WAR 03-12-2016-to-03-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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http://zeenews.india.com/news/world...support-after-ivory-coast-attack_1866126.html

France ups Africa anti-terror support after Ivory Coast attack

Last Updated: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - 08:11

Abidjan: France has vowed to step up anti-terrorist cooperation in Africa after Al-Qaeda's North African branch said it carried out a deadly weekend attack on an Ivory Coast beach resort.

"We must reinforce our cooperation so that the terrorists have no chance" of success, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault yesterday, who arrived in Abidjan earlier Tuesday along with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The two ministers flew in after Sunday's attack on the Grand-Bassam resort that left 18 people dead, among them four French nationals. Thirty-three people were wounded in the attack, 26 of whom are still in hospital.

After visiting some of the wounded, the French ministers met with Ivorian Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi and Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko.

Also in Abidjan as a mark of solidarity were Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi and Togolese counterpart Faure Gnassingbe, who urged a regional response to terror.

"You don't fight terrorism alone... There are national responses which are important but they must be complemented and amplified by a regional and international response," Gnassignbe said.

"Alone, no one can defeat terrorism."

"Terrorism falls under international jurisdiction," agreed Benin's president.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) said the shooting rampage was one of a series of operations "targeting dens of espionage and conspiracies".

It directly threatened France and its allies in the region in warning that nations involved in the anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane and the 2013 French-led Operation Serval in Mali would "receive a response", with their "criminal leaders" and interests targeted, according to the SITE group which monitors extremist groups.

"Regarding (Operation) Barkhane... We have decided to station GIGN elements who in the event of attack in the region will be able intervene quickly and provide training in circumstances of serious terrorist crisis," to achieve a coordinated response, Cazeneuve said.

GIGN is a French paramilitary unit.

He said rapid intervention units could follow and that if necessary, France would "go beyond" mere coordination, without giving further details.

French President Francois Hollande had on Sunday vowed to "intensify cooperation" in African states hit by insurgencies.
AFP


First Published: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - 08:11

 

[mzkitty]

2m
Hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, says it has received 39 injured, 10 dead bodies after bus blast - @atanzeem


Syed Musharraf Shah ‏@i_m_mushy 1m1 minute ago

Salute to the driver of the bus who not caring his injuries drove the bus to police station.
#PESHAWAR
#PeshawarBlast


Syed Musharraf Shah ‏@i_m_mushy 2m2 minutes ago

Please pray for the driver who is in critical condition.
#PESHAWAR
#PeshawarBlast

 

[mzkitty]

First Published: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - 10:17


Peshawar: A powerful bomb ripped through a bus carrying government employees in Pakistan's Peshawar city on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and injuring 30 others.

The blast took place as a bomb placed inside the bus exploded when the vehicle packed with government employees reached Peshawar from Mardan.

The bomb exploded when the private bus was on Sunehri Masjid Road as it was taking civil secretariat employees for duty.

At least 15 people were killed in the blast targeting the bus carrying government officials, SSP operations Peshawar Abbas Majeed Marwat said.

He said about 50 people were on board the bus at the time of the explosion.

Two women and a child were among the dead. At least 30 people were injured in the blast.

SP Cantt Kashif Zulfiqar said the blast was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) planted inside the bus. About 8 kg of explosives were used in blast.

The injured were shifted to Lady reading hospital. The condition of a majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Eight of the injured were admitted in ICU.

The security forces and police cardoned off the entire area and started a search operation.

Fear and panic spread among residents in the wake of the explosion.

"The top part of the bus has blown off and is being cut to pull out the injured," an eye witness was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

Peshawar has seen scores of attacks on civilians as well as law enforcement personnel in the past.

The city is also the home to the XI Corps, an administrative corp of the Pakistan Army, which manages all military activity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is currently engaged in a full-blown operation against militants in North Waziristan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack in Peshawar. He expressed grief over the loss of precious lives in the attack.

"These cowardly attacks cannot shatter our unflinching resolve against terrorism," Sharif said.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/15-killed-in-peshawar-bus-explosion_1866162.html

 

[mzkitty]

Shailja ‏@shailjah 3m3 minutes ago

More bombs go up in the Islamic world than anywhere else. About time Muslims shed their persecution complex & saw the enemy within #Peshawar


Iftikhar Firdous ‏@IftikharFirdous 11m11 minutes ago

CCTV footage shows, explosion that killed 15 people was in a moving bus on Sonehri Masjid Road. Copyright @etribune

https://twitter.com/IftikharFirdous

 

[mzkitty]

6m
Bomb disposal officials say bus explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan, caused by 8.8 lbs IED with detonator - AFP

Up to 16 dead now:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/31114814/bus-blast-kills-at-least-10-in-nw-pakistan/

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...-nuclear-threat-not-all-bluster-analysis.html

North Korea's nuclear threat not all bluster: analysis

With Pyongyang suggesting it has mastered new technology, it’s time to take nuke threat more seriously.

By: Eric Talmadge The Associated Press, Published on Tue Mar 15 2016

TOKYO—Skeptics of North Korea’s nuclear threat, and there are many, have long clung to two comforting thoughts.

While the North has the bomb, it doesn’t have a warhead small enough to put on a long-range rocket. And it certainly doesn’t have a re-entry vehicle to keep that warhead from burning up in the atmosphere before it could reach a target like, as it has suggested before, Manhattan.

North Korea on Tuesday suggested it will soon show the world it has mastered both technologies.

That would require a huge jump in the North’s suspected nuclear capabilities, so it may be just the latest case of Pyongyang saying with vitriolic propaganda something it cannot demonstrate in tests. But if it delivers, it will put to rest one other comforting thought: that it’s safe for policy-makers in Washington and elsewhere to take North Korea’s claims as mainly just bluster.

“We have proudly acquired the re-entry technology, possessed by a few countries styling themselves as military powers, by dint of self-reliance and self-development,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying. The authoritarian country’s state-run media reported he made the comment after meeting scientists and technicians, following what it said was a successful ground test of a re-entry vehicle.

The report said Kim ordered the commencement of preparations for a “nuclear warhead explosion test” and test-firings of “several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads” to be conducted soon.

As with all such reports, it’s hard to separate Pyongyang’s wishful thinking from the current reality.

North Korea’s most likely candidate for an intercontinental ballistic missile is generally known as the KN-08 — in North Korea it’s called the Hwasong. The three-stage rocket has an estimated range of 5,000-6,000 kilometres (3,100-3,700 miles), longer if modified further.

That range would be ample for attacks on U.S. military bases in Japan, but not the U.S. mainland. A militarized version of the rocket used to put a North Korean satellite into orbit last month is believed to have — potentially — a much longer range that could reach the U.S.

A new version of the KN-08 was displayed at a military parade in October. IHS Jane’s Defense weekly said it featured a smaller and blunter warhead shape “that could confirm U.S. intelligence assessments and North Korean claims of success in miniaturizing its nuclear warheads.”

But the Pentagon has often expressed incredulity over the reliability of the KN-08 because North Korea has never tested it “end-to-end” — meaning from launch through re-entry and warhead delivery — to prove it works.

Just last week, photos of Kim, splashed across the front page of the ruling party’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, showed him standing in a hangar filled with ballistic missiles and looking happily down at a silvery orb about the size of a disco ball.

Experts say the object looks very much like a credible nuclear weapon, though it was clearly a mock-up of whatever device the North may have. Kim and his scientists certainly wouldn’t have stood so close to the real thing without radioactivity protection gear. Nor would Kim, a chain smoker, likely have been holding a lit cigarette right next to it.

The message, however, was obvious: We know what you think our weaknesses are, and you might consider thinking twice.

“Every time the North Koreans test another bomb or a missile, I get calls asking what message the North Koreans are trying to send,” wrote Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, in a recent op-ed in the influential Foreign Policy magazine.

“Well, let’s see: They’ve paraded two different ICBMs through Pyongyang, conducted four nuclear tests, showed us a compact nuclear design sitting next to a modern re-entry vehicle in front of one of those ICBMs, and hung a giant wall map of the United States marked with targets and titled ‘Mainland Strike Plan,’ ” he wrote. “Here’s a wild guess: They are building nuclear-armed ICBMs to strike the United States! Why is this so hard to grasp?”

The timing of Pyongyang’s recent moves is crucial.

It’s facing a new UN sanctions package after its Jan. 6 nuclear test — which it claimed was of an H-bomb — and has significantly amped up its rhetoric amid unprecedentedly large-scale war games between the U.S. and South Korean militaries. Those exercises continue through April.

The country is also conducting a 70-day “loyalty campaign” ahead of a once-in-a-generation ruling party congress in May. The congress could be something of a coming-out party for Kim, a venue to emerge from the shadows of his father and grandfather and more firmly establish himself at home and abroad as North Korea’s supreme leader. He could also lay out his own long-term domestic and international agenda.

Kim presumably wants to face these challenges from a position of power — and making nukes his cause célèbre serves that purpose.

Standing firm on nukes bolsters his credibility with hard-liners in the military and reinforces his regime’s defiant, dangerous reputation with Washington and its allies. It also has domestic propaganda value, showing how North Korea, single-handedly and against all odds, can make breakthroughs few countries have accomplished.

Of course, that logic breaks two ways: If the country hasn’t made major advances, exaggerating them is the next best thing, since its technology is notoriously difficult to evaluate.

But Lewis and other experts have expressed concern that Washington, in particular, has a pattern of not taking the North’s purported capabilities seriously enough until a successful test proves their complacency to have been misplaced. While North Korea might declare success prematurely — most outside experts doubt the recent H-bomb claims — it has an established track record of eventually getting there.

Seoul, meanwhile, was holding to its skeptical line.

Its Defence Ministry said Tuesday it remains unconvinced the North has achieved re-entry vehicle technology. Spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said the assessment is based on South Korean and U.S. intelligence. He refused to elaborate.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/gordon-g-chang/missile-defense-era-kim-jong-un

Around Asia

Gordon G. Chang

Missile Defense in the Era of Kim Jong Un

15 March 2016
Comments 1

“Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union,” reported the state-run DPRK Today on Sunday. “If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes.”

North Korea’s threat followed its release on Wednesday of pictures showing Kim Jong Un standing next to what was reported to be a nuclear warhead. Although the object—a shiny sphere that has been compared to a 1970s disco ball—was most likely a mock-up of a weapon in development, it is probably just a matter of years before his technicians build a real one.

Kim is surely loath to launch nukes, but it would be unwise not to be concerned by his incendiary threats, especially because they come at the same time as intense infighting, highlighted by the execution and disappearance of flag officers. Once again, something is amiss in Pyongyang, and in times of turmoil dictators like Kim have incentives to act rashly.

All of which brings us to the subject of deterrence. If it fails, as it might, no country has a good Plan B.

On Thursday, Admiral William Gortney, commander of the US Northern Command and NORAD chief, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korean missiles can “range the continental United States and Canada.”

There are two missiles Pyongyang can use to put a hole in North America. There’s the Taepodong-2, the military version of the Unha-3 that was tested on February 7, and the shorter-range but far more fearsome KN-08.

The Taepodong takes time to assemble and fuel, and the American military can destroy this launcher on the pad with nothing more sophisticated than an airstrike.

The KN-08, however, is carried on a Chinese-built mobile launcher. It can hide and shoot, so NORAD will, in all probability, know that it has been launched only when sensors pick it up in flight. Therefore, America needs a missile defense system.

At the moment, the US is putting 40 missile interceptors in Fort Greely in Alaska and four more at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The task should be completed, Gortney said, by the end of 2017.

Gortney also said his missile defense system can handle any North Korean or Iranian attack, but even defenders of missile defense recognize one shortcoming of the concept. “One interceptor versus one warhead in mid-course is a failing proposition because they can produce more than we can ever possibly afford to put into the ground,” the admiral testified Thursday.

Gortney in his oral testimony referred to “very promising” work on lasers and a “multiple-object kill vehicle,” but military analysts know in the end offense almost always beats defense. America, however, has little choice but to keep working on expensive missile defenses because even one fewer warhead getting through is a victory of sorts.

Until US planners can be sure they can rely on deterrence—and with regard to North Korea that may be never—they will need to be able to destroy missiles arching toward America or its friends and allies.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://csis.org/publication/poking-hornets-nest-libya-war-four-and-time-we-get-it-right

Poking the Hornet’s Nest in Libya: “War Four” and This Time We Get it Right?

By Anthony H. Cordesman
Mar 14, 2016

Very few of the classic writers on strategy suggest randomly poking a hornet’s nest to see what happens next. The key question for anyone talking about intervention in Libya, however, is exactly what outside intervention can actually accomplish. Various media leaks have talked about a major Italian ground force, an Italian-led mix of European forces, a major U.S. bombing campaign, and “a range of potential airstrikes against training camps, command centers, munitions depots and other militant targets. Airstrikes against as many as 30 to 40 targets in four areas of the country would aim to deal a crippling blow to the Islamic State’s most dangerous affiliate outside of Iraq and Syria, and open the way for Western-backed Libyan militias to battle Islamic State fighters on the ground. Allied bombers would carry out additional airstrikes to support the militias on the ground.

These reports have generally implied that no decision has been taken and none will be until some form of political unity is forged between Libya’s two separate power blocs in Tripoli and Benghazi. It is unclear what level of coordination actually exists between U.S. air options and allied ground and air options, or how any European effort would be coordinated with Arab efforts by nations like Egypt. It is also unclear how outside forces could really coordinate with the morass of different Libyan factions, tribal forces, and other elements of Libya’s unstable power structure that may or may not care what either of the “governments” in Tripoli or Benghazi do or do not agree to.

Some of this sounds all too familiar. We have poked the hornet‘s nest in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen (and Afghanistan if one looks beyond the MENA region.) In each case, we have scored tactical gains or victories against violent Islamist extremists. We have helped overthrow regimes in Iraq and Libya, and we have talked about building massive coalitions that brought in our staunchest allies but often consisted largely of “coalitions of the almost absent.” In the Bush Administration, we rushed massive amounts of ground troops and aid with very uncertain results. In the Obama Administration, we have shifted to indecisive incrementalism. In both cases, we failed to set meaningful and achievable longer-term strategic goals or to show that we could translate tactical military success into lasting security and stability—much less the effective nation building that was required.

These failures are not a reason not to act in Libya, and even a limited air campaign to degrade the ISIS forces in Libya might well ensure that it could not create another “caliphate” or sanctuary for terrorism and extremism. They are a reason, however, not to simply assume that is all it takes to achieve stability in some kind of agreement between Libya’s two “governments” in Tripoli and Benghazi, that broad outside intervention by anyone will be acceptable to Libya’s only real world voting bloc—its men with guns—or that simply taking about civil-military operations and throwing money at some parts of the problem will do any better than before. Throwing money at a hornet’s nest may be

less provocative than poking it with a stick, but it is unclear that the end result will be any more productive or stabilizing.

Bombing ISIS is one thing. Seeking lasting stability in Libya is another. Before we add war four to the current list in the MENA region—Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—we need to show that there is a coherent strategy for actually achieving stability as well as simply attacking ISIS. We need to show that Libya’s other armed factions will actually support outside forces on a lasting basis. We need to show that the Benghazi and Tripoli factions have enough control and influence to matter, and can move toward effective governance. We need to show that there is a real world capability to help Libya develop effective governance, use its petroleum revenues to meet urgent civil needs and then move on to development, and that there is a credible enough structure to carry out a limited form of nation building.

So far, our approach to war has been all too different and come close to the classic definition of insanity—repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result. “War Four” either must have a clear and credible strategy and plan that visibly learns from our past mistakes and has Congressional, public, and allied support or it simply should not take place.

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

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

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2016/03/16/North-Korea-as-a-mafia-state.aspx

North Korea as a 'mafia state'

Robert E. Kelly
16 March 2016 8:59AM

In January 2016, North Korea tested a fourth nuclear device. In the scramble to respond, analysts once again debated the nature of the North Korean regime. Much of the heat of this discussion comes from varying perceptions of the 'real' North Korea.

Is it the last relic of the Cold War? A national security barracks state akin to World War II Japan? Is it just a normal country like any other, looking for a deal in a tough neighborhood? While all these interpretations reveal some element of the curious northern system, if one looks at North Korea's actual behaviour, it operates more like a mafia organisation than anything else.

If we listen to North Korea, this not apparent. North Korea often talks as if it were a militant, revolutionary state. It threatens war and nuclear destruction, claims the South Korean Government to be illegitimate puppets, extols a semi-divine royal family (the Kims) in the world's most servile personality cult and uses extreme rhetoric. This talk is mirrored in the frightening, if highly stylised, portrait of its military goose-steeping before Olympian elites.

But talk is cheap. Exaggerated claims (eg. that its recent nuclear test was a hydrogen bomb) are easy to make and hard to disprove in such a closed society. That they are inaccurate is irrelevant, as with threats to use nuclear weapons against the US or turn Seoul into a 'sea of fire.' North Korea's actions do not suggest a reckless imperialist ready to burn down the region. Rather they suggest canny, criminalistic elites looking to hold their rickety regime together and enjoy the good life.

North Korea is both governed in a mafiosi manner and engages in large-scale criminality analogous to that which we see in organised crime families. Specifically:

1. North Korea is run by an extended clan, and position within the regime is heavily influenced by blood and friendship ties rather than merit or ideology.

Indeed, blood links delineate the internal class system for all North Koreans (the songbun system). North Korea is the only communist monarchy in the history of Marxism. So personalised is the North Korean system that by the 1970s the regime started calling its ideology 'Kimilsgungism' – effectively whatever Kim Il Sung (the country's leader from foundation in 1945 to his death in 1994) said.

When I visited North Korea, our guides often referred to North Korea as the land of the Kims, and every presentation we received about North Korea (even the instructional safety video on the flight over) began with paeans to the Kim family. To be sure, autocracies have had personality cults, but the mafiosi element is perpetual family rule. When Kim Il Sung died, his son took over (1994), and then his grandson (2011), and each of the Kims has ruled through personal, highly-trusted minions and retainers. This is a pre-modern, feudal government.

