WAR 03-13-2021-to-03-19-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry for the delay folks.....

(460) 02-20-2021-to-02-26-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
WAR - 02-20-2021-to-02-26-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****


(461) 02-27-2021-to-03-05-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
WAR - 02-27-2021-to-03-05-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(462) 03-06-2021-to-03-12-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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

(459) 02-13-2021-to-02-19-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 02-13-2021-to-02-19-2021___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (460)...

www.timebomb2000.com

--------------------------------------
Idiots.......

Posted for fair use.....

Latest U.S. proposal for ending Afghan conflict runs counter to Taliban beliefs | FDD's Long War Journal

The plan called for the current Afghan constitution to serve as the framework for a future constitution, elections, and power sharing, all of which have been flatly rejected by the Taliban in the past.

www.longwarjournal.org

Latest U.S. proposal for ending Afghan conflict runs counter to Taliban beliefs

By Bill Roggio | March 12, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio


The United States recently drafted and proposed a plan to end the conflict in Afghanistan, but it featured several proposals that are diametrically opposed to the Taliban’s ideology, opening the door for it to be dismissed out of hand.

The so-called “peace plan” called for the current Afghan constitution to serve as the framework for a future constitution, elections, and power sharing – all of which have been flatly rejected by the Taliban in the past.

The plan, which was published by TOLONews, was reportedly sent on Feb. 28 to the Afghan government and the Taliban by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation.

The proposal included three parts: the “Guiding Principles for Afghanistan’s Future,” a “Transitional Peace Government and Political Roadmap,” and a “Permanent and Comprehensive Ceasefire.”

In the first part, the plan called for using the current Afghan constitution as a “template” for the future constitution and elections. In the second part, the plan calls for a transitional “Peace Government” where the two sides of the conflict will share power. The Taliban has also previously rejected any attempt at a cease fire, which comprised the third part. All three are antithetical to the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam.

[Items in bold below are directly from the text of proposed agreement.]

“The 2004 Constitution will be the initial template from which the future Constitution will be prepared.“
The Taliban has outwardly rejected the Afghan constitution, and in the past has referred to it as a tool of “the stooge Kabul administration.” From a Taliban statement released on its official website, Voice of Jihad, in 2012:

“[T]he Islamic Emirate has been engaged in a struggle and Jihad for the past one and a half decade to establish an Islamic government … It is for this purpose and for bringing about peace and stability in Afghanistan that we have increased our political efforts to come to mutual understanding with the world in order to solve the current ongoing situation.”
“But this understanding does not mean a surrender from Jihad and neither is it connected to an acceptance of the constitution of the stooge Kabul administration but rather the Islamic Emirate is utilizing its political wing alongside its military presence and Jihad in order to realize the national and Islamic aspirations of the nation and its martyrs.”

At the Moscow conference in Nov. 2018, the Taliban said that the Afghan constitution “has been copied from the West and has been imposed on Afghanistan’s Muslim society under the shadow of occupation.”

“[The] Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers it necessary that [the] constitution must be based on principles of Islamic religion, national interests, historical achievements and social justice,” it continued. The Taliban has insisted that only Islamic scholars of its liking can draft a new constitution.

“The future Constitution will provide for free and fair elections for Afghanistan’s national political leadership in which all Afghan citizens have a right to participate. Ultimate authority to take decisions of paramount national importance will rest with the country’s elected government officials.” 

The Taliban has been very clear that elections are against Islam. In June 2020, just three months after signing the Doha agreement with the U.S., the Taliban said that Afghan government officials are “the Deviants … who are trained in the poisonous deviant beliefs of atheism, communism, secularism, democracy, and other satanic western and disbelieving ideologies in order to mislead the Muslims with their deviant ideologies.”

“The Deviants are the people who work for the implementation of secularism and deviant laws instead of sharia [Islamic law],” the Taliban said.

The Taliban has rejected elections numerous times in the recent past. For instance, in Oct. 2018, it said it is a “religious duty” to oppose elections in any form, as elections have “no Islamic or Afghan essence.”

“In the end we must emphasize that the election process has no Islamic or Afghan essence but is a foreign plot to prolong occupation, mask military invasion and deceive the common mindset,” the Taliban argued. “Hence, it is the duty of every true Muslim and Afghan to nip this plot in the bud so that the invaders are disappointed in their plans and forced to withdraw from our homeland.”

The Taliban has been explicit that it will not accept the Afghan constitution or any form of government except for the return to power of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the formal name of its rule.

In March 2020, just one week after the Taliban signed the Doha agreement, it issued a religious decree calling for an “Islamic government” to be formed in Afghanistan. The Taliban uses the terms “Islamic government,” Islamic system, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan interchangeably. This “Islamic government” is to be led by Taliban emir Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the “lawful ruler” of Afghanistan.

“The agreement with the United States does not alter the status of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s supreme leader as the lawful ruler of Afghanistan,” the Taliban said in a statement written in Pashtu and published on Voice of Jihad.

In July 2020, Taliban emir Mullah Maibatullah said the Taliban is “on the threshold of establishing an Islamic government” and a “pure Islamic government” after two decades of fighting.

In Feb. 2021, the Taliban called for the return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

“[T]his corrupt and illegitimate regime [the Afghan government] that lacks all domestic and international legitimacy must be replaced with an Islamic government, concerning which the declaration of Islamic Emirate is on point …” the Taliban said.

“All appointments to the Peace Government shall be made according to the principle of equity between the two Parties to this Agreement…“
This part of the agreement would call for the Taliban to share power with the Afghan government, something the Taliban has stated it would never do. For instance, in Jan. 2016, the Taliban said it has not waged jihad for decades “for the sake of some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power.”

The Islamic Emirate has not readily embraced this death and destruction for the sake of some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power. On the contrary they epitomize the nation’s hopes and aspirations for a just and peaceful government that will strive to build our beloved nation on the basis of Islamic law, social justice and national interests.
The people of Afghanistan readily sacrifice their sons to achieve this objective. And the Emirate – as the true representative of our people – will not end its peaceful and armed endeavors until we have achieved this hope of Afghanistan.

Again, the Taliban has been very clear in its public statements that it would settle for nothing less than the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Mullah Haibatullah as its leader.

It has stated that elections stand in opposition to Islam and thus the Taliban’s desired system of governance. It has said sharing power with a government that it has called “illegitimate,” “impotent,” a “puppet” and “stooge” of the West – and most importantly, “un-Islamic” is unacceptable. None of these stances are new.

One week after Khalilzad’s proposal was made public, the Taliban has yet to publicly comment on it, which should give an indication as to how seriously the group is considering it. Read: Likely not at all.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Al Qaeda leader threatens Myanmar in new video | FDD's Long War Journal

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri threatens Myanmar in a newly released video, which attempts to connect the plight of Muslims there to the jihadists' global struggle.

www.longwarjournal.org

Al Qaeda leader threatens Myanmar in new video

By Thomas Joscelyn | March 12, 2021 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn

Ayman al Zawahiri, as seen in “The Wound of the Rohingya is the Wound of the Ummah.”

Al Qaeda’s main propaganda arm, As Sahab, has released a new video titled, “The Wound of the Rohingya is the Wound of the Ummah.” The 21-minute propaganda film features undated audio clips of Ayman al Zawahiri, the overall emir of the global terrorist and insurgency organization.

The video is styled like a short documentary, with footage of Western commentators spliced together with scenes of soldiers in Myanmar committing atrocities against civilians. A narrator comments throughout, using the images to make various points. The release opens with an image of As Sahab’s logo alongside the watermarks of the media houses for each of al Qaeda’s regional branches. This graphic (seen below) is commonly used in al Qaeda videos and is intended to convey the global organization’s cohesion.

Al Qaeda’s official media houses.
“The entire world has witnessed the countless massacres that the Rohingyan Muslims have been subjected to,” Zawahiri says toward the beginning of the production. But this “problem” has led to only “slight condemnation and token gestures of humanitarian aid,” he adds.

As Sahab’s narrator uses Zawahiri’s words to launch into a broadside against democracy, the West and the international community.

“The latest coup [in Myanmar] has shaken the governments and organizations in the hypocritical Western World for which the idol of democracy is more sacrosanct than the slaughter of thousands of innocent people and the forced displacement of millions,” As Sahab’s man says, according to an English-language transcript of his remarks. This same narrator goes on to criticize the Western media and diplomats for defending the “democratic government of Myanmar,” even while it was allegedly an “active participant in the genocide of the Rohingyan Muslims and the subsequent cover up of the crimes.”

The video includes archival footage of Myanmar’s deposed civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, alongside President Barack Obama at the White House. Other images of former Secretary of State John Kerry and current President Joseph Biden are used to underscore America’s support for Myanmar’s democracy, which al Qaeda accuses of being complicit in the genocide.

“Instead of holding this government accountable for its abetment in the crimes committed by the military, Western governments and organizations strongly backed it and are today demanding its return,” As Sahab’s narrator says.

Zawahiri then accuses the West of hypocrisy for failing to truly punish Myanmar. “As for the so-called democratic government of Myanmar, upon which the West had lavished much praise for its success in establishing a blind democratic order, no sanctions were imposed on it, no campaign was launched against it, and no alliance was formed to stop its crimes, in spite of the fact that the crime is well-documented, and in graphic, horrendous detail,” Zawahiri says. “The reason for this hypocrisy is simple: The victims are Muslims.”

The video includes various images of Muslims recounting their oppression at the hands of Buddhist forces.

The narrator uses these examples to criticize the United Nations and other international institutions. “In spite of the horrendous nature of the genocide and racial cleansing of the Muslims of Rohingya, the ‘world community’ has remained silent, if not passively supportive of these crimes,” the narrator says. “The reason is simple: the victims are Muslims, not Christians, Buddhists or atheists – the occupants of the five permanent seats in the UN Security Council.”

As Sahab then cuts to an archival recording of Osama Bin Laden from 2006. “And I say, clarifying their nomination of the Security Council, that Crusader International and pagan Buddhism hold the 5 permanent seats and what is called the privilege of the right of veto in what is called the Security Council,” bin Laden says in the clip.

The al Qaeda founder, who was killed in May 2011, goes on to argue that Muslim-majority countries are underrepresented at the United Nations despite their large populations and control of significant territory. “The UN is an organization of unbelief, and he who is pleased with its laws is an unbeliever, and it is a tool used to implement the Zionist/Crusader resolution, including the declarations of war against us and the division and occupation of our land,” bin Laden says.

Zawahiri accuses Muslim countries of failing to come to the aid of the Rohingya as well. “Unfortunately, the response to these massacres by the governments in the Muslim World was no different from the Western response,” Zawahiri says. “And this should come as no surprise since these governments are essentially a Western creation, client regimes imposed on Muslims for the protection of Western interests.”

Zawahiri returns to this theme – accusing Muslim governments of serving the West – later. “Thus, I shall not waste my words on the petty criminals in Myanmar, nor on the bigger criminals in the Western World or for that matter, the client slavish regimes that have outlived their shelf life in the Muslim World,” Zawahiri says. “My message is for my Muslim brothers in Burma and for the Muslims the world over. To them I say: Beggars are not the choosers. This is the law of history.”

After citing the Quran, Zawahiri then calls on Muslims in Myanmar and elsewhere to strike the government. “Therefore, this criminal Buddhist government that has been pampered by the West shall not be deterred except by force and by making it pay the price of its aggression within and beyond Myanmar,” Zawahiri says. “This is a binding duty on the entire Ummah.”

Toward the end of the production, As Sahab’s narrator claims the “tragedy of our Rohingyan brothers and sisters is the same tragedy that has afflicted our people in Syria.” He then adds the conflict in Kashmir.

“As for the oppression faced by the Uyghur Muslims, the criminality of the Chinese government has crossed all limits,” the narrator says. As a tweet from China’s representatives is displayed on screen, he says: “Chinese diplomats in America have the audacity to say that this is something for which the world should be grateful to China!”

The narrator also connects the French military’s actions “in the Islamic Maghreb, specifically in Mali,” the American bombings in Afghanistan and the war in Somalia to events in Myanmar. He claims that all of these, and more, are among the “tragedies” affecting the Ummah, or worldwide community of Muslims.

Zawahiri returns at the end of the video to emphasize that the plight of Muslims in Myanmar is part of a global struggle.

“The wound of the Rohingyan Muslims is the wound of the Ummah in its entirety,” Zawahiri says. He then attempts to connect the situation in Myanmar to al Qaeda’s global jihad.

“Our enemies shall try to divide us,” Zawahiri explains. “They will say to the Egyptian: Your concern is Egypt alone. To the Maghreb they shall say: Your concern is the Maghreb alone and so forth to the Syrian, the Indian, the Chechen, the Philippine, the Somali and the rest.”

For Zawahiri, the situation in all of these countries is a concern for the jihadists. He criticizes the West and international institutions for maintaining lists of global terrorists. “And if you step over the boundaries that we have enclosed and imprisoned you in, you are an international terrorist,” Zawahiri says, when supposedly summarizing the international community’s response. “We [the U.N. and the West] shall put your name in the list of wanted terrorists, place sanctions on you and engage with you with bombs and missiles,” Zawahiri claims.

With an image of bin Laden displayed on screen, Zawahiri closes the video by again threatening Myanmar.

“This is the way forward: Striking the interests of Myanmar and the criminals of Myanmar wherever we are able to do so,” Zawahiri informs his followers.

One of the last images displayed on screen places various “martyrs,” including jihadist ideologues and al Qaeda figures, alongside historical figures, including Muslims who opposed various colonial powers. The image (seen below) is intended to portray al Qaeda’s agenda and program as part of a decades-long struggle against stronger foreign powers.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

 

[Housecarl]

Big DOT........

Posted for fair use.....

UK 'set to increase nuclear warhead numbers for the first time since Cold War'

THE UK Government is expected to set out plans to increase the number of Trident nuclear warheads next week in what has been described as a…

www.thenational.scot

13 hrs ago UK Government 'set to increase Trident nuclear warhead numbers'

By Laura Webster @LauraEWebsterr Digital Audience and Content Editor

14 comments


THE UK Government is expected to set out plans to increase the number of Trident nuclear warheads next week in what has been described as a “highly provocative” move.

In 2015 the UK’s strategic defence review committed to “reduce the overall nuclear weapon stockpile to no more than 180” by the 2020s – but Whitehall sources indicated this cap may increase.

A report in The Guardian newspaper said the reasons for the move are unclear, and the exact increase in warhead numbers is currently unknown.

READ MORE: Trident: Labour to pledge commitment to nuclear weapons and NATO today

There is speculation however that the increase could be planned to persuade the US to co-fund aspects of the Trident replacement warhead in the next decade.

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons became effective in January of this year. The legally binding international agreement aims to ban nuclear weapons with a goal of their total elimination.

Addressing suggestions that the UK could increase its warhead numbers, David Cullen, the director of the Nuclear Information Service, said: “If this is confirmed, this would be a highly provocative move.

“The UK has repeatedly pointed to its reducing warhead stockpile as evidence that it is fulfilling its legal duties under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”

He went on: “If they are tearing up decades of progress in reducing numbers, it will be a slap in the face to the 190 other members of the treaty, and will be regarded as a shocking breach of faith.”

MPs backed renewing Trident in 2016. Most Tories supported this, Labour were split and the SNP voted against.

The majority of Scots (56%) believe Trident should not be renewed. Trident is based on the west coast of Scotland, at HMNB Clyde.

Last month Labour announced its “non-negotiable” support for the nuclear weapons.

READ MORE: Trident removal critical to security of independent Scotland

According to the Ministry of Defence, the cost of developing the next generation of Dreadnought submarines to carry the new warhead may be upwards of £30 billion.

A spokesperson for the MoD said: “The UK is committed to maintaining its independent nuclear deterrent, which exists to deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life.

“Replacing the warhead and building four new Dreadnought class submarines are UK sovereign programmes that will maintain the deterrent into the future. We will not comment on speculation about the integrated review, which will be published on Tuesday.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

When it comes to China’s nuclear weapons, numbers aren’t everything

Nuclear risks between the United States and China manifest differently than those of the past U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition, or that of the United States and Russia today.

www.defensenews.com

Commentary
When it comes to China’s nuclear weapons, numbers aren’t everything

By: Pranay Vaddi and Ankit Panda   13 hours ago

Spectators wave Chinese flags as military vehicles carrying DF-41 ballistic missiles roll during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of communist China in Beijing. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)



Threat inflation tends to lead to poor policy outcomes. When it comes to China’s nuclear arsenal, it’s important for American leaders to accurately understand the nature of the problem. Nuclear risks between the United States and China manifest differently than those of the past U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition, or that of the United States and Russia today.

Concerns regarding nuclear use in the U.S.-China context stem from, among other things, mutual mistrust and the manipulation of risk below the nuclear threshold, largely from qualitative force posture and strategy choices each country has made. Quantitative factors — most importantly the size of China’s nuclear arsenal — are less pressing.

Despite this reality, a recent exchange between Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, reveals how the nature of nuclear risk with China continues to be mischaracterized in Washington. Cotton expressed concern during a Senate hearing that China may attain “nuclear overmatch” against the United States if it were to triple or quadruple its nuclear stockpile. Adm. Davidson agreed.

But Cotton misstated the degree to which China may expand its nuclear warhead stockpile relative to the United States. In doing so, he suggests the United States should focus more on quantitative nuclear arms racing, stating that “it is much better to win an arms race than to lose a war.”

Cotton’s framing gets several facts wrong. First, the U.S. Defense Department’s most recent report on the Chinese military states that China’s warhead stockpile is “currently estimated to be in the low-200s.” This pales in comparison to the total U.S. inventory of 5,800 nuclear warheads.



Of these, 3,800 are available for deployment, with approximately 1,400 warheads already on alert delivery systems. Additionally, 150-200 gravity bombs sit in protected bunkers at five European air bases. Insofar as “overmatch” — a concept with little use to nuclear strategists — exists, it is squarely with the United States.

Cotton also incorrectly suggests that the U.S.-Russia New START arms control pact limits the United States to “800 deployed nuclear weapons.” In reality, New START permits 1,550 deployed warheads (including bombers counted as a single warhead apiece per treaty rules).

So why are senior officials and members of Congress so focused on numerical comparisons? Examining qualitative differences between U.S. and Chinese nuclear forces and accompanying doctrines is harder to do. These differences tell a slightly less alarmist story when it comes to the bilateral nuclear competition, but by no means present easy answers to the project of deterring China or avoiding nuclear war.

Sign up for our Early Bird Brief
Get the defense industry's most comprehensive news and information straight to your inbox




Since China’s first nuclear test in 1964, its leaders have not sought to “race to parity” with the United States and Russia. This policy originates in part from former chairman of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, whose had a dismissive view of nuclear weapons, calling them “paper tigers.” But even as China has modernized its nuclear forces and practiced more sophisticated nuclear operations, it maintains a lean nuclear force — one postured to survive an adversary’s first strike and still credibly maintain the “minimal means of reprisal.” Ongoing Chinese investments in road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles and better submarine-launched ballistic missiles support this goal.





China boosts defense budget again, exceeding $208 billion
China's leadership wants to see an increase in military training and better preparedness across the board as well as improved defense-related scientific, technological and industrial efforts.

By: Mike Yeo

Authoritative Chinese sources, like the 2013 edition of Science of Military Strategy, acknowledge that Beijing needs to be wary of arms control and the potential trade-off between transparency and security due to its “relatively small and weak” nuclear force.



U.S. Strategic Command disregards China’s “no first use” policy, maintained since 1964; still, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force operates as if the policy is in effect. Unlike the United States, Beijing demates most warheads from their delivery systems in peacetime and only conducts launch exercises that simulate retaliatory nuclear operations.

Despite this, however, China is increasing the size and diversity of its nuclear arsenal. Even if it is nowhere close to matching the U.S. in sheer size, new types of Chinese systems may introduce important sources of escalation risk.

For just one example, consider the DF-26: a dual-capable missile system capable of “hot-swapping” conventional and nuclear warheads. This payload ambiguity is likely a feature — not a bug — for Chinese leaders seeking to manipulate risk in a crisis and thereby enhance deterrence; but it could also amplify escalatory incentives in a crisis.

The United States is in the process of modernizing its aging nuclear arsenal. Modernization goals have largely been designed to pace Russia’s expansive nuclear arsenal. Given the significantly more complex strategic deterrence requirements present in a U.S.-Russia context, any U.S. nuclear force that credibly deters Russian nuclear first-use will also do so for China.

Overinflating the nature of the challenge from China’s nuclear forces would be especially unwise if it leads to U.S. overinvestment in nuclear systems, when the challenges in the Asia-Pacific region today require improved conventional deterrence. Strategy, after all, requires matching ends with means. Bipartisan support already exists for new conventional firepower, as evidenced by approval for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.



