WAR 03-25-2017-to-03-31-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(260) 03-04-2017-to-03-10-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...10-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(261) 03-11-2017-to-03-17-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...17-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(262) 03-18-2017-to-03-24-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...24-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...t-north-korea-planning-another-rocket-launch/

U.S. Official: North Korea May Conduct Nuclear Test ‘as Early as the End of the Month’

by Frances Martel
24 Mar 2017
Comments 45

A U.S. official tells Fox News that North Korea may be in the final stages of preparing its sixth nuclear weapons test as South Korean officials insist Pyongyang may already have the capacity to launch a nuclear weapon test at any time, executing it within hours of dictator Kim Jong-un’s command.

“The test could come as early as the end of the month,” the American official tells Fox News, which adds that multiple officials have warned that there is evidence of North Korea having completed the construction of various tunnels surrounding a nuclear test site used to transport necessary materials.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap*cites South Korean defense officials making a similar warning as their American counterparts Friday.*“It’s assessed that North Korea is capable of conducting a nuclear test within hours after Kim Jong-un’s order,” an anonymous official told the outlet. “We are keeping close tabs on its nuclear-related facilities with combined assets with the U.S.”

Another anonymous South Korean official told Reuters that North Korea is not only preparing a new nuclear test*but is ready to execute one on a moment’s notice. “North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test at any time, depending on the leadership’s decision. We are keeping a close eye on its nuclear activities,” the unnamed official said.

The South Korean Unification Ministry has confirmed these anonymous reports.*“South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities evaluate that North Korea is prepared for a nuclear test anytime on the leadership’s decision,” spokesman Lee Duk-haeng*said on Friday.

Pyongyang itself has been working to create the impression that it can launch a nuclear weapons test at any time. In a separate report Friday, Yonhap notes that North Korean state media has claimed that the nation is “conducting ballistic missile launching drills on a regular basis to counter what it called the United States’ nuclear war threats.”*“Our strategic force is conducting a ballistic rocket launching drill on a regular basis,” the North Korean state newspaper*Rodong Sinmun reported.

North Korea’s insistence that the United States is a constant threat is not new. A year ago, Foreign Minister*Lee Su-yong*issued a warning that “we have fully transferred our army from the form of military response to the form of delivering a pre-emptive strike and we state resolutely about the readiness to deliver a pre-emptive nuclear strike” on America. His remarks followed threats in North Korean media that Pyongyang would deliver a*“pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” on U.S. soil soon.

Reuters notes that the American military is currently shifting its assets in the region to prepare for any potential violence. The Russian military also appears to have activated a surveillance aircraft intended to detect any biological, nuclear, or chemical agents, according to Reuters.

North Korea attempted to test a missile on Wednesday, launching it off its east coast near*Wonsan city. Observers have not been able to predict what the missile’s intended target was, as it exploded seconds after launch.

North Korea has reportedly been working to generate enough nuclear fuel for another weapon for at least two months. In January, the website 38 North reported that new satellite photos indicated that Pyongyang had ordered the reactivation of a plutonium reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility – trace amounts of water flowing around the facility indicated that the reactor was operational.

Thae Yong-ho — a high-ranking former North Korean diplomat who defected and now helps media understand Pyongyang’s behavior — warned in December that Kim appeared to be seeking to fully develop a functioning nuclear weapons arsenal by 2018.

“Due to domestic political procedures, North Korea calculates that South Korea and the US will not be able to take physical or military actions to deter North Korea’s nuclear development,” Thae argued.*Months later, Thae argued that Kim’s success at such a feat would cause significant strain within his own government, as many high-ranking North Korean officials appear to distrust the young dictator. *Yet another nuclear test could “break the country in two pieces,” Thae warned last week.

North Korea completed its last nuclear weapon test in September, detonating what it claimed to be a hydrogen bomb. Nuclear experts argued that the weapon was likely a hybrid fission-fusion bomb, however, noting that its seismic impact was too small to be that of a pure fusion weapon like a hydrogen bomb.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/russians-libya-islamic-state

The Pentagon wants to keep ground troops in Libya and go on offense in Somalia

By: Andrew deGrandpre, March 24, 2017 (Photo Credit: Manu Brabo/AP )

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military will keep an unspecified number of ground troops in Libya to help friendly forces further degrade the Islamic State faction there, and officials are seeking new leeway to target al Qaida loyalists in Somalia, the top commander overseeing operations in Africa said Friday.*

"We're going to maintain a force that has the ability to develop intelligence, work with various groups as required, or be able to assist if required ... to take out ISIS targets," said*Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command. Speaking to media at the Pentagon, he indicated also the ISIS presence in coastal Libya has fallen below 200 from an estimated 5,000 or 6,000 only a year ago.

The region no longer appears to be a "backup plan" for foreign fighters unable to join the the Islamic State's primary fight in Syria and Iraq, he added.*That's due in large part to an intense four-month air campaign led by U.S. Marines operating from Navy ships in the Mediterranean Sea. Between August and December, their attack aircraft flew nearly 700 missions in support of Libyan militias battling ISIS militants in Sirte.


Air Force Times
U.S. airstrikes kill 'several dozen' Islamic State fighters in Libya


The last major U.S. operation in Libya occurred during mid-January, when*American warplanes unleashed a massive attack on two Islamic State training camps, killing an estimated 80 militants who had fled the group's crumbling stronghold. The strike was enabled, Waldhauser said, by U.S. personnel who'd spent several weeks coordinating face-to-face with allies to ensure there would be no collateral damage.*

"When you conduct precision airstrike, close-air support operations in an urban environment with the requirements to not have civilian casualties, with the requirements to be careful about infrastructure, destruction and the like, you can't do an operation like that without somebody on the ground to interface," the general added.

Video: Islamic State fighters shown moments before US airstrike

The dynamic in Libya is complicated for many reasons. In the years since former dictator*Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, rival groups have battled for power and influence. More recently, Russia has entered the picture, establishing a military presence in neighboring Egypt.

Asked about Moscow's potential involvement in Libya, Waldhauser confirmed Russian operatives are "on the ground in the area" but sought to walk back his earlier suggestion they have in fact crossed into Libya from their outpost in Egypt.*Regardless, Russia is attempting to influence the security environment there, the general said, and reestablish financial ties — Libya is flush with oil and a target market for Russian-made weapons — that were lost after Gaddafi's demise.

"We watch what they do with great concern," Waldhauser said.

Video: Are Russian operatives on the ground in Libya?

https://twitter.com/USAfricaCommand
US AFRICOM
✔
@USAfricaCommand
No, but we are aware of reports of a Russian military presence in the north African region, specifically Egypt.
https://
twitter.com/majdoub78/stat
us/845348557704040448*
…
12:09 PM - 24 Mar 2017
22
22 Retweets
12
12 likes

In Somalia, where the al-Qaida affiliate al Shabaab remains a threat, Waldhauser is hopeful the Trump White House will loosen rules of engagement established by the Obama administration, which was intently focused — to a fault, some have argued — on avoiding collateral damage. That's still an important concern, Waldhauser said, but current restrictions slow the approval process for conducting airstrikes in populated areas.

The general would like more of that authority to rest with his headquarters in Germany, versus the White House or the Pentagon, so targeted attacks can occur quickly.*"I think the combatant commanders, myself included, are more than capable of making judgments and determinations on some of these targets."


Military Times
Pentagon seeks to expand fight against extremists in Somalia


Under existing rules, armed drones flying over Somalia are approved to strike if U.S. military advisers and their partners come under attack and are unable to repel the threat. In those instances, airstrikes can be used for self defense. "But that's not an offensive capability," Waldhauser noted.*

About 50 U.S. troops, all elite special operations personnel, are on the ground in Somalia. The plan that's pending White House approval would boost that number slightly, The Associated Press reported last month.

Ultimately, Waldhauser wants more flexibility to pick apart al Shabaab, both by stepping up efforts to train and assist U.S. allies doing much of the fighting in Somalia, and by making it easier to take out suspected terrorists when they step out of the shadows. But the broader American mission there, he said, would remain focused and deliberate.*

"We are not," the general added, "going to turn Somalia into a free-fire zone."

Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times' senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On Twitter:*@adegrandpre.

3 Comments

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...a_maritime_race_small_innovations_111039.html

Weekly Recon - Small Unit Tactics, Asia Maritime Race, Small Innovations

By Blake Baiers
March 25, 2017

Good Saturday morning and welcome to Weekly Recon. On this day in 1863, the first Army Medal of Honor is presented to PVT Jacob Parrott of the 33rd Ohio Infantry. Four others are so honored this day as well. And in 1994, at the end of a largely unsuccessful 15-month mission, the last U.S. troops depart Somalia, leaving 20,000 U.N. troops behind to keep the peace and facilitate “nation building” in the divided country.

Bangkok at Night
Wikimedia

Small Unit Approach to Megacities – Speaking this week at the Future of War conference, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that the military has a decade to be ready for the challenge of combat in so-called megacities: cities with a population of ten million or more. A fundamental shift in the character of warfare as battle shifts to from woodland and desert environs to megacities. Some may dispute that point, but what is irrefutable is that military weapons platforms and force structures of the future will need to conform, such as a smaller is better approach.

Milley foresees smaller units networked with other branches to fully embody the Army’s evolving multi-domain concept. The units will be small, "probably somewhere in the range of companies to battalions," according to Milley, and there will be a lot of them. Maj. John Spencer of West Point’s Modern War Institute recently laid out a path forward for constructing Urban Warfare units using the brigade force package model. Milley, in contrast, suggests that the big army could take cues from Special Forces in constructing its future urban warfare force.

Technological changes will also be necessary, requiring a smaller is a better paradigm for acquisition. Everything from the length of helicopter rotors to the size of tanks will need to shrink. As the Army currently assesses new armor platforms, proceeds with its Future of Vertical Lift program, and gauges the mobility needs of soldiers in future combat environments, size will become an ever more important consideration as defense industry designs innovative solutions.

In this May 2012 file photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning cruises for a test in the sea.*
AP Photo/Xinhua, Li Tang, File

Asia’s Maritime Buildup – China’s naval buildup has accelerated in recent years, but the Middle Kingdom is not alone. Reports from the LIMA 2017 exhibition and developments in the Indo-Pacific indicate a burgeoning maritime competition.

Japan’s Maritime Defense Force’s (JMSDF) Fleet grew in a major way this week with two landmark ships entering services: its second Izumo-class helicopter carrier, the Kaga, and its first-of-class Awaji-class minesweeper. The JMSDF recently put its eighth Soryu-class submarine, the Sekiryu (Red Dragon), into service. Singapore small Navy this week launched the fourth of eight littoral vessels. Vietnam which for the first time exhibited one of its Russian-made Gepard-class frigates at an international exhibition this week, and expects to receive another two Gepard-class frigates by the end of this year. Taiwan, unable to find a market for submarines, has decided to produce submarines indigenously.

China is also becoming a regional supplier of ships and submarines. After years of negotiations, China agreed this week to sell two submarines to Thailand, including a third vessel for free. The subs are S26Ts, export versions of China’s Yuan-class Type 039A attack sub. Bangladesh also recently commissioned two Chinese Ming-class submarines. China has also offered assistance to Malaysia, with their indigenously produced littoral combat ships amid struggles for naval modernization. Japan has also offered Malaysia assistance in the form of two retired Japan Coast Guard Ojika-class vessels. *

The source of the Maritime buildup in the Indo-Pacific certainly appears to be driven largely by China’s expansion, and claims in the South China Sea, but to what end, and what will the impact be on regional stability?

Military Innovation: More than Just a Buzzword -*Marine Captain Joseph Wadell’s much-discussed article in the February edition of the Marine Corps Gazette was a scathing critique of military innovation, or, more accurately the lack thereof, in the Marine Corps. Although across all branches innovation has been a difficult goal to achieve, two recent projects have shown that the military is capable of innovating in interesting and lethal ways.