2. Order among elites is maintained through the stick of harsh, irregular violence and the carrot of bribery

Much like the mafia's 'caporegimes', North Korean elites are selfish and competitive. North Korea is poor, and control of its few profitable assets, such as mining and fishing, is both lucrative and contentious. So factions, dissidents and various barons of industry, the party and the military must be kept in line by the central don either through violence or favours and hand-outs.

Much like the mafia, freelancers and upstarts are subject to purges and elimination. Rule of law in a familial system is weak, particularly the rules for ascension within the clan structure. Should the don change his mind, even rising stars can suddenly be eliminated, as happened to Jang Sung-Taek.

But bullying the caporegime elites with too much violence is risky too. Better to buy them off if possible. When Kim Jong Il ascended the throne in 1994, he so feared a military revolt that he struck a deal with the brass: songun, or the 'military-first policy.' The 'Songun Bargain' (my term) was essentially Kim Jong Il buying off the Korean People's Army (KPA) to forestall a coup. In exchange, the KPA received unique access to the national budget, elevated constitutional importance as the leading entity of the state, and perks for the military elite. The continuing luxury trade into North Korea — the liquor, HDTVs, foreign cars, snowmobiles and so on — keep up the regime's end of that bargain.

3. Contracts are routinely ignored in the relentless pursuit of short-term material gain

Another mafia-esque element is the Kim court's racketeering approach to its interaction with both foreigners and its own people. North Korea regularly cheats or avoids following commitments made in various negotiations with outside powers, the UN and NGOs, most obviously in its construction of nuclear weapons. So many deals have fallen apart that the American attitude toward North Korea is now 'strategic patience,' because the Obama Administration has no trust that North Korea will actually adhere to anything it signs. Internally as well, the Pyongyang 'court economy' has a long record of ripping off its own population and investors: confiscating currency, taking harvest product in excess of state quotas, and rewriting the rules for foreign investors such as Orascom or South Korean firms in the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

4. North Korea engages in elaborate criminal enterprises

If we define the mafia as organised crime, North Korea looks like a country taken over by the Corleone family of the Godfather films. Its criminality is legendary: it counterfeits US dollars (and euros and RMB); brews and exports methamphetamines; engages in insurance fraud; regularly evades UN sanctions, which have the force of international law; trafficks in persons; and proliferates weapons, nuclear materials and missile parts. The revenue from these 'enterprises' directly supports the court economy and the comfortable lifestyle of elites.

5. Finally, like the mafia, North Korea is deeply corrupt

Perhaps Kim Il Sung himself genuinely believed in socialism, but certainly his son did not and his grandson does not. Under their rule, North Korea has emerged as the second most corrupt state on earth according to Transparency International. The mafia bribes and pays off for its needs; so does North Korea.

Petty corruption among officialdom is now widespread, according to defectors, with market traders, escapees and others trading money, goods and services to avoid state detection. North Korean workers toiling on international projects in Kaesong, Siberia and the Persian Gulf see little of their wages, as the regime effectively confiscates the hard currency of their pay. Internationally, North Korea likely could not have built a nuclear weapon without massive pay-offs in the AQ Khan network of proliferators.

At the top, North Korea hides illicit funds in banks, particularly in China and Switzerland, which almost certainly require kick-backs to protect. Kim Jong Il himself secured a $500 million bribe from Hyundai Asan — likely with the tacit permission of the South Korean Government — to attend the 2000 inter-Korean summit. Perhaps the most recognisable face of this corruption to Westerners is Dennis Rodman's bizarre dalliance of debauchery with Kim Jong Un several years ago.

If this interpretation is correct, ideolog,y, or victory over South Korea, is less important to the North's elites than simply staying alive and enjoying the gangsterish good life. The glue of the regime, then, is what I have called the 'Songbun Bargain': goodies for elites in exchange for stable Kimist leadership. Should the funds to maintain the court economy dry up, elites might well set on each other over a declining budgetary pie. If the mafia's primary interest is money, then financial or secondary sanctions are the most powerful weapon we have against the North.

This essay was written in cooperation with the US-Korea NextGen Scholars Program. I would like to thank the Korea Foundation, the University of Southern California, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies for inviting me to participate.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/losing-patience-north-korea

Losing Patience with North Korea

March 15, 2016 | Alexandra Viers

The United States and its allies believed their policy of “strategic patience” would allow them to wait for North Korea to denuclearize on its own, assuming sanctions and international pressure would ultimately force Pyongyang’s hand. However, five years later, with the most recent test of a nuclear bomb and the subsequent long-range rocket launch, the Americans are losing their patience—and they’re not the only ones.

North Korea has launched a nuclear test every three or four years since 2006. Its fourth occurred in January 2016 and was claimed by Pyongyang to be a more powerful hydrogen bomb, though experts have their doubts.

More directly threatening to the United States is the reported successful launch of a long-range rocket, which could potentially be weaponized and reach as far as California.

The recent provocations from Kim Jong-un prompted the implementation of the tightest sanctions ever placed on the DPRK. Under the new UN Sanctions, countries must inspect all sea and air cargo going into and coming out of North Korea to ensure that contraband items, such as luxury goods and nuclear material, are not making their way into the DPRK.

In true North Korean fashion, the sanctions were acknowledged by Pyongyang with the firing of two short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast.

Experts remain skeptical on how effective the sanctions will ultimately be. Sanctions are most compelling in countries where the public has the ability to place pressure on leadership. Though the official name of the country is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country is ruled by the authoritarian dictator, Kim Jong-un. Additionally, the North Korean people are used to living with little means, so sanctions would only marginally decrease their quality of life. The North Korean economy is also almost entirely domestic, with little international trade and a significant flow of goods occurring on the black market.

The key to the success of any sanctions on North Korea remains in the hands of China—which accounts for about 70 percent of North Korea’s trade. North Korea exports $2.5 billion each year to China, who in turn supplies North Korea with oil and other goods. North Korea also plays an important geostrategic role for China. Baohui Zhang, Director for the Center for Asian Pacific Studies in Hong Kong, told The Cipher Brief that China “prefers to have a security buffer in the Korean Peninsula to insulate itself from direct military security challenges from the United States. This geostrategic logic of China’s Korean Peninsula strategy inevitably motivates Beijing to try to maintain the status quo in the Peninsula, which implies continuous economic aid to the Pyongyang regime to sustain its survival,”Beijing’s support of UN sanctions—which were co-drafted by China and the United States—marked an important, and surprising, adherence to Chinese traditional policy towards North Korea: “No war, no instability, no nukes.” China’s patience with North Korea is also wearing thin, but while the sanctions are generally considered tough, they are not tough enough to enact regime change—likely the only solution to the North Korea problem.

“Recognizing that the regime is the problem leads to what may be an uncomfortable conclusion: the United States and its partners must contain North Korea in the near-term while pursuing a longer term policy of regime change,” American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Mazza told The Cipher Brief. What to do about Kim Jong-un poses a challenge for the United States, which hasn’t had the most positive experience with promoting regime change.

In an exclusive interview with The Cipher Brief, Defense Intelligence Agency Director, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said, “Kim Jong-un knows exactly what he’s doing, because he always walks right up to the line. If he were crazy he would cross the line. I don’t understand why he does some of the things he does. If you are interested in regime survival, why would you provoke the most powerful military force on earth? Because if you launch a nuclear device towards the United States, you’re regime isn’t going to survive.”

With Kim’s claim over the weekend that he could “wipe out” Manhattan, its clear the North Korea problem isn’t going away on its own anytime soon. As President Barack Obama’s term comes to a close, dealing with Kim Jong-un and working with China are likely to pose great challenges for the incoming U.S. President.

Alexandra Viers is an International Producer with The Cipher Brief.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://geopoliticalfutures.com/why-putin-went-into-syria/

Why Putin Went into Syria

March 15, 2016

Russia’s true intentions didn’t have much to do with propping up the Assad regime.

By George Friedman

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 14 that he would begin withdrawing his main forces from Syria. Russia appears to have deployed about 70 aircraft of a variety of types and more than 4,000 support personnel to protect and maintain the aircraft. It was not a major deployment, but it shifted the situation on the ground rapidly. Before the deployment there had been serious discussion that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had its back against the wall. That expectation dissolved as Russians carried out attacks against those working to overthrow the regime.

It is unclear precisely why the expectations shifted. It is possible that the limited number of sorties the Russians could fly was sufficient to break the operational capabilities of the opposition. It is possible that simply the Russian presence was enough to shift the psychology of the opposition and break their will. It is also possible that the opposition was so fragmented and so fundamentally weak that virtually anything would shatter them. This can be discussed endlessly, but the fact is that the Russians came in and achieved the outcome they wanted.

The question of course remains: Why did the Russians intervene in the first place? Assad’s father had been close to the Soviets, and post-Soviet Russia made gestures at continuing the relationship. But Syria was never central to Russian interests, and having any number of other problems, particularly Ukraine, devoting precious resources to solving what from Russia’s perspective was a relatively small problem is odd. But when you think about it, it made complete sense, even beyond ensuring Assad’s survival.

The first reason Putin intervened in Syria was simply to show that he could. He had two audiences for this: the Russian public and the West, particularly the United States. Russia’s performance in Ukraine was mediocre at best. It “seized” Crimea against no opposition and encouraged an uprising in the east that failed to ignite the region. Its intelligence service failed to understand what was happening in Kiev and failed to shape it. And even more important, the plunge in oil prices created a massive economic crisis in Russia. It was a critical moment for Moscow domestically and in its foreign relations.

Deploying an air wing consisting of different kinds of aircraft and then maintaining them in combat operations for months demonstrated that Russia had a significant military capability and was able to deploy it effectively. In Russia, as in other countries, successful, short military operations generate massive support. It demonstrated to the United States that it had the ability and will to intrude into areas that the United States regarded as its own area of operations. It changed the perception of Russia as a declining power unable to control Ukraine, to a significant global force. Whether this was true was less important – it needed to appear to be true. And it cannot be denied that there was truth to it.

The second point is much stranger and not fully aligned with the prior reason. The Russians intervened in Syria in order to bail the United States out of a very difficult situation. The United States opposed the Assad regime and wanted it replaced by a coalition of opposition forces. It was increasingly obvious that this was not going to happen. Assad might fall but what would replace him was a fractious opposition as much at war with each other as with Assad. This might be preferable to Assad, but the Islamic State was deep into Syria and had already engaged and defeated some of Assad’s armored forces – not to mention that IS controls far more territory than any other rebel group. If Assad fell, and if he was replaced by the opposition, it was conceivable they could in turn be replaced by IS. The U.S. was aware that it had constantly underestimated IS, and the possibility of IS in Damascus was both real and unacceptable to the United States.

The United States had a political problem. Not only had it opposed Assad, it had been deeply aligned with anti-Assad factions. It could not suddenly become the protector of the Assad regime. At the same time, the United States, at that moment, could not afford the fall of Assad. The Russian intervention solved the problem for the United States. Assad was saved. IS was blocked and a situation that was spiraling out of control was contained.

Was this a formal deal or merely the unexpected outcome? I doubt that papers were signed but I also doubt that it was unexpected by either side. The Russians certainly knew the American situation in Syria: the U.S. didn’t trust its own sponsored opposition, was unnerved by IS and helpless to do what it had to. The Russian intervention followed directly from Moscow’s public position and posed no problem for it.

By doing this, in the face of massive American air power, Russia either assumed that it could coordinate with the United States in time or that coordination was discussed in the beginning. The solution to the American problem in Syria is one of those things that you find out about 50 years later when documents are declassified. I am not saying there was an agreement. I am saying that, agreement or not, the Russians knew they were solving an American problem, and the Americans, for all their rhetoric, knew their problem was being solved. And that bought the Russians some points on their second biggest problem.

Their biggest problem is of course oil, for which there is no solution. Their second biggest problem is Ukraine, a fundamental interest of the Russians, which they cannot permit to become part of the Western alliance system – a matter we have extensively discussed. The core Russian interest is the military neutralization of Ukraine. Their secondary interests are some degree of autonomy in the east and some settlement on Crimea that gives Russia more extensive rights there than it had before.

Syria was intended to do two things. The first was to demonstrate that – whatever the diplomacy – Russia was a military power to be taken seriously. Second, it was designed to put the United States in a position where publicly, opposing Russia was seen as too risky and privately, the Russians would be viewed as a partner and not a hostile force. The Europeans already wanted some sort of deal to abandon the sanctions, and this would help.

Syria was not about Syria. The future of Assad was not a major Russian strategic issue. Reshaping perceptions of Russian power and demonstrating that it was prepared to deploy, solve a problem and leave was. In contrast to the Americans who deploy, stay and sink in the mud, the Russians did what they came to do and are now leaving.

We should not overstate the Russian military achievement. But it was adequate for the political task, which is all that can be asked of it. It did not solve Russia’s Ukrainian problem, but it did not harm the chances of a negotiated end. In any case, it was well done and, I suspect, not something the U.S. was nearly as appalled by as it pretended to be. The problem for Putin is that it is now over. He must turn it into solutions to strategic problems. And the question is whether this success turns into respect or simply slips between the waters of political memory.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nypost.com/2016/03/15/the-syrian-war-just-taught-putin-to-worry-about-iran/

Opinion

The Syrian war just taught Putin to worry about Iran

By Ralph Peters
March 15, 2016 | 7:55pm

Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised the world by announcing on Monday that most of his troops would leave Syria. Military analysts were flummoxed.

I, for one, had expected all of the forces backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad to catch their collective breath, then resume the offensive.

What happened?

In retrospect, it looks obvious: Putin finally met the Middle East. And unlike President Obama, the Russian czar faced reality.

Allowing that Putin could re-engage in the future, and that his forces accomplished their primary goal of propping up the regime and giving it breathing space, the announcement still came as a cold-water shock to all — except the Iranians.

Initial Western reactions have stressed the recalcitrance of Assad, who has refused to consider stepping aside. Instead, Assad’s latest pronouncements have been defiant bordering on megalomania. Putin had every reason to be fed up.

Putin didn’t go into Syria because Assad was a pal. He sent in his air power and his commandos to expand Russia’s regional influence as American power ebbed. He thought he saw a not-to-be-missed strategic opportunity.

And he certainly expected Assad to be grateful for his salvation at Russian hands.

But gratitude isn’t in the Middle East’s repertoire. As Americans discovered painfully, the region’s thanks resemble the bite of a cobra.

There’s even a cost factor: Russia’s economy’s shrinking, and Putin’s been forced to slow his cherished military renewal. Even the dumb bombs dropped on civilians in Syria carry a price.

Still, Putin’s abrupt departure has to have more behind it than a spurious desire to further peace talks, the need to save money or personal pique at Assad.

The long bet is that his generals, diplomats and intelligence hands on the ground were shocked by the degree to which Iran already and irrevocably dominates Syria. And Iraq. And Lebanon.

With a shudder, Putin recognized that his air campaign would ultimately benefit an emerging Persian/Iranian empire, rather than expanding Moscow’s influence. Similarly, our air campaign and special operations against ISIS, although necessary, will inevitably strengthen Tehran’s regional dominance (we gave away Iraq, but we still do the maintenance).

We’re trapped, but Putin wasn’t. So he got out.

Those of us who’ve warned of a burgeoning Iranian empire haven’t found much traction in Washington, where the current president clings to his appalling nuclear deal. And the Middle East still seems far away from the Potomac’s prospering shores. But it’s a very different deal for Putin.

Russia’s newest czar thought he was playing the Iranians, using them as leverage against US influence, selling them arms at a premium and using them as cannon fodder on the ground in Syria — while his combat aircraft soared invulnerably overhead.

But to paraphrase Shakespeare, Putin drank and only then saw the spider in the cup.

Contrary to his expectations of finding a pliable ally in Iran, he found the Iranians in control, glad to borrow his air force, arrogant and disdainful in Damascus (and Baghdad) and well on the path to dominating a vast stretch of strategically vital territory. And Iran has no interest in playing junior partner to anyone — least of all a traditional Christian enemy.

Suddenly, Putin had a vision of a nuclear-armed, radical-Shia empire on Russia’s southern flank. Those Iranian missiles that can reach Israel? They can reach major Russian cities, too.

Putin’s initial bet on Shia Iran also backfired by turning the Islamic world’s Sunni majority against him — not least Saudi Arabia, which can continue to hold down the price of oil and gas, punishing Russia’s economy far more than it wounds American fracking efforts. And Sunni terrorists have taken a renewed interest in Russia.

After Putin’s Syrian adventure, he may be re-prioritizing his enemies.

Of course, Putin also promised to withdraw from eastern Ukraine. Didn’t happen. And his trumpeted withdrawal from Syria could be no more than a temporary gambit — his remarks footnoted that “some” Russian troops will remain at their Syrian naval base and air base.

But Putin, whose view of the world has been bounded by the Caucasus in the south and Europe to the West (with occasional nods to China in the east) may have discovered the frightful threat under his nose.

At the very least, he’s learned that there are no strategic bargains in the Middle East. That puts him one up on us.

Ralph Peters is Fox News’ strategic analyst.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/china-needs-consider-the-finland-option-taiwan-15501

The Skeptics

China Needs to Consider the 'Finland Option' for Taiwan

Ted Galen Carpenter
March 15, 2016

After nearly eight years of merciful quiescence, the Taiwan issue threatens again to become a source of dangerous tension. The landslide victory of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in last month’s elections underscored that Beijing’s strategy of trying to foster sentiment in favor of political reunification by first expanding economic ties between the mainland and Taiwan had failed spectacularly [4]. Although cross strait economic relations had grown exponentially during the eight-year administration of President Ma Ying-jeou and his Kuomintang party, sentiment on Taiwan in favor of political reunification, never robust, became even more anemic.