Finally, it is precisely because mistrust remains high and is growing between the U.S. and China that the two should consider arms control talks out of a mutual interest in averting war and minimizing the costs of war if deterrence should fail.

For many Americans, arms control brings to mind New START-style measures, including numerical data exchanges and reentry vehicle on-site inspections. But arms control — in its broadest sense — can include qualitative risk-reduction measures. Washington can address uncertainty regarding the growth potential of China’s warhead stockpile, for instance. Securing reciprocal commitments to cease fissile material production is a smart first step.

Chinese leaders, meanwhile, should view the Cotton-Davidson interaction as an example of how U.S. officials may interpret China’s nuclear modernization in a vacuum of information and dialogue. Chinese officials have ducked U.S. offers for strategic dialogue in recent years; hopefully, following an upcoming ministerial meeting, U.S. and Chinese civilian and military officials can discuss — and begin to define — strategic stability. By beginning this dialogue, U.S. officials can focus on solving the qualitative challenges that actually exist, rather than getting bogged down in imagined concerns about “overmatch.”

Pranay Vaddi is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where Ankit Panda is a Stanton Senior fellow of the same program. Vaddi previously worked at the U.S. State Department. Panda has consulted for the United Nations on nonproliferation and disarmament matters.










Recommended for you




Taking a closer look at the health of the US Navy





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





For first time, France and Cyprus join Israel’s Noble Dina naval drill





The KC-46 tanker’s most infamous problem isn’t the one that impacts pilots the most

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

After The Abraham Accords: Nuclear Deterrence And Nuclear War In The Middle East

Though the Trump-brokered Abraham Agreements[1] with selected Sunni Arab states might first appear sensible, there is actually little here to celebrate. In essence, these Agreements exhibit little more than just another self-serving contrivance of America’s former president. At best, these...

moderndiplomacy.eu

Defense
After The Abraham Accords: Nuclear Deterrence And Nuclear War In The Middle East

0 Comments

Published 17 hours ago on March 13, 2021
By Prof. Louis René Beres


Though the Trump-brokered Abraham Agreements[1] with selected Sunni Arab states might first appear sensible, there is actually little here to celebrate. In essence, these Agreements exhibit little more than just another self-serving contrivance of America’s former president. At best, these Agreements codify variously harmonious diplomatic relations between states that were never genuine adversaries. At worst, they further compromise Israel’s existential safety vis-à-vis Iran, a security diminution already exacerbated by Donald Trump’s May 8, 2018 withdrawal of the United States from JCPOA pact obligations.[2]

Credo quia absurdum, said the ancient philosopher Tertullian, “I believe because it is absurd.” The JCPOA did exhibit substantial shortcomings as a prospective corrective to Iranian nuclearization, but this did not mean that Israel or the United States would necessarily fare better after America’s unilateral abrogation. In these earlier Trump policies contra Iran, the president’s conspicuous illogic was “impeccable.” In aptly philosophical terms, such illogic was exactly what one ought to have expected from a president guided not by reason, but by “mass.”

The “mass man,” says 20th century Spanish thinker Jose Ortega y’Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses (1930), “has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.” Donald J. Trump was Ortega’s “mass man” par excellence. On matters of national and international security, he learned only “in his own flesh.”[3]
For Israel, it is high time for candor. Not many thinking Israelis will sleep better by presuming that, “post-Abraham,” they are less subject to aggressions from Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and/or the United Arab Emirates. What should authentically disturb their sleep, however, is the sorely realistic prospect of still-deteriorating Israeli relations with Iran.

As long as Israel’s Iranian adversary continues to nuclearize – a scenario that has not been rendered any less worrisome by the Abraham Accords – these Trump-fostered agreements must figure as a net-negative. These public-relations based Agreements have not only failed to reduce mutually belligerent sentiments between Jerusalem and Tehran, they have also had the effect of further marginalizing Iran. When the Shiite Islamic Republic feels more and more apprehensive about the new US-brokered alignments between a “composite” foe – a prospective “super-enemy” comprised of Israel and certain Sunni Arab states – it could more likely consider various strategies of preemption.

Always, the core struggle is intellectual. What sort of dialectical thinking can we expect on both sides?[4] Among other things, the likelihood of any such destabilizing decision would depend upon Tehran’s simultaneous assessment of aggressive enemy intentions and Sunni enemy state nuclearization. In those circumstances wherein the “whole” result of any worrisome military intersection would appear greater than the sum of all “parts,” the pertinent relationship would seemingly be synergistic.

The attendant risks to Israel here would be additive to the previously-mentioned synergy obtaining between US JCOPOA withdrawal and US brokered Abraham Accords.
Understanding Analytic Background
Always, there must be a suitable analytic background for correctly understanding such Agreements and their multiple implications.[5] Cicero’s epigraph to Emmerich de Vattel’s foundational work of international law, The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law (1758), offers a good place to begin: “…there is nothing on earth more acceptable to the Supreme Deity who rules over this whole world than the councils and assemblages of men bound together by law, which are called States.”[6] This classic observation remains significant for at least two compelling reasons: The statement (1) underscores critically primary connections between international law and natural law;[7] and (2) overstates the civilizational benefits of a nation-centric world politics.[8]

Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the people of earth have countenanced a geopolitical system based on competitive power politics, belligerent nationalism and endless conflict. This corrosive system of Realpolitik was formally transformed into authoritative law by this landmark treaty.[9] When Realpolitik is joined with a world of proliferating nuclear weapons, the risks of remaining on a seventeenth-century course of international relations exceed all conceivable benefits.
For relevant political leaders, there is much to learn. The Westphalian peace which put an end to the Thirty Years’ War (the last of the major religious wars sparked by the Protestant Reformation) acknowledged a world system that lacked any loci of central governance. This unstable condition of structural anarchystill stands in marked contrast to any neatly sanitizing or falsely reassuring assumption of solidarity between states.

Such a “peremptory” expectation (known formally in international law as a jus cogens assumption)[10] was already been mentioned in Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis(533 C.E.); in Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace (1625);and most plainly of all, in Emmerich De Vattel, The Law of Nations, or The Principles of Natural Law (1758).

Vattel’s “first principle” of the Law of Nations is the mutual independence and dependence of sovereign states. Though “foreign nations have no right to interfere in the government of an independent state….” (II, sec. 57), these states are “bound mutually to promote the society of the human race…” and, correspondingly, “owe one another all the duties which the safety and welfare of that society require.” In brief, as Vattel clarifies in his Introduction: “What one man owes to other men, one Nation, in its turn, owes to other Nations.”[11]

Paths to a Nuclear War in the Middle East Involving Israel
Before appropriately legal remedies can be identified and assessed, one key question needs to be asked: How, more-or-less exactly, might Israel ultimately find itself in some configuration or other of an actual nuclear war?[12] What, with still greater exactitude, are the more-or-less identifiable circumstances under which Israel could sometime discover itself involved (whether wittingly or unwittingly) with belligerent nuclear weapons use? To meaningfully answer these complex questions, capable analysts must integrate the expressly strategic aspects of their necessary investigations with the jurisprudential.[13]

There can be no credibly successful ways of managing the latter without also understanding and applying the former.

For the moment, all such concerns could appear extraneous, gratuitous or simply without useful foundation. Israel, after all, remains the only presumptive nuclear weapons state in the region. Nonetheless, certain still malleable order-of-battle considerations could change quickly and unexpectedly, perhaps even, from moment to moment.[14] In the always unpredictable Middle East, this “fluidity” is most specifically plausible in regard to future aggressions[15] from Iran.[16]

Iran will not be easily deflected from its seemingly long-term nuclear ambitions. On the contrary, the implicit existential threat of the Abraham Accords will prod even more accelerated patterns of nuclearization. All things considered, Tehran’s confirmable membership in the Nuclear Club now appears more than likely within just the next several years. This “membership” is reasonable to expect following former US President Trump’s unilateral JCPOA withdrawal.[17]

Israeli Nuclear Deterrence and Non-Nuclear War
Even in the absence of any actual Iranian nuclear adversary in the region,[18] the Jewish State could still find itself having to rely upon nuclear deterrence against certain biological and/or massive conventional threats.[19] Acknowledging such a prospectively existential reliance, the residual prospect of atomic weapons firings should never be ruled out prematurely or altogether.[20] In all cases, Israel’s nuclear strategy and forces must remain oriented toward successful deterrence; never to actual war fighting.[21] Already, with this in mind, Jerusalem has likely taken certain suitable steps to reject tactical or relatively low-yield “battlefield” nuclear weapons and any corresponding operational plans for counter-force targeting.

For Israel, always and without exception, nuclear weapons can make sense only for deterrence ex ante; not for revenge ex post.[22]

Contrary to conventional wisdom, both nuclear deterrence and associated forms of nuclear strategy, including preemption,[23] can possibly support the authoritative expectations of international law.[24] In the end, the adequacy of international law in preventing a nuclear war in the Middle East will depend upon much more than formal treaties, customs and “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.”[25] It will depend especially upon the success or failure of particular country strategies in the volatile region. If Israel’s nuclear strategy should successfully reduce the threat of nuclear war, either because of viable forms of nuclear deterrence or because of essential preemptive strikes,[26] this strategy could then be considered as an authentic component of international law enforcement.[27]

Relevant threat scenarios should remind Israel of an always overriding need for applicable nuclear theory based upon coherent thought.[28] This core need would postulate a counter-value targeted nuclear retaliatory force that is recognizably secure from enemy first-strikes and is seemingly capable of penetrating an enemy state’s deployed active defenses. Inter alia, to best meet this imperative security expectation after the Abraham Accords and America’s JCPOA withdrawal, the IDF would be well-advised to continuously advance with its sea-basing (submarines) of designated portions of the country’s nuclear deterrent force.
To satisfy the equally important and complex requirements of “penetration-capability,” Tel-Aviv will have to stay visibly well ahead of foreseeable enemy air defense refinements. All such recommendations, if duly followed, could convincingly enhance not only Israel’s national security, but, correspondingly, the more general prospects for nuclear war avoidance in the Middle East. “Everything is very simple in war,” says Clausewitz, in his classical discussion of “friction” in On War, “but the simplest thing is difficult.”[29]
Taking the Bomb out of the Basement
Sooner rather than later, Jerusalem will need to consider a partial and possibly sequenced end to its historic policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.”[30] By selectively beginning to remove the “bomb” from its metaphoric “basement,” Israel’s national strategic planners would be better positioned to enhance the credibility of their country’s vital nuclear deterrence posture and the safety of the region. Any enhancements of Israel’s deterrent would effectively enhance the wider objectives of pertinent international law.
In Israel’s strategic nuclear planning, would-be aggressors, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, must be systematically encouraged to believe that Jerusalem maintains the required willingness to launch measured nuclear forces in retaliation and that these nuclear forces are sufficiently invulnerable to any-contemplated first-strike attacks. Additionally, these enemies must be made to expect that Israel’s designated nuclear forces could reliably penetrate all their already-deployed ballistic-missile and related air defenses.
Though perhaps counter-intuitive, Israel and also the wider region could benefit from Jerusalem releasing certain broad outlines of the country’s evolving strategic configurations. Without a prior and well-fashioned strategic doctrine, no such release could make sufficiently persuasive deterrent sense. At the same time, a too-pointed release could be interpreted as a too-explicit rejection of NPT (Nonproliferation Treaty) objectives – a Treaty to which Israel is not a party (and is therefore not directly beholden by law), but which nonetheless is generally regarded as an authoritative regional nuclear “benchmark.”
Selectively released Israeli nuclear information could support the perceived utility and security of Israel’s nuclear retaliatory forces. Once disclosed, it should center purposefully upon the targeting, hardening, dispersion, multiplication, basing, and yield of national ordnance. Under certain conditions, the credibility of Israeli nuclear deterrence could vary inversely with the perceived destructiveness of its relevant weapons.
Unsurprisingly, there will be many interrelated policy concerns, all with some measure or other of prospectively legal significance. One such concern underscores that Israel will need to prepare differently yet subtly for engagements with an expectedly rational nuclear adversary than for an expectedly irrational foe. In such variously nuanced and unprecedented circumstances, national decision-makers in Jerusalem would need to distinguish precisely and meaningfully between genuine enemy irrationality and feigned enemy irrationality.
How should they be reasonably expected to make such highly imprecise distinctions?

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Judgments of Rationality and Irrationality
In studies of world politics, rationality and irrationality have taken on variously specific meanings. An actor (state or sub-state) is determinedly rational to the extent that its leadership always values national survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences. Conversely, an irrational actor might not always display such a determinable preference ordering. Apropos of the scientific limitations already discussed, ascertaining whether such an adversary (e.g., Iran) were rational or irrational could prove to be a distressingly inexact undertaking.[31]

In actual practice, operationalizing these potentially indecipherable distinctions would present staggeringly complex intellectual challenges; they would need to take account, inter alia, of whether the scrutinized adversaries were (1) fully or partially sovereign states; (2) sub-national terrorist groups;[32] or (3) “hybrid” enemies comprised of assorted state and sub-state foes.[33] A subsidiary but still daunting task would be to ascertain the effective ratio of decision-making responsibilities among all hybridized foes.

But how should this multi-layered assessment be carried out?
In principle, at least, such a task might prove not just daunting, but literally impossible.

At a minimum, this would not be a task for the intellectually faint-hearted. To successfully preserve the nuclear “lid” in this volatile region, Joe Biden’s foreign policy will need to be rendered more coherent, predictable and law-oriented than was its predecessor. More precisely, the White House will need to better clarify its position on a Palestinian state, Iranian nuclearization and, reciprocally, on any prospective Sunni nuclear weapons preparations seemingly oriented toward deterring Shiite Iran.

This last point could mean closely monitoring and eventually supporting or opposing certain increasingly plausible nuclearizing steps undertaken by Saudi Arabia and/or Egypt.

Whatever calculable nuances will be encountered in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (political leadership/IDF leadership), the only rational way for Israel to successfully meet these growing and overlapping challenges will be to stay well ahead of its adversaries through the inestimable powers of strategic erudition and qualitative scholarship. Already, in classical Greece and Macedonia, the linked arts of war and deterrence were being described by military planners as theoretic challenges of “mind over mind;” and not merely as crude ad hoc contests of “mind over matter.” For Israel and the wider Middle East, such ancient descriptions remain entirely valid today.[34]

There is one further relevant observation concerning Israel’s nuclear strategy and American national security. Although analysts generally examine the foreseeable impact of US nuclear guidance upon Israel, it would be equally valid and important to consider the impact of Israel’s nuclear strategy upon US national security. In essence, though largely unrecognized, there is an ongoing and reciprocal connection between these two factors, a sort of continuous policy feedback-loop. Going forward, this “loop” should more routinely be examined as a mutual and dynamic relationship than as merely a static and one-directional connection.

One evident conclusion here must be that the suitability and durability of Israel’s nuclear strategy will impact not only the Middle East, legally as well as strategically, but also American security risks and benefits. To the extent that Israel’s nuclear strategic policies could have certain “spillover” effects for the United States, America would become the unintentional beneficiary of Israel’s own strategic scholarship and planning. It also follows that should Israel’s nuclear posture somehow fail to meet that country’s most urgent or existential security expectations, the derivative effect upon the United States would be correspondingly negative.[35]

Simultaneously, this effect would concern appropriate international law.

America and New World Security Patterns
Virtually any Israeli scholarship focused on nuclear war avoidance will be in response to certain world security configurations shaped by the United States. In this connection, Jerusalem will need to pay special attention to the growing importance of “Cold War II,”[36] an adversarial expansion between Washington and Moscow with more-or-less conspicuous manifestations and reverberations throughout the wider world. If, for example, geopolitical competition between the superpowers should become more tangibly war-oriented in Asia[37] – most notably in regard to ongoing North Korean nuclearization – that could have determining effects upon Israel’s nuclear posture and a Middle Eastern nuclear war.

Earlier, North Korea had helped Syria build a nuclear reactor, the same facility that was later destroyed by Israel in its Operation Orchard, on September 6, 2007. Although, unlike earlier Operation Opera, this preemptive attack, in the Deir ez-Zor region, was presumptively a second expression of the so-called “Begin Doctrine.” It also illustrated, because of its express North Korea connection, a much wider globalthreat to Israel .

Deleterious effects would likely be most dramatic if there were to take place any genuine nuclear exchange between the United States and North Korea, circumstances in which the nuclear war threshold had actually been crossed. Similar connections could obtain in the aftermath of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange,[38] and would depend largely upon specific and still-ascertainable Russian/American alignments with either Delhi or Islamabad. In both of these prospective conflict dyads – US-North Korea and India-Pakistan – any expression of nuclear belligerence, however indirect, could immediately and gravely impact Israel’s nuclear strategy and any resultant regional security.

For Israel, greater familiarity with certain jurisprudential principles could advance the nation’s legal as well as strategic obligations, most plainly those that William Blackstone had famously expressed in his Commentaries on the Law of England (Book 4 “Of Public Wrongs”): “Each state is expected, perpetually,” noted Blackstone, “to aid and enforce the law of nations, as part of the common law, by inflicting an adequate punishment upon the offenses against that universal law.”

Such ideas don’t just “pop up” in a theoretic vacuum. Blackstone is ultimately indebted to Cicero’s antecedent description of natural law in The Republic: “True law is right reason, harmonious with nature, diffused among all, constant, eternal; a law which calls to duty by its commands and restrains from evil by its prohibitions….”

“Just wars,” wrote Hugo Grotius, the unchallenged founder of modern international law, “arise from our love of the innocent.”[39] Now, however, it is plain, by definition, that a nuclear war could never be “just” and that certain earlier legal distinctions (e.g., just war vs. unjust war) must be continuously conformed to the ever-changing technologies of military destruction. The only sensible adaptation in this regard must be to acknowledge the persisting connections between international law and natural law, and then to oppose any retrograde movements by powerful nation states to undermine such acknowledgments.

In the final analysis, to successfully prevent a nuclear war in the Middle East, it will be necessary to resist mightily any world system declensions toward further belligerent nationalism. Among other things, especially in the United States, this will require serious safeguards against another “mass man” as president. For the next four years at least, reassuringly, it does not appear that America need worry about another Trump-type strategic retrogression.

There is more. Nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are never separate security postures. Always, these seemingly discrete protective strategies are structurally interrelated and mutually reinforcing .

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

A nuclear attack or nuclear war in the Middle East is never quite out of the question; it is never a casually dismissible prospect, even if Israel should remain the only nuclear weapons state in the region. But how is this possible? The correct answer lies in the irremediably complex and deeply nuanced structure of nuclear warfare possibilities, in the Middle East especially, but also anywhere else that such conflict is logically possible.[40]

A bellum atomicum could arrive in Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” enemy nuclear missile attack, but also as a result, intended or unwitting, of certain dynamic escalations. If, for example, particular Arab/Islamic states or Iran were to begin hostilities by launching “only” conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could then decide to respond, sooner or later, and foolishly or wisely, with precisely calculated and correspondingly graduated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if these enemy states were to commence conflict by releasing certain larger-scale conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem’s own conventional reprisals could then be met, at least sometime in the future, with assorted enemy nuclear counterstrikes.

In the past, Israeli conventional preemptions have figured importantly in presumptive resolution of nuclear threat possibilities. If it hadn’t been for Israel’s earlier defensive first-strike operations against Iraq and Syria (Operations Opera and Orchard,respectively), the Middle East would likely already have suffered certain critically destabilizing impacts of Arab/Islamist nuclear forces. Looking back upon these literally unprecedented examples of anticipatory self-defense, Israel effectively ensured that assorted terror groups (e.g., ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah) would not already have become nuclear.

The generally unrecognized benefits of these extraordinary operations have impacted not only Israel, but also the United States and some of its allies.[41]

The regional future, however, is rapidly apt to become substantially less secure. With a still aspirational nuclear Iran, certain derivative risks of nuclear terrorism could become increasingly intolerable.[42] Some of these newer risks might not stay reassuringly confined to the Middle East. Instead, in one form or other, they could “carry over” to certain scarcely well-protected American and/or European homelands.

By maintaining a credible conventional deterrent, Israel could reasonably expect to reduce its exposure to eventual nuclear war fighting.[43] A fully persuasive Israeli non-nuclear deterrent, at least to the extent that it could reliably prevent enemy conventional attacks, might thereby lower the country’s overall risk of exposure to nuclear escalatory vulnerabilities. More precisely, and in the exquisitely arcane lexicon of dialectical nuclear strategy, Israel could reap meaningful security gains by always staying in conspicuously firm control of “escalation dominance.”[44]

In such intra-crisis calculations, being “conspicuous” is always potentially very important.