Engineers at the Naval Air Warfare Center were credited with designing, constructing, and testing a new ramjet. The impressive part of that achievement is that a small team was able to do so in less than six months using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts. The team's novel approach by accepting a high rate of failure from the outset, knowing it would be able to learn quickly from each failure led to the development and inexpensive use of COTS parts.

3D Printed Grenade Launcher. U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center

The Army has taken an emerging technology, 3D printing, and quickly proven its lethal potential by building a grenade launcher almost entirely using 3D printed parts, as well as building grenades to launch from the weapon. It was found that the 3D printed grenades clocked within five percent of the muzzle velocity of traditionally manufactured grenades.

Both projects show that the military is capable of innovation, but factors above the boot and lab coat levels can stymie it. The same ramjet design would have had a difficult time acquiring the requisite booster engine had it not been COTS technology purchased with a credit card. The small size of the team also allowed for streamlined decision-making and design processes. The Army’s grenade launcher team was able to quickly adapt its designs because it worked so closely with the elements of production. Both projects are interesting case studies for how the military can approach innovation on future systems. The only unknown factor is if such methods can realistically be scaled up for work on larger platforms, such as tanks and aircraft.


SEND RCD YOUR INPUT: Please send your tips, suggestions, and feedback to editors@realcleardefense.com. Make sure to follow us on Twitter at @RCDefense and follow Blake Baiers @BlakeBaiers.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/...eks-flexible-rules-of-engagement-somalia.html

US General Seeks Flexible Rules of Engagement for Somalia

Military.com | 24 Mar 2017 | by Richard Sisk

The head of U.S. Africa Command said Friday that the White House is considering his request for more "flexibility" on the rules of engagement to attack Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia, but "we are not going to turn Somalia into a free-fire zone."

Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser confirmed that a small contingent of U.S. troops is still in Libya to call in airstrikes, adding that a Russian ground presence in North Africa is contributing to instability and political turmoil.

At a Pentagon news conference, Waldhauser said he is seeking "a little bit more flexibility" to "allow us to process targets in a more rapid fashion" by giving combatant commanders the authority to order strikes by drones and manned aircraft rather than going to the top of the chain of command.

He said the White House is considering but has not yet approved the request for more relaxed rules of engagement against the al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabaab group, which has been trying to bring down the new government of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a dual Somali and U.S. citizen who holds a masters degree in political science from the University of Buffalo.

Waldhauser said he had "no problem" with the rules of engagement under the Obama administration but felt the time has come to "power-down the decision making" to meet the Al- Shabaab threat.

He stressed that the increased flexibility on calling airstrikes would not lessen the commitment of U.S. forces to avoid civilian casualties. The order to strike will not be given unless "we know exactly who we are attacking on the ground," Waldhauser said.

Al-Shabaab was blamed for a suicide bombing that blew a hole in a jetliner last year, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Officials have cited the incident in recent days as an example of a laptop-borne bomb after the U.S. barred computers and tablets from the cabins of some incoming flights from overseas. The bomber was the only person killed in the explosion on the jetliner.

Waldhauser confirmed the U.S. has a small troop presence in Libya -- a carryover from the U.S. Special Forces that assisted in airstrikes in support of the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli in the retaking of the port of Sirte from fighters who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Waldhauser said the strength and influence of ISIS have greatly diminished since the massive airstrikes in Libya in January by B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flying from the U.S. He estimated that the ISIS fighters now number between 100 and 200.

Waldhauser also said he is concerned by the growing Russian influence in northern Africa. He would not confirm that Russia had set up a base in western Egypt to influence events in Libya but said "there are Russians on the ground in the area."
"They are on the ground, they are trying to influence the action," Waldhauser said. "We watch what they do with great concern."

Moscow recently hosted GNA Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and former Gen. Khalifa Haftar, a U.S. citizen and leader of a faction opposed to Sarraj.

"Those two individuals are going to have to get together and come to some kind of accommodation" to end Libya's civil war, Waldhauser said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.insightcrime.org/news-br...e-hovers-over-wave-mexico-journalist-killings

Shadow of Organized Crime Hovers over Wave of Mexico Journalist Killings

Written by Tristan Clavel Friday, 24 March 2017

The murder of a Chihuahua-based correspondent marks the third killing of a journalist in Mexico this month, a wave of targeted violence for which organized crime may be responsible that also reflects more general trends of rising insecurity.

Miroslava Breach Velducea, the Chihuahua correspondent for the national Mexican news outlet La Jornada, was gunned down in her car on March 23 by unknown assailants as she exited her house to drive her son to school, reported Proceso.
Breach was struck by eight 9 mm bullets at close range, according to La Jornada, suggesting an execution-style killing.

During her career, the journalist had spoken out against human rights violations and the negative impacts of drug trafficking. Among the most recent subjects she investigated was the displacement of hundreds of familes by drug trafficking organizations in Chihuahua, and organized crime's infiltration of local elections.

Breach's death marks the third killing of a journalist this month in Mexico. It was preceded by the slaying of Ricardo Monlui Cabrera in Veracruz on March 19; the journalist was shot at pointblank range while exiting a restaurant with his family, reported La Jornada. In 2010, Monlui's son had denounced being kidnapped, shot and left for dead by municipal police.

And on March 2, Cecilio Pineda Brito was assassinated by two men on a motorcycle in the state of Guerrero. Pineda, who covered the crime beat, had survived a previous attempt on his life in 2015 and had repeatedly received death threats since then. The Guerrero State Attorney General Xavier Olea Peláez said that organized crime was behind his murder, according to El Universal.

InSight Crime Analysis
It is too early to establish with certainty the responsibility of Mexican organized crime in the three murders, amid a nationwide increase in homicides. Nevertheless, at least two of the killings -- those of Miroslava Breach and Cecilio Pineda -- appear to form part of a trend of journalists targeted for their coverage on crime-related issues. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 74 percent of journalists killed in Mexico since 1992 covered crime, 29 percent covered corruption and 24 percent covered politics.

Along those lines, Marcela Turati Muñoz, an award-winning reporter for the Mexican news outlet Proceso, told InSight Crime that it was impossible to confirm that organized crime was directly responsible for these killings. But Turati also pointed out that it is just as plausible that the assassinations have to do with political power struggles involving corrupt local politicians and businessmen as it is that they have do with drug trafficking cartels.

"It is easy for many assassins in these areas [where the journalists were killed] to disguise their crimes as the work of organized crime, because they know that no one will thoroughly investigate if the crime presents organized crime characteristics," Turati wrote in an email.

"In Chihuahua, for example, there aren't only cartel disputes, there is also an ongoing political dispute, a political readjustment. And in each of these three states [Guerrero, Veracruz, Chihuahua], links between politicians and cartels come to light," she added.

In March 2016, Breach had written specifically about these links in the state of Chihuahua, revealing the family ties between local candidates for elections and criminal groups.

SEE ALSO: Mexico News and Profiles

Contacted by InSight Crime, Carlos Lauria, the Program Director and Senior Americas Program Coordinator for CPJ, echoed some of Turati's points.

"One of the problems compounding the violence against journalists [in Mexico] is the collusion between criminal groups and local politicians, local police or even sometimes the judiciary," Lauria told InSight Crime.

But Lauria also noted that violence against journalists in Mexico "comes and goes in waves, and is sometimes more a reflection of a generalized violence than an actual increasing trend of homicides of journalists."

Veracruz, a hotspot for journalist killings, is also undergoing a significant criminal evolution following the fall of the administration of former Gov. Javier Duarte, who allegedly engaged in massive corruption during his time in office in addition to having suspected links to crime groups. The International Crisi Group went so far as to describe Veracruz after Duarte's run in office as descending into a "state of terror."

Chihuahua is also facing rising levels of violence, and Guerrero has long been one of Mexico's most crime-ridden, insecure states.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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http://www.hoover.org/research/how-counter-political-islam

How To Counter Political Islam

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
via Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution)
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of the Hoover Institution publication “The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. You may read the full report here.

It is refreshing and heartening that President Trump acknowledges the need for an ideological campaign against “radical Islam.” This deserves to be called a paradigm shift. President Bush often referred to a “war on terror,” but terror is a tactic that can be used for a variety of ideological objectives. President Obama stated that he was opposed to “violent extremism” and even organized an international summit around this subject. Yet at times he made it seem as if he worried more about “Islamophobia” than about radical Islam. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2012, Obama declared: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

In what follows, however, I shall refer to “political Islam” rather than radical Islam. Political Islam is not just a religion as most Western citizens recognize the term “religion,” a faith; it is also a political ideology, a legal order, and in many ways also a military doctrine associated with the campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad. Political Islam rejects any kind of distinction between religion and politics, mosque and state. Political Islam even rejects the modern state in favor of a caliphate. My central argument is that political Islam implies a constitutional order fundamentally incompatible with the US Constitution and with the “constitution of liberty” that is the foundation of the American way of life.

There is no point in denying that political Islam as an ideology has its foundation in Islamic doctrine. However, “Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Muslims” are distinct concepts. Not all Muslims are Islamists, let alone violent, but all Islamists—including those who use violence—are Muslims. I believe the religion of Islam itself is indeed capable of reformation, if only to distinguish it more clearly from the political ideology of Islamism. But that task of reform can only be carried out by Muslims.

Insisting that radical Islamists have “nothing to do with Islam” has led US policy makers to commit numerous strategic errors since 9/11. One is to distinguish between a “tiny” group of extremists and an “overwhelming” majority of “moderate” Muslims. I prefer to differentiate among Medina Muslims, who embrace the militant political ideology adopted by Muhammad in Medina; Mecca Muslims, who prefer the religion originally promoted by Muhammad in Mecca; and reformers, who are open to some kind of Muslim Reformation.

These distinctions have their origins in history. The formative period of Islam can be divided roughly into two phases: the spiritual phase, associated with Mecca, and the political phase that followed Muhammad’s move to Medina. There is a substantial difference between Qur’anic verses revealed in Mecca (largely spiritual in nature) and Qur’anic verses revealed in Medina (more political and even militaristic). There is also a difference in the behavior of the Prophet Muhammad: in Mecca, he was a spiritual preacher, but in Medina he became a political and military figure.

It cannot be said often enough that the United States is not at war with Islam or with Muslims. It is, however, bound to resist the political aspirations of Medina Muslims where those pose a direct threat to our civil and political liberties. It is also bound to ensure that Mecca Muslims and reforming Muslims enjoy the same protections as members of other religious communities who accept the fundamental principles of a free society. That includes protection from the tactics of intimidation that are so central to the ideology and practice of political Islam.

The Background

The conflict between the United States and political Islam in modern times dates back to at least 1979, when the US embassy in Tehran was seized by Islamic revolutionaries and fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. In the decades that followed, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania reminded Americans of the threat posed by political Islam. But it was not until the 9/11 attacks that political Islam as an ideology attracted sustained public attention. The September 11, 2001, attacks were inspired by a political ideology that has its foundation in Islam, specifically its formative period in Medina.

Since 9/11, at least $1.7 trillion has been spent on combat and reconstruction costs in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The total budgetary cost of the wars and homeland security from 2001 through 2016 is more than $3.6 trillion. Yet in spite of the sacrifices of more than 5,000 armed service personnel who have lost their lives since 9/11 and the tens of thousands of American soldiers who have been wounded, today political Islam is on the rise around the world. Violence is the most obvious—but not the only—manifestation of this trend. Jihadist groups have proliferated all over the Middle East and North Africa, especially where states are weak and civil wars rage (Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Syria, not forgetting northern Nigeria). Islam-inspired terrorists also have a global reach. France is in a permanent state of emergency, while the United States has been profoundly shaken by terror attacks in Boston (the Marathon bombers); Fort Hood, Texas; San Bernardino, California; Orlando, Florida; and Ohio State University, to name but a few.