Granted, Tsai Ing-wen is not nearly as bold or provocative in pushing the independence agenda as the last DPP president, Chen Shui-bian, at the beginning of this century. However, she and her party have a much stronger political mandate than Chen ever enjoyed. Among other things, for the first time in Taiwan’s history the DPP gained a majority—and a decisive majority—in parliament as well as winning the presidency. The electoral results have already caused Chinese President Xi Jinping [5] to issue pointed warnings to Tsai that she must accept the principle that there is only one China and Taiwan and the mainland are part of that entity. [5]That demand puts Tsai on a very precarious political and diplomatic tightrope.

With an impeccable sense of inappropriate timing, the Obama administration has chosen this moment to propose major arms sales to Taipei, including modern frigates [6] to boost the capabilities of Taiwan’s navy. That decision has also draw a vehement protest from Beijing.

This is all terribly reminiscent of dangerous tensions in the Taiwan Strait in previous decades that threatened to erupt into full-fledged warfare—and warfare that would have a high probability of drawing in the United States, given Washington’s foolish commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act. Breaking the cycle of futility and tension, however, requires bold initiatives that mean abandoning deeply held desires in China, Taiwan and the United States. Such a solution entails a compromise that would fully satisfy no faction. It would, however, have the considerable virtue of putting an end to the atmosphere of crisis and eliminate the danger of a war between China and the United States over the issue.

China’s historical grievance regarding Taiwan is clear and substantial. Japan stole the territory from China in the 1895 war, and Washington’s deployment of the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait in 1950 and the years following prevented Mao Zedong’s forces from having any chance of completing their victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist remnant on Taiwan.

But while such episodes may indeed have constituted exploitive colonialism in the first case and unwarranted meddling in the second, they do not diminish the reality that Taiwan’s development has occurred quite separately from the Chinese mainland now for well over one hundred years. Economically, politically and culturally, Taiwan is a distinct society, very different from the PRC.

In short, Beijing would face (at best) a resentful, disgruntled population if it attempted to pressure Taiwan to accept reunification. And any effort to coerce Taipei will lead to a diplomatic, and probably a full-scale military, crisis with the United States. But there may be another way for China to protect its core interests without incurring such dangerous headaches.

Understandably, Beijing does not want to see Taiwan used as a military client of another major power. It already confronted that nasty situation during the Cold War when Washington and Taipei were signatories to a mutual defense treaty. Aside from the affront to national pride (which is considerable), preventing a repetition is a major impediment to PRC officials even considering the option of recognizing Taiwan’s independence.

Nevertheless, Chinese leaders should consider the previously unthinkable: accepting an independent Taiwan—albeit under very strict conditions. The model for such an option would be Finland during the Cold War. In marked contrast to Moscow’s rigid, brutal control over its East European satellite empire, the Kremlin allowed Finland to run its own affairs—within definite limits [7].

Finland had a Western-style, fully democratic political system with multiple political parties and competitive elections. But Helsinki could not join a hostile alliance or allow foreign troops or bases to be stationed on its territory. It could not side with anti-Soviet powers in international disputes—or even vote with such countries on contentious matters in the United Nations. It was independence with a leash.

Could such a model work with Taiwan? It would, of course, require a painful concession on Beijing’s part: giving up the long-standing claim of sovereignty to territory that was indeed stolen from China through an act of aggression. And certainly it would require major safeguards. At a minimum, Chinese leaders would want written assurances from all relevant parties that Taipei would join no foreign alliances nor accept any military presence from the United States, Japan, or other countries. Indeed, it would be logical for the PRC to press for at least a limited military presence (say, one naval base) of its own on Taiwan to protect Chinese security interests and be certain that the island could never be used as a staging area for moves against the mainland.

Almost no one would be entirely happy with such a proposal. Many Chinese mainlanders would not like giving up the claim of sovereignty to Taiwan. Some DPP partisans would not like official constraints on Taiwan’s independence. U.S. officials definitely would not like the prospect of a PRC military presence (even a limited one) on the island or the very concept of Taiwan as a PRC protectorate.

Compromises, by their nature, are imperfect and unpopular. But if we don’t “think outside the box” regarding Taiwan, we are in danger of careening toward disaster. The current situation in which the mainland insists that Taiwan must continue to pretend that it is not an independent society and that reunification with the one-party PRC will take place someday, and the Taiwanese (backed by the United States) insist that it will not take place without their consent (which will never be forthcoming) is not likely to turn out well. The only question is when, not if, an ugly military clash takes place. We need to take meaningful steps now to avoid such a tragic outcome.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest is the author of ten books on international affairs, including America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/@peellden [8].

Tags
Taiwan [9]China [10]Politics [11]Diplomacy [12]Security [13]
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Links:
[1] http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/china-needs-consider-the-finland-option-taiwan-15501
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/ted-galen-carpenter
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] http://www.nationalinterest.org/blo...hina-realize-its-taiwan-strategy-failed-14838
[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-taiwan-idUSKCN0W8051
[6] http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-angered-as-us-approves-frigate-sale-to-taiwan-2016-3
[7] http://www.finland.lv/public/default.aspx?contentid=128377&nodeid=38434&contentlan=2&culture=en-US
[8] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taipei_101_from_afar.jpg
[9] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/taiwan
[10] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/china
[11] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/politics
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[13] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/security
[14] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/politics
[15] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia

 

[Housecarl]

And such upgraded vehicles would be perfect for export.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...t-syria-move-stronger-t-72-battle-tanks-15500

The Buzz

Russia’s First Post-Syria Move: Stronger T-72 Battle Tanks

Dave Majumdar
March 15, 2016
Comments 106

While the world has been focused on Russia’s air campaign in Syria, Moscow continues its military modernization closer to home. The Kremlin is planning on modernizing one hundred and fifty additional Soviet-era T-72B main battle tanks to the T-72B3M standard. The upgraded vehicles would offer performance comparable to the much more modern T-90, but for a fraction of the price.

While Russia operates well over five hundred modern T-90A [4] and T-90AM [5] main battle tanks, the bulk of Moscow’s ground forces rely on the venerable T-72 and its numerous derivatives. In order to upgrade its land forces quickly, especially during a time of economic distress, the Kremlin is modernizing the older main battle tank even as work continues on the newest T-14 Armata tanks. [6]

According to Uralvagonzavod [7] deputy general director Alex Zharich, who spoke to the Russian-language daily Izvestia [8], Russia plans to spend 2.5 billion rubles to upgrade one hundred and fifty T-72Bs to the new B3M standard for an average of 17 million rubles per tank. In U.S. dollar terms, that’s a total of $35 million for an average of $234,000 per tank—which means the T-72B3M upgrade is a relative bargain for the capability the vehicle is expected to deliver.

According to Izvestia, the upgraded tank will get a new 2A46M5 125-millimeter smoothbore gun along with a new sighting system called the Sosna-U, which will be paired with the 1A40-4 fire-control system. The tank will also receive a new ballistics computer to help increase its accuracy. Perhaps more significantly, the T-72B3M will receive an independent PK PAN sight for the tank commander, which has its own thermal imaging system.

The T-72B3M is also getting the new Relikt explosive reactive armor (ERA) package that was first introduced on the T-90AM. The Relikt replaces the older Kontakt-5 ERA package, and is allegedly twice as effective as the older system. It’s not clear if the Russians are modifying the vehicle’s passive armor package—but it would make sense it they did. Further, while some sources suggest that the T-73B3M might be equipped with the Arena-E active protection system, it’s not clear that the production variant does.

The T-72B3M will also receive a new 1,130hp V-92S2F to replace its original 780hp diesel engine. The new engine is coupled with a new automatic transmission system and improved drivetrain, which should improve the T-72’s mobility. The driver will also receive a new rear-view camera display to improve his situational awareness.

According to Izvestia, the first batch of thirty-two upgraded vehicles should be delivered sometime this year. Russia already has more than five hundred older, slightly less capable version of the T-72B3 tank in service. Potentially, the new upgrade could be exported to the numerous T-72 operators around the world.

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

Image [9]: Wikimedia Commons/Vitaly V. Kuzmin.

Tags
Russian Military [10]T-72 Battle Tank [11]Security [12]defense [13]Politics [14]
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Links:
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[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/dave-majumdar
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] http://www.uvz.ru/product/70/3
[5] http://www.uvz.ru/product/70/57
[6] http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/surprise-russias-lethal-t-14-armata-tank-production-15480
[7] http://www.uvz.ru/
[8] http://izvestia.ru/news/605953
[9] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:T-72B3_-_Parad2014NN-08.jpg
[10] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/russian-military
[11] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/t-72-battle-tank
[12] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/security
[13] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/defense
[14] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/politics
[15] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.yahoo.com/japan-submarine-visit-philippines-other-ships-vietnam-105149526.html

Japan submarine to visit Philippines, other ships to Vietnam

AFP
1 hour ago

A Japanese submarine will make a port call in the Philippines for the first time in 15 years while accompanying naval ships will visit Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay for the first time ever, Japan's navy said.

The announcement came days after China accused its Asian rival of interfering in the South China Sea.

Japan, which occupied the Philippines and Vietnam during World War II, is now strengthening relations. All three countries share growing concerns about China's increasing military muscle amid a series of maritime disputes.

China claims almost all the South China Sea. It is also embroiled in a separate row with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea that has seen relations sour badly in recent years.

Tensions in the South China Sea -- through which one-third of the world's oil passes -- have mounted in recent months since China transformed contested reefs into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities.

Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also claim all or part of the Spratlys chain in the Sea, while Vietnam and Taiwan have rival claims with China in the Paracels chain there.

The Japanese submarine Oyashio and two escort vessels will visit Subic Bay in the Philippines for annual open sea drills, a spokesman for Japan's Maritime Staff Office confirmed to AFP. The escort ships will also subsequently visit Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

The exercise, joined by some 500 personnel including officer candidates, is scheduled from Saturday through April 27.

It will be the first call at a Philippine port by a Japanese submarine since 2001, while the visit by the escort ships to Cam Ranh Bay will mark a first for Japan's navy, the spokesman said.

The submarine will not go to Vietnam, he said.

Beijing accused Tokyo of interfering in the South China Sea after Manila said it would lease five Japanese military planes.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino said last week that Manila would lease five TC-90 training aircraft from Japan to "help our navy patrol our territory", pointing to the disputed South China Sea in particular.

China immediately reacted, saying it was "firmly opposed" to challenges to its sovereignty and security and would "remain on high alert".

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1. Beijing accuses Tokyo over patrol planes for Philippines AFP
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4. Philippines to lease planes from Japan to patrol disputed sea Reuters
5. ASEAN says seriously concerned about rising South China Sea tensions Reuters

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-china-idUSKCN0WI0LF

World | Wed Mar 16, 2016 5:11am EDT
Related: World, China, Japan, East China Sea

Japan ruling party considers international arbitration over China dispute

TOKYO

Japan's ruling party urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government on Wednesday to consider seeking international arbitration over Beijing's drilling activities in the disputed East China Sea, mirroring similar action by the Philippines.

Sino-Japanese ties have long been plagued by conflicting claims over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets. Last year, Japan called on China to halt construction of oil-and-gas exploration platforms in the East China Sea.

At the time, Tokyo accused Beijing of unilateral development despite a 2008 agreement to maintain cooperation on resources development in the area, where no official border between them has been drawn.

China said then it had every right to drill in the East China Sea close to waters it disputes with Japan.

The Philippines has lodged a case with an arbitration court in The Hague about its dispute with China in the South China Sea. China reacted angrily and has pledged not to participate.

Wednesday's resolution by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) called on Abe's government to firmly ask China for the prompt resumption of talks on the drilling issue, as well as to consider taking the case to an international arbitration court.

"If China shrugs off the request, some action must be taken," Yoshiaki Harada, head of an LDP panel on resources development in the East China Sea, told reporters.

"Everyone has agreed that we should not shy away from taking the matter to an international arbitration court and starting preparation for that step should be considered," Harada said after an LDP meeting on the resolution.

There has been no bilateral dialogue on resources development in the East China Sea in recent years despite repeated calls from Japan for resuming such talks, he said.


(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-blast-idUSKCN0WI15W

World | Wed Mar 16, 2016 7:17am EDT
Related: World, Africa

Two suicide bombers kill 22 at mosque in northeast Nigeria's Maiduguri

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria | By Lanre Ola

Two female suicide bombers killed 22 people on Wednesday at a mosque outside the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the heart of a seven-year-old insurgency by Islamist Boko Haram militants, a military spokesman said.

The attack, which also wounded 18 people, occurred during morning prayers in the village of Ummarari, six km (four miles) from the center of the capital of Borno state in Africa's most populous country and biggest energy producer.

It was the first such assault in the northeast since early February, when two suicide bombers - also women - blew themselves up at a camp for internally displaced people in Dikwa, 85 km (50 miles) from Maiduguri..

"Sadly, 22 people were killed and 18 others sustained various degrees of injuries ... The first attack targeted a mosque, while the second blast was about 50 meters away, a few minutes later," said military spokesman Colonel Sani Usman.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the first in Maiduguri since 65 people were killed in January, but it resembled others by Boko Haram in its campaign to carve out an Islamic state in the region.

"One of the two female bombers, disguised as a male worshipper, joined other Muslim brothers in the mosque at Ummarari-Molai during ... prayers," said Malum Farouk, a member of a grassroots security group in a civilian joint task force.


(Additional reporting by Isaac Abrak in Abuja; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-blast-divisions-insight-idUSKCN0WH1TQ

World | Wed Mar 16, 2016 6:51am EDT
Related: World, Turkey

Suicide bombing exposes divisions tearing at Turkey's stability

ANKARA/ISTANBUL | By Umit Bektas, Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk


"Government resign!" chanted some of the mourners at the funeral on Tuesday of four young victims of the suicide bombing in Turkey's capital Ankara.

"Our child has become a victim of ugly politics. We don't want any politicians at our funeral," one of the relatives called out, before family members hushed him and warned him against speaking out in front of journalists.

Far from bringing the nation together in mourning, the aftermath of Sunday night's attack has again laid bare the deep divisions tearing at Turkey as it struggles to avoid being drawn into its neighbors' conflicts.

If Turkey continues on this path, some analysts warn, it risks a cycle of violence and a lurch away from the European standards of freedom and democracy to which it once aspired. President Tayyip Erdogan shows little sign of healing the rifts.

Parties from across the political spectrum - from nationalists to the pro-Kurdish opposition - have condemned the car bombing, which killed 37 people in the heart of Ankara and was the third in the city in five months.

But the question of how to respond is far more divisive.

Officials quickly blamed Kurdish militants. Turkish warplanes began bombing their camps in northern Iraq within hours, and clashes with the security forces widened in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

In his first speech since the attack, Erdogan said the country's anti-terrorism laws, already seen by rights groups as too invasive and used in recent months to detain academics and journalists, should be widened further.

"It might be the terrorist who pulls the trigger and detonates the bomb, but it is these supporters and accomplices who allow that attack to achieve its goal," he told a dinner for doctors in his palace late on Monday.

"The fact their title is lawmaker, academic, writer, journalist or head of a civil society group doesn’t change the fact that individual is a terrorist...We should redefine terror and terrorist as soon as possible and put it in our penal code."

Erdogan's opponents say he is using anti-terrorism laws to silence dissent and that his authoritarian leadership is dangerously dividing a nation needed by its European and NATO allies as a bulwark against the instability of the Middle East.

Almost as Erdogan spoke in Ankara, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse several hundred leftist demonstrators in Istanbul who had gathered to protest what they perceive to be the government's failure to prevent Sunday's attack.

Some in the crowd began chanting "Thief, Murderer, Erdogan", a rallying cry during the anti-government protests of recent years, prompting police to intervene, Reuters witnesses said.


"ANGRY COUNTRY"

"Turkey has become a country that can neither rejoice nor mourn together, or find a common sense to unite around. It has become an angry country, with ever shrinking and fragmenting tribal outlooks," said Turkish-British researcher Ziya Meral.

"Pressure on media and denials of freedom of expression are only fuelling mistrust, dangerous propaganda and misinformation," Meral, a research fellow at Britain's Sandhurst military academy and founder of the London-based Centre on Religion and Global Affairs, wrote in a blog post.

The ruling AK Party, founded by Erdogan more than a decade ago, was "no longer driven by pragmatism" but by its own survival and its ambition of securing the stronger presidential system that Erdogan wants, he said.

Since winning Turkey's first popular presidential election in 2014, Erdogan has lobbied for replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency more akin to the United States or France.

Many of his supporters, who represent just over half the electorate and see him as champion of the pious working class, believe the narrative that Turkey, battered by regional conflicts, needs strong leadership for its long-term stability.

His opponents fear too much power in the hands of a man who brooks no dissent.


CHAOS OR STABILITY

Security officials have said the two perpetrators of Sunday's bombing, a man and a woman, were linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the authorities had "very serious and almost certain" evidence suggesting the PKK was responsible. There has been no claim of responsibility.

Against a backdrop of rising violence in the southeast, where a PKK ceasefire collapsed in July, the AK Party campaigned for a parliamentary election in November by promising stability if it won, or the risk of chaos if it lost.

It won, clawing back a majority lost five months earlier, but opponents say the victory brought anything but stability.

"In the democratic countries of the world, when a bomb goes off, everyone would be side by side, shoulder to shoulder ... That is what we are missing," said Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP, parliament's third largest party.

"They don't give account. They don't apologize. They don't say we made a mistake ... They just keep polarizing."

Yet amid the fragmentation, there are no opposition figures who appear capable of bringing people together.

The divisions are ever more keenly felt far beyond the corridors of power.

Amedspor, one of the most prominent soccer teams in the southeast, were unable to find rooms for an away match in the central city of Sivas on Tuesday, with hoteliers refusing to take their reservation when they realized who was calling.

Eventually the local governor's office found them accommodation 40 km (25 miles) out of town, the team's president, Ali Karakas, told Reuters.