Meaningful security gains, moreover, could sometime turn out to have genuinely existential benefits.

Still, a further prior question should now also be raised. Why, after all, should Israel require a conventional deterrent at all? Wouldn’t its presumed nuclear deterrent, taken by itself, and whether still ambiguous or more explicitly disclosed,[45] convincingly deter any and all state-generated aggressions? Wouldn’t all enemy states, at least those that were determinedly rational,[46] resist launching “merely” conventional attacks upon a presumptively nuclear Israel?

This welcome reluctance would stem from a determinably well-founded fear of Israeli nuclear retaliations.

The underlying “dialectic” here will need to be carefully charted and understood. Assuming that Israel would cross the specifically nuclear threshold only in highly unusual and existentially threatening circumstances, enemy states could remain convinced, rightly or wrongly, that as long as their own initial attacks were to stay entirely conventional, Israel’s “proportionate” response would remain similarly non-nuclear. This means, at least by reasonably calculated inference, but also by virtue of the documented history of Israel’s several wars, that the only way for the Jewish State to successfully deter a large-scale conventional war over time must be by maintaining large-scale, capable and reciprocally secure conventional forces.

Certain noteworthy strategic possibilities now warrant special mention. Any rational Arab/Islamic enemy states considering first-strike attacks against Israel using chemical and/or biological weapons could take much more seriously Israel’s nuclear deterrent. This argument suggests, inter alia, that a strong conventional capability will still be needed by Israel to deter or preempt any anticipated conventional attacks, more-or-less plausible strikes that could quickly lead (perhaps via starkly unpredictable escalations) to some form or other of unconventional war.

Inevitably, in seeking to continually reassess their own power positions, Israel’s enemies will strive to determine just how Jerusalem views its own conventional weapon opportunities and limitations. If Arab/Islamic enemy states did not perceive any Israeli sense of an expanding conventional force weakness, these states, animated by certain expectations of an Israeli unwillingness to escalate to nonconventional weapons, might then opt rationally to attack. The net result in this revealing scenario could include: (1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war; (2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional (chemical/biological/nuclear) war; (3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or (4) defeat of Arab/Islamic enemy states by Israel in an unconventional war.

Ironically for Israel, even the presumptively “successful” fourth possibility could prove catastrophic. This counter-intuitive conclusion should once again bring to mind the closely related and similarly counter-intuitive matter of Israel’s “bomb in the basement,” its deliberate nuclear ambiguity. In essence, the credibility of Israel’s still hidden or “opaque” nuclear deterrent must always depend on the perceived “usability” of its nuclear arsenal. Should Israel’s own nuclear weapons be regarded by pertinent prospective attackers as high-yield, indiscriminate, “city-busting” (counter-value) weapons, rather than minimal-yield, “war fighting” (counterforce) ordnance, they might not meaningfully deter.[47]

Conceivably, and contrary to virtually all prevailing conventional wisdom on the subject, successful Israeli nuclear deterrence could sometime vary inversely with perceived destructiveness. Going forward, this means that Israel’s indispensable nuclear deterrent will require not only recognizably secure second-strike forces, but also weapons that seemingly could be used effectively in “real war.” It also suggests that any continued Israeli policies of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” could encourage variously erroneous calculations by certain prospective attackers. On one occasion or another, such an out-of-date and unsystematic policy could significantly undermine Israel’s nuclear deterrent, perhaps irretrievably.

In complex matters of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it must never be minimized that enemy perceptions will be determinative. Unintentionally, to be sure, by insistently keeping its nuclear doctrine and capacity in the “basement,” Israel could actually be contributing to a growing impression among regional enemies that its nuclear weapons are not operationally usable. In these sorely problematic circumstances, starkly recalcitrant enemies, now not-quite convinced of Israel’s alleged willingness to employ its nuclear weapons, might calculate the presumed cost-effectiveness of striking first themselves.

Depending upon the particular circumstances, any such adversarial acceptance could be reluctant or enthusiastic, but with the same or similar outcomes for Israel.

For Israel, any such adversarial presumptions could sometime prove “unacceptable.”

There is more. A nuclear war would not respect political boundaries. Because of the particular manner in which nuclear explosions behave in the atmosphere, the altitude reached by a distinctive mushroom-shaped cloud would depend primarily upon tangible forces of the explosion. For yields in the low-kiloton range, this cloud would remain situated in the lower atmosphere. Its effects, therefore, would be almost entirely “local.” For those yields exceeding thirty kilotons, parts of the cloud of radioactive debris could “punch” into the stratosphere, thereby afflicting the launching state and certain noncombatant states together.[48]

To best prevent a regional nuclear war, especially as Iran will likely continue to approach full and effectively irreversible membership in the “nuclear club,” Israel will need to field a dependable nuclear deterrent. At the same time, it cannot properly rely exclusively upon this one necessary basis of national security doctrine any more than it can depend solely upon conventional deterrence. It must depend, instead, upon increasingly complementary nuclear/conventional forces and doctrine, appropriately intersecting systems of anti-missile defenses, and even the residual availability of certain eleventh-hour preemption options.

Even now, when the expected costs of any preemption against Iran could already be unacceptably high, Israel should not disavow absolutely all last-resort options for anticipatory self-defense. By definition, there might still be some eventually recognizable consequences of not-preempting that are expectedly greater than the foreseeable costs of a properly focused preemption.[49]

In the volatile Middle East, strategic deterrence is a “game” that sane national leaders may sometime have to play, but it ought always be a game of strategy, not merely one of chance. In Jerusalem, this means, among other things, a continuing willingness to respect the full range of relevant doctrinal complexity – both its own military doctrines, and those of its pertinent enemies – and a willingness to forge ahead with appropriate and reciprocally complex security policies. Inevitably, to successfully influence the choices that prospectively fearsome adversaries could make vis-à-vis Israel, Jerusalem will first need to clarify unambiguously that its conventional and nuclear deterrence are seamlessly intersecting, and that Israel stands ready to counter enemy attacks at absolutely every conceivable level of possible confrontation.

There remain two last but still very important and related points to be made.
First, whether Israel’s intersecting and overlapping deterrent processes are geared primarily toward conventional or to nuclear threats, their success will ultimately depend upon the expected rationality of the nation’s relevant enemies. In those residual cases where such rationality appears implausible, Jerusalem could then find itself under considerable pressures to strike first preemptively. If Jerusalem’s own expected responses were to be judged rational themselves, they might then also need to include a conclusive and operationally-reliable option for expressing anticipatory self-defense. For Israel, it goes without saying that regional conflict prospects should always be curtailed at the very lowest possible levels of controlled engagement, and that under no circumstances should Israel ever need to find itself having to preempt against an already nuclear adversary.[50]

To prevent such unacceptable but still imaginable circumstances should be Jerusalem’s altogether overriding security obligation.[51]

Second, even the most meticulous plans for preventing a deliberately-inflicted nuclear conflict would not automatically remove all attendant dangers of an inadvertent or accidental nuclear war. While an accidental nuclear war would necessarily be inadvertent, there are certain forms of inadvertent nuclear war that would not necessarily be caused by mechanical, electrical or computer accident. These particular but still-consequential forms of unintentional nuclear conflict could represent the unexpected result of sheer misjudgment or simple miscalculation, whether created as a singular error by one or both sides to a particular (two-party) nuclear crisis escalation; or by certain still unforeseen “synergies” arising between any such singular miscalculations.

It follows from such vital obiter dicta that the only predictable aspect of any nuclear crisis involving Israel would be its vast and utter unpredictability. More than anything else, this conclusion implies an insistent obligation, in Jerusalem, to remain not only vigilant about comprehensive enemy capabilities and intentions, but also to be relentlessly cautious and studiously modest about Israel’s own capacities to control all prospectively “untoward ” nuclear events.

Israel, though perhaps largely unaware, is entering into a period of trembling uncertainty. While certain national leaders may presently calculate that security matters are “looking up” – that is, that the expected benefits of the Abraham Accords and corollary normalization agreements (Sudan and Morocco) will outweigh the risks – such simplistic calculations would eventually be forced to confront a far less congenial strategic reality. Even if US President Joseph Biden should succeed in bringing the United States back into calculably viable JCPOA arrangements, the severe harms caused by Trump-generated errors on Iranian nuclearization are unlikely to be tangibly reversed. For Jerusalem, this signifies, above all else, a basic obligation to fashion a continuously refined national strategy of nuclear deterrence and nuclear war avoidance.

For this preeminently intellectual task, American assistance would be largely beside the point.

[1]See The Abraham Accords - United States Department of State Also to be considered as complementary in this connection is the Israel-Sudan Normalization Agreement (October 23, 2020) and Israel-Morocco Normalization Agreement (December 10, 2020).

Continued......

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

[2]Trump's JCPOA withdrawal two years on: Maximum pressure, minimum outcomes - Atlantic Council
[3]In a similar vein, says Swiss psychologist and philosopher Carl G. Jung in The Undiscovered Self (1957): “The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional State should succumb to a fit of weakness.” .
[4]The term “dialectic” originates from the Greek expression for the art of conversation. A common contemporary meaning is method of seeking truth by correct reasoning. From the standpoint of shaping Israel’s strategy vis-à-vis Iran, the following operations could be regarded as essential but nonexclusive components: (1) a method of refutation conducted by examining logical consequences; (2) a method of division or repeated logical analysis of genera into species; (3) logical reasoning using premises that are probable or generally accepted; (4) formal logic; and (5) the logical development of thought through thesis and antithesis to fruitful synthesis of these opposites.
[5]This should bring to mind Sun-Tzu’s strategic suggestion to “embrace the unorthodox.” For a specific application of Sun-Tzu to Israel’s prospective calculations, see: Louis René Beres, “Lessons for Israel from Ancient Chinese Military Thought: Facing Iranian Nuclearization with Sun-Tzu,” Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School, posted October 24, 2013.
[6] Cicero, Somnium Scipionis.
[7] According to William Blackstone’s Commentaries (Book IV, “Of Pubic Wrongs,” Chapter V): “All law results from those principles of natural justice in which all the learned of every nation agree….” In legal philosophy, the classic definition of Natural Law is given by Cicero in The Republic: “True law is right reason, harmonious with nature, diffused among all, constant, eternal….”
[8]Dostoyevsky inquires about such benefits: “What is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened….Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.” See: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground 108 (Andrew R. MacAndrew, trans., New American Library, 1961)(1862).
[9] On the global power management system originally codified and effectively “sanctified” at the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia: See: Treaty of Peace of Munster, Oct. 1648, 1 Consol. T.S. 271; and Treaty of Peace of Osnabruck, Oct. 1648, 1., Consol. T.S. 119. Together, these two treaties comprise the Peace of Westphalia.
[10] See: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, art. 53, 1155 U.N.T.S. 344; reprinted in 8 I.L.M. 679 (1969).
[11] This legal assumption of solidarity between states in a presumptively common struggle against aggression and terrorism is also already mentioned in Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis (533 C.E.); Hugo Grotius, 2 De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres, Ch. 20 (Francis W. Kesey, tr., Clarendon Press, 1925)(1690).
[12] This question, in turn, is drawn from the basic and incontestable premise that every state’s first responsibility is to assure and maintain national protection, and that citizen allegiance is therefore contingent upon such assurances. Most famously, in pertinent political theory, is the classic statement of seventeenth-century Englishman Thomas Hobbes at Chapter XXI of his Leviathan: “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last so long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.” Parenthetically, one of Israel’s deployed Dolphin-class submarines (acquired from Germany) is the INS (Israeli Navy Submarine) Leviathan.
[13] For a useful example of such expected overlap, Israel will continuously need to consider various conceivable forms of preemption, or defensive first-strike. When permissible under authoritative international law, any such preemption could permissibly be termed as “anticipatory self-defense.” Significantly, both nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions by Israel of enemy unconventional attacks could sometime lead to nuclear exchanges. This grievous outcome would depend, in large part, on the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons and the willingness of enemy leaders to risk certain Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations.
[14] Considerations impacting Israel’s security may form an intricately interconnected network. Capable assessments of such considerations must include a patient search for synergies and for potential cascades of synergies that could represent one especially serious iteration of security failure. Other risk properties that will warrant careful assessment within this analytic framework include contagion potential and persistence.
[15] Punishment of aggression is a firm and longstanding expectation of international criminal law. The peremptory principle of Nullum Crimen sine poena, “No crime without a punishment,” has its origins in the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1728 – 1686 B.C.E.); the Laws of Eshnunna (c. 2000 B.C.E.); the even earlier Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100 B.C.E.) and the law of exact retaliation, or Lex Talionis, presented in three separate passages of the Torah.
[16] This author, Professor Louis René Beres, was Chair of Project Daniel for PM Sharon (2003).
http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/03-ISSUE/daniel-3.htm See also: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/Parameters/articles/07spring/beres.pdf See further, regarding Iran in particular, with US General (USAF/ret.) John T. Chain: Louis René Beres and John T. Chain: “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran”?, The Atlantic, August, 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General Chain, “Israel and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,” Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).
[17]Despite U.S. Sanctions, Iran Expands Its Nuclear Stockpile
[18] At some point, of course, a major Sunni Arab state in the region (most notably Egypt and/or Saudi Arabia) could also choose to “go nuclear,” more plausibly because of Shiite Iran than Jewish Israel.
[19] See by this author: Israel's Nuclear Strategy on Non-Nuclear Threats See also by Professor Beres: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-nuclear-deterrence/
[20] For generic assessments of the probable consequences of nuclear war fighting by this author, see: Louis René Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd. ed., 2018); Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: US Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington MA; Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis René Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1986).
[21] Even before the nuclear age, ancient Chinese military theorist, Sun-Tzu, counseled, inThe Art of War:“Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.” (See: Chapter 3, “Planning Offensives”).
[22] This assumption was a dominant premise of this writer’s Project Daniel Report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: See, Louis René Beres, Chair, Project Daniel: Israel’s Strategic Future (Tel Aviv, 2004).
[23] For early scholarly examinations of anticipatory self-defense, by this author, and with particular reference to Israel, see: Louis René Beres, “Preserving the Third Temple: Israel’s Right of Anticipatory Self-Defense Under International Law,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 26, No. 1, April 1993, pp. 111- 148; Louis René Beres, “After the Gulf War: Israel, Preemption and Anticipatory Self-Defense,” Houston Journal of International Law, Vol. 13, No. 2, Spring 1991, pp. 259 – 280; and Louis René Beres, “Striking `First’: Israel’s Post Gulf War Options Under International Law,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Journal Vol. 14, Nov. 1991, pp. 1 – 24.
[24] The precise origins of anticipatory self-defense in customary law lie in the Caroline, a case that concerned the unsuccessful rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada against British rule. Following this case, the serious threat of armed attack has generally justified certain militarily defensive actions. In an exchange of diplomatic notes between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, then U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster outlined a framework for self-defense that did not require an antecedent attack. Here, the jurisprudential framework permitted a military response to a threat so long as the danger posed was “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” See: Beth M. Polebaum, “National Self-defense in International Law: An Emerging Standard for a Nuclear Age,” 59 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 187, 190-91 (1984)(noting that the Caroline case had transformed the right of self-defense from an excuse for armed intervention into a legal doctrine). Still earlier, see: Hugo Grotius, Of the Causes of War, and First of Self-Defense, and Defense of Our Property, reprinted in 2 Classics of International Law, 168-75 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1925)(1625); and Emmerich de Vattel, The Right of Self-Protection and the Effects of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations, reprinted in 3 Classics of International Law, 130 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1916)(1758). Also, Samuel Pufendorf, The Two Books on the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, 32 (Frank Gardner Moore., tr., 1927 (1682).

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

[25] See art. 38 of the UN’s Statute of the International Court of Justice.
[26]Regarding such strikes, the obvious Israeli precedents for any such defensive moves would be Operation Opera directed against the Osiraq (Iraqi) nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, and, later (though lesser known) Operation Orchard against Syria on September 6, 2007. In April 2011, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that he bombed Syrian site in the Deir ez-Zoe region of Syria had indeed been a developing nuclear reactor. In this writer’s judgment, both preemptions were fully lawful assertions of Israel’s core “Begin Doctrine.”
[27] Nuclear war and genocide need not be considered as mutually exclusive. War might well be the means whereby genocide is undertaken. According to Articles II and III of the Genocide Convention, which entered into force on January 12, 1951, genocide includes any of several listed acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such….” See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Done at New York, Dec. 9, 1948. Entered into force, Jan. 12, 1951. 78 U.N.T.S. 277.
[28]In the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarked prophetically (Pensées): “All our dignity consists in thought….It is upon this that we must depend…Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality.” Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal’s 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of his Ethics Spinoza considers the human mind, or the intellectual attributes, and – drawing further from Descartes – strives to define an essential theory of learning and knowledge.
[29] Here, this concept refers to the unpredictable effects of errors in knowledge and information concerning intra-Israel (IDF/MOD) strategic uncertainties; on Israeli and Iranian under-estimations or over-estimations of relative power position; and on the unalterably vast and largely irremediable differences between theories of deterrence, and enemy intent “as it actually is.” See: Carl von Clausewitz, “Uber das Leben und den Charakter von Scharnhorst,”
Historisch-politische Zeitschrift, 1 (1832); cited in Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, McNair Paper No. 52, October, 1996, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Washington, D.C. p. 9.
[30] See, for example, by this author: Israel's Nuclear Ambiguity: Would a Shift to Selective Nuclear Disclosure Enhance Strategic Deterrence?
[31]Expressions of decisional irrationality could take various different and overlapping forms. These include a disorderly or inconsistent value system; computational errors in calculation; an incapacity to communicate efficiently; random or haphazard influences in the making or transmittal of particular decisions; and the internal dissonance generated by any structure of collective decision-making (i.e., assemblies of pertinent individuals who lack identical value systems and/or whose organizational arrangements impact their willing capacity to act as a single or unitary national decision maker).
[32] Some current Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state argue that its prospective harms to Israel could be reduced or even eliminated by ensuring that state’s immediate “demilitarization.” For informed reasoning against this naive argument, see: Louis René Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “Why a Demilitarized Palestinian State Would Not Remain Demilitarized: A View Under International Law,” Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, Winter 1998, pp. 347-363; and Louis René Beres and Ambassador Shoval, “On Demilitarizing a Palestinian `Entity’ and the Golan Heights: An International Law Perspective,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vo. 28., No.5., November 1995, pp. 959-972.
[33] Under international law, sub-state movements are always Hostes humani generis, or “Common enemies of mankind.” See: Research in International Law: Draft Convention on Jurisdiction with Respect to Crime, 29 AM J. INT’L L. (Supp 1935) 435, 566 (quoting King v. Marsh (1615), 3 Bulstr. 27, 81 Eng. Rep 23 (1615)(“a pirate est Hostes humani generis”)).
[34]This calls to mind the obligations of formal doctrine. Such doctrine defines the framework from which any state’s strategic goals should be suitably extrapolated. Generically, in “standard” or orthodox military thinking, such doctrine describes the tactical manner in which national forces ought to fight in various combat situations, the prescribed “order of battle,” and variously assorted corollary operations. The literal definition of “doctrine” derives from Middle English, from the Latin doctrina, meaning teaching, learning, and instruction. Always, a central importance of codified military doctrine lies not only in the way it can animate, unify and optimize pertinent military forces, but also in the way it can transmit certain desired “messages” to an enemy.
[35] See jointly-authored monograph in Israel by Professor Louis René Beres and General (USA/ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf
General McCaffrey is the most decorated 4-star general in United States history.
[36] Hypothesizing the emergence of “Cold War II” means expecting that the world system is becoming increasingly bipolar. For early writings, by this author, on the global security implications of any such expanding bipolarity, see: Louis René Beres, “Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and the Reliability of Alliance Commitments,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.4., December 1972, pp. 702-710; Louis René Beres, “Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and the Tragedy of the Commons,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 26, No.4., December 1973, pp, 649-658; and Louis René Beres, “Guerillas, Terrorists, and Polarity: New Structural Models of World Politics,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 27, No.4., December 1974, pp. 624-636.
[37]On the growing dangers of further North Korean nuclearization, by this author, at West Point (Pentagon): See: Louis René Beres, There’s No Historical Guide for This: Assessing the Risks of a US-North Korea Nuclear War - Modern War Institute
[38]https://digitalcommons.wcl.american....com/&httpsredir=1&article=1318&context=auilr
[39] See Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace 70 (William Whewell, tr.), London: John W. Parker, 1853(1625).
[40] The North Korea-United States rivalry should come immediately to mind. Though Donald Trump vainly sought North Korean denuclearization, Joe Biden ought instead to be refining America’s overall capacities for long-term nuclear deterrence. In this Asian theatre of possible nuclear conflict, a context which bears certain marked differences from the Middle East, US forces can never expectedly function as a compelling conventional deterrent. Here, their only true role could be as a “trip wire” for generating more-or-less rapid American escalations to nuclear levels.
[41] On vital interconnections between US and Israeli nuclear security, see previously referenced 2016 monograph (published at Tel Aviv University) co-authored by Professor Beres and US General (USA/ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey:
See also: http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/beres.pdf
[42] See, by Professor Beres: http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1410&context=gjicl
[43] The avoidance of nuclear war fighting in any form was a major conclusion of the Project Daniel Group in its 2003 report to Prime Minister Arik Sharon:

