armed Services chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), Intelligence chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Foreign Affairs chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) — said Rosatom also “helps fuel Putin’s war efforts in Ukraine.”

“We call on the Administration to view this cooperation for what it is, a direct threat to U.S. security and more evidence that Russia and China are working in tandem against the United States,” the Republican lawmakers wrote in the letter.

“The Administration should use all tools at its disposal to stop Rosatom and the PRC’s dangerous cooperation,” they added, noting “the full application of sanctions, export controls, and diplomacy.”

The news comes during a period of tense US-China relations after a CCP spy balloon was spotted in Montana and later shot down after traveling across the rest of the country.

The head of US Strategic Command also told Congress in January that China now has more land-based intercontinental-range missile launchers than the US.

U.S. Strategic Command Admiral Charles Richard called the new Chinese developments involving nuclear weapons a “strategic breakout.”

The US still retains more land-based intercontinental-range missiles than China, despite Beijing having developed more launchers for its missiles.

The letter was also addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

“The longer we wait to act, the more difficult it will be to address Rosatom’s nefarious and malign dealings,” the GOP members said, adding that the entity was “only getting stronger.”

“Putin uses these funds to fund his war machine and keep his favorite weapons programs on schedule,” they added.

“In short, every dollar and euro that Rosatom brings in directly finances the death and destruction we see in Ukraine, China’s nuclear weapon expansion, and is a direct threat to the American way of life,” the lawmakers told the administration.

They applauded the administration’s “steps to sanction three Rosatom subsidiaries on February 24, 2023.”

The Republicans asked for the Biden administration to have briefed Congress on the matter by April 17, 2023.

 

[jward]

China’s Green Lasers Over Hawaii Signal a Coming War: Expert​

Hannah Ng, Tiffany Meier​

---

The appearance of China’s green lasers over Hawaii signals a coming war, warns Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at International Assessment and Strategy Center.

In late January, Japanese astronomers stationed in Hawaii noticed mysterious green laser beams being fired over the island. The laser beams are being shot down from space over one of the largest mountain ranges in Hawaii.
When they first reported these beams to the public, the astronomers said they came from a NASA satellite—they were thought to be American lasers. But just a week later, the Japanese astronomers issued a correction saying that the green laser beams were not from a U.S. satellite, but instead, they were more likely from a Chinese satellite.
According to NASA’s assessment, it was likely caused by China’s Daqi-1 satellite, which is a “Chinese atmospheric environment monitoring satellite” launched in April 2022.

“This weather satellite passing over Hawaii, shooting its lasers, its atmospheric measuring lasers, down from on high is very much a signal to the United States that if there is a confrontation over the future of democratic Taiwan, they are ready to target American military forces, which will definitely impact American civilian lives in the state of Hawaii,” Fisher told the “China in Focus” host on NTD, the sister media outlet of the Epoch Times.
The expert disagreed that the Daqi-1 satellite is solely for environmental research.

“While this satellite indeed can be used to advance environmental research, the lasers that it uses to assess the atmosphere can also be used to provide key measurements of atmospheric density, wind direction, all of which are essential for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be able to target its latest weapons known as hypersonic glide vehicles,” he said in the interview.
“In reality, this is a classic example of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s dual-use system,” he noted.

Hypersonic Glide Vehicle​

According to Fisher, the hypersonic glide vehicle is designed to exploit low altitudes as it travels at speeds above five times the speed of sound.
“Now, at that speed, a hypersonic glide vehicle is very vulnerable to changes in the weather, minute changes in atmospheric density, the change in direction of the wind,” he said.

“So, the PLA would want the Daqi-1 satellite or a satellite with that capability, to have reconnoitered the weather over the target, the weather over Hawaii, the weather over Pearl Harbor, it wants the hypersonic glide vehicle to be as accurate as possible,” he added.
He said that its ability to travel at lower altitudes enables the satellite to avoid radar detection until it approaches the target.
“It means less time for the Americans to mobilize missile defenses, if they have them, or to target this missile. And in addition, [the] hypersonic glide vehicle is designed to be maneuverable. So as it approaches the target, it can make evasive maneuvers,” he said.

The fact that the Chinese satellite targeted Pearl Harbor also made the American nuclear attack submarines based there vulnerable to any threat.
“Those submarines would provide a very significant margin of the American deterrent and combat power in the event of confrontation or war,” he said.
“So China would attach an extremely high priority to attacking Pearl Harbor and destroying American naval assets, including those submarines,” he added.