Of the last sixteen years, the worst year for terrorism was 2014, with ninety-three countries experiencing attacks and 32,765 people killed. The second worst was 2015, with 29,376 deaths. Last year, four radical Islamic groups were responsible for 74 percent of all deaths from terrorism: the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. Although the Muslim world itself bears the heaviest burden of jihadist violence, the West is increasingly under attack.

How large is the jihadist movement in the world? In Pakistan alone, where the population is almost entirely Muslim, 13 percent of Muslims surveyed—more than 20 million people—said that bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often or sometimes justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies.

Disturbingly, the number of Western-born Muslim jihadists is sharply increasing. The United Nations estimated in November 2014 that some 15,000 foreign fighters from at least eighty nations have traveled to Syria to join the radical jihadists. Roughly a quarter of them come from Western Europe.

Yet the advance of political Islam manifests itself not only in acts of violence. Even as billions are spent on military intervention and drone strikes, the ideological infrastructure of political Islam in the United States continues to grow because officials are concerned only with criminal conspiracies to commit acts of violence, not with the ideology that inspires such acts.

According to one estimate, 10−15 percent of the world’s Muslims are Islamists. Out of well over 1.6 billion, or 23 percent of the globe’s population, that implies more than 160 million individuals. Based on survey data on attitudes toward sharia in Muslim countries, total support for Islamist activities in the world is likely significantly higher than that estimate.

Scholarship on Political Islam

There are two sets of academic literature aimed at helping policy makers grapple with the threat of radical Islam. In the first set, Islamic religious ideas form a marginal factor at best. Authors such as John Esposito, Marc Sageman, Hatem Bazian, and Karen Armstrong argue that a combination of variables such as poverty and corrupt political governance lies at the root of Islamic violence. They urge the US government and its allies to tackle these “root causes.” For these authors, devoting attention to religious motives is at best irrelevant, and at worst a harmful distraction. They are not concerned about political Islam as an ideology, only about individual acts of violence committed in its name.

A second set of scholars—which is growing in importance—sees a radical ideology derived from Islamic theology, principles, and concepts as the driving force of our current predicament. Scholars such as Michael Cook, Daniel Pipes, Jeffrey Bale, and David Cook, and authors such as Paul Berman and Graeme Wood, acknowledge that factors such as poverty and bad governance are relevant, but argue that US policy makers should take seriously the religious ideology that underlies Islamist violence.

The failed polices since 9/11 (and even before) in the struggle against radical Islam were built on false premises derived from the first set of literature, which absolves Islam wholly of the atrocities that it inspires. As the failure of American strategy since 2001 has become increasingly clear, however, the view has gained ground that the ideology underlying Islamist violence must be tackled if our efforts are to be successful.

This view is not only held by a few Western scholars. All over the world, there are now Muslims who are engaged in a long-overdue process of reassessing Islamic thought, scripture, and laws with a view to reforming them. These Muslim reformers can be found in positions of leadership in some governments, in universities, in the press, and elsewhere. They are our natural allies. An important part of our future policies in the war on Islamic extremism should be to encourage and empower them.

Understanding Dawa

From 9/11 until now, the dominant Western response to political Islam has been to focus only on “terror” and “violent extremism.” This approach has failed. In focusing only on acts of violence, we have ignored the ideology that justifies, promotes, celebrates, and encourages those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam (or “Islamism”) as an ideology and against those who spread that ideology, we have made a grave error.

If Islamism is the ideology, then dawa encompasses all the methods by which it is spread. The term “dawa” refers to activities carried out by Islamists to win adherents and enlist them in a campaign to impose sharia law on all societies. Dawa is not the Islamic equivalent of religious proselytizing, although it is often disguised as such by blending humanitarian activities with subversive political activities.

Dawa as practiced by Islamists employs a wide range of mechanisms to advance the goal of imposing Islamic law (sharia) on society. This includes proselytization, but extends beyond that. In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to bring about more extreme views among existing Muslims. The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia. Islamists rely on both violent and nonviolent means to achieve their objectives.

Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the “long march through the institutions” was to twentieth-century Marxists. It is subversion from within, the use of religious freedom in order to undermine that very freedom. After Islamists gain power, dawa is to them what Gleichschaltung  (synchronization) of all aspects of German state, civil, and social institutions was to the National Socialists.

There are of course differences. The biggest difference is that dawa is rooted in the Islamic practice of attempting to convert non-Muslims to accept the message of Islam. As it is an ostensibly religious missionary activity, proponents of dawa enjoy a much greater protection by the law in free societies than Marxists or fascists did in the past.

Worse, Islamist groups have enjoyed not just protection but at times official sponsorship from government agencies duped into regarding them as representatives of “moderate Muslims” simply because they do not engage in violence. Islamist groups that have been treated in this way include:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
The Islamic Society of Boston
For organizations engaging in dawa, the main elements of the strategy are:

to have well-organized Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims, while marginalizing Muslim reformers and dissidents.
to take ownership of immigration trends to encourage the “Islamization” of Western societies by invoking hijra, the emigration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.
to reduce women to the status of reproductive machines for the purpose of demographic transformation.
to take advantage of the focus on “inclusion” by progressive political parties in democratic societies, then to force these parties to accept Islamist demands in the name of peaceful coexistence.
to take advantage of self-consciously progressive movements, effectively co-opting them.
to increase Islamists’ hold over the educational system, including some charter schools, “faith” schools, and home schooling.
Typically, Islamists study target societies to identify points of vulnerability. In the United States, Islamists focus on vulnerable African-American men within prison populations, as well as Hispanic and Native American communities. Recent targets of Islamist infiltration include the Women’s March and Black Lives Matter.

Agents of dawa also systematically lobby private sector organizations, governments, and international bodies:

They seek to pressure governments to accede to Islamist demands on the grounds of freedom of religion or status as a religious minority.
They urge the United Nations and the European Council to combat “Islamophobia” by devising what amounts to censorship guidelines for politicians and journalists and by punishing those who dissent.
They press institutions such as the Associated Press to distort the language they use to suit Islamist objectives.
They wage sustained campaigns to discredit critics of radical Islam.
The Sinews of Dawa

The global infrastructure of dawa is well funded, persistent, and resilient. From 1973 through 2002, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spent an estimated $87 billion to promote dawa efforts abroad. Josh Martin estimates that, since the early 1970s, Middle Eastern charities have distributed $110 billion, $40 billion of which found its way to sub-Saharan Africa and contributed heavily to Islamist ideological indoctrination there. Nongovernmental organizations in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia continue to distribute large sums overseas to finance ideological indoctrination and activities. Powerful foundations such as the Qatar Foundation continue to grant financial support and legitimacy to radical Islamic ideology around the world.

Many Islamic charitable foundations use zakat (mandatory charity) funds to mix humanitarian outreach with ideological indoctrination, laying the ground for future intolerance, misogyny, and jihad, even if no violence is used in the short term. When informal funding mechanisms are included, the zakat funds available could reach “hundreds of billions of dollars” worldwide each year.

The Problem

Let it be said explicitly: The Islamists’ program is fundamentally incompatible with the US Constitution, religious tolerance, the equality of men and women, the tolerance of different sexual orientations, and other fundamental human rights.

The biggest challenge the United States faces in combating political Islam, however, is the extent to which agents of dawa can exploit the constitutional and legal protections that guarantee American citizens freedom of religion and freedom of speech—freedoms that would of course be swept away if the Islamists achieved their goals.

In 2010, one senior American intelligence analyst summed up our predicament:

In the US there are First Amendment issues we’re cognizant of. It’s not a crime to radicalize, only when it turns to violence . . . America is thus vulnerable to a threat that is not only diversifying, but arguably intensifying.

To give just one example: A cleric in Maryland, Imam Suleiman Bengharsa, has openly endorsed the Islamic State, posted gruesome videos, and praised terrorist attacks overseas. As of February 2017, however, he remains a free man and US authorities insist nothing can be done against him because he has not yet plotted to commit a specific act of violence. One expert has said that Imam Bengharsa “can take his supporters right up to the line. It’s like making a cake and not putting in the final ingredient. It’s winks and nods all the way.” This is what we are up against.

The global constitution of political Islam is formidable. The Muslim Brotherhood, with its numerous American affiliates, is an important component, but not the only one. Even if one were able to eliminate the Brotherhood overnight, the ideological infrastructure of dawa would remain powerful. The network of radical Islamist preachers, “charities,” and organizations that perpetuate political Islam is already well established inside and outside the United States.

To resist the insidious advance of political Islam, we need to develop a strategy to counter not only those who use violence to advance their politico-religious objectives—the jihadists—but also the great and complex ideological infrastructure known as dawa, just as we countered both the Red Army and the ideology of communism in the Cold War. Focusing only on “terror” as a tactic is insufficient. We ignore at our peril the ideological infrastructure that supports political Islam in both its violent and its nonviolent forms.

It is not just that jihad is an extension of dawa; according to some observers, it is dawa by other means. Put differently, nonviolent and violent Islamists differ only on tactics; they share the same goal, which is to establish an unfree society ruled by strict sharia law. Institutionally, nonviolent Islamists have benefited from terror attacks committed by jihadists because such attacks make nonviolent Islamists appear moderate in the eyes of Western governments, even when their goals and values are not. This is known as the “positive radical flank effect. Ian Johnson, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, observed:

Al Qaeda was the best thing to happen to these [Islamist] groups. Nowadays, our bar is so low that if groups aren’t Al Qaeda, we’re happy. If they’re not overtly supporting terrorism, we think they’re okay. We don’t stop to think where the terrorism comes from, where the fish swim.

Dawa must therefore be countered as much as jihad.

Yet, as things stand, dawa cannot be countered. Its agents hide behind constitutional protections they themselves would dismantle unhesitatingly were they in power. In 2017, Congress must therefore give the president the tools he needs to dismantle the infrastructure of dawa in the United States and to counter the spread of political Islam at home and abroad.

While recognizing that our freedoms are sacrosanct, we must also remember the wise words of Karl Popper, who memorably identified what he called “the paradox of tolerance,” namely that “unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.”

If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Continue reading here.
http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/ali_challengeofdawa_final_web.pdf

 

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http://www.voanews.com/a/trump-administration-reviewing-role-us-nuclear-weapons/3781464.html

USA

Trump Administration Reviewing What Role US Nuclear Weapons Should Play

March 25, 2017 1:39 PM
Steve Herman

WHITE HOUSE — The United Nations begins negotiations Monday on a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

This comes as the United States commences a review of what role its nuclear weapons should now play.

“Shortly after taking office, the president directed a new Nuclear Posture Review to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st century threats and reassure our allies,” White House senior assistant press secretary Michael Short told VOA Friday. “The review is underway and is being led by the secretary of defense.”

Those around the world yearning for a planet free of nuclear weapons are likely to be disappointed with the outcomes both at the United Nations and the White House.

“I personally support a world without nuclear weapons,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. “But I would also admit it would be very hard to get there.”

NATO vote

The Obama administration last year strongly encouraged NATO allies to vote against the start of negotiations at the U.N., contending such a ban would hinder cooperation to respond to nuclear threats from adversaries.

The proposed U.N. treaty “aims to delegitimize the concept of nuclear deterrence upon which many U.S. allies and partners depend,” according to a notice Washington sent to NATO on October 17.

Some in the Trump administration would like to see it abandon Obama’s stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons and lift the moratorium on U.S nuclear weapons testing.

“We have not conducted an experiment in over 20 years. Since then we’ve made some changes to our nuclear warheads, and we don’t fully understand how those changes might play out in operational scenarios,” said Michaela Dodge, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Examining whether global nuclear disarmament “is a realistic goal” is part of the Nuclear Posture Review, according to Christopher Ford, the National Security Council’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation, who spoke at a conference in Washington last Tuesday.