Click to access 2905LouisReneBeres.pdf


[44] See, for example: Israel, Escalation, and a Nuclear War in the Middle East
[45] The reference here is to modifying or ending “deliberate ambiguity,” Israel’s longstanding policy of a “bomb in the basement.” See: Institute for Policy and Strategy IPS Herzliya Conference
[46] In absolutely all matters of calculable deterrence, whether conventional, nuclear or both, a presumption of enemy rationality is sine qua non. It follows that in those foreseeable circumstances wherein enemy rationality cannot be expected, security methods other than deterrence must immediately be sought.
[47] On such issues, see the latest book by Professor Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (New York and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). See also, by Professor Beres: http://www.inss.org.il/uploadImages/systemFiles/adkan17_3ENG (3)_Beres.pdf and, from Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School: http://harvardnsj.org/?s=louis+rene+beres
[48] For an early book by Professor Beres dealing with the expected effects of a nuclear war, see: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-N...ld-Politics/dp/0226043606/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 See also, by Professor Beres: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1318&context=auilr
[49] From the standpoint of international law, it is always necessary to distinguish preemptive attacks from “preventive ones.” Preemption is a military strategy of striking an enemy first in the expectation that the only alternative is to be struck first oneself. A preemptive attack is launched by a state that believes enemy forces are about to attack. A preventive attack, however, is launched not out of genuine concern about “imminent” hostilities, but for fear of a longer-term deterioration in a pertinent military balance. Hence, in a preemptive attack, the length of time by which the enemy’s action is anticipated is very short, while in a preventive strike the interval is considerably longer. A problem for Israel, in this regard, is not only the practical difficulty of determining imminence, but also that delaying a defensive strike until appropriately ascertained imminence is acknowledged ,could be fatal.
[50] Among other more obvious dangers, if Israel should refrain from striking first until an enemy state or states had actually acquired nuclear weapons, these new nuclear powers could implement protective measures that would then pose additional hazards to the Jewish State. Designed to guard against preemption, either by Israel or by other regional enemies, these measures could involve the attachment of “hair trigger” launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems, and/or the adoption of “launch on warning” policies, possibly coupled with certain pre-delegations of launch authority. This means, in essence, that Israel would be increasingly endangered by steps taken by its nuclear enemies to prevent a preemption. Optimally, Israel would do everything possible to prevent such steps, especially because of the expanded risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks against its own armaments and populations. Yet, if such steps were to become a fait accompli, Jerusalem might still calculate, correctly, that a preemptive strike would be legal and cost-effective. This is because the expected enemy retaliation, however damaging, might still appear more tolerable than the expected consequences of enemy first-strikes – strikes likely occasioned by the failure of “anti-preemption” protocols.
[51] Although it cannot be ruled out that an Israeli non-nuclear preemption would lead to nuclear exchanges (this would depend on the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons, and the willingness of some enemy leaders to risk Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations), such exchanges appear more likely if Iran were ultimately allowed to deploy nuclear weapons without any meaningful interference. Should such deployment ever take place, Israel could conceivably confront a rationally-compelling incentive to launch a nuclearpreemption. In the plainly worst-case scenario for Jerusalem, one where even properly intersecting levels of conventional and nuclear deterrence had failed to protect Israel and where Israel had undertaken a nuclear preemption without any confirmable success (i.e., without destroying an essential number of enemy missiles and warheads), literal survival of the State would then essentially rest upon the country’s multiple and closely-interlinkedactive defenses.

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1370907767851118595

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1370907767851118595

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.........

Posted for fair use.....

‘The Hardest Place’ details how the US lost the Pech Valley in Afghanistan

The soldiers displayed courage under fire, but why had they been in such a desperate situation in the first place? That question lies at the heart of “The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley.”

www.stripes.com

‘The Hardest Place’ details how the US lost the Pech Valley in Afghanistan

By J.P. LAWRENCE | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: March 13, 2021

America’s deadliest infantry battle of the Afghan War began in the early hours of July 13, 2008. Taliban fighters unleashed a torrent of machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades at a newly built American base in the town of Want in northeastern Afghanistan.

The base, located in area that had turned against the Americans, was nearly overrun. Just under 50 U.S. troops fought waves of enemies, mere feet away from them.

The battle ended with nine Americans dead and 27 wounded. The U.S. withdrew from Want, sometimes written as Wanat, shortly after.

The soldiers displayed courage under fire, but why had they been in such a desperate situation in the first place? That question lies at the heart of “The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley,” a new book by military affairs reporter Wesley Morgan on the failed U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in rugged northeastern Afghanistan.

The book focuses on the Pech River Valley, and its tributaries, the Korengal and the Waygal. Known for some of the fiercest fighting of the war, the region was the setting of the documentaries “Restrepo” and “Korengal” by filmmaker Sebastian Junger.

Morgan’s book is a compendium of failures by U.S. military officers in the Pech, leading to broken soldiers, dead civilians and a valley lost to the Taliban. He interviewed hundreds of U.S. troops and local Afghans to go beyond not just the “who” and “how” of each battle, but the often-hazy question of “why?”

For example, why had intelligence of a large, imminent attack been ignored before the Want battle? Why hadn’t there been a drone overhead? Whose fault was it that those nine soldiers died?

A military investigation after the battle recommended two U.S. officers be criminally charged for “insufficient oversight,” Morgan writes, but the decision was overturned later.

This lack of accountability repeats throughout the book, in which the U.S. seems ever eager to highlight the heroism of its fighters, while ignoring the mistakes of the officers who put them in harm’s way.

“When soldiers on the ground are put into positions where they commit acts of desperate heroism, something has gone wrong,” Morgan wrote.

Today, the Taliban controls much of the Pech. But when U.S. forces entered the valley almost two decades ago in search of al-Qaida operatives, locals welcomed them. When one of the Green Berets shot and killed a villager, the others understood that it was an accident and accepted their apologies.

But as U.S. troops stayed in the Pech, their mission expanded from killing al-Qaida to finding anyone connected to them, to killing Taliban, to building roads, to allying with corrupt politicians and unwittingly taking sides in local timber rivalries.

U.S. troops began launching complicated air assault operations, which left a lot of militants dead but seldom captured anyone important. Each operation also invariably killed civilians, Morgan wrote.

Seemingly every village had stories about how the Americans killed someone dear to them. U.S. troops apologized each time. Eventually the apologies fell on deaf ears.

The book is infuriating in its repetitiveness. This is not the fault of the author, but of the U.S. military officers who kept repeating their predecessors’ mistakes, and who come off as allergic to learning.

An example of this amnesia occurred after the infamous Operation Red Wings, where three Navy SEALs died, and one would almost be captured. In the movie “Lone Survivor,” based on a book by one of the SEALs, Marcus Luttrell, four operators infiltrate an isolated Afghan valley in search of a close associate of Osama Bin Laden, leading to an intense firefight with more than 100 fighters.

Morgan adds additional context to Luttrell’s narrative, which has been criticized for its inaccuracies.

The SEALs had most likely been discovered immediately, as they were placed in the backyard of the enemy by a helicopter that villagers said they could hear from miles away.

The lightly armed SEALs were killed by fighters numbering closer to the few dozen Luttrell described in his mission debriefing, not the 140 he had in his book, Morgan wrote.

Morgan adds that fight that most likely did not last as long as Luttrell described, based on how few shell casings Rangers at the scene found.

Other units who were supposed to rescue the SEALs were delayed. Another team of Navy SEALs rushed to the scene without coordinating with a different rescue force, and without waiting for attack helicopters to clear the landing site. Their helicopter would be shot down by an RPG, leading to the deaths of all 16 aboard.

The target, who escaped, was not connected to Bin Laden, but a local thug whose reach barely extended outside his home province.

The operation’s failure was the result of poor planning, overconfidence and leaders unwilling to communicate, Morgan contends.

“But there was no reckoning with what had gone wrong during Red Wings,” he wrote.

One SEAL who visited the battle site after Red Wings said, “There’s a deep pain among the survivors, when you take a version of their story and just tell the parts that allow it to be a legendary epic about flawless heroism,” the SEAL said, “when you uphold only the hero image, you deny those same heroes the ability to commit mistakes ... [creating] a distorted reality.”

Morgan’s book does not shy away from these mistakes. It's a sober telling that might help future military leaders who wish to avoid the kinds of failures that lost the Pech Valley.

lawrence.jp@stripes.com
Twitter: @jplawrence3

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

Posted for fair use.....

The Marine Corps Under the Nuclear Shadow: A Great-Power Problem - War on the Rocks

Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no

warontherocks.com

The Marine Corps Under the Nuclear Shadow: A Great-Power Problem

Nathan Fleischaker and Shawna Sinnott

March 12, 2021

Commentary


Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose.

– Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, 1946

We are not an across-the-Range of Military Operations (ROMO) force; but rather, a force that ensures the prevention of major conflict and deters the escalation of conflict within the ROMO.

– Gen. David H. Berger, Commandant’s Planning Guidance, 2019




“Design a force suited to the reality of the pacing threat.” “Shift in our primary focus to great power competition.” Phrases like these so permeate the U.S. Marine Corps’ discourse about its purpose and force design that they obscure a critical feature: nuclear weapons and the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation by conventional forces. Today nuclear weapons are frequently discussed in the context of nuclear force modernization, arms control, and nonproliferation. However, most commentary on conventional force design, planning, and education in the Marine Corps rarely acknowledges the prospect of nuclear conflict. And even as other services grapple directly with nuclear forces when they mention conventional capability, it is inevitably from the perspective of deterrence and accounting for the challenge of tactical nuclear weapons.

Though it has been recognized for 75 years, nuclear weapons’ long shadow over the character and purpose of conventional operations remains a critical gap in the conversation about the Marine Corps’ future. And that future, as articulated in the last few years by the commandant, will be increasingly focused on China, a nuclear-armed power that is growing its current arsenal of several hundred nuclear warheads. The commandant’s Force Design 2030 makes necessary, if painful, changes in operational capabilities and concepts by replacing tanks, artillery, and end-strength with experimental units. However, these efforts have yet to directly account for the shadow that nuclear weapons cast on conventional operations and escalation management, and the resultant implications for Marine Corps force employment. Key elements of the Marine Corps culture — including aspects of its cherished warfighting doctrine — were developed in the post-Vietnam, late Cold War period when technology and the Corps’ expected mission informed assumptions that discounted the strategic effect of tactical operations. Today, among other changes, long-range precision fires and integrated command and control systems mean that these assumptions may be dangerous.

But the Corps has a rich history of adaptation within new strategic environments (e.g., small wars, amphibious operations, and maneuver warfare) that demonstrates the service’s ability to update and adjust foundational competencies. Adapting to a situation in which the risk of nuclear escalation is ever-present will require a service-wide effort to appreciate the strategic dimensions of tactical actions. This requires changes to not only operational planning and professional military education, but also doctrinal publications that influence the service’s culture and have reach at the individual, “every marine,” level.

Nuclear Weapons and Conventional Military Forces: Old Problem, New Challenge

America’s primary military rivals — China and Russia — possess nuclear arsenals with unthinkable destructive potential. This makes conflict with them especially risky since conventional operations can lead to inadvertent nuclear escalation. Thus, it may be necessary to impose restraint on tactical and operational freedom in U.S. war plans. Of course, this is not a new challenge, since the basic dynamics of nuclear deterrence were developed early in the Cold War. But the implications for conventional forces and limited war were never settled. Three decades of U.S. military operations in the Middle East — devoid of nuclear escalation dynamics — allowed American strategists to avoid the problem of planning conventional operations against nuclear-armed opponents.

While the assured destructive power of nuclear weapons undermines the credibility of threats to use them, states can manipulate the risk of nuclear use as a coercive tool. Conventional forces play a critical role in increasing this risk of (inadvertent) nuclear use — whether this is intentional or not. Confusion on a battlefield, or even a heightened alert posture, provides opportunities for unintended consequences. Especially concerning is entanglement (i.e., the mixing of conventional and nuclear command and control infrastructure, and platforms capable of both conventional and nuclear delivery). There is ample evidence that Chinese forces practice this and several U.S. platforms are intentionally “dual capable” (e.g., able to carry nuclear and/or conventional payloads). If conventional and nuclear systems are indistinguishable, actions intended to meet tactical objectives, such as conventional missile strikes to destroy air defense nodes, could be misinterpreted as a prelude to a nuclear attack, leading to nuclear retaliation. Military forces should therefore be prepared to operate when the strategic reality demands operational and tactical restraint. This presents a clear challenge to instincts in organizations like the Marine Corps that are honed for “creating and exploiting opportunity.”

Conventional forces also play an important role in denial, not just coercion. Here they need to be able to credibly deny an adversary its objectives, and forward-deployed Marine units can play a key role in such a strategy. But doing so requires the ability to wage a limited war conducted with forces that do not escalate beyond a certain point. In both brinkmanship and limited war, conventional forces need to be able to manage escalation by operating effectively even when inhibited by limitations on tactical and operational freedom.

New Challenge for Marine Corps Culture

Restraints on tactical and operational freedom are especially challenging for the Marine Corps given its cultural emphasis on tactical operations. Many aspects of service culture are derived from an uncritical reading of the Corps’ premier doctrinal manual, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1: Warfighting. The clearest example of this problem is seen in its definition of maneuver warfare:

… the essence of maneuver is taking action to generate and exploit some kind of advantage over the enemy … [it] seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion … [to] create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.

The idea of violent and decisive action to incapacitate the enemy has visceral appeal, but in the context of nuclear weapons, can easily lead to disaster. Restraint and the ability to choose which advantages, based on strategic considerations, to not exploit may be more important.

Similarly, Marine Corps culture includes a philosophy of command that unreservedly endorses decentralization. Without question, decentralizing command and entrusting subordinate leaders is critical for tactical and operational effectiveness, especially in chaotic and challenging environments. But such advantages are not absolute and ignore situations such as inadvertent escalation. Warfighting’s justification for decentralization of command (“a competent subordinate commander who is at the point of decision will naturally better appreciate the true situation than a senior commander some distance removed”) ignores the possibility of an evolving strategic situation that the subordinate commander is poorly positioned to appreciate.

There is special irony here because as Warfighting was being written, the Marine Corps had units and doctrine for employing tactical nuclear weapons. Yet this doctrine explicitly assumed a high degree of centralized “positive command and control” and “established request and release procedures” to ensure that nuclear weapons were only used with presidential authorization. Precisely because centralization of command was assumed, nuclear capable units could largely ignore strategic concerns. The manual for employing nuclear weapons contains two paragraphs that mention policy or strategic considerations and devotes the remaining hundred pages to logistical, technical, and tactical factors such as transportation and storage, blast radii, minimum safe distances, and protecting friendly forces from fallout. Fortunately for Warfighting, external factors resolved the obvious contradiction when, shortly after its publication, President George H.W. Bush eliminated ground and naval non-strategic nuclear forces.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

The base problem for the Marine Corps is its tendency to assume away strategic considerations. While Warfighting describes potent approaches to the conduct of war at the tactical or operational level, it would be unwise — even catastrophic —to uncritically use it to guide military operations against a nuclear-armed rival. But how did problematic assumptions in a doctrinal publication come to heavily influence the Marine Corps’ culture in the first place? Because Warfighting combines excellent conceptual chapters that channel Carl Von Clausewitz and John Boyd with practical chapters written for the problems of a particular historical period: post-Vietnam and the late Cold War. These latter chapters present tactical and operational concepts associated with great historical successes, but do so while ignoring strategic considerations. This was possible because the Marine Corps could effectively ignore nuclear weapons as it reinvented itself in the distinct strategic context of the late 1970s and 1980s.

As the ideas embodied in Warfighting were being developed, the Marine Corps was fighting for institutional survival, trying to find operational relevance by looking to operations in Northern Europe and using doctrine as a way to distinguish itself from other services. The “pacing threat” of that day was the Soviet Union, and the main contingency required marines to secure NATO’s northern flank. This was a defensive mission based on the premise that if the Soviets invaded Central Europe in a non-nuclear conflict of any duration, American reinforcements (arriving by sea) would be essential. But these reinforcements, and therefore NATO’s ability to continue its defense, would be vulnerable to interdiction from Soviet naval forces operating in the Norwegian Sea. Such Soviet operations, though, required control of Norway’s coast and therefore defending it acquired strategic importance. The geographic remoteness and political sensitivities of permanently stationing forces made the mission ideal for the Marine Corps to showcase the mobility inherent in amphibious operations. Critically, this mission presented limited risk of nuclear escalation for several reasons. First, the operational concept was premised on deterring Soviet aggression into Scandinavian countries, not directly threatening an existing Soviet interest. Second, marines were not expected to be the first to fight in the overall conflict and assumed an existing, non-nuclear, conventional war. The need to protect supply lines for reinforcements was only necessary if the main battlefield — Central Europe — had remained non-nuclear. Third, while amphibious operations provided great operational maneuver, given the technology of the day, marines lacked ground mobility. Combined with the geographic remoteness from major Russian cities, this mission posed little direct threat to the Soviet homeland. In short, key aspects of service doctrine and culture were optimized for an operational context that presented little risk of nuclear escalation and allowed the Marine Corps — far more than the other services — to largely ignore strategic considerations.

But that security environment is long gone. The Marine Corps’ current operational concept — forward deployed contact layer forces that are the first to engage with a nuclear-armed pacing threat’s aggressive action — is a radical departure from Marine Corps history (let alone the last thirty years focused on the non-nuclear powers in the Middle East). Basing a military culture on past assumptions that ignore strategic considerations is dangerous in any number of possible contemporary contingencies. Just as the Marines’ force design and posture need to change for a new environment — and the service’s leadership clearly embraces such change — so does its culture and warfighting doctrine.

Strength for Adapting: Marine Corps History and Ethos

Although some aspects of contemporary Marine Corps culture may be inappropriate in today’s strategic nuclear context, the Corps’ history reflects a deeper, enduring ethos of institutional agility and innovation. The service has an uncanny ability to adapt to new strategic requirements and even a knack for temporarily learning to operate with limitations on tactical freedom. From developing amphibious doctrine in the 1930s, combined action platoons in Vietnam, maneuver warfare in the 1980s, and expeditionary sea-based forces in the modern era, the Marine Corps has repeatedly reinvented its core competencies (and modified its culture when necessary) to match the strategic environment and ensure continued relevance.

This adaptive propensity continues today. Force Design 2030, the service’s effort to reshape itself for the future, represents an institutional attempt to hone emerging competencies and capitalizes on the Marine Corps’ agility in flexing to strategic requirements. In addition to cutting capabilities such as tanks and field artillery to invest in rockets and unmanned vehicles, the Marines have embraced the information environment as a significant realm of competition in which they should participate. This bold direction and willingness to embrace new approaches to supporting U.S. national security has elicited sharp criticism and high praise. All of this demonstrates momentum toward meaningful transformation and a willingness to undertake painful changes.

Still, official efforts have thus far avoided considering nuclear dynamics, and only a fraction of commentary has even mentioned them. Incorporating these considerations will help the service to better assess cultural changes, conventional unit requirements, and the importance of developing proficiency in information, cyberspace, and space operations. More importantly, it will better position the service to reorient on the contemporary competition environment.

Current conditions call for operational and tactical restraint driven by the possibility of nuclear escalation in a conflict with China. However, this is not the only moment in the service’s history in which limitations on tactical freedom of action have been necessary. Over the past century, the Marine Corps has repeatedly demonstrated proficiency in adopting to situations of irregular warfare, from the small wars environments of the 1920s and 1930s to the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency efforts of the modern era. In the more contemporary environments of Iraq and Afghanistan, the imperative to limit civilian casualties provides a significant example of tactical and operational forbearance required for strategic success. While these operations are often viewed as a temporary aberration from which the military needs to move on, the operational circumstances — and the restraint they demanded — were widely recognized at the time. Changes to training, education, and operational guidance, along with general (if imperfect) adherence to this guidance, demonstrated the Corps’ ability to recognize strategic factors and adapt. By contrast, today we see little discussion within the broader national security community addressing how the present reality may demand significant restraint in Marine Corps conventional operations.