Close-Run​

According to Fisher, the United States can counter hypersonic glide vehicles with its air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), which he said: “offers the advantage of being able to intercept the bomber that’s carrying the missile early on in its mission.”

“If the hypersonic glide vehicle missiles are on ships, then the ships can be intercepted and dealt with at a far distance from potential targets as well. But if the missiles are air-launched ballistic missiles, that means the missiles are in the air, [and] it becomes important to try to intercept the missile as far away as possible from the target before the hypersonic glide vehicle becomes a freely maneuvering and evasive target itself,” he said.

The United States has that intercepting capability, he noted. Still, it’s a close-run situation as “the hypersonic glide vehicle is very fast, very maneuverable, and can also execute violent maneuvers.”
“It means that the United States would have to launch a significant number of intercepting missiles in order to be able to assure the destruction of an incoming hypersonic glide vehicle,” Fisher said.
Roman Balmakov contributed to this report.
China’s Green Lasers Over Hawaii Signal a Coming War: Expert

 

[jward]

China-Argentina on verge of region-rattling fighter deal​

Gabriel Honrada​

---

China may be close to clinching a huge weapons sale to Argentina involving fighter jets and armored vehicles, a deal that would give Beijing military clout in a region traditionally seen as America’s sphere of influence.
This week, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Argentina’s Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja and Argentinian Defense Minister Jorge Taiana met in Buenos Aires recently to discuss defense cooperation plans with China, which includes the possible purchase of JF-17 fighter jets, 8×8 armored vehicles and military personnel exchanges.
SCMP mentions that the JF-17, which China co-produces with Pakistan, is a potential candidate to fill the Argentine Air Force’s longstanding fighter gap. The Chinese fighter is reportedly competing against India’s HAL Tejas, Russia’s MiG-35 and secondhand Danish F-16s.

The report said that Vaca Narvaja met with representatives from China National Aero-Technology International Engineering Corporation last November to discuss Argentina’s possible JF-17 purchase. Moreover, Chinese and Argentinean representatives discussed possibly co-producing the aircraft.
However, the report states that Argentina will not make any immediate aircraft purchases, with President Alberto Fernandez saying that his country has to allocate its limited resources to more important areas than military aircraft.
Argentina has been struggling to rebuild its military since the 1982 Falklands War, with subsequent US and UK sanctions on arms sales hobbling its modernization.

While SCMP mentions that China’s JF-17 contains a UK-made Martin-Baker ejection seat, it can be replaced with a domestic version and that the real issue is whether Argentina can afford the JF-17.
The Argentine Air Force has been particularly hard hit by sanctions and other factors preventing modernization. Meta-Defense noted in a December 2022 article that while it had 240 combat aircraft during the Falklands War, the collapse of military rule, economic crises and sanctions have left it with only around 20 upgraded A-4AR Fighting Hawks, less than ten Pampa 3 trainer aircraft and no supersonic fighters.

Argentina’s air force is behind the times. Image: Facebook
It also says that while Argentina tried to acquire modern fighters such as the Kfir C1, F-16C/D, HAL Tejas and FA-50 in the 2000s and early 2010s, UK components incorporated in the aircraft meant Argentina could not acquire them.
In the case of the Argentine Navy, Global Security notes that it has had a substantial block obsolescence problem since 2020, as most of its ships were acquired from 1975 to 1985 and were envisioned to have a 40-year service life.
The report mentions the Argentine Navy is already small for its long coastline and large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and has struggled with delayed upgrades for its four German-made MEKO 360 destroyers and six MEKO 360 frigates and expired munitions. Its two remaining submarines, meanwhile, have been inactive since 2020.

Global Security mentions that the Argentine Army still relies on 1970s technology, noting that the lack of modern equipment has become a barrier to military operations and impeded the development of new military tactics.
The report also says that maintenance is limited, with preventive maintenance almost nonexistent, forcing the Argentine Army to resort to cannibalization to maintain its equipment.
Given all that, China may see Argentina’s urgent need to modernize its military as an opportunity to establish a foothold in Latin America, a move that would have significant strategic implications.