"We're seeing a severing of emotional bonds and this is such a dangerous thing," Karakas said. "Sports should be uniting. Brotherhood and solidarity should be its basis. But because of Turkey’s politics, even sport has been poisoned."


(Additional reporting by Osman Orsal and Melih Aslan; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Janet McBride)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...daab91-8fdb-4a33-8c79-013458373bdb_story.html

World

Belgian leader vows more raids after gunman killed with possible Islamic State ties

By James McAuley March 16 at 8:53 AM

PARIS — Belgium’s prime minister said Wednesday that raids against suspected Islamist militants will “almost certainly continue” following police sweeps in Brussels that killed one gunmen with apparent Islamic State links.

The prospect of more police action suggests that Brussels remains a central focus of probes into November’s Paris terrorist attacks and wider confrontations against suspected militant networks based in Europe.

On Tuesday, a joint French-Belgian operation linked to the Paris investigation moved into a Brussels neighborhood, touching off armed clashes that left one suspect dead, identified by authorities as Mohamed Belkaid, a 25-year-old Algerian.

[Brussels neighborhood on lockdown as raids resume]

Eric Van der Sijpt, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor, said Belkaid was found in an apartment with a Kalashnikov rifle, ammunition and items including an Islamic State flag. Belkaid was in the country illegally, he added, but gave no further details.

Two other people in the apartment apparently fled during the raids in the area, known as Forest.

“Police operations [and] investigations are under way and will most certainly continue in the hours and the days ahead,” said the prime minister, Charles Michel, before a meeting of Belgium’s National Security Council. “The threat remains present.”

Another suspect was apprehended on Wednesday, Belgian media reported.

Officials believe that Brussels was a major hub for the planning of the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris, in which Islamic State-affiliated gunmen killed 130 people and injured many more at restaurants, cafes, and a concert hall.

Belgian authorities are still holding at least 10 people believed to have been involved.

One of the key suspects, the 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, remains at large.

James McAuley is a reporter based in Paris.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/16/paris-attacks-suspect-algerian-in-belgium-prosecutor

Two suspects still on run after Brussels anti-terror raid that killed one

Belgian prosecutor says Islamic State flag, Salafist book and Kalashnikov rifle found in flat during raid linked to investigations into Paris terror attacks

Police officer at the scene of Tuesday’s raid in Brussels
A police officer at the scene of Tuesday’s raid in Brussels. Three officers were injured during the operation. Photograph: Isopix/Rex/Shutterstock

Associated Press in Brussels
Wednesday 16 March 2016 08.42 EDT

Belgian investigators are hunting for two suspects who fled an apartment in a raid linked to November’s terrorist attacks in Paris, after a police sniper killed a third man and uncovered weapons, ammunition and an Islamic State flag, officials have said.

Four officers were wounded in the joint French-Belgian raid in a Brussels neighbourhood and related searches.

Officials said they are looking for two more suspects who have not been identified. Two people were in custody.

The dead man was identified as an Algerian man living illegally in Belgium, Mohamed Belkaïd, whose only contact with authorities appeared to be a years-old theft charge, said Thierry Werts, the Belgian federal prosecutor.

Belkaïd, 35, was shot to death by a police sniper as he prepared to fire from a window, Werts said. Police also detained one man who was dropped off at a nearby hospital with a broken leg and another found in an overnight house search.

Werts and Eric Van der Spyt, his office’s spokesman, said a decision would be made later on whether to hold or release the two.

The patient with the broken leg has not yet been questioned, they said.

The anti-terror raid in the Forest neighborhood was linked to the 13 November gun-and-bombing attacks on a stadium, cafes and a concert hall in Paris that left 130 people dead.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which Belgian citizens played key roles.

Since the Paris attacks, the officials said 58 people have been arrested in the direct investigation and another 23 arrested in related probes.

Brussels, headquarters of the European Union and Nato, was locked down for days after the Paris attacks for fear of a major incident there.

The Belgian capital has maintained a high level of security alert since then, with military patrols a regular sight.

 

[Housecarl]

Take this one with a grain or two of salt, particularly the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Yemen.....Housecarl

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-nuclear-near-east/5514562

The Nuclear Near East!

By Thierry Meyssan
Global Research, March 16, 2016
Voltaire Net 7 March 2016

While the West was applying pressure on Iran to abandon its civilian nuclear programme, the Saudis were buying the atomic bomb from Israel or Pakistan. From now on, to everyone’s surprise, the Near East has become a nuclear zone, dominated by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In 1979, Israel completed the final adjustments to its atomic bomb, in collaboration with the apartheid régime of South Africa. The Hebrew state has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has always avoided answering questions about its nuclear programme.

Every year since 1980, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a consensual resolution to make the Near East a region free from all nuclear weapon. This resolution was aimed at encouraging Israel to give up its bomb and to ensure that other states would not enter into an arms race.

Under the Shah, Iran also had a military nuclear programme, but it was pursued only marginally after the revolution of 1979, because of the war started by Iraq (1980-88). However, it was only after the end of war that ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini opposed weapons of mass destruction, and consequently prohibited the fabrication, possession and the use of atomic weapons.

Negotiations then began for the restitution of the 1,180 billion dollars of Iranian investment in the Eurodif complex for the enrichment of uranium at Tricastin. However, the question was never resolved. As a result, during the dissolution of Eurodif in 2010, the Islamic Republic of Iran still owned 10% of the capital. It is probable that it still holds a part of the company for uranium enrichment at Tricastin.

From 2003 to 2005, the negotiations relative to the nuclear litigation were presided for Iran by Sheikh Hassan Rohani, a religious leader close to Presidents Rafsandjani and Khatami. The Europeans demanded the introduction of a passage stipulating that Iran dismantle its system for the teaching of nuclear physics, so as to ensure that they would be unable to relaunch their military programme.

However, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – a partisan for the relaunching of the Khomeinist Revolution – came to power, he rejected the agreement negotiated by Sheikh Rohani and dismissed him. He restarted the teaching of nuclear physics, and launched a research programme which was aimed, in particular, at finding a way of producing electricity from atomic fusion and not nuclear fission, which is currently used by the United States, Russia, France, China and Japan.

Accusing President Ahmadinejad of «preparing the Apocalypse to hasten the return of the Mahdi» (sic), Israël launched an international Press campaign intended to isolate Iran. In reality, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not share the Jewish vision of an evil world which has to be destroyed and then rebuilt, but that of a progressive maturation of collective awareness until Parousia, the return of the Mahdi and the prophets. At the same time, Mossad busied itself with the assassination, one by one, of a number of Iranian nuclear scientists. From their side, the Western powers and the UN Security Council adopted ever more restrictive sanctions until they had completely isolated Iran at the economic and financial level.

In 2013, the Guide of the Revolution, ayatollah Ali Khameinei, agreed to a round of secret discussions with Washington, in Oman. Persuaded that he had to loosen the constraints which were suffocating his country, he considered a provisional ten-year agreement. After a preliminary agreement, Ahmadinejad’s candidacy for the Presidential election was not authorised, and Sheikh Hassan Rohani was elected. He restarted the negotiations that he had abandoned in 2005, and accepted the Western conditions, including the ban on enriching uranium at 20%, which put an end to the research on nuclear fusion.

In November 2013, Saudi Arabia organised a secret summit which brought together members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the friendly Muslim states [1]. In the presence of delegates from the UN General Secretariat, Israeli President Shimon Peres joined them by video-conference. The participants concluded that the danger was not the Israeli bomb, but the bomb that Iran might one day possess. The Saudis assured their interlocutors that they would take the necessary initiatives.

Military cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a new phenomenon, but the two countries have been working together since 2008, when Riyadh financed Israel’s punitive expedition in Gaza, known as «Operation Cast Lead» [2].

The 5+1 agreement was not made public until mid-2015. During the negotiations, Saudi Arabia multiplied its declarations that it would launch an arms race if the international community did not manage to force Iran to dismantle its nuclear programme [3].

On the 6th February 2015, President Obama published his new «National Security Strategy». He wrote – «Long-term stability [in the Middle East and North Africa] requires more than the use and presence of US military forces. It demands partners who are capable of defending themselves by themselves. This is why we invest in the capacity of Israel, Jordan and our Gulf partners to discourage aggression, while maintaining our unwavering support for the security of Israel, including the continued improvement of its military capacities» [4].

On the 25th March 2015, Saudi Arabia began its operation «Decisive Tempest» in Yemen, officially aimed at re-instating the Yemeni President, who had been overthrown by a popular revolution. In fact, the operation was the implementation of the secret agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia for the exploitation of the Rub’al-Khali oil fields [5].



On the 26th March 2015, Adel Al-Jubeir, then the Saudi ambassador to the United States, refused to answer a question from CNN concerning the project for a Saudi atomic bomb.

On the 30th March 2015, a joint military Staff was set up by Israel in Somaliland, a non-recognised state. From the first day, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan participated under Israel command.

Two days later, on the 1st April 2015, during the Charm el-Cheick summit, the Arab League adopted the principle of a «Joint Arab Force» [6]. Officially, this was to implement the Arab Defence Treaty of 1950 to fight against terrorism. De facto, the League had validated the new Arab military alliance under Israeli command.



In May 2015, the Joint Arab Force, under Israeli command, used a tactical atomic bomb in Yemen. It may have been used in an attempt to penetrate an underground bunker.



On the 16th July 2015, intelligence specialist Duane Clarridge affirmed on Fox Business that Saudi Arabia had bought the atomic bomb from Pakistan.



On the 18th January 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry affirmed on CNN that atomic weaponry can not be bought and transferred. He warned Saudi Arabia that this would constitute a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.



On the 15th February 2016, Saudi analyst Dahham Al-’Anzi affirmed in Arabic on Russia Today that his country has been in possession of an atomic weapon for two years, in order to protect Arabs, and that the major powers know this.

The declarations of Saudi analyst Dahham Al-’Anzi, on the 15th February 2016 on Russia Today – which were immediately translated and broadcast by the Israeli service Memri – raised a considerable echo in the Arab world. However, no international political leader, not even Saudi, made any comment. And Russia Today has erased them from its Internet site.

The declarations of Dahham Al-’Anzi – an intellectual close to Prince Mohamed ben Salman – lead us to think that he was not speaking of a strategic atomic weapon (A-bomb or H-bomb), but a tactical bomb (N-bomb). Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how Saudi Arabia could «protect Arabs» from the Syrian «dictatorship» by using a strategic nuclear bomb. Moreover, this corresponds to what has already been observed in Yemen. However, nothing is certain.

It is obviously unlikely that Saudi Arabia had built this kind of weapon itself, since it is absolutely bereft of scientific knowledge in the matter. On the other hand, it is possible that it bought the weapon from a state which has not signed the NPT, Israel or Pakistan. If we are to believe Duane Clarridge, it would have been Islamabad which sold its technology, but in this case, the weapon could not be a neutron bomb.

Since Saudi Arabia signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (TNP), it did not have the right acquire the weapon, whether it be a tactical or a strategic bomb. But it would be enough for King Salman to declare that he bought the bomb in his own name to avoid being concerned by the Treaty. We know that the state of Saudi Arabia is the King’s private property, and that his budget only represents a part of the royal coffers. This would mean that we have entered a phase of the privatisation of nuclear weapons – a scenario which until now had been unthinkable. This evolution must be taken most seriously.

Finally, everything leads us to believe that the Saudis acted within the framework of US policy, but that they overstepped themselves by violating the NPT. By doing so, they have laid the foundation for a nuclearised Near East in which Iran could no longer play the role that Sheikh Rohani had hoped to recover, that of «regional police force» for the benefit of his Anglo-Saxon friends.

Thierry Meyssan, French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.


The original source of this article is Voltaire Net

Copyright © Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Net, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...e-deploys-as-us-mulls-future-replacement.html

Nuclear Missile Submarine Deploys as US Mulls Future Replacement

Stars and Stripes | Mar 16, 2016 | by Erik Slavin
Comments 2

The Pacific-based nuclear ballistic-missile submarine USS Kentucky has deployed for the first time since 2011 after an overhaul as part of efforts to extend the life of aging Ohio-class boats while the U.S. develops a replacement.

The Kentucky left Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington, earlier this week, according to a Navy statement issued Tuesday.

The ship's overhaul, which began in 2012, included nuclear refueling and other fixes designed to keep the boat operating for another 20 years, the Navy statement said.

The Kentucky and the other 13 nuclear missile-capable submarines in the Ohio class were designed to last 30 years; however, delays in developing and funding their replacements led to the creation of a 40-month overhaul program for each ship.

At current overhaul rates, those subs will begin retiring at a rate of one per year beginning in 2027.

Under plans to acquire new subs beginning in 2021, the Navy's stock of nuclear missile-equipped subs would drop to 10 or 11 between 2029 and 2040, according to a March Congressional Research Service report.

The Navy says it needs 12 Ohio-class submarines, or their replacements, to keep enough boats on nuclear deterrence patrol at once.

Replacing the Ohio class is expected to cost $95.8 billion, including research and development costs. Following the outsized initial expense of developing the first sub, the Navy is trying to reduce the cost of boats two through 12 to $4.9 billion each.

However, it remains unclear how the Pentagon is going to pay for Ohio-class replacements, despite multiple senior Navy officials labeling the boats a top priority.

"The Navy cannot procure the Ohio replacement in the 2020s within historical shipbuilding funding levels without severely impacting other Navy programs," then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told Congress in February 2015.

Congress could opt to work outside of normal appropriations to fund the submarines. In 2015, the National Defense Authorization Act created the National Sea-based Deterrence Fund, which would provide supplemental money for programs like new submarines.

Others have suggested cutting costs by reducing boats, with the Stimson Center think tank calling for 10 boats in a 2013 report -- a recommendation partially based on the assumption that the U.S. and Russia continue signing agreements to decommission nuclear weapons.

The U.S. has 4,717 nuclear warheads either deployed or stockpiled, compared with Russia's 4,500, according to 2015 State Department figures. Each country also has thousands more "retired" warheads that await dismantling.

A 2013 paper from the libertarian Cato Institute suggested keeping 12 nuclear missile-capable submarines and paying for them by eliminating the other two legs of the nuclear triad -- intercontinental missiles and bombers.

"The sea leg of the nuclear triad by itself is a more powerful deterrent than that possessed by nearly any other nation in the world," authors Cristopher Preble and Matt Fay wrote. "Russia retains a relatively large arsenal, but no other country is capable of deploying more than a few hundred nuclear warheads. A single Ohio-class submarine can carry up to 192."

Related video:

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...-huge-military-drills-near-afghan-border.html

Russia, Tajikistan Hold Huge Military Drills Near Afghan Border

Agence France Presse | Mar 15, 2016
Comments 6

Russia and fragile ex-Soviet ally Tajikistan have begun large-scale military drills close to the Central Asian state's restless border with Afghanistan, a Tajik military official confirmed Tuesday.

A spokesman for Tajikistan's defence ministry said the drills involved about 50,000 Tajik troops and 2,000 Russian troops, including paratroopers flown in from Russia.

"The maneuvers involve around 1,000 armored vehicles, artillery, and 32 combat and transport aircraft," spokesman Faridun Makhmadalizoda told AFP, adding that they would continue until the end of the week.

This is the first time troops from Russia's Central Military District have been involved in exercises in Tajikistan, highlighting Moscow's growing unease over chaos in Afghanistan's northern provinces.

The other Russian troops engaged in the exercises are from Moscow's 201st military base in Tajikistan, the spokesman confirmed.

Last year a contingent of 2,500 troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military bloc led by Russia and including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, also staged military exercises in the country.

Afghanistan's northern provinces have been rattled by militancy amid government infighting in Kabul and the drawdown of the US-led military presence.

Skirmishes along the porous 1300-kilometre (810 mile) frontier Afghanistan shares with Tajikistan occur frequently.

Earlier this month the Tajik border service confirmed that one of its officers and a militant had been killed in a shootout after an armed group crossed into Tajikistan from Afghanistan.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-syria-idUSKCN0WI0G3

Business | Wed Mar 16, 2016 9:21am EDT
Related: World, Russia, Aerospace & Defense, Syria

Russia flies out almost half Syria strike force: Reuters analysis

MOSCOW | By Andrew Osborn


Just under half of Russia's fixed-wing strike force based in Syria has flown out of the country in the past two days, according to a Reuters calculation which suggests the Kremlin is accelerating its partial withdrawal.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the bulk of the Russian military contingent in Syria to be pulled out after five months of air strikes, saying the Kremlin had achieved most of its objectives.

The precise number of planes Russia kept at its Hmeymim base in Syria's Latakia province is secret. But analysis of satellite imagery, air strikes and defense ministry statements suggested it had about 36 fixed-wing military jets there.

At least 15 of those planes have flown out in the past two days, a Reuters analysis of state television footage shows, including Su-24, Su-25, Su-30 and Su-34 jets.

Reuters could not independently verify the movements of the aircraft and it was impossible to determine whether other aircraft were flying into Syria to replace those that left.

Military analysts say the departing Su-24 and Su-25 planes, aging Soviet-era planes that have undergone some modernization, have been the workhorses of Russia's Syria campaign.

They carried out 75-80 percent of the more than 9,000 sorties flown by Russian pilots, said Maksim Shepovalenko, a former Russian military officer who is now deputy director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).

Russian television has shown four Su-25 and five Su-24 jets leaving in the past two days. Russia is thought by defense analysts to have had 12 of each in Syria. Five Su-34s, and one Su-30 have also been seen leaving.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told reporters on Tuesday he did not have exact details of the Russian military contingent in Syria but said Moscow had "dozens of aircraft" based there.


Related Coverage
› Russian withdrawal from Syria 'very positive': Saudi Arabia

Ruslan Pukhov, CAST's director, said he thought Russia would have to pull out at least half of its strike force for its partial withdrawal to be regarded as genuine.

"Otherwise people, both nationally and especially internationally, will say this is not really true and it is simply a regrouping," he told Reuters.