Recommendations

Marine Corps leadership recognizes that major changes are required to prevail in a military conflict with another great power. Recent official publications (e.g., the Commandant’s Planning Guidance, Force Design 2030, and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-4 Competing) and other initiatives (e.g., renewed emphasis on wargames, adjustments to the professional military education curriculum, and encouraging written debate) suggest that the service is serious about ensuring an institutional focus on competition with peers, especially China. In order to more adequately consider the dynamics of nuclear escalation and the role of Marine forces in this complex environment, the service should ensure that these efforts to reshape itself don’t only consider the tactical and operational challenges of fighting a comparable conventional military. They should also recognize the novelty of the Corps being the first to fight against a nuclear power. This requires an increased sensitivity to escalation management and, more generally, a willingness to reckon with a longstanding cultural assumption that marines can focus on tactical and operational issues with little consideration of their strategic implications. The Marine Corps can build on its historical ethos of adapting core competencies and culture to meet its present (nuclear) strategic challenges through the following actions:

First, the service should ensure the force is familiar with the strategic dynamics of escalation and coercion. The Marine Corps has made an excellent start with the recently released Competing, but this document ignores nuclear weapons and provides an inadequate discussion of the logic behind deterrence and escalation. An update that better addresses these topics would make them accessible and disseminatable to decision-makers at all levels of the service. This is especially important given the emphasis on distributed operations in the “contact and blunt layers” where marines, forward-deployed near adversary forces, work to expose malign behavior and are ready to immediately respond to aggression. Here, junior leaders may be forced to make decisions with global consequences under the almost unimaginable stress of great-power war. Doctrinal updates should also incorporate revisions to Warfighting that re-envision the practical chapters for competition with nuclear-capable states. Such efforts present an opportunity for further collaboration with the U.S. Navy, as aspects of its culture and force design have been shaped by nuclear weapons for decades. Further engagement with these issues should be encouraged through writing competitions and incorporation into the curriculum at the Marine Corps’ institutions of higher learning. This offers the best opportunity for substantive learning and debate amongst the service’s future planners, commanders, and staff officers.

Second, the Marine Corps should identify strategic dynamics within existing operational planning processes. The design process and problem-framing step in planning provide a basic framework but should place greater emphasis on appreciating the implications of the strategic environment. Additionally, wargames could incorporate a “strategic cell” that, similar to enemy-focused red cells, specifically focuses on nuclear dynamics to ensure they are not overlooked.

Third, the Corps should increase its emphasis on developing units that can coordinate with and support interagency partners, in order to enhance and leverage their capabilities. This would be a “strategic level of combined arms” that appreciates how the character and purpose of military operations are often conditioned on other aspects of the national security apparatus flexing levers of influence. While this context may not always be apparent to individual units, understanding it is crucial to ensuring that military operations complement the nation’s holistic interactions with a nuclear-capable state. The Marines have already begun to demonstrate proficiency in an integrated approach, providing a proof of concept for future initiatives, and the service should consider assigning more marines to integrate with partner organizations and interagency forums.

Operating Under the Nuclear Shadow

For the first time in decades, the Marine Corps needs to prepare for warfare against nuclear-armed adversaries. Competition and managing escalation with nuclear states requires tactical and operational restraint. As it increasingly prepares for tensions with China in the Indo-Pacific, the Marine Corps will have to reconcile its service culture, historical ethos, and strategic role to fit a new strategic environment. This won’t be easy. But the Corps’ history of adaptation demonstrates that the service has the foundation to become as effective in the future as it has been in the past.



Nathan Fleischaker is an infantry officer and operational planner. He is participating in the Commandant of the Marine Corps Strategist Program at Stanford University.

Shawna Sinnott is an intelligence officer and is co-host of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. She is participating in the Commandant of the Marine Corps Strategist Program at Stanford University.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

 

[jward]

UK To Increase Its Nuclear Warhead Stockpile For The First Time Since The Cold War: Report
With the Ministry of Defense eager to launch co-development of the new W93 warhead with the US, the increase could be an overture to Washington.
By Thomas Newdick March 15, 2021

• The War Zone

Thomas Newdick View Thomas Newdick's Articles
@CombatAir


Reports from the United Kingdom suggest that, for the first time since the Cold War, the country is preparing to increase the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, by as much as 40 percent. The move is expected to be formally announced in the U.K.’s next defense review, set to be unveiled in two parts, beginning tomorrow. You can read all about the other predictions for that wide-ranging review in this recent article.

Citing unnamed sources within the government as well as a leaked copy of the report, the Guardian newspaper has claimed that the U.K. is planning to potentially boost the numbers of warheads available for its UGM-133 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), with a new upper limit of 260 warheads. This is a significant about-face, since, as of last December, the government still outlined an aim of reducing the warhead total from 225 to “no more than 180 warheads” by the mid-2020s. At the same time, the number of operationally available warheads was to be trimmed down to 120.

CROWN COPYRIGHT

HMS Vigilant, one of four Vanguard class SSBNs, alongside a berth at HM Naval Base Clyde.


It is not clear exactly why the U.K. is now looking to expand its nuclear stockpile which, after peaking at around 500 warheads in the late 1970s, has steadily declined in numbers since the end of the Cold War.

“If this [increase] is confirmed, this would be a highly provocative move,” David Cullen, the director of the Nuclear Information Service told the Guardian. “The U.K. has repeatedly pointed to its reducing warhead stockpile as evidence that it is fulfilling its legal duties under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”







Storm Brewing Over Royal Navy Trident Ballistic Missile Test Failure By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Letters Of Last Resort Are Post-Apocalyptic Orders for UK Vanguard Sub Crews By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Check Out The Huge Dent In HMS Ambush By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

No These Aren't Starships In Space Dock, They Are Nuclear Submarines Under Construction By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Royal Navy Submarine Appears In Gibraltar Equipped With Enhanced Wake Detection System By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone


Ever since introducing an SSBN-based nuclear deterrent with the Polaris SLBM in the late 1960s, the U.K. has relied upon U.S. technology for its nuclear weapons, although the warheads themselves are produced in the U.K. and tailored to local requirements, the exact details of which are a closely guarded secret.
Trident missiles currently arm the U.K. Royal Navy’s four Vanguard class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) which entered service in the 1990s and are due to be replaced by a similar number of new Dreadnought class SSBNs from the early 2030s at a total estimated cost of around $43 billion.
The earlier class of British SSBN has 16 missile tubes, but in practice, only eight are used, to comply with treaty regulations, and the new Dreadnoughts will feature 12 tubes each. A maximum of 40 warheads is currently carried on board the Royal Navy SSBNs when on deterrent patrol, each Trident missile being able to carry multiple warheads, or multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). While each Trident can theoretically carry 14 MIRVs, depending on the type, 40 warheads on each patrol amount to approximately five per missile.
Currently, the Royal Navy’s Vanguard class SSBNs go to sea with Trident armed with a version of the U.S. W76 warhead, which dates back to the 1970s, and is known locally as the Mk 4/A.

Crown Copyright

An unarmed Trident II SLBM fired from HMS Vanguard during an at-sea test.


In February 2020 the U.K. government confirmed that a program to replace the nuclear warheads was underway, but it will still likely face a vote in parliament. In 2016 members of parliament already voted in favor of developing the Dreadnought class, but the costs of the warhead replacement are not included in the $43 billion earmarked for the submarines themselves.

The U.K. is now hoping to replace the W76-derived warhead with the W93, which you can read more about here, and the government has recently been pushing the U.S. to support initial spending on the new warhead, amid Democrat opposition to funding the program, especially in the run-up to the Biden administration’s first Nuclear Posture Review. Complicating matters further, the U.S. Navy doesn’t require a new warhead until the late 2030s, after the Vanguard class is scheduled to have become operational with the Royal Navy.

The U.K. needs the Vanguard and modernized Tridents to maintain its continuous at-sea deterrence, which has one of the SSBNs always on patrol out of HM Naval Base Clyde — also known as Faslane — on the west coast of Scotland. Since the U.K. Royal Air Force’s last air-launched nuclear bombs were retired in 1998, the Royal Navy’s SSBNs have provided the country’s sole nuclear weapons capability. You can read all about the practicalities of the U.K. “doomsday mission” in this previous article.

Crown Copyright

The Vanguard class submarine HMS Victorious.


The revised warhead total, which will reportedly have an upper limit of 260, will arm the Trident IIs that have been selected to arm the Dreadnought class. The exact power of the British Trident warheads is an official secret, but, in contrast to U.S. Navy Tridents, they apparently have a selective yield, with a reported maximum of 100 kilotons.

The U.K.’s strategic nuclear forces were originally tailored to deter the Soviet Union and Russia’s rapidly modernizing long-range arsenal could be a driver behind the possible increase in U.K. warheads. Although as of March last year Moscow possessed a total of 1,362 strategic warheads declared under the New START Treaty alone, using multiple delivery systems, even a modest increase on the U.K. side would have more than symbolic value, bearing in mind the destructive power of these weapons. It is worth noting that the figure for Russian warheads includes certain caveats, including a single strategic bomber counted as one warhead.
On the other hand, Russia’s activities, both overt military, and covert, including on British soil, have also become a more serious concern to the U.K. in recent years, such that the U.K. Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Nicholas Carter, described it as “the most complex and capable security challenge we have faced since the Cold War.”

Crown Copyright

The Weapons Engineer Officers Tactical Trigger used to launch a Trident missile aboard the Vanguard class SSBNs.


Another potential reason for the increase, as put forward by the Guardian, is that it’s designed to demonstrate its commitment to the United States, which the U.K. wants to co-fund the development of the aforementioned W93 as a replacement warhead for the Trident, to arm the forthcoming Dreadnought class.
As well as lobbying for the W93, the U.K. is also working closely with the U.S. on the design of the warhead, according to the BBC, which has described it as a “a bi-national warhead project.” Clearly, the U.K. is heavily committed to the W93, not least because it’s the only realistic option to replace its existing warheads. Furthermore, it’s been reported that the cost alone of modernizing the Aldermaston facilities in England where the U.K. warheads are produced could reach almost $14 billion over the next 15 years.

“Our warheads have to match theirs exactly, in terms of flight performance, in order to remain certified,” an unnamed source close to the U.K. nuclear deterrent program told the BBC.

On the other hand, the reason for the potential increase in U.K. nuclear warheads could be more pragmatic. Dmitry Stefanovich, a Research Fellow at the Center for International Security, IMEMO RAS, has suggested that a growing stockpile could simply reflect the coming period of transition between the old W76 and new W93 warheads, as the former works up to operational deployment and the latter is progressively withdrawn.

Two thoughts on that story about UK warhead stockpile increase (Trident nuclear warhead numbers set to increase for first time since cold war)

1) Might be a formal thing to allow for the short period when next gen warheads are already produced, but not certified and deployed, while old ones are retired and not dismantled.
— Dmitry Stefanovich (@KomissarWhipla) March 13, 2021​

Since the U.K. will have determined the minimum number of warheads required for a credible deterrent it will also have to ensure that a given number is also ready for use at all times. The idea of keeping at least some W76s in the stockpile during the transitional phase would therefore make good sense. In addition, it takes time to decommission warheads. While it may be relatively simple to remove them from a deployed status, it might not be so easy to actually write them out of the stockpile, depending on existing policies that are in place and the speed with which the warheads themselves can be decommissioned. Even in the U.S., where the nuclear weapons stockpile is somewhat more transparent, it is not always easy to determine what is actually available for deployment.

Tomorrow, perhaps, we may learn more about the proposed expansion of the U.K. nuclear weapons stockpile. On the other hand, considering the veil of secrecy that surrounds the U.K. nuclear deterrent, it may still be some time before we learn exactly how many warheads will be provided for the new Dreadnought class SSBNs.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com

UK To Increase Its Nuclear Warhead Stockpile For The First Time Since The Cold War: Report

With the Ministry of Defense eager to launch co-development of the new W93 warhead with the US, the increase could be an overture to Washington.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Hypersonic and directed-energy weapons: Who has them, and who’s winning the race in the Asia-Pacific?

Defense News has contacted regional government and military officials, businesses, and analysts to find out who is keeping pace in the worldwide contest.

www.defensenews.com

Hypersonic and directed-energy weapons: Who has them, and who’s winning the race in the Asia-Pacific?
By: Mike Yeo, Nigel Pittaway, Usman Ansari, Vivek Raghuvanshi and Chris Martin
9:00 AM

Photo credit: Imaginima/Getty Images

MELBOURNE, Australia, ISLAMABAD, NEW DELHI, and WASHINGTON — A number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region are caught up in the global hypersonic and directed-energy weapons race, with these regional powers having either developed or publicly stated intentions to develop such technology.

Defense News has contacted regional government and military officials, businesses, and analysts to find out who is keeping pace in the worldwide contest.

India Japan Korean Peninsula Australia Pakistan Back to Top



China

Chinese military vehicles carry DF-17 ballistic missiles during a parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

Unsurprisingly, China is one of those countries that is focused on both fields. It is widely acknowledged to be the leader in the field of hypersonic systems, having already fielded such weapons in the form of the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle.

The DF-17 HGV made its first public appearance at a military parade held in China’s capital Beijing in late 2019. The weapon appears to use a standard ballistic missile booster in its first stage for the initial boost of a glide vehicle, which is used to attack a target following reentry.

The DF-17s at the parade were mounted on a wheeled, five-axle transporter-erector-launcher. This makes the system road-mobile like much of the ballistic missile arsenal of China’s People’s Liberation Army. This could potentially complicate any attempt by an adversary to strike the systems prior to launch.



U.S. government sources have said China carried out several tests of HGVs, including the DF-17, since 2014. The DF-17 is the first system of its type known to be operational in the world, although several other nations including the U.S. are developing similar systems.

In addition, China is also believed to be developing an air-launched HGV, with a video briefly posted on Chinese social media in October last year showing a People’s Liberation Army Air Force Xi’an H-6N bomber landing at an air base carrying what appeared to be a boost-glide HGV — or at least a mock-up used for carriage and other flight tests.

Pentagon officials had long suspected China was developing an air-launched ballistic missile for carriage onboard H-6 bombers, although specific details were unknown until the emergence of the video. It’s still unclear, however, if this air-launched weapon is the one referenced by the Pentagon, or if China is developing another system with a more conventional warhead.

The deployment of road-mobile and air-launched HGVs broadens China’s ability to hold an adversary’s targets at risk, giving missile defenses another threat vector to think about in addition to China’s existing arsenal of ballistic, cruise, land-attack and anti-ship missiles.

The Pentagon has also claimed China carried out several tests of rail guns on land. These use electromagnetic forces to launch high velocity projectiles by means of a sliding armature that is accelerated along a pair of conductive rails. While the projectiles do not contain explosives like one would find on hypersonic missiles, the projectile’s extremely high speed inflict significant damage.



It is also believed a PLA Navy amphibious ship, photographed on several occasions mounting a large turret and gun barrel on its bow, is the test bed of a naval rail gun. The ship made several voyages believed to be for tests, although this could not be independently verified and its development status is unclear.

China has also made efforts in developing directed-energy weapons, with state media and manufacturers releasing images and videos of hand-held and vehicle-mounted laser systems. These include a hand-held destructive laser weapon offered for domestic law enforcement — ostensibly crowd control — although its designers say when set to maximum power, the laser can instantly scar human skin and tissue. It can also reportedly ignite clothing, knock a small drone out of the sky or blow up a fuel tank.

One Chinese academic has claimed the PLA used microwave weapons to incapacitate Indian troops during last year’s standoff over part of the two countries’ disputed border, although these claims have not been independently verified.

China Japan Korean Peninsula Australia Pakistan Back to Top



India





Subtitle Settings

Font
Font Size Font Edge Font Color Background




Watch India test its fully indigenous hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle on Sept. 7, 2020. (Indian Press Information Bureau)

India is also pursuing both hypersonic and directed-energy weapons. The second edition of India’s “Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap,” released in 2018 by the Ministry of Defence, previewed more than 200 pieces of equipment envisaged for induction in the military in the late 2020s. Among the list of projects that industry was encouraged to pursue was a “Tactical High Energy Laser System” for the Army and Air Force.

The ministry foresaw a high mobility vehicle-based laser weapon system able to “cause physical damage/destruction to [electronic warfare] systems, communication systems and non communication systems/radars and their antennas.” Eventually, the weapon should reach a minimum range of 20 kilometers, have a target-locking capability, and be able to serve in an anti-satellite role from land- and air-based platforms.



An official review of the MoD’s affairs from 2020 cited an anti-drone system made by the government’s Defence Research and Development Organisation. The Jan. 1, 2021, news release said the system was deployed for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security as he addressed the nation for its 74th Independence Day.

“It can bring down micro drones through either jamming of command and control links or by damaging the drones through laser-based Directed Energy Weapon,” according to the release.

The DRDO is currently requesting $100 million from the MoD for the 2021-2022 budget to produce a high-power laser weapon.

The classified project, dubbed DURGA II (Directionally Unrestricted Ray-Gun Array), will see the Indian Army receive the 100-kilowatt, lightweight directed-energy system, a service official told Defense News.

A senior DRDO scientist said on condition of anonymity that the DURGA II program is currently in the concept stage. He added that the organization is developing and improving various laser-generation techniques using solid state, fiber and chemical lasers for defensive and offensive use.



The scientist also said DURGA II is to be integrated with land-, sea- and air-based platforms.

Another DRDO scientist said 50 defense scientists have been charged with developing new directed-energy weapons. The organization also aims to start work on non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse technology, he added.

DRDO laboratories engaged in the development of directed-energy technology include the Laser Science and Technology Centre, the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory, the Defence Research and Development Laboratory, and the Centre for High Energy Systems and Sciences.

The Laser Science and Technology Centre is the lead laboratory in this effort, and it is currently engaged in the development of multiple laser technologies using chemical oxygen iodine lasers and high-power fiber lasers. The center has so far made a 25-kilowatt laser that can target a ballistic missile during its terminal phase at a maximum distance of 5 kilometers.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

In addition, the DRDO established a firing range at its Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory at Ramgarh in Haryana state, near New Delhi.

Meanwhile, the country’s focus on hypersonic technology has seen the creation of a wind tunnel for testing in Hyderabad and its first successful test of a fully indigenous hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine. The MoD announced the Sept. 7, 2020, flight test that month.

The demo vehicle was indigenously developed by the DRDO, and it has the ability to fly at six times the speed of sound, according to defense scientists in the country.

The MoD said the hypersonic cruise vehicle was launched using a solid rocket motor, which took it to an altitude of 30 kilometers. Then the cruise vehicle separated from the launch vehicle and the air intake opened as planned, the ministry added.

“The successful demonstration proved several critical technologies including aerodynamic configuration for hypersonic manoeuvers, the use of scramjet propulsion for ignition and sustained combustion at hypersonic flow, thermo-structural characterisation of high-temperature materials, separation mechanism at hypersonic velocities, etc.,” DRDO said in a statement.

A top DRDO scientist told Defense News that the vehicle will be used to launch both hypersonic and long-range cruise missiles. “DRDO has spent around $4.5 million on its [HTDV] prototype development cost, and three more tests will be carried out in the next five years to make this platform into a full-fledged hypersonic weapon that is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads, “he said.

DRDO spent about $30 million on the design and development phases.

India is also developing the hypersonic BrahMos II missile.

China India Korean Peninsula Australia Pakistan Back to Top



Japan

This Japanese-language graphic shows the country’s two planned hypersonic weapons: (1) the hypersonic cruise missile and (2) the hypervelocity gliding projectile. (Japan's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency)

The northeast Asian nation of Japan started its pursuit of hypersonic weapons in the late 2010s. It has set its sights on two classes of hypersonic systems: the hypersonic cruise missile, or HCM, and the hypervelocity gliding projectile, or HVGP.

The former will be powered by a scramjet engine and appears similar to a typical missile, albeit one that cruises at a much higher speed while capable of traveling at long ranges.

The HVGP, on the other hand, will feature a solid-fuel rocket engine that will boost its warhead payload to a high altitude before separation, where it will then glide to its target using its altitude to maintain high velocity until impact.

The government’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency also provided details regarding warhead payloads, with different warheads planned for both maritime and land targets. The former will be an armor-piercing warhead designed specifically for penetrating “the deck of the [aircraft] carrier,” while a land-attack version will use multiple high-density, explosively formed projectiles for area suppression.