Richard Aboulafla notes in a June 2021 article for Foreign Policy that if China can succeed in selling its fighter jets and sophisticated weapons to other countries aside from a small core group consisting of states like Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the sale would prove its appeal as an alternative strategic partner from the US and Europe.
Aboulafla also mentions that fighter jet sales often involve a trade relationship or economic sweeteners such as market access or technology transfer to offset the costs of the weapons transfer.
He also says fighter exports reflect the strength of the supplier’s alliances, can lower production costs through economies of scale, provide a captured market for maintenance and spare parts, and allow for harmonized operations and easier communications.

Loro Horta, in a July 2021 article for East Asia Forum, says that China’s push to sell the JF-17 to Argentina might be the former’s breakout to establish itself as a major weapons supplier in a region dominated by the US.
He mentions that China’s proposed fighter sale to Argentina is especially attractive in terms of flexible payment options, China’s willingness to engage in joint production and its openness to technology transfer.
Horta argues that short-term profits are not China’s objective in selling fighter jets to Argentina and that the sale would be driven by long-term political and economic goals. He notes that Argentina is the second-largest country in Latin America, with a sparsely-populated territory rich in natural resources.
He also mentions that China and Argentina have negotiated infrastructure projects worth US$30 billion, with China investing US$15 billion in Argentina’s oil sector. Argentina is already a major food exporter to China, including large shipments of soybeans.

China’s efforts to woo Argentina align with its larger geopolitical strategy in Latin America, writes Diana Roy in an April 2022 article for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Roy notes that China’s foreign aid, investment and soft power with Latin American states has earned Beijing political goodwill and raised its profile as an alternative strategic partner.
Chinese then-foreign minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero in Rome, Italy, October 30, 2021. Photo: Xinhua

Roy also points out that China’s economic and military outreach to Latin America aims to diplomatically isolate Taiwan, with the region’s diplomatic recognition of the latter declining in recent years.
She mentions that the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua dropped their recognition of Taiwan in 2018 and 2021 after being offered economic and infrastructure incentives. Honduras is poised to follow suit this year.
Roy says that China’s fighter sales pitch to Argentina and more extensive outreach to Latin America has raised US concerns of losing its “positional advantage” in the Western Hemisphere, leading the Biden administration to label China as a “strategic competitor” in the region while accusing it of bolstering authoritarian regimes to legitimize its brand of government.

China-Argentina on verge of region-rattling fighter deal

 

[OldArcher]

China-Argentina on verge of region-rattling fighter deal​

Gabriel Honrada​

---

China may be close to clinching a huge weapons sale to Argentina involving fighter jets and armored vehicles, a deal that would give Beijing military clout in a region traditionally seen as America’s sphere of influence.
This week, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Argentina’s Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja and Argentinian Defense Minister Jorge Taiana met in Buenos Aires recently to discuss defense cooperation plans with China, which includes the possible purchase of JF-17 fighter jets, 8×8 armored vehicles and military personnel exchanges.
SCMP mentions that the JF-17, which China co-produces with Pakistan, is a potential candidate to fill the Argentine Air Force’s longstanding fighter gap. The Chinese fighter is reportedly competing against India’s HAL Tejas, Russia’s MiG-35 and secondhand Danish F-16s.

The report said that Vaca Narvaja met with representatives from China National Aero-Technology International Engineering Corporation last November to discuss Argentina’s possible JF-17 purchase. Moreover, Chinese and Argentinean representatives discussed possibly co-producing the aircraft.
However, the report states that Argentina will not make any immediate aircraft purchases, with President Alberto Fernandez saying that his country has to allocate its limited resources to more important areas than military aircraft.
Argentina has been struggling to rebuild its military since the 1982 Falklands War, with subsequent US and UK sanctions on arms sales hobbling its modernization.

While SCMP mentions that China’s JF-17 contains a UK-made Martin-Baker ejection seat, it can be replaced with a domestic version and that the real issue is whether Argentina can afford the JF-17.
The Argentine Air Force has been particularly hard hit by sanctions and other factors preventing modernization. Meta-Defense noted in a December 2022 article that while it had 240 combat aircraft during the Falklands War, the collapse of military rule, economic crises and sanctions have left it with only around 20 upgraded A-4AR Fighting Hawks, less than ten Pampa 3 trainer aircraft and no supersonic fighters.