HEIGHTENED SENSITIVITY

Russian sensitivity about foreign interest in the return of military equipment from Syria has heightened in recent days.

Russian news portal lifenews.ru on Wednesday reported the detention of an American aviation blogger it described as "a spy." It said he had been caught snooping around the Chkalovsky military airport north of Moscow. He was later released.

A source in the Russian security service told local media on Tuesday that two British diplomats had this month been caught covertly filming the Mozdok military air base in southern Russia. The British Foreign Office said the diplomats had been carrying out routine travel and had undergone all the necessary Russian checks.

Russia is known to maintain at least 14 military helicopters in Syria as well as fixed-wing reconnaissance drones. The helicopters, if withdrawn, are likely to be returned to Russia by air.

Russian officials have made clear that two Russian military bases will remain in Syria, as will a smaller strike force of infantry, armor and helicopters. Russia's advanced S-400 air defense missile system also looks likely to remain.


Related Coverage
› Russia says withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria won't weaken Assad

U.S. officials have spoken of Russia having "a few thousand troops" in Syria. A Russian military source told the Interfax news agency that around 1,000 troops would stay, of whom more than half would be military advisers.

Andrey Frolov, a defense analyst at CAST, said Russia would leave behind "several" Su-30 and Su-35 jets.

Alexander Kots, a military correspondent who has worked in Syria for the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, says he has been told that Russia could return its entire air strike force to Syria within just 48 hours.

Heavy equipment and armor would be evacuated by sea, he said. Some of it might also be warehoused in Syria or handed over to the Syrian army, he said.

If necessary, Russia is still able to swiftly come to President Bashar al-Assad's aid by deploying long-range bombers based in Russia or by firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. It also has a naval force in the Mediterranean.

According to the database of the Bosphorus Naval News project, which publishes photos of warships crossing the straits, more than a dozen Russian military vessels, including landing and missile ships and auxiliary vessels are likely to be in the Mediterranean right now.

That estimate is partly borne out by information from the authorities and publicly available shipping records.


(Additional reporting by Maria Vasilyeva, Dmitry Solovyov, Maria Tsvetkova, Jack Stubbs; Editing by Christian Lowe and Timothy Heritage)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1652060-army-preps-for-massive-great-power-land-war

Army Preps for Massive, Great Power Land War

Kris Osborn
Yesterday at 11:21 AM

After more than a decade of counterinsurgency warfare, the Army is now emphasizing major force-on-force mechanized warfare against "near-peer" adversaries.

The Army’s “live-fire” combat exercises involve large-scale battalion-on-battalion war scenarios wherein mechanized forces often clash with make-shift, “near-peer” enemies using new technologies, drones, tanks, artillery, missiles and armored vehicles.

The Army is expanding its training and “live-fire” weapons focus to include a renewed ability to fight a massive, enemy force in an effort to transition from its decade-and-a-half of tested combat experience with dismounted infantry and counterinsurgency.

Recent ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created an experienced and combat-tested force able to track, attack and kill small groups of enemies -- often blended into civilian populations, speeding in pick-up trucks or hiding within different types of terrain to stage ambushes.

“The Army has a tremendous amount of experience right now. It has depth but needs more breadth. We’re good at counterinsurgency and operations employing wide area security. Now, we may have to focus on 'Mounted Maneuver' operations over larger distances,” Rickey Smith, Deputy Chief of Staff, Training and Doctrine Command, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

While senior Army leaders are quick to emphasize that counterinsurgency is of course still important and the service plans to be ready for the widest possible range of conflict scenarios, there is nonetheless a marked and visible shift toward being ready to fight and win against a large-scale modernized enemy such as Russia or China.

The Army, naturally, does not single out these countries as enemies, train specifically to fight them or necessarily expect to go to war with them. However, recognizing the current and fast-changing threat environment, which includes existing tensions and rivalries with the aforementioned great powers, Army training is increasingly focused on ensuring they are ready for a mechanized force-on-force type engagement.

At the same time, while large-scale mechanized warfare is quite different than counterinsurgency, there are some areas of potential overlap between recent warfare and potential future great power conflict in a few key respects. The ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over a period of more than a decade, involved the combat debut of various precision-guided land attack weapons such as GPS guided artillery and rocket weapons.

Weapons such as Excalibur, a GPS-guided 155m artillery round able to precisely destroy enemy targets at ranges greater than 30-kilometers, gave ground commanders an ability to pinpoint insurgent targets such as small gatherings of fighters, buildings and bomb-making locations. Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System, or GLMRS, is another example; this precision guided long-range rocket, which can hit ranges up to 70-kilometers, was successful in killing Taliban targets in Afghanistan from great distances, among other things.

These kinds of precision munitions, first used in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the kind of weapon which would greatly assist land attack efforts in a massive force-on-force land war as well. They could target key locations behind enemy lines such as supplies, forces and mechanized vehicles.

Drones are another area of potential overlap. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan featured a veritable explosion in drone technology and drone use. For example, the Army had merely a handful of drones at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now, the service operates thousands and has repeatedly relied upon them to find enemy locations, spot upcoming ambushes and save lives in combat. These are the kinds of platforms which would also be of great utility in a major land war. However, they would likely be used differently incorporating new tactics, techniques and procedures in a great power engagement.

“This is not back to the future…this is moving towards the future where Army forces will face adaptive enemies with greater lethality. This generation of Army leaders will orchestrate simultaneous Combined ArmsManeuver and Wide Area Security” Smith said.

Nevertheless, many Army leaders now experienced with counterinsurgency tactics will need to reexamine tactics needed for major conventional warfare.

“You have a generation of leaders who have to expand learning to conduct simultaneous ‘Combined Arms’ and 'Wide Area Security” Smith said.

“The Army has to be prepared across the entire range of military operations. One of these would be ‘near-peer’ operations, which is what we have not been fighting in recent years,” Smith explained.

Massive Land War "Decisive Action"

The new approach to this emerging integrated training is called “Decisive Action,” Maj. Gen. Wayne Grigsby, Commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said.

Grigsby explained that live-fire combat at Fort Riley, Kan., affords an opportunity to put these new strategies into effect.

“Every morning I could put a battalion on the north side and a battalion on the south side - and just joust working "Combined Arms Maneuver." I can do battalion-on-battalion and it does involve “Combined Arms” live fire,” said Grigsby. “Because of the airspace that we have here - and use the UAS - I can synchronize from 0-to-18,000 feet and do maneuver indirect fire.”

This includes the use of drones, Air Force air assets, Army attack aviation along with armored vehicles, artillery, tanks and infantry units equipped for small arms fire, he explained.

Some of the main tactics and techniques explored during “Decisive Action” live fire exercises include things like “kill what you shoot at,” “move to contact,” “synchronize indirect fire,” and “call-in 9-line,” (providing aircraft with attack coordinates from the ground), Grigsby said.

Grigsby explained that “live-fire” combat exercises now work to incorporate a wide range of emerging technologies so as to better anticipate the tactics, weapons and systems a future enemy is likely to employ; this includes the greater use of drones or unmanned systems, swarms of mini-drones in the future, emerging computing technology, tank-on-tank warfare tactics, electronic warfare, enemy aircraft and longer-range precision weaponry including anti-tank missiles, guided artillery and missiles.

In order to execute this kind of combat approach, the Army is adapting to more “Combined Arms Maneuver.” This warfare compentency seeks to synchronize a wide range of weapons, technologies and war assets in order to overwhelm, confuse and destroy an enemy force.

Smith likened “Combined Arms” to being almost like a symphony orchestra where each instrument is geared toward blending and contributing to an integrated overall musical effect.

In warfare, this would mean using tank-on-tank attacks, indirect fire or artillery, air defenses, air assets, networking technologies, drones, rockets, missiles and mortar all together to create a singular effect able to dominate the battlespace, Smith explained.

For example, air assets and artillery could be used to attack enemy tank or armored vehicle positions in order to allow tank units and infantry fighting vehicles to reposition for attack. The idea to create an integrated offensive attack – using things like Apache attack helicopters and drones from the air, long-range precision artillery on the ground joined by Abrams tanks and infantry fighting vehicles in a coordinated fashion.

Smith also explained how preparing for anticipated future threats also means fully understanding logistics and sustainment -- so that supplies, ammunition and other essentials can continue to fortify the war effort.

Current “Decisive Action” live fire training includes an emerging emphasis on “expeditionary” capability wherein the Army is ready to fight by tonight by rapidly deploying over large distances with an integrated force consisting of weapons, infantry, armored vehicles and other combat-relevant assets.

At the same time, this strategy relies, to some extent, on an ability to leverage a technological edge with a “Combined Arms” approach as well, networking systems and precision weapons able to destroy enemies from farther distances.

In order to incorporate these dynamics into live-fire training, Grigsby said the battalion -on-battalion combat exercises practice a “move to contact” over very large 620 kilometer distances.

“This builds that expeditionary mindset,” he explained.


- Kris Osborn can be reached at Kris.Osborn@Scout.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...ss-we-might-not-be-ready-for-another-war.html

Marine General to Congress: We Might Not Be Ready for Another War

Stars and Stripes | Mar 16, 2016 | by Tara Copp
Comments 154

WASHINGTON -- If the Marines were called today to respond to an unexpected crisis, they might not be ready, a top Marine general told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Gen. John Paxton, assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, testified to lawmakers that the Marines could face more casualties in a war and might not be able to deter a potential enemy.

"I worry about the capability and the capacity to win in a major fight somewhere else right now," he said, citing a lack of training and equipment.

Paxton, along with the vice chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, spoke to the Senate committee on the readiness challenges facing each service after 15 years of war and recent budget cuts.

For the Marines, he said units at home face the most risk because of fewer training opportunities with the best equipment deployed with forces overseas. And it would be these undertrained home units that would be called to respond to an unexpected crisis.

"In the event of a crisis, these degraded units could either be called upon to deploy immediately at increased risk to the force and the mission, or require additional time to prepare thus incurring increased risk to mission by surrendering the initiative to our adversaries," Paxton said.

"This does not mean we will not be able to respond to the call ... It does mean that executing our defense strategy or responding to an emergent crisis may require more time, more risk, and incur greater costs and casualties."

Communication, intelligence and aviation units are the hardest hit, Paxton said.

"All of our intelligence and communications battalions ...would be unable to execute their full wartime mission requirements if called upon today," he said.

The aviation units are faring no better, Paxton said. Approximately 80 percent of Marine aviation units lack the amount of ready aircraft that they need for training and to respond to an emergency, he said.

Paxton was repeatedly questioned about the Marines' ability to respond to contingencies after the high number of training accidents its aviation squadrons faced in the last year. The collision of two Marine Corps' CH-53 Super Stallions off the coast of Hawaii in January raised questions whether budget cuts were leading to a higher number of pilot and crew deaths.

On Tuesday, Paxton said the service is looking at whether there is a connection.

"We are concerned about an increasing number of aircraft mishaps and accidents," he said. "We're looking to see if there's a linear correlation. We know historically that if you don't have the money and you don't have the parts and you don't have the maintenance, then you fly less. We call it 'sets and reps' -- you need sets and repetitions to keep proficiency up there. So we truly believe if you fly less and maintain slower there's a higher likelihood of accidents. So we're worried."

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[Housecarl]

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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...erous_showdown_looming_with_china_129989.html

A Dangerous Showdown Looming With China

By David Ignatius
March 16, 2016

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is moving toward what could be a dangerous showdown with China over the South China Sea.

The confrontation has been building for the past three years, as China has constructed artificial islands off its southern coast and installed missiles and radar in disputed waters, despite U.S. warnings. It could come to a head this spring, when an arbitration panel in The Hague is expected to rule that China is making "excessive" claims about its maritime sovereignty.

What makes this dispute so explosive is that it pits an American president who needs to affirm his credibility as a strong leader against a risk-taking Chinese president who has shown disregard for U.S. military power and who faces potent political enemies at home.

"This isn't Pearl Harbor but if people on all sides aren't careful, it could be 'The Guns of August,'" says Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of state for Asia, referring to the chain of miscalculation that led to World War I. The administration, he says, is facing "another red-line moment where it has to figure out how to carry through on past warnings."

What troubles the White House is that President Obama thought he was assured by President Xi Jinping in Washington last September that China would act with restraint in the South China Sea. "China does not intend to pursue militarization," Xi said publicly in the Rose Garden.

China's recent moves appear to contradict these assurances. Administration officials point to China's installation of surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel chain in February, and its recent installation of military radar systems on Cuarteron Reef, one of the artificial islands it has created hundreds of miles from its coast.

Obama cautioned in November against such provocative actions, telling an Asia-Pacific economic summit: "We agree on the need for bold steps to lower tensions, including pledging to halt further reclamation, new construction, and militarization of disputed areas in the South China Sea."

China has largely ignored such warnings, and the administration's problem now is how to assure Southeast Asian allies that it's not passive about the Chinese threat, while avoiding open military conflict. The U.S.-China breach could widen when Obama and Xi meet March 31 at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

One trigger for escalation could be China's response to the forthcoming ruling by the arbitration panel in The Hague in a case brought by the Philippines in 2013. The Philippines argued that China was making an "excessive claim" to nearly all the South China Sea by asserting what it calls the "nine-dash line," based on old maps and claims. The panel will probably issue its ruling in April or May, and Campbell and other knowledgeable experts predict that it will carefully validate the Philippine position.

What will China do next? Beijing has denounced such arbitration of its maritime claims, and some U.S. officials believe it may respond to an unfavorable ruling by declaring an air-defense identification zone, or "ADIZ," in the South China Sea -- in effect banning flights there without Chinese permission. This would present a new and dangerous provocation for Washington.

The Pentagon argues that the U.S. should immediately challenge any air-defense identification zone claim by flying U.S. military planes into the area. That's what happened in November 2013 when B-52s immediately challenged an ADIZ declared by China in the East China Sea. Because this overflight had previously been scheduled, the Pentagon didn't have to ask White House approval; Pentagon officials fear that if such permission had been required, it would have been denied.

This time, the White House has an intense interagency planning process underway to prepare for the looming confrontation. Options include an aggressive tit-for-tat strategy, in which the U.S. would help countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam build artificial islands of their own in disputed waters. The Philippines effectively took such a step in 1999 when it deliberately grounded a large vessel on a shoal in the Spratly Islands; it has recently resupplied that vessel, while U.S. drones patrolled overhead.

Campbell contends that the wisest course for the United States would be to work with other Southeast Asian nations to challenge Chinese claims. This might include planes and ships from Australia, Singapore, India and European countries, for example.

"You don't want the Chinese to lose face," says Campbell. "But you want their leadership to understand that if they continue along this path, they risk spiraling the relationship into a very negative place."

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group

davidignatius@washpost.com

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/03/16/pentagon-leaders-defend-nuclear-triad-overhaul.html

Pentagon Leaders Defend Nuclear Triad Overhaul

Mar 16, 2016 | by Matthew Cox


Lawmakers raised concerns with top Pentagon leaders today over the costly program to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Members of the House Armed Services Committee questioned leaders from the Air Force and Navy about the proposed overhaul of what is known as America's nuclear triad -- a three-pronged system consisting of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The endeavor -- which is scheduled to cost billions over the next two decades -- has many lawmakers looking for ways to reduce costs at a time when all the services are struggling with maintain the readiness and modernization of their conventional forces.

"We are going to spend $3.3 billion on every single one of the nuclear weapons," Rep. John Garamendi, D-California, said at the March 16 hearing.

"The question that we need to ask ourselves is are we prepared to send all of you on a mission of spending close to a trillion dollars over the next 25 years on revamping and rebuilding our entire nuclear arsenal and delivery systems?

"The question is what are the really important things that we need to do? Do we really need to replace the Minuteman IIIs with Minuteman IVs in the next 20-25 years? Do we really need to have a new, long-range cruise missile? Or can we delay that? And instead spend the money on wrapping up" the Army's current problem of sacrificing modernization for near-term readiness.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke up first.

"I just want to be clear, I don't have a part of the triad, but I can tell you that in my view ... that nuclear triad has kept the peace since nuclear weapons were introduced and has sustained the test of time," Milley said. "That is not unimportant and the system is deteriorating, Congressman, and it needs to be revamped. It needs to be overhauled."

Garamendi responded by saying, "We are not debating on whether it needs to be revamped. The question is how much and when?"

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Arizona, asked if the Obama administration has "conducted analysis of eliminating one or more legs of the triad or significantly altering the U.S. nuclear posture."

"Congressman, I'm not aware of any detailed look at that," said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. "We have been obviously focused on our leg of the triad -- the Ohio-class replacement."

The Navy has done a detailed analysis on a program to replace the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and the program is on track to begin in 2021, Mabus said.

The nuclear deterrence mission is a "matter of our national existence and from a Navy standpoint, it's our top modernization program," Mabus said.

"You are going to have to look at this program in a national lens because if you drop this in the middle of a Navy shipbuilding budget, it will gut Navy shipbuilding for decades to come. And so the reason we are focused on how to do it, is to do it without damaging our conventional superiority as well."

Franks asked Air Force Secretary Deborah James for her view on the importance of the triad.

"I absolutely support it, and I believe that the administration supports it precisely because it has worked for us for decades," James said. "It has provided that deterrent, and each leg of the triad is a little bit different aspect of that. The ICBMs are considered responsive, the sea-launched are considered survivable and the bombers, of course, are flexible."

Rep. Robert Wittman, R-Virginia, asked the Navy about the possibility of funding the Ohio-class replacement with the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund.

"If we take the cost of that boat and we put that in the middle of a shipbuilding budget, we know what happens; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out," Wittman said. "What I believe we need to be looking at is what do we do to mitigate that?

"What kind of cost savings would we be able to accrue by funding Ohio-class replacement with the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund? There is still some resistance here. I think that is the way to do it, and it doesn't interfere with any long-term viability of any other ship-building program."

Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, said that "significant savings are achievable by the use of a fund like that."

"With the authorities that the fund may provide, it would allow you to make very wise business decisions," Richardson said. "The projection is you could save more than 10 percent over the cost of the program, which is essentially getting one submarine for free."

James said she was not familiar with the NSBDF, but said "if it would help and benefit one leg of the triad, I would ask that all the legs of the triad be included in such an approach."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

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[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abrah...ree-pronged-war_b_9460700.htmlFethullah Gülen

THE BLOG

Turkey's Three-Pronged War

03/16/2016 02:15 pm ET | Updated 15 hours ago
Abraham R. Wagner
Professor of International and Public Affairs at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War & Peace Studies at Columbia University

With the U.S. presidential election and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East filling news cycles, scant attention is paid to inimitable U.S. ally and key NATO member -- Turkey. The country, which bridges Europe and Asia, is essential to security in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus, by virtue of its geography and Western orientation. Today, Ankara is fighting a three-pronged war -- with scarce support from the U.S.

The flood of Syrian refugees is putting enormous economic and security strains on Turkey. Coupled with ongoing terrorist attacks by ISIS and radical Kurdish nationalists, there is a growing threat to the stability of a key U.S. ally in a region beset with chaos. Perhaps most sinister among its security threats is the infiltration of radical Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen's movement into the fabric of Turkey's government and society in an attempt to usurp the democratically elected government and to impose a Shar'ia Law-inspired system on a moderate state. The Gülen Movement, officially designated as a terrorist organization, possesses a vast network of schools, nonprofit organizations, media outlets, and businesses in Turkey, the U.S., Germany and other nations.

Just this week, a Turkish court took steps against the Gülen Movement when it ruled that impartial administrators be appointed to take over the operations of the Gülen's media juggernaut, including the flagship Zaman newspaper, which engaged in unacceptable media practices and promoted Gülen's Islamist policies.

With the goal of undermining constitutional order in Turkey, Gülen has spent vast sums of his fortune, estimated at $25 billion to infiltrate government, media, schools, business, law enforcement and the judiciary system with his disciples. Simultaneously, he targeted officials who have failed to follow his strict religious line, and has inserted itself into Turkey's education system by running hundreds of schools and 17 universities with the intent of radicalizing children.

Gülen's ambitions, however, go beyond his homeland. He now controls a network of schools in over 100 countries, including the largest network of charter schools in the U.S. Resulting from accusations of tax payer fraud and financial malfeasance, the Gülen movement and schools are under investigation by 22 states and the FBI.

According to U.S. government reports published by WikiLeaks, "Deep and widespread doubts remain, however, about his (Gülen) movement's ultimate intentions. We have anecdotal evidence of the pressure that the various circles of his movement put on people they have drawn in, for instance severe pressure on businessmen to continue to give money to support Gülenist schools or other activities. . . Gülenists use their school network (including dozens of schools in the U.S.) to cherry-pick students they think are susceptible to being molded as proselytizers and we have steadily heard reports about how the schools indoctrinate boarding students."

While the Government of Turkey has declared the Gülen Movement a terrorist organization, Gülen has turned his sights on U.S. military bases, having already opened a schools on one U.S. Air Force base and is currently negotiating to open another.

At a March 1st Congressional hearing on terror financing, Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) asked witnesses if they've heard of "any unlawful schemes where educational groups may be funneling federal dollars through their non-profit organizations into so-called religious movements?" One witness, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for international Affairs, Clay Lowery, now of the Center for Global Development, had in fact heard such things. It is broadly recognized that he was referring, at least in part, to Gülen and his operations.

Adding to the intrigue are U.S. Embassy Turkey concerns, as WikiLeaks reported "...we are concerned by the link with charter schools in the U.S. that have petitioned for marginally-qualified H1B candidates . . . and our posts in Turkey have started compiling a list of these Gülenist charter schools in the U.S. for use in visa adjudication." The obvious questions remain, who are these men and why is the Gülen Movement spending so much time, effort and money on bringing them to the U.S.?

A Congressional investigation is underway looking into Gülen's purported illegal campaign contributions. That investigation expanded into Gülen Movement illegally-funded lavish trips to Turkey for Members of Congress and their staffs through his network of non-profits. Investigators are looking into millions of dollars to congressional and presidential candidates, including huge donations to the Clinton Foundation. It appears that Gülen's manipulation and corruption rule book has crossed the Atlantic and is now undermining the US political system.

To stop this, the Obama Administration must show leadership before it's too late, expanding the investigation of the Gülen Movement. Concurrently, Congress should pay greater attention to Turkish security. Turkey must maintain its role and promise of a reliable, democratic, and prosperous regional leader -- and a key U.S. ally.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm...The comments of the author appear to assume that those PLA missiles will be conventionally armed.....


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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...issiles_vs_americas_four_corners_defense.html

March 17, 2016

China's Anti-ship Missiles vs. America's Four Corners Defense

By Peter Navarro

Can China’s anti-ship ballistic missile really hit an American aircraft carrier zigzagging at 30 knots in the Taiwan Strait? That remains unclear as there is no record of China successfully testing its growing suite of “carrier killer” missiles on a moving target at sea.

This uncertainty leaves the door open to the possibility that Beijing’s ASBM hype is merely a Sun Tzu ruse to prod America into spending countless billions on new weapons to defend against a chimera.

Ruse or not, the theoretical beauty of China’s ASBM lies in at least three dimensions:

· A relatively low “asymmetric warfare” cost to the carriers it targets

· An ability to “outrange” America’s carriers with their current air wings

· Mach 10 speed, verticality, and maneuverability as it approaches its target

In reality, there are four basic ways to neutralize China’s ASBM threat, and these “four corners” of an American ASBM defense are not mutually exclusive.

Strategy #1: Interceptor Missiles

The US and its allies have been rapidly moving ahead in the development of interceptor missiles. Some poster children for the interceptor missile response are growing up in the “Standard Missile” series being fathered by Raytheon.

For example, the SM-3 is geared towards “mid-course defense” – hitting an ASBM early in its trajectory at longer distances and higher altitudes and possibly even in space. In contrast, the SM-6 Dual specializes more in “terminal defense” should an ASBM break through the SM-3 perimeter – and it is equally potent against incoming cruise missiles.

While each of these missiles have been successfully tested against isolated missile threats, the Achilles Heel of a missile interceptor strategy is its possible inability to counter the kinds of swarming cruise and ballistic missile attacks that China’s Second Artillery Corps is likely to launch. Such “salvoing” does indeed present both economic and operational problems.

Economically, missile interceptor missiles are costly, e.g., about $10 million a pop for the SM-3 and $4 million for the SM-6. Operationally, the question arises to whether you can even fit enough missiles into a strike group’s magazines to shoot down all of the missiles in repeated Chinese swarms – much less fire these missile interceptors fast enough to prevent a mission kill.

Strategy #2: Outranging China’s Carrier Killer

In a seminal report published by the Center for a New American Security in October of 2015, Dr. Jerry Hendrix documented the deadly decline in the range of American aircraft carrier strike groups since the end of World War II. The problem here is not with the carriers themselves but rather with their air wings, which now feature shorter-range fighters.

To see the historical problem framed by Hendrix, consider that the average unrefueled combat range of an American carrier has shrunk from over 1,200 nautical miles in 1958 and over 900 nautical miles in 1986 to less than 500 nautical miles today. In contrast, the range of China’s DF21-D antiship ballistic missile is between 800 and 1,000 nautical miles.

The obvious strategy here to save aircraft carriers as a viable fighting platform is to focus once again on range. To Hendrix, one way to work this problem is to develop “a new long-range, deep strike asset in line with the A-3 Skywarrior and A-6 Intruder of the past that could take off from a carrier, fly more than 1,500 nm, penetrate a dense anti-air network of sensors and missiles, deliver multiple weapons on target, and then return to the carrier.”

In Hendrix’s vision, the most logical means to do this is through “an unmanned platform” along the lines of the X-47B that was cancelled in 2006. The plane remains on life support as a test vehicle that has successfully completed carrier landings, but it is literally “waiting in the wings.”

Strategy #3: Destroy China ASBMs On Their Launch Pads

This option immediately brings to mind the contentious AirSea Battle vs. Offshore Control debate that has raged for years over whether it is prudent to strike the Chinese mainland should China launch an attack on American carriers or forward bases. Suffice it to say that any strike on the Chinese mainland would invite possible strikes on the American homeland, possibly nuclear strikes.

There is also the logistical “whack a mole” matter of whether it is even possible to accurately target Chinese ASBMs moving randomly about on camouflaged mobile missile launchers and on rail tracks beneath the Great Underground Wall of China.

That said, this strategy should not be ruled out publicly for one obvious strategic reason: Any American promise to never strike the Chinese mainland would establish that mainland as a sanctuary and turn American carriers and forward bases into sitting ducks for the Second Artillery Corps.

Strategy #4: Force Restructuring

The most common form of the force restructuring argument goes like this: “If China’s ASBMs can sink our carriers, we should rely more on submarines.”

Here’s one problem: No amount of newly constructed Virginia attack class submarines can make up for the ability of an aircraft carrier to establish air dominance in critical theaters of war. Thus, while building more submarines to control the chokepoints of the First Island Chain should China attack the US or its treaty allies is an essential part of any true “pivot” to Asia, it is no panacea.

_________________________

At the end of the day, China’s ASBM threat needs to be addressed using all four corners of an American defense. Even if these missiles don’t yet fully deliver on their promise, the technology certainly exists and sooner or later our carriers will be at risk.

In the meantime, defense analysts must get out of their comfort zone and start thinking more about how interactions between economics, trade, and national security are now shaping the battlefield. The obvious strategic question here is this: Is it wise for American to engage in massive economic trade with a nation that is using the fruits of such trade to finance the construction of a war machine that increasingly threatens the US and its allies?


Peter Navarro is a professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (Prometheus Books) and director of the companion Crouching Tiger documentary film series. For more information and a free copy of the film, visit www.crouchingtiger.net.

____


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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/03/17/nuclear_powered_aircraft_carriers_109150.html

March 17, 2016

Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carriers

The Nation's Number One Asymmetric Military Advantage

By Daniel Gouré

There has been a lot of talk lately by senior Pentagon officials that the U.S. military is losing its long-held advantages in high-end warfighting capabilities. If one accepted uncritically statements by the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics about how well our prospective adversaries are inventing and deploying new capabilities that undermine areas of U.S. military advantage, it is possible to conclude, as some in the media and the think tank class have, that the United States is in decline as a military power.

One can understand the efforts by the Department of Defense’s (DoD) leadership to paint a fairly dire picture of how the global military balance is in danger of changing against this country. If uninformed about the growing danger, the American people and their representatives in Congress would be rightly reluctant to spend more on national defense. The Pentagon would like to see sequestration ended and more money made available for defense. Moreover, DoD wants support for its various plans to re-establish its erstwhile military-technical superiority, including by investing in a host of gee whiz capabilities, the so-called Third Offset Strategy, relying more on Silicon Valley and other non-traditional suppliers of advanced technologies and doing more experimentation and prototyping.

Without question, the militaries of our prospective adversaries, most notably Russia and China, are getting better. It should not be surprising that after the U.S. demonstrated the wonders of stealth, precision weapons, unmanned aerial systems and advanced networks some 25 years ago that other countries would make similar investments. Nor that these same countries would focus their efforts, in particular, at arranging these new capabilities in ways to counter erstwhile U.S. capability advantages, for example by creating anti-access/area denial forces and investing in domains such as cyber, electronic warfare and space that the U.S. neglected.

This does not mean that the situation is hopeless or that the U.S. military does not have a host of capabilities on which it can rely, perhaps with deliberate and phased upgrades, to restore a position of advantage. Indeed, the U.S. military is starting its military-technical renaissance with a very strong base of highly capable platforms and systems.

One of the most significant of these are the 11 U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carriers, or CVNs. With their ability to move globally, project power against the land from a sovereign base at sea, act as the centerpiece for the organization of naval forces to exert sea control and to deploy a wide and changing array of aerial platforms, the CVN force may be this nation’s number one asymmetric military advantage. Our prospective adversaries have acknowledged as much by their extensive and expensive efforts to place the CVN at risk.

A new class of CVNs, the Ford, multiplies the advantage provided by the older ships. Its electromagnetic launch system, advanced arresting gear, the placement of the tower, state-of-the art power generation system and new radar will allow the Ford to generate some 25 percent more sorties than its older brethren. Its defensive system and stealth features will provide improved protection against a range of threats. Investments in Information Technology and automation will enable Ford-class CVNs to operate more effectively and efficiently with a smaller crew.

Since its inception, the CVN force has been able to reinvent itself, its roles and missions, operating concepts and even tactics as new aircraft and aerial systems became available. It is no different for the emergent Ford-class and its older brethren. The addition of the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, the E2-D Advanced Hawkeye, and carrier-based unmanned aerial systems promises a significant, potentially even revolutionary, improvement in the performance of the air wing. The replacement of the C-2 Greyhound aircraft with a variant of the V-22 Osprey for the carrier onboard delivery mission will enhance carrier battlegroup operations. When capabilities such as the Next Generation Jammer for the EA-18 Growler and longer-range, more sophisticated air-delivered weapons are included, the CVNs will be able to challenge efforts by prospective adversaries to deny the U.S. Navy the ability to operate at and from the sea.

The CVNs have proven themselves among the most operationally responsive, tactically flexible and technologically advanced platforms in the U.S. arsenal. From the start, they have played a central role in the global war on terror. At the same time, they have held resident in their design and functions the ability to respond to changes in potential conflict scenarios. Across the conflict spectrum, CVNs have and will continue to make a unique and potentially decisive contribution to U.S. military superiority.


This article originally appeared at Lexington Institute.

 

[Housecarl]

Here we go again......

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-china-idUSKCN0WJ0QC

World | Thu Mar 17, 2016 5:00am EDT
Related: World, China, North Korea

China says opposes unilateral sanctions on North Korea

BEIJING


China expressed its opposition on Thursday to unilateral sanctions against North Korea saying they could raise tension, after the United States imposed new curbs on the isolated country in retaliation for its nuclear and rocket tests.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed sweeping new sanctions on North Korea intended to further isolate its leadership after recent actions seen by the United States and its allies as provocative.

The new sanctions threaten to ban from the global financial system anyone who does business with broad swaths of North Korea's economy, including its financial, mining and transport sectors.

The so-called secondary sanctions will compel banks to freeze the assets of anyone who breaks the blockade, potentially squeezing out North Korea's business ties, including those with China.

Asked whether China was worried the sanctions could affect "normal" business links between Chinese banks and North Korea, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said this was something China was "paying attention to".

"First, as I've said many times before, China always opposes any country imposing unilateral sanctions," Lu told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

"Second, under the present situation where the situation on the Korean Peninsula is complex and sensitive, we oppose any moves that may further worsen tensions there."

"Third, we have clearly stressed many times in meetings with the relevant county, any so-called unilateral sanctions imposed by any country should neither affect nor harm China's reasonable interests."

China is North Korea's sole major ally but it disapproves of its nuclear program and calls for the Korean peninsula to be free of nuclear weapons.

While China has signed up for tough new U.N. sanctions against North Korea, it has said repeatedly sanctions are not the answer and that only a resumption of talks can resolve the dispute over North Korea's weapons program.

The U.S. measures, which vastly expand a U.S. blockade of North Korea, prohibit the export of goods from the United States to North Korea.

U.S. officials had previously believed a blanket trade ban would be ineffective without a stronger commitment from China, North Korea's largest trading partner.

North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Jan. 6, and on Feb. 7 it launched a rocket that the United States and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology. China signed on to the new U.N. sanctions against North Korea this month.

But U.S. officials and experts have often questioned China's commitment to enforcing sanctions on North Korea. China fears that too-harsh measures will destabilize the North.


(Reporting By Ben Blanchard, Writing By Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-sisi-idUSKCN0WJ12M

World | Thu Mar 17, 2016 5:44am EDT
Related: World, United Nations, Egypt, Libya

Egypt's Sisi says Libya intervention risky, supports eastern commander

ROME


Military intervention in Libya is risky and foreign powers would be better off supporting a military commander based in the east, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of neighboring Egypt was quoted as saying on Thursday.

A power struggle between two rival administrations in Libya has allowed Islamic State militants to gain ground there, and hardliners have held up efforts to set up a unity government.

Interviewed in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Sisi recommended supporting Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army - which is linked to the internationally recognized government based in the eastern city of Tobruk - in the fight against jihadists.

"If we give arms and support to the Libyan National Army, it can do the job much better than anyone else, better than any external intervention that would risk putting us in a situation that could get out of hand and provoke uncontrollable developments," he said.

Egypt was putting pressure on Tobruk to accept a United Nations-backed unity government, he said, and wanted all parties to take their share of responsibility.

Tobruk's administration has said it cannot vote on the unity government and the rival General National Congress in Tripoli has said it cannot hand over power.

Foreign powers can only intervene in Libya if asked to do so by a Libyan government and with a U.N. and Arab League mandate, Sisi said. The United States and European Union have said further intervention would need to be requested by Libya.

The world needs to act quickly to stabilize all countries in the region that have not yet fallen into chaos, the Egyptian leader added, to tackle threats to global security and manage the migrant crisis.

"What would happen if Europe had to manage a wave of refugees two or three times bigger than it is now?" he asked. "This is why I say we cannot focus only on the military problem in Libya."

Sisi said five questions needed to be asked before taking military action: how to get in and out of Libya, who would re-establish the police and army, how to protect civilians during a mission, whether an intervention would meet the needs of all Libyans and who would rebuild the country physically.


(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/03/17/revisiting_the_geopolitics_of_china_111764.html

March 17, 2016

Revisiting the Geopolitics of China

By Rodger Baker

In 2008, Stratfor published The Geopolitics of China: A Great Power Enclosed, the second in a series of monographs describing the underlying geopolitics of key countries and explaining their current positions within that context. In the eight years since its publication, despite major changes in the global situation, the monograph has largely stood - largely, but not completely. Since then, a new imperative has emerged for China, one that is pulling it into a much more active global posture despite economic, social and political undercurrents at home.