The Trump administration “may come to a different conclusion than the Obama administration came to as to how realistic it is to make that a goal that drives your near and midterm policy approaches,” Pifer, director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative, said during a seminar the following day devoted to how U.S. and Russian leaders can avoid renewed nuclear tensions.

Number of weapons

Also on the table, according to National Security Council officials, are the number of U.S. weapons needed to counter other nuclear-armed countries and whether new devices should be added to its atomic arsenal.

“I think over time President Trump and his team at the Pentagon are going to recognize that we do need to continue to have verifiable arms limits with Russia,” said Pifer, also a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “We don’t want a new arms race. We don’t want to open the door to new types of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing, which would have grave ramifications for the global arms reduction and nonproliferation process.”

That also appears to be the view in Moscow.

A former Russian arms control negotiator, who attended the Washington seminar told VOA the Kremlin desires resuming dialogue in this arena.

“For the Russian side, if United States is forthcoming and comes up with something interesting, it would be very difficult for Russia to say, ‘Nyet, we’re not interested.’ No. No way,” said Victor Mizin, deputy director of the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs.

The self-described former Cold Warrior terms the current situation as a “hybrid cold war,” contending the rhetoric is worse than it was in the 1980s.

For the past several years, the United States has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark arms control agreement of the Cold War.

Ford, the only senior nuclear policy official yet appointed by Trump, said the administration is reviewing responses to Russia’s deployment of nuclear-capable cruise missiles, which led to the U.S. accusations.

“What usually happens, as you well know, is the United States over-complies with agreements while permitting Russia to have more wiggle room in an effort to save the agreement itself,” Dodge, at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA.

Video

Arms control

Another influential Russian academic visiting Washington in recent days for conferences and seminars on arms control, Sergey Rogov, expressed concern about the Trump administration’s apparent distaste for multilateral treaties, noting contradictory comments made by candidate Trump on nuclear issues.

“Apparently today there is no nuclear policy for the new administration,” said Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S.-Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who added, however, “it’s still early. But the problem is the Republican Party has almost no arms controllers left.”

President Trump, on the campaign trail, did speak both of a desire to see the abolition of nuclear weapons and of giving an unrivaled arsenal to the United States, which he said had fallen behind in its nuclear capabilities.

The president also mentioned the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic State and publicly pondered whether countries such as Japan and South Korea, protected under the American nuclear umbrella, might be better off having their own such weapons.

The U.S. nuclear posture review is expected to take 12 to 18 months. The previous one was completed in 2010 during the first term of President Barack Obama.

U.S. nuclear policymakers will now also be keeping one eye on the activities at the United Nations where the negotiations threaten to upset the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That treaty allowed the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France, who are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to retain their nuclear weapons for an unspecified time.

Anti-nuclear activists

Some anti-nuclear activists expressed disappointed with the Obama administration, despite its denuclearization rhetoric, because it requested large increases for nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. They are not expecting good news from the Trump administration.

“But throwing out even this rhetorical commitment, arguing that a world without nuclear weapons is unrealistic, and hinting at the resumption of explosive nuclear weapon testing means violating international law, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and a clear expression of support for nuclear weapons,” said Ray Acheson, director of the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Acheson told VOA her organization sees this as “posing enormous risks to the existing nonproliferation regime” and “will essentially be equivalent to throwing the last several decades of iterative work towards nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation into the dustbin of history.”

Steve Herman is VOA's White House Bureau Chief.

 

[Housecarl]

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Asia & Pacific

North Korea’s leader is a lot of things — but irrational is not one of them

By Anna Fifield March 25 at 8:41 PM
SEOUL — It’s easy to write off Kim Jong Un as a madman. What with the colorful nuclear threats, the gruesome executions of family members, the fact that he’s a self-appointed marshal who’s never served in the military.

Indeed, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did it just this past week, calling Kim “this crazy, fat kid that’s running North Korea.” That came on the heels of a pronouncement from Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that “we are not dealing with a rational person” in Kim.

It’s a relatively common view. World leaders, military chiefs and Hollywood have all painted him as an unhinged maniac.

But this is not just wrong, North Korea watchers and dictatorship experts say. It also risks dangerous miscalculation.

“North Korea has consistently been treated like a joke, but now the joke has nuclear weapons,” said John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard Kennedy School. “If you deem Kim Jong Un to be irrational, then you’re implicitly underestimating him.”

Leaders throughout the centuries have realized it can be advantageous to have your enemies think you’re crazy. Machiavelli once wrote that it can be wise to pretend to be mad, while President Richard Nixon wanted the North Vietnamese to think he was unstable and prone to launch a nuclear attack on a whim.

Writing off Kim Jong Un as a lunatic could equally be playing into his hands.

Want proof that he’s no senseless madman?

Exhibit A: “He’s still in power,” said Benjamin Smith, an expert on regime change at the University of Florida. “He and his father and grandfather have stayed in power through a series of American presidents going back to Truman.”

[ Defying skeptics, Kim Jong Un marks five years at the helm of North Korea ]

Longevity, of course, is the preserve of dictators, not democrats. Indeed, the 33-year-old has defied predictions that he would not be able to keep a grip on the authoritarian state that has been in his family’s control since 1948. December marked his fifth anniversary in power — a milestone that the democratically elected president in the South did not reach.

In person, Kim is confident and well spoken, said Michael Spavor, a Canadian who runs Paektu Cultural Exchange, which promotes business, sports and tourism with North Korea. Spavor is one of the very few outsiders to have met Kim.

“He was acting very diplomatically and professionally,” said Spavor, who accompanied Dennis Rodman, the basketball player, on his trips to North Korea. “He felt old beyond his years. He could be serious at times and fun at times but by no means did he seem weird or odd.”

Smith pointed out that saying Kim is rational isn’t the same as saying “he’s a perfect guy who makes perfect decisions.”

Kim’s decisions to date have enabled him to achieve his primary goal — so far — of staying in power by staving off threats, real or anticipated, from the elite.

“He has reasons to be afraid of conspiracies in the top levels of his government, especially in the military and secret police,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar of North Korea who once studied at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. “You can buy these people off, but they can still betray you. You have to terrify them, and that’s what he’s doing.”

Kim has sent a message to the elites who keep him in power through a series of executions and purges that keep everyone fearful that they will be next.

Kim has rid himself of 300-plus officials during his five years at the helm. He notably had his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek, executed for disobeying orders and building his own power base.

Other high-level figures have been killed — a defense minister was reportedly dispatched with antiaircraft fire — or purged. The state security minister is said to be under house arrest.

“What’s irrational about that? Irrational is going to the ICC and surrendering,” Lankov said. A United Nations commission of inquiry has recommended referring Kim to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The assassination of Kim Jong Un’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Malaysia with a chemical weapon was a message to outside rivals that the young leader could hunt them down wherever they are, analysts say.

[ As North Korea arsenal grows, experts see heightened risk of ‘miscalculation’ ]

To deal with threats from “hostile powers,” in North Korean parlance, having nuclear weapons makes sense for Kim, said Kongdan Oh of the Institute for Defense Analyses. “Steadily pursuing nuclear weapons is a very rational thing for him to be doing.”

Kim has ordered three nuclear tests since he took power — claiming that one was a hydrogen bomb — and has overseen steady improvements in the missile program. North Korea has “entered the final stage of preparation” for the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Kim has said, referring to a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

North Korea was established in vehement opposition to the American “imperialist aggressors” and their “puppets” in South Korea. So maintaining a sense of threat from both provides a rationale for the state’s existence and a shared menace to unite the elite and the common people.

Then there’s the economy. The fact that it’s growing is a sign that the leadership knows what it’s doing, said Park of Harvard.

“There’s a puzzle here: The regime is getting wealthier amid the increasing implementation of sanctions,” he said.

While the North Korean economy is far from booming, it has been steadily expanding in recent years, as evidenced by all the construction in Pyongyang despite increasingly tight restrictions imposed by the outside world.

[ North Korea’s growing economy — and America’s misconceptions about it ]

It has done this through state-run trading companies that form partnerships with entities in China, enabling them to circumvent sanctions.

“Look at the web of elite North Korean state trading companies. You can’t be irrational or somehow crazy to consistently run this system to either make money off it or procure what you need for the nuclear weapons program,” Park said. “That objectively shows that there is a game plan, and a pretty consistently implemented game plan.”

But being rational is not the same as being predictable, and many analysts say that the youngest Kim appears to be temperamental and hotheaded.

That worries American military leaders. “Combining nuclear warheads with ballistic missile technology in the hands of a volatile leader like Kim Jong Un is a recipe for disaster,” Adm. Harry Harris, the head of Pacific Command, said in December.

There is reason to be concerned about this factor, said Jerrold Post, a psychiatrist who founded the CIA’s personality analysis center and has studied Kim and his father.

Kim’s capacity for brutality and his apparent spontaneity could be compounded by President Trump’s own impulsive acts, he said.

“This is all about big boys and their big toys,” Post said. “Will he actively threaten the U.S.? I tend to think not, but I must say I’m concerned about words leading to actions between him and President Trump.”

Read more

For Kim Jong Nam, a sad ending to a lonely life

Tillerson says ‘all options are on the table’ when it comes to North Korea

North Korean regime is finding new ways to stop information flows, report says

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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[Housecarl]

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http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/on-the-likelihood-of-large-urban-conflict-in-the-21st-century

On the Likelihood of Large Urban Conflict in the 21st Century

by Sean M. Castilla
Journal Article | March 25, 2017 - 10:56am

The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Milley, recently said “future war will be largely fought in urban terrain,” and that the Army is currently “suboptimized for urban capabilities.”[ii] In recent years several articles have explored how to go about ‘optimizing’ for future combat scenarios in megacities – urban centers with populations of 10 million persons or more. [iii] Despite this growing emphasis on megacity contingencies, many question the premise of U.S. participation in megacity conflict.

As Major John Spencer (Modern War Institute at West Point) recently noted, the counterargument is that megacity terrain is too challenging in terms of scale and complexity, and consequently it should be considered an “impossible mission and, therefore, not one we will undertake.”[iv] Like Major Spencer, I reject this notion.

This logic is flawed for four reasons. First, humans, and by extension sources of human conflict, are concentrating in urban areas. Second, our potential adversaries will continue to leverage complex terrain, such as large urban areas, to negate U.S. advantages.

Third, dismissing megacity conflict as extreme ignores the fact that conflict in large and complex urban terrain is a prominent feature of 21st century warfare. Lastly, as the sources of conflict grow increasingly consolidated in urban terrain it is the duty of military professionals to consider the character of such conflict and what types of military options we can provide our political leadership in a crisis. In this essay I will consider each of the four factors outlined above in further detail.

Global Urbanization Trends

By now, even the most casual reader on this topic knows that global urbanization trends are making conflict in megacity environments increasingly likely. Urbanization of the global population over the last five decades has been momentous; two centuries ago only three percent of humanity lived in cities, whereas today for the first time in history half of the world population lives in urban areas.[v] If current urbanization trends continue, over 70 percent of the global population will reside in cities by the year 2050.[vi] Much of this urban growth will be absorbed in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, geopolitical areas that are challenged by rampant poverty and violence.[vii]

The rising socioeconomic influence of megacities (14 percent of global economic output today comes from the world’s megacities), compounded by multiple drivers of instability (i.e. unregulated growth, urban slums, ungoverned areas, income disparity, substandard infrastructure, corrupt governance, sectarianism, climate change, etc.), has significantly bolstered their strategic importance.[viii] Cities are increasingly rivaling nation states in importance as the driving force in shaping global stability and development.[ix] As General Milley recently noted, war is about politics and it will be fought where people live; in an urbanized world, large urban areas are the battlefields of the future.[x]

Unforeseen Drivers of Urban Conflict

Another potentially unforeseen, and less obvious, driver of conflict in megacities may prove to be the current modernization efforts of the U.S. and our potential adversaries. Having observed U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, revisionist powers (i.e. states that seek to challenge the status quo of the international system, such as Russia) have adapted their military strategies and modernized their forces to counter U.S. strengths and exploit U.S. weaknesses.