Japan’s government is continuing research and development in hypersonic technology, with 240 billion yen (U.S. $2 billion) in its latest defense budget allocated for the program. ALTA has contracted Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to collaborate on research in both the HCM and HVGP, with the latter expected to enter service around 2026.

ATLA says research on the HCM is planned to continue until 2025, although at this time it is not guaranteed that it will be developed into an operational system. Japan, whose constitution limits the ability of its self-defense forces to conduct offensive operations, has framed the development of its hypersonic weapons as a means by which it can provide defense for “remote islands.” The country is likely referring to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which it currently administers but are also claimed by China.

China India Japan Australia Pakistan Back to Top



Korean Peninsula

South Korean soldiers, front, and North Korean soldiers stand guard before the military demarcation line on the each side of the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. (AFP via Getty Images)

The divided Korean Peninsula is also racing to develop hypersonic weapons. U.S. ally South Korea is pushing ahead with plans to develop its own hypersonic missiles as it seeks a viable missile strike capability in response to North Korea’s extensive ballistic missile arsenal. That arsenal remains the one area in which the impoverished, isolated nation’s military has surpassed its southern neighbor.

In August 2020, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said the country will accelerate development of long-range and hypersonic missiles, as well as more powerful warheads for such weapons. South Korea has already developed short-ranged ballistic missiles and is seeking newer types to hold North Korean targets — including its mobile ballistic missiles — at risk during a conflict.

For its part, the nuclear-armed North has claimed it is also developing such weapons. The government made the announcement during the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in January, with reports saying the North has created a new research center for hypersonic missiles under its Academy of National Defense Science.

However, there is little verifiable or detailed information available about the development of hypersonic weapons by both the countries at the moment.

China India Japan Korean Peninsula Pakistan Back to Top



Australia

Australia acknowledged in a 2020 strategic document that previous defense planning does not provide adequate assurance that the country would come out on top in a modern conflict. (da-kuk/Getty Images)

In July 2020, the Australian government released two defense documents that together provide midcourse guidance to the country’s 2016 Defence White Paper and its Integrated Investment Program. Included in the new documents are a AU$9.3 billion (U.S. $7.1 billion) investment in hypersonic weapons and the further development of capabilities such as directed-energy systems.

As such, the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and associated Force Structure Plan will oversee funding to develop disruptive weapons technology. The effort follows a pledge of AU$730 million in the earlier whitepaper for research into targeted science and technology, including hypersonic weapons, advanced sensors and directed-energy capabilities.

Acknowledging the rapidly changing balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region, the strategic update notes that previous defense planning does not provide adequate assurance that Australia would come out on top in a modern conflict.

“Coercion, competition and grey-zone activities directly or indirectly targeting Australian interests are occurring now,” the document stated. “Growing regional military capabilities, and the speed at which they can be deployed, mean Australia can no longer rely on a timely warning ahead of conflict occurring.”

While the government still considers the prospect of a high-intensity conflict in the region unlikely, it noted the chances are less remote now than five years ago, including conflict between the U.S. and China. The reduced warning time, coupled with a realization that Australia no longer has the luxury of choosing when or where military action occurs, is driving future weapons requirements, such as rapid threat detection and response as well as greater standoff capabilities.

“That’s why we will continue to invest in advanced capabilities to give the Australian Defence Force more options to deter aggression against Australia’s interests, including the $9.3 billion earmarked in the Force Structure Plan 2020 for high-speed long-range strike and missile defence, including hypersonic development, test and evaluation,” Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said.

Australia has conducted research into hypersonic flight for several years, most notably through the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation program, or HIFiRE, which began in 2007. The program was a collaboration between the government’s Defence Science and Technology Group, the University of Queensland, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and industry partners BAE Systems and Boeing.

The aim of HIFiRE was to gain a deep understanding of the technologies required for sustained hypersonic flight and solve related scientific problems. In defense terms, HIFiRE has been succeeded by the Australia-U.S. Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment program, or SCIFiRE, announced in December 2020.

Australia’s investment in SCIFiRE comes from the AU$9.3 billion promised in the Force Structure Plan. The program aims to develop and test a hypersonic cruise missile prototype, leveraging work done with the U.S. over the last 15 years on scramjets, rocket motors, sensors and advanced manufacturing materials.

The weapon will be a propulsion-launched, scramjet-powered, precision strike missile able to reach Mach 5. It is expected to enter service in the late 2020s or early 2030s.

The joint effort was finalized in July 2020 and announced in December that year by Reynolds.





US Army begins equipping first unit with hypersonic capability
The Army's ground-launched hypersonic battery is beginning to stand up.

By: Jen Judson

“The SCIFiRE initiative is another opportunity to advance the capabilities in our Air Combat Capability program to support joint force effects to advance Australia’s security and prosperity,” chief of the Royal Australian Air Force, Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld, said at the time of the announcement. “We are maximizing our learning during development to better define the capabilities and needs as the system matures, and we are gaining insights as we go that will help us integrate it into the future joint force.”

While the Australian Defence Force is closely watching developments, it is yet to publicly announce a formal hypersonic weapons acquisition program. However, the Force Structure Plan forecasts Australia’s clear desire for a high-speed, long-range strike and missile.

The Defence Ministry did not provide comment to Defense News by press time.

Another disruptive weapons capability specifically named in the Force Structure Plan is the development of a directed-energy weapons system. It’s to be integrated into the military’s protected and armored fighting vehicles for defeating vehicles as big as a main battle tank.

The plan also forecasts a similar capability to protect naval vessels against advanced and emerging weapons systems.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Australian defense company Electro Optic Systems has more than 35 years’ experience in the use of lasers through its so-called Space Domain Awareness service, which provides a tracking capability in space for Australia and its allies. The company is also developing a scalable, directed-energy counter-UAV weapon for the Australian Defence Force, initially based on a 26-kilowatt continuous wave laser. It’s expected to enter service later this year. The technology can supposedly be scaled up to provide a theater-level capability should a future military requirement emerge.

China India Japan Korean Peninsula Australia Back to Top



Pakistan

As Pakistan's chief of Naval Staff, Adm. Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, center, revealed plans to equip future warships with directed-energy weapon systems and the P282 hypersonic missile. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images)

The present level of development in directed-energy and hypersonic weapons by Pakistan is uncertain, and despite a greater focus on strengthening local industry, the country may require significant foreign input in these fields.

In October, outgoing naval chief Adm. Zafar Mahmood Abbasi revealed plans to equip future warships with directed-energy weapon systems and the P282 hypersonic missile.

“In the hypersonic domain, the ship-based, long-range, anti-ship and land-attack P282 ballistic missile is under development” he said at the time, and the newly established Naval Research and Development Institute was developing “laser-based directed-energy weapons.”

Neither the Ministry of Defence Production nor the Navy responded to Defense News’ requests for information on these programs. Their stage of development or how and when they will be employed is unknown. Nevertheless, Mansoor Ahmed, a senior research fellow at Islamabad’s Center for International Strategic Studies, believes these developments must be reasonably advanced for them to have been revealed at all.

Whether Pakistani warships have sufficient power-generation capacity to operate directed-energy weapons may be inferred from Chinese and Turkish programs. Pakistan has ordered Type 054A/P frigates (similar to those in Chinese service) and Milgem corvettes (similar to Turkey’s Ada class), and is designing the related Jinnah-class frigate (possibly similar to Turkey’s Istanbul class).

Chinese destroyers have had an operational directed-energy capability since at least 2018, but frigates are not similarly equipped. However, an expert on China’s military believes this will change.

“Based on my interviews with Chinese sources, I conclude that China will be pacing most U.S. directed-energy weapon developments, be they solid-state lasers or microwave weapons,” said Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “They were marketing a 30-kilowatt, mobile, solid-state laser weapon five years ago, so it is reasonable to expect they will soon have much more powerful land-, sea- and air-deployable laser weapons.”

Similarly, the installation of the Roketsan-made Alka laser weapon on Turkish warships would infer Pakistan receiving a similar setup. Roketsan literature indicates the Alka can be fitted to warships to destroy or disable drones and similar targets. The company says the system can destroy a target with a laser at 500 meters, and destroy a target at 1,000 meters with its electromagnetic weapon.

STM and fellow Turkish contractor Afsat signed an agreement “on engineering solutions for supplying and integrating the main propulsion system” for Pakistan’s corvettes in June 2020. Their propulsion/power-generation system was previously a CODAD (combined diesel and diesel) system before the U.S. cleared the export of gas turbines, allowing a CODAG (combined diesel and gas) system similar to the Ada corvettes to be fitted.

When asked, STM would not say whether this could produce sufficient power to support a directed-energy weapon.

Given the delivery timetable for Pakistan’s new frigates and corvettes, a directed-energy capability may be reality by mid-decade, but Ahmed, the expert at the Center for International Strategic Studies, believes the hypersonic program is more urgent. He said hypersonic technology is part of Pakistan’s “emerging menu of long-range [anti-access, area denial] capabilities that are increasingly going to be needed for maintaining a credible deterrent” against India’s Navy.

This is backed by reports that an Azeri surface-to-air Barak-8 missile system — a weapon also installed on some of India’s destroyers — downed an Armenian Iskander tactical ballistic missile last year, potentially rendering Pakistan’s present subsonic anti-ship missile arsenal vulnerable to interception.

Though Pakistan has acquired CM-302/YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles for its Type 054A/P frigates, Ahmed said the hypersonic P282 will enable Pakistan to “leapfrog” to a similar level of capability to India, which already has different BrahMos supersonic missile variants and is developing the hypersonic BrahMos II.

Irrespective of whether the P282 will be a wholly indigenous or collaborative effort, Ahmed views it as a critical program that will spawn land and air weapons potentially “deployed across a variety of platforms.”

However, this could depend on whether the weapon is a hypersonic cruise missile (a la Russia’s Zircon) or some type of hypersonic glide vehicle. Describing the P282 as a ballistic missile may imply it is more likely to be a land-based hypersonic glide vehicle (like China’s DF-100), or perhaps a ballistic missile acting as a booster for a scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile. Adm. Abbasi’s description of the P282 is the only information presently in the public domain.

According to James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a ship-based ballistic missile is most feasible. “I don’t know anything about the P282 specifically, but a ship-based ballistic missile is perfectly possible. Indeed, India has such a missile — the Dhanush.”

Like the Dhanush, he suspects the P282 will turn out to be similar to the Chinese DF-21D and DF-26B anti-ship ballistic missiles.

“It’s possible — likely, perhaps — that the missile would have some kind of a maneuverable reentry vehicle, though I’d be surprised if it had a long-range gliding capability,” he added.

Acton also highlighted the launch platform doesn’t need to be a surface vessel. “It’s also worth bearing in mind that a submarine is a type of ship, and so it’s possible that the delivery platform would be a submarine rather than a surface ship.”

He is less convinced the P282 will end up being a hypersonic cruise missile. “Given the description, I’d doubt it’d be a cruise missile. Small rocket boosters are used to accelerate scramjet-powered missiles, but it’d be very odd to describe the system as a ‘ballistic missile.’ "

The expert at the International Assessment and Strategy Center suspects China as a direct source of the P282, saying it’s reasonable to believe China would sell directed-energy weapons and ship-launched, anti-ship ballistic missile technology to Pakistan just like it “would also assist North Korea and Iran to obtain the same capabilities.”

“In 2017, retired [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] Navy Rear Adm. Zhao Dengping revealed that the PLAN was working on a ship-launched, anti-ship/land-attack ballistic missile, and my sources indicate that by 2018 they had started testing such a missile” Fisher added. “It could be based on a current surface-to-air-missile or something larger, as they have anti-ship-capable versions of some of their newer short-range ballistic missiles.”

One candidate in particular was shown at the 2018 Zhuhai Airshow in China, he said, where the country revealed the CM-401 horizontally launched anti-ship ballistic missile made by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. “As it is a ship-launched, hypersonic-speed ballistic missile and Pakistan has a long relationship with CASIC, there is a good possibility that P282 will be next in the long line of Pakistan’s CASIC-assisted solid-fuel ballistic missiles.”

If so, fielding a hypersonic missile capability may not be Pakistan’s greatest challenge. Ahmed points to Pakistan’s need to fill a “real-time target acquisition” gap to address India’s aircraft carrier fleet and other major surface combatant forces, especially as “India’s offensive and [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] ISR superiority in the naval domain has been enhanced through the India-U.S. basic exchange and cooperation agreement.”

Pakistan’s planned Sea Sultan long-range patrol aircraft as well as its access to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation network will likely be critical to its hypersonic efforts. Nevertheless, “given these growing asymmetries, the P282 is a much-needed addition to an increasingly complex offense defense imbalance in the Indian Ocean region,” Ahmed said.

China India Japan Korean Peninsula Australia Pakistan Back to Top






Top Headlines

US increases dominance of global arms exports




Hypersonic and directed-energy weapons: Who has them, and who’s winning the race in the Asia-Pacific?


When it comes to China’s nuclear weapons, numbers aren’t everything


Seoul agrees to pay more for hosting American troops in 2021

 

[jward]

..my guess is the aliens got a good look at us and demanded free passage the heck outta here..

Mysterious High-Altitude Flight Corridor Was Opened Up Between Area 51 And The Pacific
The restricted strip of airspace bridged the Nevada Test and Training Range with the Pacific Ocean during a few-hour window last Saturday evening.
By Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick March 15, 2021
SkyVector.com



Late last week, a curious alert appeared in the Federal Aviation Administration's database of Notices to Airman, or NOTAMs, which, among other things, alerts aviators to chunks of airspace that are temporarily off-limits. The details strongly point to the comings or goings of a high-flying aircraft between either Area 51, also known as Groom Lake, or the Tonopah Test Range Airport, two of the U.S. military's most closely-guarded flight test facilities, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest of San Francisco, California.

The NOTAM, which was first pointed out by users of the Dreamlandresort.com message board, was issued on March 12, 2021, but was only active between 5:45 PM and 8:15 PM local time the following day. This is a very odd time when military aviation training and test activity is usually at a minimum. The notice outlined a path 20 nautical miles wide and 426 miles long at an altitude between Flight Level 450 and Flight Level 600, or 45,000 to 60,000 feet. The exact route, defined by a series of named waypoints, can be plotted using tools available on the website SkyVector.com, as seen below.

SkyVector.com

A look at the entire route as defined in the NOTAM

If one starts in the west, the route consists of a stretch 104 nautical miles long between the Pacific Ocean and the waters southwest of San Francisco. The next leg runs 54 miles south to an area just west of Monterey, California, before turning inland over a relatively sparsely populated route across California and into western Nevada for the remaining portions.

Watch Flight Tracks Of Contractor Adversary Jets Bum-Rush A Carrier Group For Training By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

F-117s Cleared To Refuel From All KC-135s As "Retired" Stealth Jets Expand Operations By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Here Is What Really Happened With That Mysterious Washington D.C. Air Defense Scare By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Pilot Takes Amazing Images Of Area 51 And Tonopah Air Base While Skirting Restricted Airspace By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Is This Concept Art Of A Mysterious Space Launch Mothership A Missing Link In Area 51's Past? By Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone


The flight path ends right at the edge of a parcel of restricted military airspace in Nevada referred to as R-4807A, which is part of the U.S. Air Force's sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range. To the north of R-4807A is R-4809, where Tonopah Test Range (TTR) and its associated airport lie. To it south is R-4808N, inside which sits R-4808A, also known as "The Box." That is the heavily restricted airspace around Area 51.
The official posting reads:

!CARF 03/165 ZOA AIRSPACE STNR ALT RESERVATION DEFINED AS 10NM
EITHER SIDE OF A LINE FM BEBOP TO PIRAT TO CYPRS TO CANDA TO RUSME
TO LIDAT TO TPH168031. FL450-FL600
2103140145-2103140415

This restriction is called a stationary ALTRV, standing for Altitude Reservation Approval Request. In this case, it appears to have offered a sanitized bridge between the NTTR and the Pacific for a high-flying aircraft. This aircraft would not have to communicate or turn on its transponder during the flight through the ALTRV. A source familiar with standard air traffic control procedures tells The War Zone the following in regards to such a restriction:

There’s plenty of ops that never talk on the radio or turn on a transponder, they just call on the phone to activate airspace, then call when they’re done, the airspace is protected. The aircraft doesn't need [to] talk or squawk while it is out there

SkyVector.com

A close-up of where the route's eastern end, also showing various restricted airspace areas within the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR). KTNX is the code for the Tonopah Test Range Airport. KXTA is Homey Airport, an official name for Area 51.

USAF

A map of the entire NTTR, as well as other adjacent restricted airspace. Area 51's airspace, also known as "The Box," is 4808A.

The route itself is interesting for a number of reasons. It is very similar to ones The War Zone has seen outlined in previous NOTAMs a handful of times in recent years, all transiting between the NTTR and areas off the California coast. The most recent one a number of months ago began from right near Creech AFB and extended over central California and out to sea.
Also of interest is that one airplane tracker recently mentioned to The War Zone that transiting in the vicinity of Monterey was a way secretive aircraft have been moving from desolate ranges in the west out to the Pacific.

All told, these types of temporarily restricted pieces of airspace appear to provide secure, high-altitude corridors between the NTTR, and top-secret facilities within, and various off-shore U.S. military test ranges in the Eastern Pacific. It could also be a way to get a clandestine aircraft outside of the CONUS as efficiently as possible and recover them in a similar manner for long-duration missions that reach far beyond the eastern Pacific.

It's also important to note that an aircraft using the corridor in question does not have to be manned. In fact, such a route could exist because it is an unmanned clandestine asset that needs to transit out to sea as easily as possible. As to what aircraft this could be, the RQ-170 is a possibility. While a test variant has been flying in and out of Palmdale as of late, it does so with a chase aircraft that also communicates, at least in part, for the drone and also escorts it through normal airspace. We also know the RQ-170 has spent a lot of time over the Pacific ranges for testing. The even more shadowy and much larger 'RQ-180' is another possibility, but the truth is, it could be anything with a fairly high ceiling, and it certainly isn't new that secret aircraft use the ranges off the California Coast. In this case, they would be venturing there alone, without a tanker nearby, and even possibly during a time of day when it is still somewhat light out.

Plane spotters who religiously monitor radio chatter around the NTTR for hints about movements to or from sites such as Area 51 and TTR did not hear anything that appeared relevant to movement along that route at that time on air traffic control channels. It is possible the aircraft's mission was scrubbed, or this could very well be a feature of such a mission. In the past, when we saw similar postings, no word ever came of any odd radio traffic or tracking info from spotters.
In other words, the aircraft is probably very good at not being seen or heard.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Posted For Fair Use

Mysterious High-Altitude Flight Corridor Was Opened Up Between Area 51 And The Pacific

The restricted strip of airspace bridged the Nevada Test and Training Range with the Pacific Ocean during a few-hour window last Saturday evening.

www.thedrive.com

 

[jward]

Lawrence Freedman
@LawDavF
Emeritus Professor of War Studies King's College London. Strategy: A History (OUP). Latest book: The Future of War: A History (Penguin, UK, PublicAffairs US)

Thread on UK nuclear weapons policy. Be patient. Quite long.

The statement in the review on UK nuclear policy is the most comprehensive for some time, although it requires careful reading. It largely reaffirms existing policy. 1/

Most important announcement is the increase in the nuclear stockpile from 180 to no more than 260 warheads. The number derives from the maximum that can be deployed if two subs are on patrol. 16 missiles per boat; 8 warheads per missile; two boats on patrol. 16 x 8 x 2 = 256. 2/

Until 1998 UK kept stockpile a secret. Indeed after his announcement later on says UK will ‘no longer give public figures for our operational stockpile, deployed warhead or deployed missile numbers.’ So most of the time deployed numbers will be well short of this maximum. 3/

If there will be more than one of the new Dreadnought Class subs on patrol more often, post 2030, this will be as important an increase in capability as extra warheads. 4/

Points out that still lowest stockpile of any declared nuclear state and that others increasing their numbers. But given the devastation individual weapons can cause still not clear why would need more warheads. 5/

Best explanation lies in reference to other states (ie Russia) having ‘warfighting’ nuclear systems integrated ‘into their military strategies and doctrines and into their political rhetoric to seek to coerce others.’ 6/

The implication is larger stockpile is to have capacity so that Trident can be counter to both Russian short-range systems for use on European battlefield as well as longer-range missiles that threaten homelands. 7/

Such scenarios are speculative to say the least, but this is a way of stressing UK nuclear commitment to European and not just national security. 8/

This is strongly underlined in review, and potentially of relevance in debates, such as that encouraged by President Macron, to greater European strategic autonomy. The review contains a positive reference to cooperation with France. 9/

The review makes a virtue of deliberately ambiguity ‘about precisely when, how and at what scale we would contemplate the use of nuclear weapons’. 10/

It refers to possible need to respond to ‘weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact’. /11

At same time says it would only use nuclear weapons ‘only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of our NATO Allies.’ So that implies that these other threats could be as extreme as nuclear threats, which currently seems unlikely. /12

Still leaves hanging the problem of extended deterrence. This is difficult enough for US but possibly even greater for UK. Would the UK retaliate if nuclear strike against, say a Baltic state? Would it retaliate of the impact came from biological weapons or cyberattacks? /13

You can see why easier to stick with ambiguity because clarity would not necessarily be reassuring to allies. /14

Warhead increase will be criticised with ref to Art VI of Non-Proliferation Treaty which requires negotiations on arms control and disarmament measures. This is ‘good faith’ provision. As review notes other nuclear powers are also increasing their arsenals.