At the core of the monograph is an assertion of China's strategic imperatives - the core compulsions and constraints on the state imposed by the interaction of geography, economics, politics, security and society throughout history. As we stated at the time, China has three overriding geopolitical imperatives:


Maintain internal unity in the Han Chinese regions.


Maintain control of its buffer regions.


Protect the coast from foreign encroachment.

If we were to summarize the monograph (though we recommend reading it in its entirety), we could recount these three imperatives fairly succinctly.

Maintain internal unity in the Han Chinese regions: The core of the nation sits along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the heart of Han China. This area encompasses the bulk of the population and, if the Pearl River is added, comprises most of China's agricultural and industrial activity. Ensuring the unity of the Han core is vital to maintaining the cohesion of China and the security of the Communist Party as the paramount power. But even the Han core is extremely complex and diverse culturally, geographically and economically. Balancing these differences requires a deft hand at the center, and with China's current economic slowdown, this balancing act is growing more difficult.

Maintain control of the buffer regions: One challenge faced historically by the agricultural and stationary Han civilization was that it was surrounded to the north and west by nomadic tribes, and faced fluctuating borders and populations in the mountains and dense forests to the south. To secure the Han core, China historically fought (and occasionally was overcome by) its neighbors and established a Middle Kingdom policy, whereby it kept neighbors at bay through a nominal tributary system, requiring minimal military force but also gaining minimal true influence or control. Modern China has integrated a series of buffer regions, stretching from Manchuria in the northeast through Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, into Yunnan and along the mountains in the south. These territories provide strategic depth but bring their own challenges in the form of internal ethnic policies and cohesion.

Protect the coastline: For much of China's history, the country was largely self-sufficient in natural resources. What additional resources or luxuries it needed could be supplied along the Silk Road routes to the west. The coast was often plagued by piracy and suffered occasional international raids, but given its massive interior and its ethnic diversity, China rarely focused on naval power, concentrating instead on coastal defense or even alternatives to coastal travel, such as its Grand Canal system. The much-touted "treasure fleets" of Zheng He were more frivolities than a true assertion of military might. Traders and fishermen plied the seas but with minimal protection from the central government. Even modern China's naval development policies are designed primarily to fill a coastal defense role.

An Emerging Imperative

These three imperatives long remained the core of China's national and international strategy. But imperatives are not static, and at times the pressures on a state can add an imperative. China's economic growth created a new imperative, one that shifted China out of what had been a near self-reliant capability and into one that left China vulnerable to international involvement. Although we didn't formally recognize this new imperative in our 2008 monograph, we did allude to it as a manifestation of the coastal protection imperative.

This new, fourth imperative builds from that imperative but is not simply a matter of coastal defense. Namely, it is: Protect China's strategic trade routes, resources and markets from foreign interdiction.

China's economic success has broken its national independence. China imports at least as much of its key commodities as it produces. Foreign trade is a vital piece of China's economic activity, even as the country attempts to drive its economy toward a domestic consumption model. Outbound investments provide access not only to markets and resources but also to technology and skills. This has impelled China to seek ways to secure its vulnerable supply lines, expand its maritime presence, and extend its international financial and political presence.

And it is this relatively new Chinese imperative that has caused such upheaval in regional relations and such consternation in Washington. It represents a major break from what was seen as the status quo, and it clashes directly with two of the United States' key imperatives, as asserted in our 2011 monograph. That monograph asserts five imperatives for the United States:


Dominate the Greater Mississippi Basin.


Eliminate all land-based threats to the Greater Mississippi Basin.


Control the ocean approaches to North America.


Control the world's oceans.


Prevent any potential challengers from rising.

China's economic ascent, and particularly its need to break from its past semi-isolation, clashes squarely with the United States' fourth and fifth imperatives, and potentially also with its third. Since the North American continent is relatively secure, it is the world's oceans that continue to drive U.S. strategy: The way to preserve American strength is by keeping potential threats distant. China, driven by economic success and global integration, sees its further economic stability potentially challenged by a dominant U.S. naval force. The United States sees a rising China and expanding Chinese navy as a direct challenge to the underlying strategy of U.S. national security.

Imperatives Collide

From the viewpoint of strategic imperatives, which drive nations to follow certain courses to protect their interests as they develop, it is no wonder that the United States and China have such a complicated relationship, colored as much by economic interdependence as by strategic competition. A strategic imperative is more than just an interest, more than a policy desire. It is a force impelling a nation, though it does not force decisions. It shapes constraints and compulsions. Failing to pursue the imperative has costs. Pursuing the imperative has costs. Not all imperatives are achievable or even desirable. But beneath the surface, they press on nations, press on leaders, and create conditions both for international friction and for cooperation.

As China feels impelled to move into a more active global role, however cautiously, it pushes up against a U.S. imperative. U.S. dominance of the global seas is now seen as a very real threat to Chinese maritime trade and thus to China's economic and strategic well-being. China sees U.S. capability and reads U.S. intent. By building a military presence to deter U.S. intervention in the waters of the South and East China seas, a natural move given its economic position, China sends a reciprocal signal to the United States that U.S. interests are now being challenged, that freedom of navigation may not be guaranteed in these waters. If the United States is to be able to disrupt the rise of regional hegemony or conduct spoiling wars far from its shores, it needs unfettered access to the seas. So the United States seeks to counter China, and China sees this as containment and counters again. Neither side is the aggressor, but both see capability and read intent, and both are driven by deeper strategic concerns.

China's naval development, its advancements in anti-ship missiles and its assertive reclamation of islands and reefs in what it considers its territory in the South China Sea are perceived by the United States as aggressive behavior from a rising nation. China's maritime expansion to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden - its so-called string of pearls port development - and its military reform and modernization further heighten these concerns. Meanwhile, China sees these measures as defensive behavior against a dominant United States. Both are right; both are wrong. But each government is primarily beholden to its own national interests, not to the feelings or concerns of the other. Those concerns may help guide diplomatic efforts or shape policy details, but the underlying realities drive the imperatives and impel action. Geopolitics does not dictate the response, but it does frame the options and, more directly, the costs of action and inaction.

But U.S.-Chinese competition is not limited merely to naval developments in the South China Sea or questions of missile defense in Asia. China's international economic networks and dependencies have made it harder for Beijing to retain older policies of noninterference. The larger and more active China becomes economically, the fewer countries around the world will consider Chinese actions innocuous. China faces political and security challenges to its investments and economic interests in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Central Asia and elsewhere. As China seeks advanced technologies to remain on par with other global economic powers, it is stymied by political opposition, national security concerns and fears of competition.

Big Country, Big Impact

Even in lower-end technologies, such as steel or shipbuilding, China's sheer size has massive repercussions that trigger often unintentional, but no less important, consequences and responses. Chinese steel production, driven both by a massive surge in internal infrastructure development and by the desire of local and regional governments to maintain employment programs, spurred a huge spike in the price of iron ore internationally. While Beijing might not have intended to crush global steel markets, the combination of high input costs and the massive surplus of steel products produced in China led to a collapse in prices and has put heavy strain on other steel producers. Given China's scale, its surge in shipbuilding, its foray into solar panel manufacturing and its imports of raw materials all have a disproportionate effect on other nations, whether consumers or producers.

China's resource needs also shape the international situation in other ways. As China falls behind in certain technologies or process refinements, its competitive advantage in bidding for mineral or resource projects, or even for infrastructure development projects, lies along two paths: price and political blindness. On the first, China often either outbids or underprices its competitors, relying on extensive - if at times unofficial - government backing to ensure success. But China will also turn a blind eye toward political concerns, working with countries with which the West is largely unable to contract or acting in areas riven by internal conflict. Combined, these increase China's overall reach and influence and at times undermine U.S. attempts to shape international behavior through non-military means.

But China is moving well beyond such policies toward a greater role in international finance. One of the strengths of the United States is the ubiquity of the U.S. dollar and the larger role the United States plays in many aspects of international trade. This is a strategic risk to China, from Beijing's perspective, because the United States sets the rules and shapes the global economy, leaving China in a reactive position. Beijing's pursuit of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, its inclusion in the International Monetary Fund's de facto currency in regional trade deals and its granting of low-interest loans all reflect an attempt to balance if not break free from U.S. influence in international finance. Perhaps ironically, were China to bring about a real break and create competing international financial and trade systems, it would lose some of the protection of the single integrated global system that currently prevents the United States from seeking a true containment policy against China, as it did against the Soviet Union.

Future Imperatives

There are numerous additional examples of military, economic and political areas in which China and the United States contend, but each can be seen as a collision of their strategic imperatives. When fundamentals, more than simply ideology or political expediency, take shape, the stakes are higher and the cost of inaction outweighs the cost of action. Although both may couch their public statements in terms of ideology, global norms, or proper economic or political systems, those are only the veneer overlaying the hardened oak of geopolitics.

China is changing, and it is impelled to change its behavior or accept the risk of inaction. Given its size and history, it is unlikely that the Chinese would simply accept their role in a U.S.-structured system, with the attendant risks and vulnerabilities it brings. And the United States, seeing a pattern in Asia breaking and seeing Chinese activity across the globe, will not simply hope that U.S. interests remain unthreatened - the emergence of a real Asian hegemony would violate another U.S. strategic imperative. If the United States can prevent or shape that rise, it will seek to do so. The cost of inaction is too high not to try.

Reprinted with permission from Stratfor. Editor's note: A version of this essay was published in Limes, the Italian geopolitical monthly, a partner of Stratfor.

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http://www.politico.eu/article/swis...ng-at-the-eu-table-brexit-roberto-balzaretti/

Swiss to UK: You’ll miss being at the EU table

Switzerland’s ambassador in Brussels says Britain might have a hard time thinking outside the bloc.

By Tara Palmeri | 3/16/16, 3:38 PM CET | Updated 3/16/16, 9:38 PM CET

Switzerland has a warning for Brits thinking they can fall back on a special trade deal with the EU if they vote to leave the bloc: You will still have to play by the Union’s rules.

Just like the British Euroskeptics who rail against the arrival of EU migrants in the U.K., the Swiss have also called for an immigration quota to restrict the number of EU citizens who can live in their country. But they also have a trade relationship with the EU that requires they respect the free movement of people.

Supporters of a British Out vote the June 23 referendum have suggested that the U.K. could forge a similar deal that would continue to give them access to the internal market even after Britain left the EU. Switzerland’s EU ambassador, Roberto Balzaretti, said Tuesday that it won’t be that easy.

“What they should know is the situation of Switzerland, being a member state is much more comfortable,” Balzaretti said during a dinner with reporters at his residence. “We don’t decide anything we apply.”

“Would Great Britain accept that they have to apply more or less the same rules? Maybe they can live with that,” he added.

The migration issue has long been controversial in Switzerland. More than 800,000 EU citizens have moved to the country in the past decade, and now make up 16 percent of its population of 8 million.

In February 2014, the Swiss people voted in a referendum for a measure that would cap the immigration of EU citizens to Switzerland. Under the provision, the Swiss have a three-year time limit to implement that quota, but their issue has been sidelined by the European Commission because of its political sensitivity during the Brexit debate.

“We will have to wait until June of this year because of this U.K. issue, because any concession would be pushed by the Out campaign as a reason to leave. ‘Look at the Swiss,’ they will say,” Balzaretti said, referring to advice he said Switzerland had received from the Commission.

Balzaretti added that if the Brits decide to leave the EU, the Swiss quota deal is dead in the water, as the EU will be occupied with the British issue.

“‘If the Brits leave, there is not time for you,’ they said,” he added.

Balzaretti said the Swiss also suffer because they have no say in other major policy decisions that affect them, such as the EU’s controversial migrant deal with Turkey. Under that proposed framework, the EU would lift visa restrictions on Turks traveling to Europe — a provision Switzerland, as a member of the Schengen zone, would have to comply with but cannot contest.

“The issue with Turkey, we haven’t seen that deal because we’re not at the table,” he said. “No one asked us what we think. We won’t have an agreement with Turkey.”

A majority of Swiss are opposed to EU membership, even if it would offer them a seat at the negotiating table. According to Balzaretti, Swiss citizens would like to see the Brits vote to leave because it would validate their own decision to stay out of the EU — and deal a political blow to the bloc.

“The majority of the Swiss would be happy for Great Britain to leave because they would see it as the end of the EU,” he said. “People are saying listen, we’re doing everything we want them to do, but they’re just not listening.”

He added, “You talk about Europe and you almost always add the word crisis.”


Also On Politico

Europe to UK: ‘We love you! Now tell us how you feel’

Pierre Briançon

Syed Kamall, president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker


Also On Politico

Senior Tory MEP urged to quit over Brexit support

Tara Palmeri

 

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http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/tunisia-continues-to-fight-against-isil-infiltration

Tunisia continues to fight against ISIL infiltration

Rashmee Roshan Lall
March 16, 2016 Updated: March 16, 2016 05:46 PM

How much closer is Tunisia to the destiny apparently mapped out for it by ISIL now that the extremist group is heavily under attack in Iraq and Syria?

Every so often, there are rumours that ISIL is stealthily but surely moving to base itself in North Africa and establish a so-called “Islamic State" there. But the most recent iteration of the rumour seems particularly significant. Unverified reports that ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi is living in Sirte in Libya coincided with the March 7 Battle of Ben Guerdane near Tunisia’s border with Libya.

The Ben Guerdane operation, the most audacious cross-border attack in Tunisia’s history, took the form of three separate incidents on a single day, within 15 kilometres of the city centre.

It featured simultaneous assaults on Tunisian security personnel and installations, including a military barracks. It ended with the Tunisian army and police killing nearly 50 extremists and capturing at least 20. Later, Tunisia’s president Beji Caid Essebsi would explain that his government saw the Battle of Ben Guerdane as an “unprecedented" attempt by extremists to take over parts of the country and “establish a new Islamic State emirate" in Tunisia.

A new ISIL video has said as much. The only question is why now?

There are four possible reasons. If Al Baghdadi, who may have been injured in a bomb attack on his convoy in October, is really in Sirte, ISIL would be anxious to take territory in the region.

It would want to overturn the perception that it is in retreat and on the run in Iraq and Syria. It would seek to retake control of the propagandist story it has consistently put out and portray itself as strong and unassailable.

Second, Ben Guerdane may be the blowback from the recent successes in fighting Tunisian militants based in Libya. Last month, American planes hit an ISIL site at Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border and just about 130km from Ben Guerdane.

The main target was a Tunisian ISIL operative, Noureddine Chouchane, who is said to have played a key role in planning last year’s two devastating attacks on western tourists in Tunisia. According to analysts, Tunisian extremists may be finding it too dangerous to stay on in Libya and keen to open a new front in their home country.

Third, territorial gain in Tunisia would be entirely in line with ISIL’s oft-expressed view on the need to erase 20th-century borders and redraw the world map.

The independent NGO International Crisis Group recently pointed out that “Ben Guerdane would mark the top of a ‘liberated’ area, including the south-east of Tunisia and Tripolitania (a kind of emirate of Tripoli and Ben Guerdane). Given its history, this would allow Ben Guerdane to serve as a transit point for men and arms throughout the region." This would seem logical to ISIL because the region was once governed by the Ottomans as the wilayet of Tripolitania.

Finally, there is this dismal truth. If ISIL is especially focused on Tunisia right now, it may be more in the way of a vulture watching over its weakening prey than anything else.

In the five years since the Jasmine Revolution, Tunisia’s laundry list of problems has only grown longer.

Despite urgent and well-meaning advice from independent economists, the IMF and the World Bank, Tunisia’s government has dithered over reform. Young Tunisians continue to be unsustainably dependent for jobs on the overburdened public sector. This can trigger tensions nationwide, as happened in January when Ridha Yahyoui, a young man angry at being denied a government job, scaled a pylon in the southern town of Kasserine and was electrocuted.

Tunisian youth still remain largely unable to secure bank loans and the various official permits required to start businesses.

So, is Tunisia too weak to neutralise the extremist threat? There are as many answers as the people you ask but it’s fair to acknowledge that it’s doing rather better than before on the basics of counterterrorism.

For more than a year, the army has been fighting local militants in the Chaambi Mountains, along the southeastern border with Algeria. As for the border with Libya, Tunisia recently completed a 200-km barrier and a trench, which runs from the coastal town of Ras Jedir to Dhiba in the south-west.

There are plans, Tunisia’s defence minister recently said, for German and US contractors to install electronic surveillance equipment at strategic points along the wall.

The international community – the US, UK, France, Germany and most recently, Russia – is increasingly generous in its offer of men and equipment to help the Tunisian forces fight the militant threat.

But most important of all may be the spirit of local resistance. The Tunisian press has reported that the residents of Ben Guerdane played a key role in defeating the extremists. Not only did they alert the authorities to the ISIL infiltrators’ presence, they mobilised to support the security forces.

A cartoon in La Presse, one of Tunisia’s most influential newspapers, summarises the people’s attitude. It shows a journalist asking a gun-toting and sorely banged-up extremist, “So how did the people of Ben Guerdane welcome you?" and the man mumbling in response: “Warmly".

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a writer on world affairs.

On Twitter: @rashmeerl

 

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http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...58-tehran-vienna-and-israels-nuclear-strategy

March 17, 2016, 07:00 am

Tehran, Vienna and Israel's nuclear strategy

By Louis René Beres, contributor

"And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all." — Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan" (1651)

For the most part, analyses of the July 2015 P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany) agreement in Vienna on the Iran nuclear program have focused upon Iranian compliance. Ironically, any such emphasis remains essentially beside the point, both legally and strategically. Even more worrisome, it ignores what will assuredly become a far more important result of the Iran nuclear agreement.