These adversarial efforts seek to “fracture” the AirLand Battle paradigm by denying U.S. Joint forces supremacy and interoperability across all domains.[xi] Focused on the current fight, the U.S. simultaneously allowed its modernization efforts to atrophy. Consequently, revisionist states have achieved technological parity, and in some instances superiority, with the U.S. by implementing robust anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) networks comprised of a sophisticated array of sensors and cross-domain capabilities (e.g. precision-guided munitions, cyber/electronic warfare capabilities, etc.) designed to challenge U.S. domain supremacy.[xii]

Recognizing these challenges, the U.S. Army is taking action to modernize its force, pacing its efforts on the technological advancements of near-peer competitors.[xiii] The Army seeks to enhance its air and missile defense, fires, communications, aviation, and cyber/EW capabilities as well as providing lethality and survivability upgrades for the Abrams, Bradley, and Stryker. Other emerging technologies, such as autonomous drones and artificial intelligence, are being developed to offset the advantages of potential adversaries.[xiv]

Ultimately, the goal of these modernization efforts, known broadly as the DoD’s Third Offset Strategy, is to shore up the eroded credibility of U.S. conventional deterrence in order to ensure stability in an increasingly competitive multipolar international system.

If we assume that these modernization efforts prove successful in (a) negating competitor capability advantages in the near-term; and (b) regaining domain superiority in the long run; then it is logical to assume our modernization efforts may inadvertently compel revisionist state adversaries (or their proxies) to challenge U.S. supremacy in the very places we seek to avoid – areas of severely restricted terrain that deny U.S. land forces the ability to maneuver and mass its forces.

As the world grows increasingly urban, this includes the severely restricted terrain of megacities. Operating from within such crowded and complex terrain, revisionist states can challenge the international status quo indirectly using deception, misinformation, surprise and speed to engage us below the threshold of military escalation.[xv] In a 2013 document outlining his view of 21st century warfare, the Russian Chief of the General Staff outlined exactly this kind of indirect approach:

Frontal engagements of large formations of forces at the strategic and operational level are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Long-distance, contactless actions against the enemy are becoming the main means of achieving combat and operational goals.[xvi]

It may be that as the U.S. reestablishes the credibility of its deterrence capabilities, revisionist forces will choose to launch such non-frontal attacks from the cover and concealment that complex urban terrain provides.

Additionally, while U.S. defense spending continues to vastly exceed that of our competitors, it may be logical for potential adversaries to use complex urban terrain as a base from which to strike the U.S. rather than to continue their modernization efforts for linear force-on-force conflict.[xvii] Policy advisor and columnist Rosa Brooks recently wrote that U.S. military conventional capability dominance makes it “suicidal” for competitors to directly challenge us. Revisionist powers are forced to pursue asymmetric strategies (e.g. striking U.S. forces from complex, non-linear battlefields) to counter U.S. strengths and exploit U.S. weakness. Brooks notes:

We assume that military technological innovation is a one-way ratchet. High-tech measures taken by one side will be followed by high-tech countermeasures taken by the other, which will be met with still more advanced counter-measures, and so on, ad infinitum…for all our technological sophistication, warfare has never truly moved past sticks and stones – and even today, their bone-breaking power remains surprisingly potent...[sometimes] the most successful countermeasures are low-tech – and historically, this has been demonstrated just as often as has the opposite.[xviii]

Accordingly, it is unnecessary for potential adversaries to match current U.S. modernization efforts tit-for-tat. Urban terrain offers tactical advantages to the defender that is otherwise inferior at the operational and strategic level.[xix]



A hunter-killer drone with attached net captures a Phantom 3 drone, December 2016.[xx]

By operating within a megacity environment, U.S. maneuver formations will be unable to maneuver with ease and unable to mass its forces at decisive points. It is not hard to envision scenarios in which U.S. technological advantages can be negated by technologically unsophisticated means in such environments.

Commercially bought quadcopters configured as low-tech bombers and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices become just as effective as technologically sophisticated aircraft and tanks in such terrain. Drone swarms can be disrupted or rerouted by the combination of low-tech obstacles, small arms, obscurants and traps emplaced at urban canyon choke points (imagine our adversaries trawling for drones!). Robots using artificial intelligence to identify targets will find that, unlike the air and sea domains, the land domain is crowded and complex; they will find themselves drowning in the sea of humanity residing in megacities. Such scenarios evoke LTG McMaster’s “vampire fallacy” which warns that faith in technology “neglects war’s uncertainty based mainly on interactions with determined and elusive enemies.”[xxi]

Before proceeding, let us then assume that it is plausible that future U.S. adversaries are just as likely to be near-peer, hybrid or asymmetric forces operating in megacities or large urban areas, as they are to be peer competitors conducting force-on-force warfare in open terrain. Let us also assume that such conflict will be conducted amidst dense human populations that are burdened by poverty, sectarianism, and other social challenges.

Conflict in Large and Complex Urban Terrain is a Prominent Feature of 21st Century Warfare

Into just its 17th year, warfare in the 21st century has been notably urban in character. Consider the abundance of urban battles and campaigns that have occurred in just under two decades: Grozny; Nablus; Baghdad; Fallujah; Bint Jbeil; Nahr al-Bared; Tskhinvali; Rio de Janeiro, Gaza; Donetsk; Aleppo; etc. These conflicts are only the continuation of a trend towards the urbanization of conflict that intensified in the 20th century (reference Stalingrad, Manila, Hue City, etc.). Recent conflicts such as the Third Battle of Fallujah, operations in Yemen, and the ongoing Mosul campaign suggest that this trend towards urban conflict is not going away.

Despite evidence that war is growing increasingly urban, there are many that continue to dismiss the notion that we should prepare for megacity conflict because it is an unlikely scenario. Perhaps this reluctance is rooted in our cultural aversion toward conflict in urban areas. Whatever the cause, the notion that we shouldn’t be preparing for megacity conflict because it is unlikely is akin to saying that we shouldn’t have a React to Nuclear Hazard/Attack battle drill because that scenario is also unlikely. Training and preparing for the worst case scenario is what we are paid to do. Choosing not to prepare for such scenarios neglects our duty to be prepared for conflict in whatever form it may arise. As Roger Spiller noted in Sharp Corners: Urban Operations at Century’s End, “No fighting force is ever permitted to indulge its operational preferences with impunity. War and lesser forms of conflict do not organize themselves for anyone’s benefit.”[xxii]

Furthermore, as military professionals we must not lose sight of the forest for the trees. In discussing potential conflict in megacities it is easy to get wrapped around the categorical distinction that they are comprised of 10 million persons or more. Megacity populations are daunting and it is hard to wrap one’s mind around how to successfully operate in such an environment. Yet even if conflicts don’t occur in the extreme megacity populations, the overarching argument in this paper is that conflict is likely to become increasingly urban. Conflict in cities below the megacity threshold will still feature the key characteristics of urban conflict: creating massive casualty rates; requiring considerable resources and time; causing civilian hardship, etc. The city of Aleppo, with a prewar population of approximately 2.3 million, has been no less ghastly than conflict in a megacity may be.[xxiii]

It is Our Duty as Military Professionals to Consider the Character of Megacity Conflict

Urban conflict will likely continue to be a prominent characteristic of 21st century warfare. As large cities grow increasingly influential, it is reasonable to assume that we may find ourselves operating in severely restricted urban terrain. Urban fighting will be extreme. It will be complex, intense and offer our adversaries many advantages. It will not be ground of our choosing. But we must prepare ourselves for such contingencies. Spiller wrote:



U.S. Army Soldiers use a rooftop as an observation post in Mosul, Iraq, March 2017.[xxiv]

Human behavior has always been equal to the savagery of war, no matter how extreme. And in the beginning, no other form of early combat posed the test of intense, prolonged, unremitting violence as did combat in and against cities.[xxv]

Going forward I recommend research into the following areas: (1) the character of megacity conflict; (2) the types of operations required in megacity conflict; (3) they types of units required to conduct megacity operations; (4) how to conduct multi-domain Joint combined arms operations in a megacity area of operations.

End Notes

Carlson, J. (Photographer). (2017, February 14). Germans Train Zeravani Soldiers in Urban Combat (1 of 10) [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3204265/germans-train-zeravani-soldiers-urban-combat.

[ii] Lee, Connie, (2017, March 21). “Milley: Army Will Have to ‘Optimize’ for Future War in Urban Environments,” Inside Defense. Retrieved from https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/milley-army-will-have-optimize-future-war-urban-environments.

[iii] Army Capabilities Integration Center, The Megacity: Operational Challenges for Force 2025 and Beyond, 2014, http://www.arcic.army.mil/app_Docum...nges-for-Force-2025-and-Beyond_08MAY2014.pdf; U.S. Army, ATTP 3-06.11: Combined Arms Operations in Urban Terrain, June 2011, A-1.

[iv] Spencer, John, “What an Army Megacities Unit Would Look Like,” Modern War Institute at West Point, March 8, 2017, http://mwi.usma.edu/army-megacities-unit-look-like/.

[v] Jonathan Kalan, “Think Again: Megacities,” Foreign Policy 206, May-June, 2014, 69; Halvard Buhaug and Henrik Urdal, “An Urbanization Bomb? Population Growth and Social Disorder in Cities,” Global Environment, 23(1), 2013, 1, http://www.urbangateway.org/es/system/files/documents/urbangateway/an_urbanization_bomb_0.pdf

[vi] Kalan, 69.

[vii] Buhaug, H., & Urdal, H. (2013). An Urbanization Bomb? Population Growth and Social Disorder in Cities. Global Environment Change, 23(1), 1-10.

[viii] Kalan, J. (2014). Think Again: Megacities. Foreign Policy, 206, 69-73; Harris, Marc; Dixon, Robert; Melin, Nicholad; Hendrex, Daniel; Russo, Richard; Bailey, Michael, Megacities and the United States Army: Preparing for a Complex and Uncertain Future, June 2014, 21, http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e2/c/downloads/351235.pdf; Shunk, D. (2014, January 23). Mega Cities, Ungoverned Areas, and the Challenge of Army Urban Combat Operations in 2030-2040. Small Wars Journal, retrieved from http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/ar...-of-army-urban-combat-operations-in-2030-2040.

[ix] Robert Muggah, “Fixing Fragile Cities: Solutions for Urban Violence and Poverty,” Foreign Affairs, January 15, 2015, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142760/robert-muggah/fixing-fragile-cities.

[x] Lee.

[xi] Perkins, D. G., “Multi-Domain Battle: Joint Combined Arms Concept for the 21st Century,” Association of the United States Army, retrieved from https://www.ausa.org/articles/multi-domain-battle-joint-combined-arms-concept-21st-century.

[xii] West Point Society of Washington and Puget Sound. (2016). General Mark A. Milley, AUSA Eisenhower Luncheon, October 4, 2016 [transcript]. Retrieved from http://wpswps.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/20161004_CSA_AUSA_Eisenhower_Transcripts.pdf; GEN David G. Perkins, “Multi-Domain Battle: Joint Combined Arms Concept for the 21st Century,” Association of the United States Army, November 14, 2016, https://www.ausa.org/articles/multi-domain-battle-joint-combined-arms-concept-21st-century; Dr. Albert Palazzo & LTC David P. McLain III, “Multi-Domain Battle: A New Concept for Land Forces,” War on the Rocks, September 15, 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/09/multi-domain-battle-a-new-concept-for-land-forces/.

[xiii] Pellerin, Cheryl, “Deputy Secretary: Third Offset Strategy Bolsters America’s Military Deterrence,” U.S. Department of Defense, https://www.defense.gov/News/Articl...trategy-bolsters-americas-military-deterrence.