Review endorses ‘the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. We continue to work for the preservation and strengthening of effective arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation measures’. /16

It adds ‘there is no credible alternative route to nuclear disarmament.’ This presumably is the way to dismiss the current efforts to get states to sign up to the ‘Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.’/17

No reference to the demise of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. Presumably in a new multilateral forum UK and France will be drawn in (and extra warheads give some scope for later reductions?). But this is not discussed. /18

Important and sensible reference at end to need to work on reducing risk of nuclear conflict and enhancing mutual trust and security, reducing risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation./19

‘The UK takes its responsibilities as a nuclear weapon state seriously and will continue to encourage other states to do likewise.’ This will cover ensuring security of stockpiles and reliable command and control procedures, and crisis management measures./END

Thread by @LawDavF on Thread Reader App

Thread by @LawDavF: Thread on UK nuclear weapons policy. Be patient. Quite long. The statement in the review on UK nuclear policy is the most comprehensive for some time, although it requires careful reading. It lar...…

threadreaderapp.com

 

[jward]

The best case against withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan

President Biden must decide by May 1 if the US will stay in or leave Afghanistan.
By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com Mar 17, 2021, 8:30am EDT

A US Army soldier at a checkpoint in the eastern Afghanistan province of Nangarhar on July 8, 2018. Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

This is a two-part series examining the arguments for and against withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by May. Read the case for the withdrawal here.

President Joe Biden has a big, looming decision to make by May 1: whether or not to withdraw all 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan and end America’s 20-year war in the country.
Biden very broadly has two paths to choose from. He can abide by former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban, which would require all American service members to leave Afghanistan by that deadline. Or Biden can extend the US military mission, either unilaterally or by negotiating an extension with the Taliban, as a way to pressure the Taliban to strike a peace deal with the Afghan government.

Both options are fraught with risk. Experts warn that ending America’s presence will almost certainly lead the Taliban to take over the country, including the capital city of Kabul. Staying, though, will invite the insurgent group to restart killing American personnel in the country, adding to the over 2,300 US personnel who have already been killed since the war began in 2001.
There’s simply no overarching consensus on which is the best course of action, underscoring just how difficult Biden’s decision — expected in a few weeks — will be.

But Lisa Curtis, a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, DC, is firmly on the side of continuing America’s military footing in Afghanistan.
“There are some costs associated with keeping US troops, but the risks of going completely to zero far outweigh the costs of keeping a small number of troops in,” Curtis, who also served as the top Afghanistan official on former President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, told me.

Not only will keeping troops in Afghanistan help defeat terrorists operating there, she said, it also will enable Washington to use “leverage with the Taliban to greater effect to get a real, genuine peace process in place.”
I called Curtis and asked her to lay out the best case for why Biden should keep US troops in Afghanistan past the May 1 deadline. A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.

Alex Ward
What’s your main case for wanting US troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 deadline?

Lisa Curtis
There are three options for a way forward.
The first option would be what you presented as pulling out all US troops. That would risk a civil war, the reemergence of a terrorist safe haven, and a tremendous loss of US credibility built with our allies. It would also empower a generation of extremists. And frankly, we may have to send troops back in: Look what happened in Iraq after US troops withdrew and ISIS took over. We sent forces back in.

One other option would be to completely drop the peace process and just keep a minimal number of troops in the country. We could provide financial assistance, air support, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for the Afghan forces.
This would risk that the Taliban would resume attacks against US forces, which might be an unacceptable risk for many. But it would provide the Afghan government a fighting chance and mean that the US is not completely abandoning our partners of the last 20 years. Of course, it would also mean continued cost to the US taxpayer.
The last option — and this is the option that I would support — would be using US leverage with the Taliban to greater effect to get a real, genuine peace process in place, which would mean keeping US forces in the country until that peace process is further along and shows more signs of progress.

This would mean more costs and resources for something that admittedly may not work, but it would allow the peace process to continue, preserve US credibility, and reduce risks to Americans from terrorism.
I think that the question really is this: Is the US willing to spend $5 billion annually, which means a small US force presence of about 2,500? Is that worth it, as an insurance policy to prevent another 9/11-style attack? I think if you ask most Americans, they would agree that that is worth it.

Alex Ward
You say that withdrawing US troops will lead to civil war in Afghanistan, but one already exists, and there will be one regardless of how many Americans fight in Afghanistan. There’s no question it will get worse without US forces in the country, but there’s little America can do now with 2,500 troops there anyway. Simply put, we can’t stave off a broader civil war forever.

Lisa Curtis
But if the US left, that war would be much worse, and you’d probably see the Afghan government collapse pretty quickly. Even though we do have war now, it’s not an all-out civil war with no state: We have a state, we have an Afghan security force.

This is important: Afghanistan’s forces, which are backed by an Afghan state, continue to help us in fighting terrorism. Senior al-Qaeda leaders were taken off the battlefield in the last 18 months with the help of Afghan security forces. By contrast, we’re never going to be able to rely on the Taliban to protect our counterterrorism interests.
There may never be a full solution to the fighting in Afghanistan, but we have to remember we’re still protecting ourselves against terrorist threats.

Alex Ward
Why doesn’t the US completely remove itself from the civil war then — tell Kabul and the Taliban to duke it out — and then just lead a counterterrorism operation? President Biden suggested such a plan during the campaign.

Lisa Curtis
That’s pretty much what we have now. Most American forces remaining there are involved in a train, advise, and assist mission. We also provide air support, but we’re not out there fighting on the ground with the Afghan forces.
There’s a misunderstanding of our role: Our combat role ended back in 2014. Since then we’ve really been focusing on the counterterrorism mission, which does involve backstopping the Afghans by assisting and advising. But it’s not as if we’re going at it hand in hand with the Taliban.

But remember also that if the Taliban came back to power, you’ll see terrorists from all over the world — not just al Qaeda — you’ll see a convergence of extremists and terrorists back in Afghanistan. It’s likely to be a worse terrorist safe haven than it was before 9/11.

A policeman patrols the site of the Buddhas of Bamiyan statues, which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, on March 3, 2021. Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

Alex Ward
Isn’t the Taliban going to take over anyway, even if we kept 2,500 troops in the country? Why put their lives at risk? Surely there are other ways for the US to keep tabs on terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

Lisa Curtis
The troops that we have there now are partnering with the Afghans, but also are enabling 8,500 or so NATO troops. If we left, the NATO troops would likely follow. What we’re doing is we’re an enabling force for other countries to also be there to ensure that the Afghan state remains intact and the Afghan forces can continue to fight. That is a good reason to keep a small number of troops in the country.

Let’s not forget that the US provides moral support, too. Having the US there is a source of reassurance for the Afghans. The minute the US says “we’re going to zero troops,” you’re going to see a lot of Afghans flee the country, you’re probably going to see a refugee crisis, which the Europeans are really worried about. There are a lot of impacts that happen when the US takes that ultimate step of going to zero.
That’s why I come back to this: There are some costs associated with keeping US troops in the country, but the risks of going completely to zero far outweigh the costs of keeping a small number of troops in.

Alex Ward
One of those costs, as you’ve mentioned, is the possibility of another 9/11-style attack. But it’s 2021, not 2001, and the US and its partners have far more robust ways to stop that attack. We’ve made terrorism a larger intelligence priority than in the past, for example. Isn’t the risk of such a catastrophe exceedingly small, even if the US fully withdrew from Afghanistan?

Lisa Curtis
You make a very good point. We are obviously much more equipped to prevent that 9/11-style attack from happening on US soil, no doubt. The argument that I’m making is that if we withdraw to zero, the Taliban comes back, and terrorist groups and extremists pour back into Afghanistan.
That gives the Taliban a dangerous narrative to propagate, which is they were able to kick out the US and its NATO partners. “We succeeded,” they could say. That is the real danger, that we lose to terrorists and extremists and we provide an opportunity for them to regather strength.

And yes, you’re right, we do have the ability to stop terrorism much more than we did 20 years ago at our border. But it’s still a high cost for us to pay when we could continue to support partners that we’ve been supporting for 20 years. There’s no indication the Taliban feels pressure to break with al-Qaeda. Even the UN has said the Taliban has not changed its relationship with al-Qaeda.

Alex Ward
I get that giving the Taliban the ability to say “America lost” stings and is unpalatable. But haven’t we already lost? Is spending billions to somewhat deny the Taliban that narrative a wise investment?
If the US left, that war would be much worse and you’d probably see the Afghan government collapse pretty quickly

Lisa Curtis
Let’s look at Iraq. When the US withdrew troops, ISIS rose and took over Mosul in 2014. We had to put troops back into Iraq and in even greater numbers, and we had to redouble our efforts to stem the rise of ISIS.
We should learn from past mistakes that it’s not always a win-lose situation. We’re trying to manage threats, and we can manage the threat from Afghanistan by empowering and working with our Afghan partners who also don’t want the Taliban to take over their country.

We’ve been there a long time, but at the same time, we have built up Afghan forces and Afghans have seen real improvements in their lives. It’s not as if there was nothing gained — there have been tremendous gains in Afghanistan. That just means that we may not be able to withdraw troops as soon as we’d like.
And let’s face it, we’re down to 2,500 troops. We had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at one point. We really have right-sized our engagement there. We’re not looking for quick, easy solutions. We’re trying to manage threats and being able to manage the threat at roughly $5 billion a year, that seems like a good investment from a national security perspective.

Alex Ward
Perhaps the fundamental question here is why should the US care so much about Afghanistan anyway? We have bigger issues to worry about, like China and Russia and climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.
I feel for the people of Afghanistan whose lives will get worse if the US withdraws by May 1, but America also has limited resources and limited power. We can’t do everything and be everything for everyone.

Lisa Curtis
You’re right, we have many threats that we’re facing across the world. Strategic competition with China is where we should be putting the majority of our military and financial resources right now.
But we also have thousands of troops fighting off terrorists around the world. Is terrorism the number one threat? Maybe not. Does it deserve some of our resources and attention? I think it does. We’re a global power. We’re going to have our resources, our troops, in different parts of the world at any given time. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Maybe it’s time to draw down the resources that we’re investing in Afghanistan, but let’s right-size it, let’s not throw out the whole objective that we went there for in the first place. Let’s draw down responsibly, and let’s give the peace process time.

Posted For Fair Use

The best case against withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan

President Biden must decide by May 1 if the US will stay in or leave Afghanistan.

www.vox.com

 

[jward]

...of course I can see the bridge is gone! Can't you see we're SWIMMING?...

Simulating War: Three Enduring Lessons from the Louisiana Maneuvers

Jennifer McArdle

March 17, 2021

This article is the third and final in a series on digital defense. The first article looked at how the United States should bring tech experts and the innovative ideas they develop into the Department of Defense at an accelerated rate, and why those innovations should be shared with allies. The second essay explored how safety science and civilian AI can inform the use of AI in the military.


My God, Senator, that’s the reason I do it. I want the mistakes [made] down in Louisiana, not over in Europe, and the only way to do this thing is to try it out, and if it doesn’t work, find out what we need to make it work.
– Gen. George C. Marshall, 1941

On Monday, Sept. 15, 1941, a special kind of war was declared. As a tropical storm sent torrential rains throughout the Gulf of Mexico, swelling rivers and caking the ground in mud, 472,000 troops bivouacked between Shreveport and Lake Charles, Louisiana, for the largest (simulated) force-on-force battle in U.S. history. The opposing “red” force’s mission: invade “blue” territory and destroy the enemy concentrated near Lake Charles. Over the course of five days, a small, mobile red force and a numerically superior blue force maneuvered over 3,400 square miles, engaging in a series of tank and antitank skirmishes from the Red River to the Leesville-Many highway. At 15:30 on Friday, just as the red force’s eastern flank at Natchitoches started to crumble, the exercise was halted. Blue had seemingly prevailed.

Sept. 15 was the start of the Louisiana Maneuvers, a series of four exercises that took place over two separate venues — the Louisiana-Texas border and the Carolinas — with each spanning vast, scarcely populated areas of dense forests, uncharted swamps, and river crossings. The maneuvers can be heralded as a logistical achievement: At no other time has there been such a concentration of man and materiel on U.S. soil. However, their true worth was as a “combat college for troop leading” and as a field laboratory to test and train for emerging operational concepts. Indeed, notwithstanding some adjudicatory, training, and bureaucratic limitations, the mass exercises played a pivotal role in confirming the necessity of deploying tanks alongside infantry as a combined arms force

Anti-tank guns were verified as an effective countermeasure to armored vehicles. Air-ground integration, despite an initial Army Air Corps bias towards high-altitude precision daylight bombardment, was shown to have value. Perhaps most importantly, the Louisiana Maneuvers confirmed — to Americans, allies, and adversaries alike — that a ragtag group of “civilians in khaki pants” had been molded over the previous two years into a fighting army. While not a panacea, the maneuvers, in short, were the denouement of the U.S. Army’s pre-war mobilization.

From the meticulous drills or “bloodless battles” of ancient Roman legionaries to the tabletop Kriegsspiel of Georg von Reisswitz and the more recent use of distributed, virtual, and constructive training architectures, the act of simulating war — whether through maneuvers, exercises, or wargames — has long constituted an invaluable means of training, experimentation, and signaling. In the absence of combat, simulations like the Louisiana Maneuvers can root out weaknesses, refine concepts and technologies, and acclimatize troops to the complex and varied physical realities of the battlefield. They can also allow users to transcend their current realities, ideally by helping them to question and assess those “known unknowns” (and potentially those wicked “unknown unknowns”) that may radically alter the future battlespace. For these reasons, simulation has been touted as a key avenue to imagine and prepare for the contours of future conflict.

As the United States attempts to articulate “a new American way of war” to better meet the exigencies of great-power competition, the Louisiana Maneuvers — in their scale, scope, and sophistication — can provide contemporary defense planners with a number of valuable and enduring insights. Indeed, beyond providing a clear demonstration of the benefits of peacetime experimentation and innovation, the Louisiana Maneuvers highlight the importance of new ways of thinking and far-reaching structural reform when facing formidable peer competitors and rapid alterations in the combat landscape. Just as the U.S. military innovated in the face of technological change during the interwar years, the United States should once again change to better leverage digitally enabled technologies that may prove transformational today.

Eight decades on, the Louisiana Maneuvers provide three abiding lessons: first, the need for personnel reform when confronted with a radically altered battlefield landscape; second, the importance of mission-driven acquisitions to incorporate the best available private sector innovations in the Department of Defense; and finally, the game-changing role of simulation to drive reform in change-resistant bureaucracies.

Prevailing in the Wars of Tomorrow Requires Broad-Based Personnel Reform
Gen. George C. Marshall was sworn in as the U.S. Army’s chief of staff on Sept. 1, 1939, the same day that the Wehrmacht invaded Poland in a spectacular show of coordinated offensive force, signaling the start of World War II. Marshall had inherited a hollow and disorganized land force. Anemic levels of defense appropriations in the interwar period, when coupled with strong isolationist sentiments in certain quarters of Congress, had reduced the military to a husk, or as Marshall later characterized it, that of “a third-rate power.” Conscious of the enormity of the task that lay ahead, the new army chief immediately sought to correct deficiencies across manpower and weaponry, casting an especially critical gaze over the service’s leadership.

Still haunted by his experiences in World War I — particularly the gross failures of leadership and the resultant slaughter during the initial phases of the Meuse-Argonne campaign — Marshall kept a little black book in his office desk. The book, which he once waved at reporters to prove its existence, recorded Marshall’s thoughts, both favorable and unfavorable, on individuals within the Army’s leadership core. Marshall’s goals were simple, albeit ruthless — cull those leaders lacking skill or whose views and methods were anachronistic while promoting those he deemed best suited to meet the changing character of warfare. With the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marshall devised a scheme whereby certain underperforming senior officers would be winnowed out of the ranks. Field exercises, and in particular the Louisiana Maneuvers, were at the heart of this process.

Unlike many of the training exercises held in 1939 and 1940, the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers were unscripted: Commanders were granted full flexibility to plan and operate as they deemed fit. The sheer scale of the exercise stressed the importance of maneuver, communications, and logistics, alongside tactical acumen and operational brilliance. General officers were given a range of capabilities — artillery, infantry, armor, aircraft, and even paratroopers — to assess their ability to command and control the full suite of assets at their disposal. Commanders were also on notice. Just days before the first maneuver, hundreds of active-duty, reserve, and guard officers (some of whom were politically and socially well-connected) were dismissed for underperformance. Future military employment was contingent on achievement.

Marshall also placed an emphasis on fidelity. He sought to mimic the demands and intensity of future European or Asian theaters, without the use of live ammunition. Loudspeakers were carted onto the maneuver grounds to reproduce the sounds of battle — the rattle of the machine gun barrage and the deafening roar of artillery. Smoke cannisters shrouded the battlefield in a thick haze in an effort to stress commanders and warfighters. Aircraft and cannons employed flour bags to simulate munitions. Bursting open in dull thuds, they caked bridges and vehicles in a wintry frosting, providing a strangely ethereal visual demonstration of putative blast radii. The terrain and weather only served to heighten the fog and friction of warfare. As one veteran of the 1940 series of exercises noted, “in addition to the enemy there are two redoubtable antagonists lurking … to break up the best laid plans of a commander — Old Man Fog and his twin brother Bog.” General officers who flourished under these conditions — demonstrating a masterful capacity to shape and transform warfighting practices — were singled out for future promotion. Indeed, future military giants such as then-Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower and then-Brig. Gen. George Patton first gained acclaim during the Louisiana Maneuvers before achieving renown in combat in World War II.

At times these attempts at fidelity bordered on the farcical or the absurd. After an umpire ruled a bridge had been destroyed, a corporal and his squadron, after briefly hesitating, walked confidently across. The umpire, startled at such a flagrant violation of the rules, yelled, “Hey, don’t you see that bridge is destroyed?” To the irritation of the umpire, the corporal caustically replied, “Of course I can see it’s destroyed, can’t you see we’re swimming?” Locals acted as spectators, watching as soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat on their front lawns, and, in at least one instance, attempted to covertly join the action by employing a toy cannon and fireworks, in what later became known in jest as the “Battle of Bermuda Bridge.” The grueling training, when juxtaposed against some of these more whimsical elements of the maneuvers, cemented an early GI culture among the troops while also building morale — a key component of battlefield effectiveness.

Marshall used the Army’s pre-mobilization exercises — which would include the Louisiana Maneuvers — to fundamentally transform the service’s promotion practices. While at times imperfect and incorrect in his assessments of character and capability, Marshall sought to elevate a new cadre of leaders solely based on merit. To the chagrin of some of his contemporaries, he also radically reconstructed officer education, championing what would become the scaffolding of today’s officer candidate school program. Indeed, more than solely highlighting the men best fit to lead, Marshall sought to demonstrate and instill those characteristics needed to triumph on future battlefields — initiative, creativity, agility, adaptability, and foresight.

The U.S. military is not in need of a draconian leadership overhaul along the lines of the interwar Army: Innovative thinking remains widespread across many areas. However, if the United States is to prevail in a protracted competition with China and Russia — particularly one that increasingly manifests across multiple domains, including space and cyber, and in nebulous gray zones — recruitment, personnel, and promotion practices will require further reform. This is not a novel argument. The 2018 National Defense Strategy sees personnel not solely as a quantitative measure of end-strength, but as a critical asset — or “workforce talent” — that undergirds a more creative, agile, and lethal force. To that end, promotion practices, like the “up or out” system under the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act, have been singled out for reform. Professional military education, after a period of relative stagnation, is now in the midst of a radical overhaul.

The military has changed recruitment practices in an effort to attract the technical talents who will enable a more informationized force, among them network architects, artificial intelligence developers, hackers, electronic warfare operators, and software developers, among others. These are all positive steps, but without associated culture change — and arguably broader structural change akin to that pushed by Marshall in the interwar years — these reforms may still fall short of what is required to preserve the U.S. military’s qualitative edge in an era of digital warfare.