Argentina’s air force is behind the times. Image: Facebook
It also says that while Argentina tried to acquire modern fighters such as the Kfir C1, F-16C/D, HAL Tejas and FA-50 in the 2000s and early 2010s, UK components incorporated in the aircraft meant Argentina could not acquire them.
In the case of the Argentine Navy, Global Security notes that it has had a substantial block obsolescence problem since 2020, as most of its ships were acquired from 1975 to 1985 and were envisioned to have a 40-year service life.
The report mentions the Argentine Navy is already small for its long coastline and large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and has struggled with delayed upgrades for its four German-made MEKO 360 destroyers and six MEKO 360 frigates and expired munitions. Its two remaining submarines, meanwhile, have been inactive since 2020.

Global Security mentions that the Argentine Army still relies on 1970s technology, noting that the lack of modern equipment has become a barrier to military operations and impeded the development of new military tactics.
The report also says that maintenance is limited, with preventive maintenance almost nonexistent, forcing the Argentine Army to resort to cannibalization to maintain its equipment.
Given all that, China may see Argentina’s urgent need to modernize its military as an opportunity to establish a foothold in Latin America, a move that would have significant strategic implications.

Richard Aboulafla notes in a June 2021 article for Foreign Policy that if China can succeed in selling its fighter jets and sophisticated weapons to other countries aside from a small core group consisting of states like Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the sale would prove its appeal as an alternative strategic partner from the US and Europe.
Aboulafla also mentions that fighter jet sales often involve a trade relationship or economic sweeteners such as market access or technology transfer to offset the costs of the weapons transfer.
He also says fighter exports reflect the strength of the supplier’s alliances, can lower production costs through economies of scale, provide a captured market for maintenance and spare parts, and allow for harmonized operations and easier communications.

Loro Horta, in a July 2021 article for East Asia Forum, says that China’s push to sell the JF-17 to Argentina might be the former’s breakout to establish itself as a major weapons supplier in a region dominated by the US.
He mentions that China’s proposed fighter sale to Argentina is especially attractive in terms of flexible payment options, China’s willingness to engage in joint production and its openness to technology transfer.
Horta argues that short-term profits are not China’s objective in selling fighter jets to Argentina and that the sale would be driven by long-term political and economic goals. He notes that Argentina is the second-largest country in Latin America, with a sparsely-populated territory rich in natural resources.
He also mentions that China and Argentina have negotiated infrastructure projects worth US$30 billion, with China investing US$15 billion in Argentina’s oil sector. Argentina is already a major food exporter to China, including large shipments of soybeans.

China’s efforts to woo Argentina align with its larger geopolitical strategy in Latin America, writes Diana Roy in an April 2022 article for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Roy notes that China’s foreign aid, investment and soft power with Latin American states has earned Beijing political goodwill and raised its profile as an alternative strategic partner.
Chinese then-foreign minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero in Rome, Italy, October 30, 2021. Photo: Xinhua

Roy also points out that China’s economic and military outreach to Latin America aims to diplomatically isolate Taiwan, with the region’s diplomatic recognition of the latter declining in recent years.
She mentions that the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua dropped their recognition of Taiwan in 2018 and 2021 after being offered economic and infrastructure incentives. Honduras is poised to follow suit this year.
Roy says that China’s fighter sales pitch to Argentina and more extensive outreach to Latin America has raised US concerns of losing its “positional advantage” in the Western Hemisphere, leading the Biden administration to label China as a “strategic competitor” in the region while accusing it of bolstering authoritarian regimes to legitimize its brand of government.

China-Argentina on verge of region-rattling fighter deal

The USA has never had a good Latin American foreign policy. China uniting with any Latin American nation will end badly for the US, as the Monroe Doctrine has the worth of used birdcage paper.

OA

 

[jward]

The Unipole in Twilight
American Strategy from 9/11 to the
Present​

JUSTIN LOGAN

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F oreign policy in the United States is like polo: almost entirely an elite sport.
The issue rarely figures in national elections. The country is so secure that
foreign policy does not affect voters enough to care much. No country is
going to annex Hawaii or Maine, so voters are mostly rationally ignorant of the
subject. The costs of wars are defrayed through debt, deficits, and the fact that the
dying and dismemberment happens in other people’s countries. Moreover, the dying
and dismemberment of Americans are contained in an all-volunteer force that is
powerfully socialized to suffer in silence.1 Unlike on abortion, the environment, or
taxes, elites in both parties mostly agree on national security. Given rational igno-
rance among the public and general consensus among elites, voters rarely hear seri-
ous debates about national-security policy (Friedman and Logan 2016). Their views
are mostly incoherent and weakly held.