[xiv] Judson, Jen, “Army Details Draft Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy at AUSA,” Defense News, October 4, 2016, http://www.defensenews.com/articles...tics-and-autonomous-systems-strategy-at-ausa; Martin, David (Correspondent), & Walsh, Mary (Producer). (2017). The Coming Swarm [Television series episode]. In J. Fager (Executive producer), 60 Minutes, New York, NY: CBS Television Network, retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-autonomous-drones-set-to-revolutionize-military-technology/

[xv] Perkins.

[xvi] Galeotti, M. (2014, July 4). The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian Non-Linear War [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/the-gerasimov-doctrine-and-russian-non-linear-war/

[xvii] Abadi, Mark, “The Only Chart You Need to See to Know That the US Spends More on Its Military Than the Next 11 Countries Combined, Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-spending-dwarfs-rest-of-world-2016-5

[xviii] Brooks, Rosa (2016). How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, pp. 329-331.

[xix] Spiller, Roger J. Sharp Corners: Urban Operations at Century’s End. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Retrieved from http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/SharpCorners.pdf.

[xx] Farnsworth, W. (Photographer). (2016, December 13). 2016 AFRL Commanders Challenge [Image 1 of 20] [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3057951/2016-afrl-commanders-challenge.

[xxi] McMaster, H.R., “Discussing the Continuities of War: The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum,” Small Wars Journal, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/ar...he-future-of-warfare-the-defense-entrepreneur.

[xxii] Spiller, vii-viii.

[xxiii] Profile: Aleppo, Syria’s Second City. (2016, November 28). Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18957096.

[xxiv] Manne, A. (Photographer). (2017, March 7). Coalition Forces Conduct Mortar Fire Mission [Image 4 of 5] [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3225950/coalition-forces-conduct-mortar-fire-mission.

[xxv] Spiller, 38.



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About the Author


Sean M. Castilla
Major Sean M. Castilla is an Armor Officer currently serving in Headquarters, Department of the Army staff as part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Office of the Secretary of Defense Internship. Previous assignments include the 1st Cavalry Division, Special Operations Command Africa, and the 101st Airborne Division. He holds a M.P.M in Policy Management from Georgetown University, an M.A. in International Relations from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, and a B.A. Psychology from the University of Texas, Austin.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/a/mosul-airstrike-investigation/3781500.html

MIDDLE EAST

US: Coalition Forces Launched Airstrike on Mosul

Last Updated: March 25, 2017 5:44 PM
VOA News

The U.S.-led military coalition launched an airstrike that witnesses said killed more than 100 people during a battle to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants, U.S. officials acknowledged Saturday.

The U.S. announcement came after the Iraqi government said earlier Saturday that it would temporarily halt the battle to retake Mosul from IS jihadists after reports emerged of heavy civilian casualties.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting IS said in a statement that it had "opened a formal civilian casualty credibility assessment" into the allegation that recent coalition airstrikes killed more than 100 civilians in Mosul's Jidideh neighborhood.

"Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS's inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods,'' a coalition statement said. ISIS is another acronym for the Islamic State group.

'All reasonable precautions'

The statement also said coalition planes "routinely strike" IS targets in the neighborhood, and that coalition forces "take all reasonable precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians."

Before the U.S. announcement Saturday, Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told The New York Times the military was not sure whether the explosion in western Mosul had been caused by an American or other coalition airstrike, or an IS "bomb or booby trap."

But an Iraqi officer told the newspaper he knew exactly what had happened.

Major General Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, told the Times that his men had called in a coalition airstrike to deal with snipers on the roofs of three houses in Jidideh. He said, however, his forces did not know the basements of the houses were filled with civilians.

Nawfal Hammadi, governor of the territory surrounding Mosul, told the French news agency AFP that IS jihadists had gathered civilians in the basement of the building to use them as “human shields.”

"The Daesh [Islamic State] terrorist organization is seeking to stop the advance of the Iraqi forces in Mosul at any cost,” he said, referring to IS by an Arabic acronym.

'Humanitarian catastrophe'

Iraq’s parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, mentioned the apparent civilian deaths on Twitter on Saturday. He encouraged coalition forces to “spare no effort to save civilians,” but acknowledged the “huge responsibility the liberating forces shoulder.”

Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, who is from Mosul, described the incident as a "humanitarian catastrophe."

More than a half-million civilians are still believed to remain in IS-held areas of Mosul. Civilians, humanitarian aid groups and monitoring officials have warned about the possibility of increased civilian casualties because of a growing demand for airstrikes and artillery.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-raqqa-idUSKBN16X0GJ

World News | Sun Mar 26, 2017 | 7:12am EDT

U.S.-backed Syrian militia makes gains against Islamic State

A Kurdish and Arab Syrian militia backed by the United States has captured the town of Karama as it prepares for an assault on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa that it expects to take place in early April, it said on Sunday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has trapped Raqqa in a shrinking pocket of territory on the northern bank of the Euphrates and has advanced toward it in a multi-pronged offensive over several months.

Dejwar Khabat, a field commander with the SDF, said he expects the assault on Raqqa to begin in early April, affirming a timeline reported by Reuters earlier this month, after the U.S.-backed militia closes the gap on the city on more fronts.

He was answering Reuters questions in a press conference with local reporters in Karama, the last significant town to the east of Raqqa, which lies about 18km (11 miles) away along the Euphrates. Another thrust of the SDF advance has already reached a few kilometers from Raqqa in the northeast.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the SDF had almost completely captured Karama but that clashes between it and Islamic State were still going on.

To the west of Raqqa, the SDF is aiming to capture the town of Tabqa on the south bank of the Euphrates, along with a nearby dam and airbase after US helicopters helped the militia's fighters establish a bridgehead across the river last week.

Khabat said the SDF has besieged the airbase, but the Observatory said it was still several kilometers away. It was captured by Islamic State at the height of the group's expansion in August 2014 and the jihadists then killed at least 160 captive soldiers, the Observatory has said.

Islamic State has retreated with increasing pace over recent months in the face of three rival military campaigns against it in Syria. The SDF, backed by a US-led coalition, has pushed Islamic State from the north and northeast.

Syrian rebels fighting under the flag of the Free Syrian Army and backed by Turkey have taken a swathe of territory in the north along the Turkish frontier. And the Syrian army and its allies Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias, are advancing east of Aleppo and east of Palmyra.

The Syrian army advance east of Aleppo has reached the Euphrates about 55km northwest of Tabqa, but Khabat said he did not think it had sufficient forces to enter the battle for the town.

Also In World News
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He added that the SDF would not allow any other military force to enter Raqqa.


(Reporting By Rodi Said and Angus McDowall; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/82nd-airborne-mosul-iraq-islamic-state

Another escalation in Iraq: U.S. Army sends new reinforcements to Mosul

By: Andrew deGrandpre, March 26, 2017 (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Alex Manne/Army)

WASHINGTON — An unspecified number of combat soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division have been ordered to northern Iraq, marking the Pentagon's latest escalation in what's been a slow-moving campaign to flush Islamic State fighters from their stronghold in the city of Mosul.

"Additional members of 2/82 BCT are deploying to Iraq on a non-enduring temporary mission to provide additional 'advise and assist' support to our Iraq partners as they liberate Mosul," U.S. officials in Baghdad told Military Times on Sunday. The unit designation refers to the division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, a force of more than 4,000 based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

A brigade combat team comprises infantry, artillery and cavalry troops, plus their supply pipeline. About 1,700 soldiers from the same unit are overseas now, spread between Iraq and Kuwait. It's unclear whether the full remainder — approximately 2,500 paratroopers — will receive deployment orders. Earlier this month, a top Army general told Congress there were plans to do precisely that, and distribute those personnel within Iraq and Syria.

On Sunday, U.S. officials would say only that this new surge in Mosul will not reunite the entire brigade.


Army Times
The U.S. is sending 2,500 troops to Kuwait, ready to step up the fight in Syria and Iraq


It's a sensitive topic for several reasons, not the least of which centers around a deepening desire in Washington to limit the perception abroad that America's military footprint is growing in Iraq and Syria. The Trump administration also has expressed a desire to limit what information it telegraphs about military strategy.

There are 5,262 U.S. troops authorized to be in Iraq, and another 503 in Syria, officials told Military Times on Sunday. But the numbers have been considerably larger for quite some time as commanders leverage what they call temporary — or "non-enduring" — assignments like this one involving the 82nd Airborne in Mosul.

It's believed there are closer to 6,000 Americans in Iraq, not including this new deployment. Nearly 1,000 more are on the ground inside Syria, where several hundred additional personnel arrived in recent weeks to bolster allied forces targeting the city of Raqqa, which ISIS considers its capital. The Pentagon is reportedly weighing plans to send upwards of another 1,000 troops there.

If those plans bear out, the U.S. would have closer to 10,000 military personnel on the ground for a mission officials continue to call advisory.


Military Times
With U.S. advisers and firepower, Syrian forces aim to sever the Islamic State's last escape route from Raqqa


The deployment announcement comes as U.S. commanders face growing pressure from the White House to intensify the fight against ISIS in both theaters, and step up efforts to dismantle terror groups elsewhere that threaten the U.S. and its interests.

U.S. officials told Military Times that none of the 82nd Airborne soldiers bound for Mosul is expected to be rerouted to Syria, where a major U.S.-backed operation, launched last week, seeks to sever the Islamic State's last escape route from Raqqa. That effort involves an unspecified number of American military advisers, supported by Marine Corps artillery and U.S. warplanes.


Military Times
Inside Mosul, U.S. military advisers wear black to blend in with elite Iraqi units


It also coincides with reports, published Saturday, that Iraq's security forces have temporarily suspended operations in west Mosul amid fallout from a March 17 airstrike suspected of killing more than 100 civilians trapped in the fighting there. The U.S. military is investigating those claims, but has acknowledged conducting an attack on ISIS fighters in the immediate area.

The battle in Mosul has worn on for five months, and an estimated 2,000 militants remain entrenched there. It's been complicated by a variety of factors, including the Islamic State's propensity to use civilians as human shields.

Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Martin, who oversees all coalition land forces in Iraq and Syria, told Military Times last month that the block-by-block fight is the most complex he's witnessed due in large part to the city's size, which he equated to Philadelphia, and the amount of time ISIS had to establish its defenses. And even as the Iraqis make progress, he noted, ISIS continues to adapt.

"It’s urban combat of the like, of a scope and scale I have not see in thirty-one years," the general said, "and I’ve served in combat a couple of times."

Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times' senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On Twitter: @adegrandpre.

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[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/26/pentagon-weighs-more-support-for-saudi-led-war-in-yemen/

REPORT

Pentagon Weighs More Support for Saudi-led War in Yemen

As the administration debates how to confront Iran, some in the Pentagon favor ratcheting up support for Saudi Arabia’s campaign against Tehran-backed Houthi rebels.

BY DAN DE LUCE, PAUL MCLEARY
MARCH 26, 2017
DAN.DELUCE@DANDELUCE

The Pentagon is looking to increase support for Saudi Arabia’s two-year-old war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, signaling a possible expansion of Washington’s controversial backing for a campaign that human rights groups say has killed hundreds of civilians and fueled a growing humanitarian crisis.

Several Defense officials told Foreign Policy the prospect of more American help for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen was under discussion even as the administration examines its broader strategy in the region, including looking at ways to counter Iran and to defeat Islamic State militants. The Pentagon views increased support for the Saudi-led coalition as one way of potentially pushing back against Iran’s influence in Yemen, as well as shoring up ties with an ally that felt neglected by the previous administration.

The Trump administration has yet to make a final decision and Defense Department officials are locked in a debate over the issue with the White House, with some senior aides to Trump favoring confronting Iran elsewhere, one advisor said.