 

[jward]

..continued

Private Sector Innovation and the Power of Mission-Driven Acquisitions
In early 1941, three aviation firms — Piper, Aeronca, and Pipercraft — approached the Army with an offer: the use of 11 of their Club-type sports planes, flown by factory pilots for the summer maneuver season, and all paid for by the manufacturers. At that time, organic aviation (i.e., the assignment of aircraft and personnel to the ground forces mission) had yet to become a fully matured mission, complete with doctrine, organizational support, proper training, and platforms. Falling victim to the vicious bureaucratic infighting between the Army Air Corps and the Army Ground Forces on the employment of airpower in war, aerial observation had been relegated to “orphan status” within the force, devolving into an “intellectual and professional backwater.”

However, a confluence of factors — from equipment failures to the canny bureaucratic maneuverings of air observation enthusiasts and the fielding of FM radios for air-ground integration — created an opening for the aviation firms to press their case. The firms hypothesized that their Club-type aircraft could support artillery spotting and liaison missions and thereby sought to encourage test and experimentation in the field. The offer of free support proved too attractive to resist. The Army agreed to test and experiment with the companies’ aircraft in the lead-up to the 1941 maneuver season in Tennessee.

Affectionately called “grasshopper planes” during the maneuvers for their appearance when landing, the light liaison aircraft were an immediate test and experimentation success — acting as useful assets for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, transport, and the direction of artillery fire. At approximately one tenth the cost of a normal observation aircraft, the nimble, commercial two-seater plane was easy to maneuver and handle. The planes could land on nearly any level surface, from fields to narrow dust-ridden roads and muddy pastures, while also proving easy to conceal and maintain when not in use.

After proving their worth in Tennessee, the aircraft were employed throughout the maneuver season, earning their own insignia — a flying grasshopper casually smoking a cigarette. Indeed, in a nod to their battlefield effectiveness, Patton acquired his own light plane to control his troops in mock battle from the air. Using a loudspeaker mounted on his aircraft, Patton, when dissatisfied, would belt out a string of profanity-laced commands — verbally pummeling the men below him into action — all much to the amusement of local spectators. The planes proved so beneficial for command and control that umpires barred pilots from flying midway through the maneuvers to better level the playing field.

By the close of the maneuvers, the grasshoppers had logged a combined total of 3,000 non-combat missions flying over 400,000 miles, without the loss of a single sortie. The grasshoppers’ battle- worthiness motivated the War Department to acquire, and thereby order, that six to 10 light aircraft be assigned to every Army division for the purposes of spotting and general liaison. The grasshoppers are the antecedents of today’s Army aviation. However, today, the grasshoppers would stand little chance of being acquired by the Department of Defense.

Despite the best attempts of our defense acquisition system to work more closely with private industry — from the Defense Innovation Unit to the Defense Innovation Board and AFWERX — the acquisition system remains a byzantine process. It is riddled with thorny policies and regulations, over-classified to the point of absurdity, and beset by parochial interests. The system can prove impenetrable to even the savviest of new entrants. Complicating this opaque and labyrinthine process are defense requests for proposals, which have acquired a certain notoriety as jargon-laden consensus documents often beset by hundreds of pages of requirements, even for fielding something as seemingly simple as the Army’s new pistol. In such a system, it is difficult to imagine the grasshopper aircraft being down-selected for test and experimentation, let alone meeting the often rigidly defined platform requirements. Indeed, prior to the sport plane’s field tests, some military aviators had expressed an aversion to the aircraft, viewing the technology as obsolete compared to other contemporary and allegedly more cutting-edge aircraft.

The agile grasshoppers ultimately deployed to Europe — recording, quite remarkably, one of the final air-to-air kills — largely because the Army had sought a mission-driven, platform- agnostic solution to the air observation challenge. This form of pragmatic, bottom-up change runs counter to most acquisition policy today. The Department of Defense rarely releases mission-focused requirements or employs mission-driven competitions as the basis for acquisitions. Reforming the present U.S. acquisition system would require significant structural change, yet expanding mission-driven capability and concept discovery opportunities to accommodate the “grasshoppers” of the future is a necessary and incremental first step.

Simulation Can Empower Organizational Reform in Change-Resistant Bureaucracies
On May 25, 1940, a group of Army officers — including Patton, then-Brig. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee Jr., and Gen. Frank Andrews, among others — clandestinely gathered in a high school basement in Alexandria, Louisiana. The participants’ goal was to separate tanks from the infantry and horse cavalry, thereby creating a separate mechanized branch like the Germans’ powerful Panzer division. Noticeably absent at the meeting, despite being in the vicinity, were the chiefs of both the cavalry and infantry. The meeting participants, later labeled “the basement conspirators,” had witnessed the stunning assault by armored forces on Leesville during the maneuvers and were now convinced that the Army, and in particular the mechanized forces, was in dire need of reform. However, they faced fierce resistance from both the infantry and the cavalry, two branches that favored the status quo and opposed the further expansion of armored forces.

Previously, the National Defense Act of 1920 had placed tanks under the control of the infantry “to facilitate the uninterrupted advance of the rifleman in the attack.” Infantry doctrine called for tanks to advance slowly behind a curtain of artillery fire, targeting enemy antitank positions — an anachronistic tactic reminiscent of World War I trench warfare. The cavalry, to get around the restrictions of the National Defense Act, acquired tanks as “combat cars.” While the cavalry’s use of tanks was slightly more innovative than the infantry’s — experimenting with tanks in a combined arms force — the branch overwhelmingly favored its equestrian units. As the chief of the cavalry had stubbornly griped, “mechanization should not come at the expense of a single mounted regiment.”

Reforming the Army to better accommodate and experiment with changes in mechanization was no easy task. Security studies scholars have long sought to shed light on the many challenges linked to organizational change within defense organizations. Defense bureaucracies, by nature, are often ponderous, slow-moving beasts. The “basement conspirators” also risked sabotaging their own careers through their advocacy of reform. Even Eisenhower, who was not present at the meeting but had similar ideas, was persuaded to keep them to himself, noting, “I was told that my ideas were not only wrong but dangerous. … Particularly, I was not going to publish anything incompatible with solid infantry doctrine. If I did, I would be hauled before a court-martial.”

The pre-war mobilization exercises, which would include the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers, provided a way forward for innovation, supplying the “basement conspirators” and Army leadership concrete evidence that current mechanization and equestrian practices were antiquated and in desperate need of reform. Indeed, horse cavalry, despite the best efforts of equestrian units in the field, had clearly lost their superiority in mobility. In one striking example, a National Guard division had to abandon its rented horses in the field due to the animals’ state of exhaustion. When given the choice between horse-mechanized reconnaissance regiments and purely mechanized reconnaissance, divisions selected the latter.

After the infamous basement meeting, Andrews delivered the recommendations to Marshall, who subsequently stood up an autonomous armored force under the command of Chaffee. While not all of Chaffee’s ideas for armored warfare bore fruit, the advent of independent tank units incentivized deeper tactical and operational experimentation, including Patton’s famous armored, blitzkrieg-style hook through Texas, which he later emulated in the Battle of the Bulge. To the chagrin of many mounted troops, by the close of the Louisiana Maneuvers, equestrian units were retired completely from service. As Gen. Joseph Stilwell sarcastically stated, when asked the role of horses in future war: “Good eating, if you’re hungry.”

Much like the interwar debates on the future of U.S. mechanization and horse cavalry, the United States is at a critical juncture as it reimagines its future force. After the United States invested in a small number of exquisite manned platforms for decades, some defense analysts are now calling for a reconceptualization of America’s military posture, towards one focused on mass, autonomy, survivability, or expendability. Others have characterized the change as an evolution of a hardware-centric military to a software-centric force — a transformation from platforms to kill chains. Such a change will not come easily. Indeed, just as in the interwar years, entrenched interests will favor the status quo. Simulation, whether in the form of wargames or large-scale exercises like those in Louisiana, should provide a way forward, particularly for those thorny challenges that will likely require a fundamental realignment of the future force.

Change is underway, and the services do see simulation, testing, and experimentation as a way forward. Indeed, new efforts, like the Army’s Project Convergence, have been described as “this generation’s Louisiana Maneuvers,” now optimized for the information age. However, broader structural challenges will plague the force, particularly as it conceptualizes how to fight for joint all-domain operations. At present, the Defense Department has largely hollowed out its capacity to conduct large-scale joint experimentation. No agency, activity, or joint function currently has clear responsibility for joint concept development and experimentation. Moreover, investments in the types of environments (i.e., virtual and constructive) that will facilitate experimentation across multiple domains remain largely at a nascent stage of development. The United States no longer requires the physical troop co-location or mass mobilization of the Louisiana Maneuvers for experimentation. However, it does need to more broadly invest in the synthetic environments, such as the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment, that will empower virtual co-location, concept development, and experimentation, particularly when conceptualizing how to integrate cyber and informationized capabilities alongside artificially intelligent systems.

Looking Back to See Ahead
It is impossible to delineate with absolute clarity the contours of the future battlespace. Yet, there are methods by which a more informed prediction may take place. As Frank Hoffman has wisely noted, “A military that does not balance looking backward with constant glances at the future risks preparing only for the war last fought.” Simulating war — whether through board games or virtual simulations — has long enabled strategists to better imagine the future combat environment and consequently create conditions for much-needed structural change. While the U.S. Army still had to undergo profound organization learning throughout World War II, the Louisiana Maneuvers did act as a useful data point in that process. Indeed, the Louisiana Maneuvers highlight the innovative potential of peacetime experimentation and innovation when confronting formidable peer competitors and rapid changes in the combat landscape.
As the United States seeks to reposition itself to better meet the exigencies of great-power competition, it may be time to once again dust off lessons learned from those grueling exercises held in the interwar years.

Posted For Fair Use

Simulating War: Three Enduring Lessons from the Louisiana Maneuvers - War on the Rocks

This article is the third and final in a series on digital defense. The first article looked at how the United States should bring tech experts and the

warontherocks.com

 

[jward]

GRAPHIC: Cartel Ambush Kills 13 Cops in Central Mexico

Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles
Cartel Chronicles19 Mar 20210



















A brazen ambush by cartel gunmen in central Mexico killed 13 state police officers in a case that has sparked outrage among officials. The mass killing is the latest in a trend despite federal claims that safety is improving nationwide.

The attack took place on Thursday afternoon in Llano Grande, Mexico State, where 13 police officers were carrying out routine patrolling, said Mexico State Public Security Secretary Rodrigo Martinez Celis alongside Mexico State Attorney General Alejandro Gomez Sanchez.

El secretario de Seguridad del Edomex, Rodrigo Martínez Celis y el Fiscal General de Justicia, Alejandro Gómez Sánchez condenaron el ataque contra policías en Coatepec Harinas, donde perdieron la vida 13 efectivos; aseguraron que van por los responsables
Crédito: Especial pic.twitter.com/anE6xC0ew9
— Metrópoli (@Univ_Metropoli) March 19, 2021

Details remain sketchy, however, cartel gunmen ambushed the officers before police backup could arrive. According to El Universal, authorities deployed a police helicopter to evacuate a wounded officer. Authorities have not revealed the name of the organization behind the attack, nor a motive.

In the aftermath, state, federal, and military forces have increased their presence to capture the gunmen.
“We are going after them and are going to bring them to justice,” Gomez Sanchez said during the statement.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas and Jose Luis Lara fom Michoacan.

Posted For Fair Use

GRAPHIC: Cartel Ambush Kills 13 Cops in Central Mexico

A brazen ambush by cartel gunmen in central Mexico killed 13 state police officers in a case that has sparked outrage among officials.

www.breitbart.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

US Navy set to receive latest version of the Tomahawk missile

The Navy is taking delivery of the latest version of the Tomahawk cruise missile next week.

www.defensenews.com

Naval
US Navy set to receive latest version of the Tomahawk missile

By: David B. Larter   2 days ago

The destroyer Dewey conducts a Tomahawk missile flight test while underway in the western Pacific. (MC2 Devin Langer/U.S. Navy)



WASHINGTON — Raytheon plans to deliver next week the first of the U.S. Navy’s new Block V Tomahawk, an upgraded version of the service’s venerable land-attack missile that will ultimately include the ability to target ships at sea at extended ranges.

The new Block V, when fully realized in its Block Va and Block Vb varieties, will be expected to hit surface ships at Tomahawk ranges — in excess of 1,000 miles — with the integration of a new seeker. It also will integrate a new warhead with a broader range of capabilities, including greater penetrating power.

Tomahawk’s range is especially important in the Asia-Pacific region, where China’s rocket force has extraordinary reach with its DF-26 and DF-21 missiles, with ranges of 2,490 and 1,335 miles respectively, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The U.S. Navy’s news missiles are destined not just for the vertical launching systems on surface ships but also on attack submarines that can more easily operate inside the range of China’s rocket force.

The Navy is expected to make a decision on the future of the Tomahawk weapon in 2021, but the signs seem to point to its continuation. The service has had a long-running search for a next-generation land-attack missile, but a recent analysis of alternatives led to the Navy restarting the Tomahawk line and upgrading its current inventory.



In the Navy’s 2021 budget documents submitted last year, the service said it had yet to determine the future of the missile. But in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Phil Davidson, specifically cited the anti-ship Maritime Strike Tomahawk specifically and the surface-strike variant of the SM-6 as capabilities needed by the Marine Corps in its quest to hold Chinese ships at risk from shore-based missiles.

“What the Marine Corps has asked for have already been developed in the [Navy] and is employed on Navy ships, things like Maritime Strike Tomahawk, SM-6. These are immediate capabilities that I think should be made available to the Marine Corps,” Davidson said.

Advances in missile technology might actually be helping the Tomahawk’s cause to stay in the Navy’s vertical launching system missile tubes longer, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Sign up to get The Drift
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to go deeper into all things Navy with David Larter.

A landing craft lowers its ramp to unload a U.S. Marine Corps High Mobility Artillery Rocket System as part of a simulated amphibious raid on Okinawa in 2019. The Marines are looking to use their HIMARS system as a means of firing anti-ship missiles in the South China Sea. (Lance Cpl. Joshua Sechser/U.S. Marine Corps)

The combination of the SM-6, the new 100-plus-mile ranged anti-ship Naval Strike Missile bound for the littoral combat ships and next-generation frigate, and the Block V upgrades on Tomahawk will give the Navy’s weapons a place in the service’s vertical launching system cells for some time to come, Clark said in a December interview.



“Between Tomahawk Block V, the SM-6 and the NSM, the Navy has a collection of attack weapons that they are happy with,” he said, adding that a long-running effort to develop a next-generation land-attack weapon has lost some of its urgency.”

That means as hypersonic cruise missiles make developmental progress, the Navy will likely make do with its current generation of weapons instead of embarking on an expensive next-generation land-attack weapons program.

“What’s happening in parallel is in the development of hypersonic missile that are a smaller form factor than the boost-glide weapons that are coming to maturity now,” Clark said. “And if they can get it down to being able to fit in [the Mark 41], then that could provide the Navy a next-generation capability that is more survivable and has a shorter time of flight.

“So I think this combination of missiles the Navy has now, combined with the fact that the hypersonic weapons are coming along a little further out, means the Navy is going to stick with what it has potentially even longer than it had originally anticipated.”






About
this
Author

About David Larter
David B. Larter is the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.




Recommended for you




US Army nears choosing first battalion for extended-range cannon





US Navy’s new unmanned plan has ‘buzzwords and platitudes’ but few answers





General details next step for US Army’s future attack recon helicopter





Estimated development costs for the F-35′s modernization program increased by $1.9B in a year

 

[jward]

Taliban expect US withdrawal in May; vow to restore Islamic rule

Taliban stand firm on demand for an Islamic government in Afghanistan, though they do not elaborate on what it would look like.

Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban's negotiation team, speaks during a news conference in Moscow on Friday [Alexander Zemlianichenko via Reuters]
19 Mar 2021

The Taliban warned the United States on Friday against defying a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan, promising a “reaction” though failing to specify exactly what it would be.
The Taliban issued their warning at a press conference in Moscow, the day after meeting with senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to try to jump-start a stalled peace process to end Afghanistan’s decades of war.

Biden says ‘tough’ to meet May 1 Afghanistan withdrawal deadlineUS proposes interim gov’t could run Afghanistan until new pollsAfghanistan: New US plan may erase progress made in DohaUN chief appoints personal envoy to Afghanistan

US President Joe Biden’s administration says it is reviewing an agreement that the Taliban signed with the administration for former President Donald Trump. Biden told ABC in an interview on Wednesday that the May 1 deadline “could happen, but it is tough”, adding that if the deadline is extended it will be by “a lot longer”.
“They should go,” Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban negotiation team, told reporters, warning that staying beyond May 1 would breach the deal.

“After that, it will be a kind of violation of the agreement. That violation would not be from our side … Their violation will have a reaction.”
He did not elaborate on what form the “reaction” would take, but in keeping with the agreement they signed in February 2020, the Taliban have not attacked US or NATO forces, even as unclaimed bombings and targeted killings of Afghan security forces and civilians have spiked in recent months.

“We hope that this will not happen, that they withdraw and we focus on the settlement, peaceful settlement of the Afghan issue, in order to bring about a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire at the end of reaching a political roadmap [for] Afghanistan,” Shaheen said.

Islamic government
The Taliban also pushed back against major regional players who said Afghanistan should not return to being an Islamic state.
On Thursday, the United States, Russia, China and Pakistan in a joint statement said they “did not support the restoration of the Islamic Emirate”.
But Taliban political spokesman Mohammad Naeem, speaking to media in Moscow on Friday, said it was up to Afghans to decide their system of governance and it should be an Islamic system.
“What is stated in the declaration is against all principles and is not acceptable,” he said.

Shaheen also said the Taliban was firm on their demand for an Islamic government. He did not elaborate on what an Islamic government would look like, or whether it would mean a return to their repressive rules that denied girls education, barred women from working, and imposed harsh punishments.
Shaheen did not say whether the Taliban would accept elections, but he emphasised the government of President Ashraf Ghani would not fit their definition of an Islamic government.
In previous statements, the Taliban has said its vision of an Islamic government would allow girls to attend school, and women to work or be in public life. But in every conversation, they emphasised the need to follow Islamic injunctions without specifying what that would mean.

The Taliban has said it would not accept a woman as president, and while women could be judges they could not take the job of chief justice.
But even without the Taliban in government in Afghanistan, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Afghanistan said Afghanistan was one of the worst places in the world to be a woman in 2020.
Only one woman attended Thursday’s talks in Moscow, and in the two decades since the Taliban were ousted, successive governments in Kabul have been unable to ratify a law outlawing violence against women.
Meanwhile, the Taliban refused to promise they would not launch a spring offensive despite calls from the US, Russia and China.

“I started ‘jihad’ [holy war] to remove foreign forces from my country and establish an Islamic government, and jihad will continue until we reach that goal through a political agreement,” said Khairullah Khairkhwa, a member of the negotiating team, who was one of five Taliban freed from the US prison on Guantanamo Bay in 2013 in exchange for the release of a captured US soldier.

It took almost six months to get the Taliban and the Afghan government to the negotiating table in Doha, Qatar [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]

Security situation
Meanwhile, President Ghani dismissed two leading ministers charged with the country’s faltering security in a surprise announcement on Friday.
In a statement, the president’s national security council announced army chief of staff General Mohammad Yasin Zia would double as defence minister, replacing Asadullah Khalid, who is believed to be suffering from serious health issues.
Former Kandahar and Nangarhar governor Hayatullah Hayat, meanwhile, will take over the interior ministry from Masoud Andarabi, with the palace citing the need to improve “the security situation” in the country.
Major urban centres and rural areas in Afghanistan are in the grip of a worsening armed campaign in the form of deadly attacks targeting politicians, civil servants, academics, rights activists and journalists.

US efforts
Russia, the US, China and Pakistan said a reduction in violence in Afghanistan was necessary for the warring sides to “create a favourable atmosphere for achieving a politico-diplomatic settlement”.
The summit comes as the US is trying to breathe life back into a faltering peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban just weeks ahead of the May 1 deadline for US forces to exit the country.
A complete exit of US troops – given the vital air cover provided to Afghan ground forces – would further loosen Kabul’s tenuous grip on the countryside.
Afghanistan has been engulfed by a two-decade armed rebellion by the Taliban since it was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001 for harbouring al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks on the US.



Source : News Agencies

Please see source for videos
Posted for fair use

Taliban expect US withdrawal in May; vow to restore Islamic rule

Taliban stand firm on demand for an Islamic government in Afghanistan, without elaborating on what it would look like.

www.aljazeera.com