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 (9/11)
raised the salience of foreign policy. They rocketed President George W. Bush
from 51 to 90 percent popularity in the span of fourteen days (Gallup News n.d.).
Bush used the wave of approval to pursue an expansive war on terrorism. The
United States invaded Afghanistan in October and began planning to attack Iraq.

On Bush’s coattails and with national-security activism the central theme,
Republicans made sizable gains in the 2002 midterm elections. On March 19,
2003, the United States invaded Iraq.
The Iraq War immediately blossomed into a costly disaster. The mission in
Afghanistan crept from killing terrorists and punishing those who harbored them
into an ambitious nation-building effort that became the longest war in American
history. Thousands of American troops were killed, tens of thousands were gravely
wounded, and thousands of American contractors were killed. 2 Hundreds of thou-
sands of innocent foreigners perished. The wars cost more than $6 trillion, and the
meter is still running (Crawford 2019).

New bureaucracies sprouted, including the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The United States set
up a global archipelago of “black sites” where it tortured suspected terrorists. The
National Security Agency indiscriminately vacuumed up Americans’ electronic com-
munications without legal authorization, then tried to hide this invasion of privacy
from the public.

The administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump pledged to
de-emphasize the Middle East in American foreign policy and pay more attention to
China. In 2011, Obama announced a “pivot to Asia,” which was quickly rebranded as
a “rebalancing” after Middle Eastern countries complained to Washington that they
felt marginalized. What wound up happening was something closer to incoherence;
the United States kept several fingers stuck in the Middle East pie, while turning
toward and puffing up its chest at China. President Obama regime-changed Libya
and intervened in the Syrian civil war. Trump kept U.S. troops in Syria, ramped up
the drone wars, and ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani,
Iran’s most prominent military commander, while he was on a visit to Iraq.

Although many observers may think of the twenty years from 2001 until now
as a pivot from a costly effort to reengineer the Middle East to a focus on con-
taining China, the truth is more prosaic. In fact, defense planners had had their
eyes on China since the 1990s. Throughout the global war on terror, the central
defense-procurement decisions were still being made on the basis of assuming secu-
rity competition with a major power such as China. There was never an effort to
expand the ground forces to the size at which they could hope to decisively win the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon dramatically expanded the base defense budget, adding a new
line item called “Overseas Contingency Operations” (OCO), which were funds ear-
marked for the wars. This helped the government obscure the costs of their policies
(Friedman 2016). In this sense, much of the base budget remained dedicated to
suppressing major powers. The OCO budget served as a war budget on top of the
defense budget. Overall defense spending nearly doubled from 2001 to 2009 (U.S.
Congressional Budget Office 2020, 2).

In the absence of major international or domestic constraints, policy can
become extravagant. The period from 2001 to the present represents a promiscuous
waste of money, lives, and diplomatic attention, for which almost no one in charge
of the policy has paid serious consequences. The implications of this waste are even
more severe if the worst-case assumptions about China’s growing power that enjoy
consensus in Washington are correct. Policies whose costs can be avoided, defrayed,
or hidden are likely to be oversupplied.

This paper proceeds in four parts. First, it shows the extent to which defense
planners were focused on competition with China—not on the Middle East or small
wars—in the 1990s through September 11, 2001. Second, it outlines the initial plans
that emerged after the 9/11 attacks through the start of the war in Iraq as well as
the public mood and the notable disjuncture between budgetary priorities and policy
initiatives during the global war on terror. Third, it discusses the derailment of Bush’s
freedom doctrine in the years from 2003 to 2009. Fourth, it describes the normal-
ization of perpetual war during the Obama and Trump years, coupled with a restored
focus on containing China.

In conclusion, it highlights the extent to which the decade
and a half following the attacks were a costly waste followed by no accountability. By
2021, Washington planners had returned to an emphasis on China, lost the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, contributed to the collapse of Libya and Syria, and held almost
no one accountable for the immense costs of their mistakes.