But pressing ahead with more U.S. hardware and intelligence for Saudi Arabia’s troubled intervention in Yemen brings with it an array of risks and pitfalls, experts and former officials said.

By pouring more weapons and ammunition into the civil war, now entering its third year, Washington could inadvertently strengthen the hand of al Qaeda’s most lethal branch, which has already exploited the chaos to its benefit.

Encouraging the Saudi-led coalition in its military campaign, which has so far proved unable to defeat the outgunned Houthi rebels, could prolong the suffering of a civilian population that aid agencies warn is on the verge of famine.

And seeking to checkmate Iran’s influence in Yemen could provoke retaliation from Tehran against the United States and its allies elsewhere in the region, possibly posing a danger to vital shipping lanes or American military advisors deployed in Iraq.

The possible increase in U.S. support would likely involve a few key elements: Pressing ahead with stalled arms shipments to the Saudi government; using drones to help gather intelligence for strikes on Houthi targets; and assistance in planning the recapture of the critical Red Sea port city Hodeidah from Houthi forces, which would allow humanitarian supplies to flow into the famine-wracked country.

The port would open a gateway for delivering humanitarian aid in a country in which 60 percent of the population is at risk of starvation, according to relief agencies. Riyadh recently floated the idea of the United Nations taking control of the port, something the international body has ruled out. Pushing the Houthi forces out of the Hodeidah would also cut off the rebels from a major transport link to the outside world.

“We’re interested in building the capability of the Saudis” to operate in Yemen and elsewhere, said one U.S. defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain the thinking within the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command.

The Saudis came away extremely pleased after a series of meetings in Washington last week that saw Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visit the White House. Saudi officials celebrated the meeting as a milestone in resetting a relationship that had frayed under the Obama administration.

“What we heard was that they would increase cooperation in all the dimensions” of military support and providing new weapons, Saudi Gen. Ahmed Asiri, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, told reporters in Washington. He said that teams from the two countries are already engaged in talks, and the stepped-up cooperation would likely involve “intelligence sharing, equipment, and training,” for Saudi pilots and troops.

“We had a commitment that they will increase cooperation,” Asiri said.

The potential for more American help would represent a sharp break from the Obama administration’s strained ties with the Kingdom. The Saudis have drawn widespread international condemnation for bombing raids that have caused numerous civilian casualties, adding to the humanitarian crisis brought on by the civil war.

The Obama White House last year put a hold on shipments of thousands of precision-guided munitions and cluster bombs, and pulled back some intelligence-gathering support, due to concerns about botched targeting in Saudi air strikes. The bombing of a crowded funeral ceremony by coalition aircraft on Oct. 8 last year in the capital Sanaa left more than 100 dead and hundreds more wounded.

But under the Trump administration, the State Department recently approved a proposed sale of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh worth about $390 million, officials said, and the White House is expected to notify Congress soon of the planned deal.

Human rights groups warned Washington that such a deal would feed the crisis in Yemen, even as the United States attempts to bar entry to civilians trying to flee the conflict under a proposed travel ban that would cover travellers from Yemen and several other mainly-Muslim states.

“The U.S. should not continue to arm governments that violate international human rights and humanitarian law and simultaneously shut its doors to those fleeing the violence it helps to escalate,” Amnesty International said in a letter this month to the White House.

U.S. involvement in Yemen fits into the broader picture of the regional power struggle. Officials in the Trump administration and at the Pentagon see Iran as playing a disruptive role in Yemen’s civil war, and believe Tehran is seeking to extend its reach in the Gulf region, while keeping its rival in Riyadh off balance. Any American support for Saudi efforts in the country would be a way to check Tehran’s ambitions, something that Washington’s Sunni allies in the Gulf complained the Obama administration ignored.

“You can’t overestimate the degree the Saudis were frustrated and felt the Obama White House was hostile to them,” said Gerald Feierstein, who served as ambassador to Yemen from 2010 to 2013.

“Iran is a key player in what’s happening in Yemen,” Feierstein added. “They are providing arms and assistance to the Houthis, and have been going back quite a long time,” well before the civil war broke out. The Obama administration had acknowledged Iranian involvement, but some officials were reluctant to confront Tehran over the conflict, arguing they could “achieve some additional progress in normalizing a relationship with Iran,” he said. “They saw the conflict in Yemen as getting in the way of that,” Feierstein said.

The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stand on Iran, at least rhetorically. Inside the Pentagon — where Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is a noted Iran hawk — and at U.S. Central Command which oversees forces in the Middle East, planners are looking to do more, and quickly.

The two sides also have discussed potential U.S. support for retaking the Yemeni port at Hodeidah. “We’re very interested in helping, but want to make sure there’s some strategic patience” in order to avoid civilian casualties, the officer said.

Senior U.S. officers are looking to move quickly on the issue, and the exodus of political appointees from the Pentagon at the end of the Obama term — and the inability or unwillingness of the Trump administration to replace them — has helped move decisions quickly up the chain of command.

“The organization has flattened,” a defense official said, “so from a military perspective you have a little more agility, and can make decisions more quickly.”

With dozens of civilian policymaker’s desks sitting empty or being filled on a temporary basis, the officers on the Joint Staff and regional military commanders have adapted to the White House’s willingness to let the generals make the calls over troop movements.

“The military has a bias to action and we’d rather act than sit there and ponder it forever,” the officer said.

But it remains unclear if the Saudi military would be able to achieve more success on the battlefield even with American help.

One former Pentagon official called the Saudi effort in Yemen an “incompetently run and tragic campaign,” and said the view of the previous administration — and many in the Pentagon — was that “the Saudis got themselves into a mess that they couldn’t win.”

The air and ground wars have killed at least 10,000 people, according to the United Nations. Earlier this month, the World Food Program estimated that about 17 million Yemenis, well over half of the country’s population, are in “crisis” or “emergency” food situations. Human rights monitors say the coalition air raids are to blame for the majority of civilian deaths. But the Saudis reject responsibility for the bulk of the civilian casualties, and human rights groups also have reported that militias on the ground have used child soldiers, and planted mines in civilian areas.

A White House National Security Council official said that “we remain concerned about civilian casualties in Yemen and urge all sides to take additional measures to mitigate against the risk of civilian harm.”

But the NSC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to comment on whether the administration was poised to ratchet up support for Saudi Arabia.

Washington has already tried to help the Saudis improve targeting in its Yemen campaign over the last two years, and while there was some “modest success and influence, the Saudis were not always listening to our advice,” according to Brian McKeon, who worked as undersecretary of defense for policy in the last months of the Obama administration.

His concern is that expanded U.S. involvement, without a diplomatic push for a political settlement to the civil war, “might just yield more conflict and suffering.”

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/03/27/banning_nuclear_weapons_111043.html

Banning Nuclear Weapons

By Matthew Costlow
March 27, 2017

Let the international diplomatic finger-wagging begin. Today the United Nations will begin a new session on negotiations to make possession of nuclear weapons illegal, setting the stage for the eventual requirement of total abolition.

Much like the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, where the signatories “renounced” war as an instrument of national policy, the proposed Nuclear Ban Treaty would simply outlaw something viewed as morally abhorrent and hope states adhere to it.

Yet somehow proponents of the Nuclear Ban Treaty have surpassed the naiveté of the Kellogg-Briand Pact negotiators, who at least were able to get the countries with the largest militaries to sign on to their agreement. The United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, and France, which possess over 95% of the nuclear weapons in the world, will not attend the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty “negotiations,” making the meeting a one-sided exercise in diplomatic “airing of grievances.”

At issue is the pace of nuclear disarmament worldwide which some nations see as unacceptably slow. Never mind that the United States has done more than any other nation to reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal, cutting it by 85% since the end of the Cold War, and reducing the role of nuclear weapons in its defense planning.

The current U.S. nuclear force is old, much of it built in the 1960s and 1970s and needs to be replaced. President Obama supported the modernization programs to replace these old systems, much to the dismay of the international intelligentsia, and President Trump supports continuing this prudent legacy.

Sensing an opening, however, nongovernment activist groups teamed up with sympathetic countries to lobby the United States to end its nuclear weapons modernization programs and unilaterally disarm. After receiving a curt “no,” these groups persuaded the United Nations to take a break from its anti-Israel agenda and squeeze in a thinly-veiled anti-United States effort.

The anti-nuclear crowd will claim that their efforts focus on all nuclear weapon-possessing countries equally, but in reality, they know their only hope for success is persuading the U.S. public which democratically elects its leaders, thus making policy changes much more achievable.

Russia and China, on the other hand, are authoritarian regimes whose policies are not open to public negotiation; and Britain and France are not seen as leaders in the nuclear world whose actions other countries would necessarily follow. This leaves the United States as the world’s nuclear disarmament punching bag. However, perhaps the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and former Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley can punch back.

Ambassador Haley should remind the disgruntled nations of the world of the unparalleled U.S. commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, both monetarily and programmatically. In addition, and just as forcefully, Ambassador Haley should redirect international ire toward those countries truly deserving of it: Russia and China.

While the United States leads the world in the transparency of its nuclear arsenal and policies, Russia and China prefer aggression and subterfuge. Russia has deployed intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missiles in violation of the INF Treaty while making nuclear threats against NATO allies, even the beloved peacemaking Norwegians. China, likewise, explicitly pursues a policy of opacity both to the size and role of its nuclear weapons while making significant gains in the quality and quantity of its nuclear forces.

The United States is not the roadblock to a secure nuclear peace that many claim, Russia, and China are. The proposed UN Nuclear Ban Treaty will do nothing to stop their cheating and deception and instead, will devolve into another forum for U.S.-bashing.

In Shakespeare’s famous play of the same name, Macbeth laments the brevity of life saying, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The same could be said of the UN effort to ban nuclear weapons.

Matthew Costlow is a defense analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy.

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http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1202952/low-yield-nuclear-weapons-again/

LOW YIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS (AGAIN)

by Michael Krepon | March 19, 2017 | 1 Comment
Quote of the week:

“The pattern of the use of atomic weapons was set at Hiroshima. They are weapons of aggression, of surprise, and of terror.”

— Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon

John Donnelly of CQ Roll Call was the first to write about a Defense Science Board report issued last December, “Seven Defense Priorities for the New Administration.” This report reached the “worrisome conclusion,” widely shared within the “Nuclear Enterprise,” that, “the nuclear threshold may be decreasing owing to the stated doctrines and weapons developments of some states, and with the introduction of new technology.”

U.S. actions were notably missing among the DSB’s list of contributing factors to the increased reliance on nuclear weapons by others.

The DSB then went on to say, “The near exclusive focus on life extension of existing U.S. nuclear weapons was thought… to be limiting flexibility for addressing an uncertain future.” Then came the passage that caused significant commotion – the recommendation

“to provide many more options in stemming proliferation and escalation; and a more flexible nuclear enterprise that could produce, if needed, a rapid tailored nuclear option should existing non-nuclear or nuclear options prove insufficient.”

The DSB mentioned only one possibility in this regard: “lower yield, primary only options.” I presume this means prompt global strike by means of single warhead ICBMs without the big secondary boost. The wording of the DSB report lacks clarity as to whether other low-yield options are deemed worthy of consideration. A primary-only ICBM option doesn’t require much work for the labs. Only one DSB member — Bill Schneider — forthrightly came to the defense of this recommendation. Bill has long supported new warhead development to counter new threats and to pass along design skills to younger folks at the labs.

This time around, as before, a firestorm ensued to hints of renewed interest in nuclear war-fighting. Powerful rejoinders came from many quarters. Hans Kristensen noted that there are at least 1,000 warheads in the U.S. stockpile that can provide low-yield options. Senator Dianne Feinstein weighed in with a reminder that the American public isn’t interested in tailored effects for nuclear war-fighting, and that limited nuclear wars are unlikely to remain limited.