This overlooked and possibly unforeseen result is the Vienna pact's potentially critical impact upon Israel's "ambiguous" nuclear strategy.
By themselves, "covenants" (here, diplomatic agreements) can never adequately safeguard Israel, at least in strategic matters of openly existential consequence. Nuclear strategy, however, must become increasingly central to the tiny country's core orientations toward national security and survival. After all, once Tehran begins to more conspicuously operationalize a menacing posture of offensive missile options — now, after Vienna, almost inevitable — the Jewish State's expanded vulnerability will need to be correspondingly countered and reversed.

There is more. Although rarely mentioned, the efficacy of any obligatory Israeli countermeasures to still-ongoing Iranian nuclearization will have security implications for the United States. This is because, prima facie, a more secure Israeli ally in the Middle East would enhance America's security interests in the volatile region.

Some pertinent examples of the Vienna agreement's impact on overall regional stability can already be identified. For one, a nearly nuclear Iran will likely accelerate reciprocal nuclear ambitions in Saudi Arabia, and thereby, initiate a more-or-less expanding nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Very quickly, too, such destabilizing area developments could intersect, in both seen and unseen ways, and with both sub-state militarization, and corollary terrorist aggressions.

Noteworthy, too, is that any countervailing Saudi (Sunni) nuclear capacity will have been made possible by Pakistan, a non-Arab and non-Persian Islamic country, which is itself unstable, and which last year adopted a more tactical or "nuclear-war fighting" concept of nuclear deterrence. This expressly enlarged emphasis upon theater nuclear forces was intended primarily to enhance Islamabad's deterrence credibility vis-a-vis Delhi. Also meaningful, however, is that any such emphasis is likely contrary to deterrence strategies now being fashioned in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

In more narrowly specific military parlance, Pakistan is "going for counterforce," while Israel — although considerably less open about any such nuclear matters — is presumptively "going for counter-value."

It gets even more complicated. Looking ahead, various complex intersections of Saudi and Iranian interests could be most probable (and most concerning) where they would occur among the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Hezbollah or various al Qaeda surrogate elements. To render such plausible geostrategic intersections even more ominous, and perhaps more "opaque," they could further be affected by an already emergent "Cold War II." Oddly, for at least several reasons, Riyadh is now extending certain collaborative overtures to Moscow, taking some genuinely novel steps toward cementing a unique but also unpredictable sort of alignment with the "other" superpower.

Of necessity, Israeli countermeasures, inter alia, will need to be similarly complex, and could even involve an expectedly suitable assortment of interpenetrating or "synergistic" remedies. Among other remedies, this doctrinally based configuration of what military professionals would call "force multipliers" could include: (1) a calculated and controlled end to "deliberate nuclear ambiguity"; (2) recognizable enhancements of counter-value nuclear targeting doctrine; (3) incrementally greater deployments of ballistic-missile defenses; and (4) a progressively greater reliance on selective sea-basing of national nuclear forces. It could also mean taking appropriately new steps to challenge a predictable barrage of substantially shrill "nonproliferation" demands from the United Nations and the wider "international community."

For Israel, any significant compliance with allegedly legal demands for denuclearization could prove injurious, or even catastrophic. Indeed, even if all involved enemy states were to remain non-nuclear themselves, these longstanding adversaries, and also their terrorist proxies, could still find themselves in a palpably improved position to overwhelm Israel.

There is more. Sunni ISIS (or its various local surrogates), periodically launching rockets into southern Israel from the Egyptian Sinai, could sometime gain access to weapons-usable nuclear materials in Syria. More than likely, such materials will have originated with the Israeli-destroyed Al Kibar reactor back in 2007. Of course, if Israel had never undertaken "Operation Orchard," Syrian terror groups now fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad might now have access to certain already-assembled Syrian nuclear weapons.

It is easy to understand Israel's Arab enemies' and Iran's insistence upon a non-nuclear Israel. Should these Sunni and Shiite adversaries all be verifiably willing to remain non-nuclear after the P5+1 agreement, their cumulative conventional, chemical and biological capabilities could still bring intolerable harms to Israel. In other words, without what first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had earlier conceived as a "great equalizer," Israel would then need to face an immutably refractory principle of warfare: ultimately, "mass counts."

Israel has virtually no mass.

There is more. In law, as well as in strategy, war and genocide need not be mutually exclusive. Even today, both Palestinian and Iranian maps expose utterly unhidden plans for a faith-driven genocide against "the Jews." Religiously, these contemplated crimes against humanity — or "incitement to genocide," in the more derivative language of the 1948 Genocide Convention — stem from the unambiguous eschatologies of "sacred" violence.

With its own nuclear weapons, even if still "deliberately ambiguous," Israel could reasonably expect to deter a rational enemy's unconventional attacks, and also most large conventional ones. Further, while holding such weapons, Israel could still launch certain cost-effective non-nuclear preemptive strikes against an enemy state's hard (military) targets. Without nuclear weapons, any such conventional expressions of anticipatory self-defense would likely represent the onset of a much wider war.

The strategic rationale for this under-explored nuclear argument is easy to explain. In essence, without a recognizable nuclear backup in its deterrence posture, there might no longer exist sufficiently compelling threats of an Israeli counter-retaliation. It follows, although contrary to the current U.S. president's expressed preferences for global nuclear disarmament ( for a "world free of nuclear weapons"), that Israel's nuclear arsenal actually represents a valuable impediment to regional nuclear war.

In themselves, nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil. In some circumstances, after all, they could serve as indispensable implements of stable military deterrence. Moreover, there does exist, under settled international law, a "peremptory" national right to employ or even fire nuclear weapons in order to survive. This expressly residual right is codified at the 1996 Advisory Opinion on Nuclear Weapons, an authoritative opinion handed down by the U.N.'s International Court of Justice.

Plainly, following Vienna's de facto legitimization of Iranian nuclearization, Israel has much more to fear from Tehran. In this connection, if Iran's religious leadership should ever choose to abandon the usual premises of rational behavior in world politics — that is, the ordinary primacy of national survival — Jerusalem's exclusively defensive nuclear deterrence posture could fail. Nonetheless, even if Iran could sometime become a nuclear suicide-bomber in macrocosm, Israel's only rational strategy, moving forward, must remain a reciprocal enhancement of its vital nuclear deterrent.

There is more. Even if Israel's nuclear planners could reasonably assume that all enemy leaderships were expectedly rational, this would say nothing about the accuracy of information used in all of their actual calculations. In matters of military strategy, rationality refers only to the intention of maximizing certain expressed values or preferences — most importantly, national survival. It does not suggest anything about whether the information actually being used by an enemy is correct or incorrect.

It follows, among many other things, that fully rational enemy leaderships could still make assorted errors in calculation leading them toward conventional war, or, in the future, a nuclear war, with Israel. Less generally, there are several associated command and control issues that could sometime impel a perfectly rational adversary or alliance of adversaries to undertake intolerably risky nuclear behaviors. These issues include: (1) uncontrollable consequences of certain pre-delegations of launch authority; (2) presumptive deterrence-enhancing measures called "launch-on-warning" (alternatively, called "launch-upon-confirmed-attack"); and/or (3) recalling Pakistani instability, a coup d'etat.

For Israel, nuclear strategy is not a discretionary option. It is, rather, a "game" that it simply has to play. Whether a particular contest is undertaken against rational or irrational enemies — and against nation-state, or terrorist sub-state foes — Jerusalem/Tel Aviv will need to take into close account Carl von Clausewitz's original (19-century) concerns about the "fog of war" and "friction." Above all, this will mean anticipating consequentially vast differences between "intentions in war," and war "as it actually is." Undoubtedly, Israeli planners must acknowledge, these differences are apt to become even greater wherever nuclear weapons might be involved.

Covenants will not save Israel from Iranian progress on nuclear weapons. Instead, following Sun-Tzu, Israel will need to focus more intently and persuasively on sustainable nuclear deterrence. Long before anyone could even have imagined unlocking military secrets of the atom, the ancient Chinese military thinker had already opined, in "The Art of War": "Subjugating the enemy's army without actual fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."

Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). He is the author of many books and articles dealing with Israeli defense matters. Later this year, his 12th book, "Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy," will be published by Rowman and Littlefield. During the premiership of Ariel Sharon, Beres was chair of Project Daniel (2003-2004). He was born in Zürich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II.

 

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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...ilizing_candor_on_the_middle_east_130003.html

Obama's Destabilizing Candor on the Middle East

By David Ignatius
March 16, 2016

WASHINGTON -- What accounted for Vladimir Putin's surprise decision Monday to start pulling Russian forces from Syria? Is it possible that he spent last weekend reading Jeffrey Goldberg's piece in The Atlantic and decided that President Obama was right about the Syria mess, and that he should quit before he got any deeper in the quagmire?

Goldberg's account of how Obama fell out of love with the Arabs has inspired much commentary. But here are a few brief thoughts, occasioned in part by Putin's adoption of what in the Vietnam era was known as the "Aiken strategy" -- named after Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., who said in 1966 that the United States should declare victory and redeploy its forces -- but which we now might rechristen the "Goldberg variation."

-- Goldberg's piece is authoritative and compelling. But it illustrates why presidents usually save such explanations for their memoirs. Such candor is destabilizing: Friends and foes discover what the president really thinks, a matter usually shrouded by constructive ambiguity. We may have imagined Obama's growing disdain for the Arabs, his skepticism bordering on contempt for the foreign policy establishment and his "fatalistic" view about the limits of U.S. power. Now, in "The Obama Doctrine," we have chapter and verse.

When Obama visits Saudi Arabia this spring, will it help that we now know that Obama sardonically told the Australian prime minister "it's complicated" when asked whether the Saudis are America's friends? Ditto Goldberg's revelation that "in private" (ha!) Obama said of the Saudis' suppression of women's rights that "a country cannot function in the modern world when it is repressing half its population."

Maybe it will be beneficial for Obama to have been so open. Mutual hypocrisy has been one of the historic weaknesses of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. But this is the opposite of the Brent Scowcroft-style quiet diplomacy that Obama supposedly values.

-- Obama's tone throughout the article is supremely self-confident and also weirdly defensive; a reader senses that he has been waiting to tell off the foreign policy establishment since 2009, when he feels he got pushed into adding 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan despite his better judgment. His message, basically, is: I'm right, and you're not listening.

You might think, with a metastasizing Syria crisis that has claimed 300,000 lives, has wrecked that country and threatens European stability, that Obama might have second thoughts about the wisdom of his policy. Not so. Goldberg writes: "As he comes to the end of his presidency, Obama believes he has done his country a large favor by keeping it out of the [Syria] maelstrom -- and he believes, I suspect, that historians will one day judge him wise for having done so."

It's hard to know what would have been the right decisions in Syria. But how can this be an outcome in which the president takes such pride?

-- In such a comprehensive piece, there were two topics that were oddly minimized, since both were priorities for Obama from the day he took office.

The first was Obama's drive to achieve the nuclear agreement with Iran -- a goal to which he subordinated many other Middle East objectives. In online postings about the Goldberg article, Jay Solomon of The Wall Street Journal and Dennis Ross, a former senior administration official, have both argued that Obama didn't militarily enforce his "red line" against Syrian use of chemical weapons in part because he didn't want to derail the Iran talks.

Obama low-keys his expectations for the Iran deal these days, beyond its specific limits on Iran's nuclear program. But I suspect he views it as a fundamentally important strategic opening in the Middle East that could lead to eventual balance between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Sunni and Shiite, mending the feud that is ripping the Middle East apart. Personally, I think he's right to see this as the potential start of a new security architecture. Maybe he's saving that theme for his memoirs.

The second missing element is what I've described as Obama's "cosmic bet" in 2011 on Islamist democratic parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a Muslim Brotherhood clone, in Turkey. Obama treated Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the instruments of democratic change. That was an understandable decision, but we can see now that it was a very bad mistake. It spun the Arab Spring in a dangerous direction from which it never recovered.

Whatever else might be said about the coup that installed Abdel Fatah al-Sissi as president in Egypt, it probably prevented an Egyptian-Turkish Muslim Brotherhood alliance that would have been catastrophic. Goldberg doesn't really address this strand of policy.

-- The overarching question in "The Obama Doctrine" is whether Obama was right to reduce America's "overextension" in the Middle East, as White House aide Ben Rhodes puts it. Obama reasoned that the Middle East "is no longer terribly important to American interests," that there's "little an American president can do to make it a better place" and that American meddling leads to the deaths of our soldiers and "the eventual hemorrhaging of U.S. credibility and power."

Obama was wrong on all three, in my view: The Middle East does matter; the United States can help, and not doing so hurts our global standing. But even if he's right, he needs to reckon better with one clear lesson of his presidency: As the United States stepped back in the Middle East, others stepped forward. Russia has moved into the vacuum left by retreating American power; so has Iran; so has Saudi Arabia; so has the Islamic State.

Is the United States better off in a world where these other powers advanced as we stepped back? I don't think so.

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group

davidignatius@washpost.com

 

[danielboon]

NK NEWS‏@nknewsorg 12h12 hours ago South Korea to move tourist DMZ observatory closer to North Korea: https://www.nknews.org/2016/03/n-korea-lambasts-s-korean-observatory-relocation-plan/…

KBS World Radio‏@KBSWorldRadio 11h11 hours ago
[Exclusive] S. Korean UN Ambassador: More Sanctions if N. Korea Conducts 5th Nuke Test http://bit.ly/1UAUCjl

Nathan J Hunt‏@ISNJH 7h7 hours ago
DPRK calls for UNSC meeting over joint US / ROK drills ongoing http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/world/north-korea-unsc-meeting/index.html…

Vincent Lee‏@Rover829 6h6 hours ago
Yonhap: S.Korea 6-party nuclear talks chief to visit #China tomorrow, plans to meet his Chinese counterpart #DPRK

 

[danielboon]

not good

Steven L Herman‏@W7VOA 9h9 hours ago Pyongyang radio broadcasts "special statement" that KPA awaiting order to strike with "miniaturized, precise and diversified nuclear bombs."


BEIJING, March 17 (Yonhap) -- A Chinese budget carrier, Spring Airlines Co., has delayed its plan to fly to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, citing "market conditions," a company official said Thursday.
The Chinese carrier had originally planned to begin scheduled flights to Pyongyang from February, but the decision to delay the plan came after North Korea's fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and rocket launch about a month later.
An official of Spring Airlines in Shanghai, who spoke on the condition of anonymity by telephone, said the decision was not related to new U.N. sanctions against North Korea's nuclear test and rocket launch, both of which violated previous U.N. resolutions.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news...r.com?7258e9a0

 

[Housecarl]

Originally posted by Repairman Jack over at the current big Syria thread....
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...leges-should-be-allowed&p=5989510#post5989510

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-isis-committing-genocide-in-iraq-syria.html

Secretary of State

Kerry declares ISIS committing genocide against Christians, others

Published March 17, 2016 · FoxNews.com
Comments 1319

Video

Secretary of State John Kerry announced Thursday he’s determined the Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, after facing heavy pressure from lawmakers and rights groups to make the rare designation.

“In my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims,” Kerry said at the State Department on Thursday. Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.

He accused ISIS of “crimes against humanity” and "ethnic cleansing."

The announcement was a surprise, at least in terms of the timing. A day earlier, a State Department spokesman said they would miss a congressionally mandated March 17 deadline to make a decision. Yet as the department took heat from lawmakers for the expected delay, the department confirmed Thursday morning that Kerry had reached the decision that Christians, Yazidis and Shiite groups are victims of genocide.

It comes after the House this week passed a nonbinding resolution by a 393-0 vote condemning ISIS atrocities as genocide.

https://w.graphiq.com/w/bURYODZPHj7?data-uid=&data-campaign=d578458b6e

Still, Kerry's finding will not obligate the United States to take additional action against ISIS militants and does not prejudge any prosecution against its members, said U.S. officials.

Kerry, though, urged others to join in holding the group “accountable;” he called for a “independent investigation” as well as a court or tribunal to take action to that end.

Saying the terror network is “genocidal” in what it says, believes and does, Kerry recited a litany of documented atrocities including the execution of Christians in Iraq “solely because of their faith” and of Yazidis.

Lawmakers and others who have advocated for the finding had sharply criticized the department's disclosure Wednesday that deadline would be missed. The officials said Kerry concluded his review just hours after that announcement and that the criticism had not affected his decision.

The determination marks only the second time a U.S. administration has declared that a genocide was being committed during an ongoing conflict.

The first was in 2004, when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region constituted genocide. Powell reached that determination amid much lobbying from human rights groups, but only after State Department lawyers advised him that it would not -- contrary to legal advice offered to previous administrations -- obligate the United States to act to stop it.

In that case, the lawyers decided that the 1948 U.N. Convention against genocide did not require countries to prevent genocide from taking place outside their territory. Powell instead called for the U.N. Security Council to appoint a commission to investigate and take appropriate legal action if it agreed with the genocide determination.

The officials said Kerry's determination followed a similar finding by department lawyers.

Although the United States is involved in military strikes against ISIS and has helped prevent some incidents of ethnic cleansing, notably of Yazidis, some advocates argue that a genocide determination would require additional U.S. action.

In making his decision, Kerry weighed whether the militants' targeting of Christians and other minorities meets the definition of genocide, according to the U.N. Convention: "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

His determination, however, does not carry the legal implication of a verdict of guilt or conviction on genocide charges, the officials said. Such decisions will be left to international or other tribunals.

In a bid to push the review process, several groups released reports last week documenting what they said is clear evidence that the legal standard has been met.

The Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians, which had applauded Monday's House resolution, said they hoped the delay would ensure that Kerry makes the determination.

"There is only one legal term for this, and that is genocide," said Knights of Columbus chief Carl Anderson.

The groups' 280-page report identified by name more than 1,100 Christians who they said had been killed by ISIS. It detailed numerous instances of people kidnapped, raped, sold into slavery and driven from their homes, along with the destruction of churches.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

______

ETA: So now what are "they" going to do about it? Housecarl