The rest of the paper can be read at the link below:

https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_26_2_02_logan.pdf

 

[jward]

INDOPACOM: China Has Not Responded to U.S. Attempts to Establish Communication - USNI News​

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Adm. John C. Aquilino, Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, listens to a brief during the USINDOPACOM Commander’s Summit in Hawaii on Dec. 13, 2022. U.S. Navy Photo
China has not responded to any of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s requests to establish direct communication channels between its commander and the commanders of China’s main military commands, Adm. John Aquilino said Thursday.
Defense chiefs of partner nations approached Aquilino in August 2021 during the annual Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense conference, hosted by INDOPACOM, and asked the U.S. to establish communication with China, Aquilino said Thursday during a event hosted by the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“At that event, many of my partners came over and said, ‘hey, you really need to engage and develop an ability to communicate with a) all of us and b) with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) leadership,” Aquilino said.
He followed the advice of the other defense leaders and requested to speak with the PRC’s Eastern and South Theater commanders, Aquilino said.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and then-China’s Minister of National Defense Gen. Wei Fenghe agreed in November 2022 that operational commanders should keep lines of communication open. However, Aquilino has not received any response in a year and a half.

Aquilino continues to request communication with the Chinese government, he said. It concerns him that he doesn’t have the ability to talk to someone on the Chinese side should a reason to communicate arise.
The two countries are competing, he said, with China considered to be the pacing challenge.
“And by competing, clearly demonstrate the superiority of the rules-based international order to provide all nations the opportunity to reach their full potential,”Aquilino said.

There are countries that look to disrupt the current system in ways that benefit themselves but would come at the cost of others, he said, although he did not specify which countries. The countries often use coercion and justify their actions through the belief that power is more important, he argued.
Aquilino added that these countries also made illegal excessive territorial claims based solely on revisionist history and empowered their law enforcement authorities to harass nations operating legally within those nations’ own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Some of these revisionist powers have proposed alternative security options, which may look benign on the surface, but the real purpose is to establish an alternative to the rules-based order in ways that benefit one nation at the expense of others.

During the question and answer session, the INDOPACOM commander said it’s too early to provide specific details on future U.S. nuclear attack submarine deployments under the AUKUS agreement and whether the AUKUS deployments would increase the number of U.S. nuclear attack submarines operating in the Indo-Pacific. He said the details are not fleshed out yet and the focus is moving the agreement as fast as possible and to deliver the capability Australia needs.

An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter sits aboard the flight deck of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WMSL 757) while the vessel transits the Indian Ocean, Sep. 12, 2022. U.S. Coast Guard Photo.
Aquilino said he welcomed greater involvement by the U.S. Coast Guard and European nations in the region. In many cases, the U.S. Coast Guard is the right force for missions in the region, particularly in law enforcement and in combatting Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, he said.

Aquilino and his U.S. Coast Guard counterpart coordinate and operate together to achieve the objectives of the United States, “and it’s a really great team, I am looking for more Coast Guard, and as the Coast Guard balances across their global commitments, anything additional they can provide to the Pacific, we certainly have use for” Aquilino said.
On European nations, he said he invites U.S. partners to deploy to the Indo-Pacific, join exercises, operate with his command, and build relationships with partners in the Indo-Pacific. Aquilino thanked France for their past deployments to the region that involved a number of activities with the U.S. and regional partners.

In response to a question about a U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle rotationally deploying to Singapore, Aquilino said there’s a requirement for the deployment that’s been facilitated with short and close coordination with Singapore. He said it’s an example of the close partnership, the ability to coordinate quickly, understand each other’s operations and support each other when needed.
Meanwhile, the U.S Navy in a Thursday news release announced that the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle operated by Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19 finished its deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet deployment area of responsibility. The squadron will deploy again to the region this year.

“The MQ-4C began operating in the 7th Fleet area of operations (AOO) in 2020 to commence developing tactics, techniques, and procedures for unmanned aircraft operations. The two aircraft in the baseline configuration known as Integrated Functional Capability (IFC) 3 were forward deployed supporting Commander, Task Force 72 tasking. During this time, Triton conducted ISR operations using its multi-sensor mission payload,” the Navy news release reads.
The MQ-4C squadron was mainly based at Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, it also operated from Misawa Air Base and Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan to test out “expeditionary basing,” according to the release.
“VUP-19 will return to 7th Fleet in 2023 to start the MQ-4C’s initial operational capability (IOC). The IOC period will utilize multiple Triton aircraft in the upgraded IFC-4 configuration to conduct enhanced MISR&T operations with an upgraded sensor suite,” the release reads.
INDOPACOM: China Has Not Responded to U.S. Attempts to Establish Communication - USNI News