Nor did this aspect of the DSB Report draw support at a House Armed Services Committee hearing where the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, and the Commander of STRATCOM, Gen. John Hyten, testified. Gen. Selva noted that there are no new requirements “at this time.” Gen. Hyten questioned the very concept of a “tactical” nuclear weapon: “I believe that anybody that employs a nuclear weapon in the world has created a strategic effect, and all nuclear weapons are strategic.” Indian officials use the same rejoinder when dealing with Pakistan’s embrace of low-yield nuclear weapons carried by short-range delivery vehicles. Nor have the U.S. weapon labs reported reasons to resume testing or reasons to certify new, minimal yields.

The only support at the SASC Hearings for the DSB’s recommendation was offered by Keith Payne, who testified, “I particularly think that the very low-yield option is something we have to consider.” I’m not sure what Keith has in mind here, as the lowest option on the B-61 “dial-a-yield” is reported to be 0.3 kilotons. If the problem he has in mind is deeply buried targets, lower yields than that would not be helpful. If the problem is something else, highly accurate, conventional means of delivery would seem a far better choice.

As trial balloons go for new warhead designs for “tailored” deterrence, the DSB report seems tepid compared to earlier campaigns. As noted in this space, these debates have become hardy perennials. I’ve come to believe that the primary driver isn’t really about yield; it’s about honing skill sets at the labs. That being so, this debate seems unlikely to end. More attempts are likely, given the temper of the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill.

There are many strong arguments against tailored nuclear deterrence. Low-yield weapons with short ranges — or no ranges — are inherently the least safe and secure. Belief in escalation control is pure hubris. But for me, the strongest argument is how much effort has gone into preventing the battlefield use of nuclear weapons for the past seven decades. National leaders, people marching in the street and people of quiet resolve, bureaucrats, teachers, renowned physicists, religious leaders, non-governmental experts and countless others have worked their tails off to prevent mushroom clouds. They have known at the cellular level what advocates of tailored nuclear deterrence refuse to acknowledge: The most important threshold in warfare isn’t the yield of a nuclear weapon; it’s the first use of a nuclear weapon in seven decades — regardless of yield.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
COMMENTS
Bradley Laing (History)
March 20, 2017 at 11:08 pm
It was a nuclear disaster four times worse than Chernobyl in terms of the number of cases of acute radiation sickness, but Moscow’s complicity in covering up its effects on people’s health has remained secret until now.

We knew that in August 1956, fallout from a Soviet nuclear weapons test at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan engulfed the Kazakh industrial city of Ust-Kamenogorsk and put more than 600 people in hospital with radiation sickness, but the details have been sketchy.

After seeing a newly uncovered report, New Scientist can now reveal that a scientific expedition from Moscow in the aftermath of the hushed-up disaster uncovered widespread radioactive contamination and radiation sickness across the Kazakh steppes.

The scientists then tracked the consequences as nuclear bomb tests continued — without telling the people affected or the outside world.

The report by scientists from the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow was found in the archive of the Institute of Radiation Medicine and Ecology (IRME) in Semey, Kazakhstan. “For many years, this has been a secret,” says the institute’s director Kazbek Apsalikov, who found the report and passed it on to New Scientist.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...r-up-of-nuclear-fallout-worse-than-chernobyl/

Reply

 

[Housecarl]

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http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/27/u...h-increased-secrecy-to-freak-out-kim-jong-un/

US Secretly Deploying Strategic Assets To Korea To Freak Out Kim Jong-Un

RYAN PICKRELL
10:10 AM 03/27/2017

The U.S. is deploying strategic assets to the Korean peninsula with greater secrecy to “maximize fear in the North,” military officials revealed Sunday.

The U.S. has, in recent weeks, been regularly sending bombers and fighters, aircraft carriers and submarines, and troops to the peninsula for training exercises with South Korean forces, yet the announcements concerning their deployments have been delayed, with some coming after the units had already left Korea.

“Surprise dispatch of strategic weapons is effective in maximizing fear in the North as it sends a message that such weapons can be mobilized any time in case of a contingency,” a military official told The Korea Times.

Earlier in March, two B-1B Lancers were sent to South Korea from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. The media received no prior notification, and even afterwards, the United States Forces Korea refused to offer confirmation. The deployment was reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, which said that the bombers participated in drills in preparation for a possible preemptive strike on North Korea.

The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Columbus arrived in the waters off the coast of South Korea a few days after the bombers, yet the arrival announcement was belated.

Furthermore, multiple U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets participated in a bombing drill early last week, but the deployment of the fifth-gen fighters was not reported until Saturday, at which point the jets had already returned to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan.

The new U.S. administration is still formulating its North Korea policy; however, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during his recent trip to Asia that military action is “on the table.”

While the U.S. may ultimately choose to adopt a less risky policy — one focused more on sanctions and diplomatic pressure — the secret deployment of military assets to and around the Korean peninsula is certain to agitate the North Koreans. The move follows President Donald Trump’s past criticisms of U.S. statements telegraphing U.S. strategic plans to foreign rivals and adversaries.

The ongoing Foal Eagle drills in South Korea have provoked the North, leading them to test-fire multiple ballistic missiles and make numerous threats against the U.S. and its allies.

Follow Ryan on Twitter

Send tips to ryan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...us-troops-in-syria/ar-BByYcKX?ocid=spartandhp

msn news

Why Russians Are in 'Hand-Grenade Range' of U.S. Troops in Syria

NBC News
F. Brinley Bruton and Courtney Kube and Ammar Cheikh Omar
7 hrs ago

© Russian soldiers gather as rebel fighters and their families evacuated the besieged Waer district of... Image: Russian soldiers gather as rebel fighters and their families evacuate the besieged Waer district in the central Syrian city of Homs
Russian and American troops are within "hand-grenade range" of each other in parts of Syria, according to U.S. commanders, an overlap that highlights Moscow's efforts to bolster its footprint in the Middle East.

While the Russians and Americans have traditionally been on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war — with the Kremlin supporting President Bashar al-Assad and Washington working with rebels fighting him. But now the rivals are both backing Kurdish YPG fighters as they take on ISIS there and in neighboring Iraq.

"Escalation is bound to happen"
Army Lt. Gen. Steven Townsend, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters earlier this month that all the forces in Syria "have converged literally within hand-grenade range of one another."

American and Russian commanders are in contact as a result, according to U.S. Central Command, although the Pentagon stopped military-to-military cooperation after Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

This tentative cooperation is a result of Russian and American "short and midterm interests" which are "are overlapping to a huge extent," said Andreas Krieg, a professor at the Defense Studies Department at King's College London. "Fighting ISIS and fighting the jihadis absolutely the first priority of the [Donald] Trump administration. This is why [Defense Secretary James] Mattis is going so hardcore after ISIS. And almost everything goes as long as they are fighting jihadis at the same time."

There are big risks to this approach from an American perspective, according to Krieg. The Kurdish forces the Russians and Americans are both fighting alongside do not take orders from the powers supporting them.

"These surrogates are doing their own operations and then the sponsors are doing air cover and artillery cover," he said.

Krieg warned that because of the close proximity, Americans or Russian troops could potentially be hit inadvertently despite fighting on the same side.

"Escalation is bound to happen," he added.

It isn't known exactly how many Americans are fighting on the ground although the figure is believe to be under 1,000. That number may have been boosted by the arrival of several hundred more in recent weeks to boost the battle to route ISIS from Raqqa, the extremists' de facto capital.

The Kremlin has also not said how many Russians are fighting in Syria, although estimates published in the country's press run into from 1,600 to 4,500.

During the first two weeks of March, Russian and Americans both worked with Kurdish YPG fighters — longstanding U.S. allies in the war against ISIS — to stop the Turkish army from entering the town of Manbij. An eyewitness told NBC News that he saw Russian and Syrian as well as American forces outside the Kurdish town in separate bases but around 3 miles from each other on March 12. Americans forces are still there.

A YPG spokesman confirmed an "agreement" had been struck with the Russians near Afrin in the northeast of Syria close to the Turkish border on March 20.

© Map showing the locations of Afrin (pin on left) and Manbij in northern Syria. Image: Map showing the locations of Afrin (pin on left) and Manbij in northern Syria
The Russians, meanwhile, are engaged in a broad public relations struggle, internally and internationally, experts say.

"Russia would prefer to achieve great accomplishments," according to Alexander Shumilin, the head of the Middle East Conflict Center at the Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies, a state-run research group in Moscow.

Russia's goal "is to get some concessions from the United States" which will allow it to maintain its military presence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean through bases in Syria, according to Igor Sutyagin, a senior research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

It wants "an alliance between Russia and the United States in fighting terrorism, and to be recognized as an equal partner with the United States," both to strengthen its "international standing as a power and its position with its own people," he added.

For these reasons, Russia is risking a recent rapprochement with Turkey by working with Kurdish fighters, experts said. Ankara considers the YPG terrorists and fears that they will join forces with Kurds in Turkey to carve out a separate state.

Turkey is also a key U.S. ally and an important member of NATO — the key Western defense alliance — so angering them also carries its risks for Washington. In fact, while working with the Kurds, considered the most effective anti-ISIS force in the country, Americans have agreed to stay east of the Euphrates River as a concession to Turkey.

© An American military vehicle is pictured on the outskirts of Manbij, Syria, on March 7. Image: American military vehicles in Syria

So it is a high-stakes game for the U.S. but especially Russia, whose rulers would have been forgiven for hoping that a Trump White House would improve relations after years of tensions under former President Barack Obama, analysts said.

The Russians are learning that under the new White House they have to "deliver a service or have nothing," RUSI's Sutyagin said. "It is becoming more and more evident that Trump ... would not be willing to cooperate with Russia without really substantial Russian contribution."

Jon Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned against viewing the Russians as allies.

"The people in the military have been watching the Russians up close," he said. The Russians "are not allies and they are not going to be allies."

Alterman also suggested that Moscow's approach toward terrorism made it an unreliable associate.

"The way the Russians view counterterrorism is about cowing people into submission, which makes problems in the future," he said.


N. Korea could be in final stages of nuclear test preparations: report

Turkey warns Russia following sniper fire from Syria
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ISIS battles U.S.-backed troops to a vicious standoff
CBS News on MSN

US, South Korea say North Korea's latest missile test fails
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Russia says U.S. anti-missile system to spark new arms race: RIA
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U.S.-backed forces capture IS-held airport near Euphrates dam
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**
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[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-report-idUSKBN16Z274

World News | Tue Mar 28, 2017 | 2:26pm EDT

North Korea could be in final stages of nuclear test preparations: report

Satellite imagery of North Korea's main nuclear test site taken over the weekend indicates that Pyongyang could be in the final stages of preparations for a sixth nuclear test, a U.S. think tank reported on Tuesday.

Washington-based 38 North, a website that monitors North Korea, said the images from Saturday showed the continued presence of vehicles and trailers at the Punggye-ri test site and signs that communications cables may have been laid to a test tunnel.

Water was also being pumped out and was draining downhill "presumably to keep the tunnel dry for monitoring or communications equipment," it said.

"The combination of these factors strongly suggests that test preparations are well under way, including the installation of instrumentation. The imagery, however, does not provide any definitive evidence of either a nuclear device or the timing of a test."

A lack of activity elsewhere at the site "may mean that test preparations are in their final stages," the report said, although it added: "Since North Korea knows the world is watching and is capable of deception, caution should be used before declaring that a nuclear test is imminent."

The think tank reported over the weekend that the vehicles and trailers at the site could have been used to install a nuclear device for an underground test.

Another 38 North report said recent satellite images of North Korea's nuclear research center at Yongbyon showed rail and vehicle movements that could indicate a plan to resume reprocessing of spent fuel rods to produce plutonium for bomb fuel.

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches, in defiance of United Nations sanctions, and is believed by experts and government officials to be working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that could reach the United States.

A South Korean military official said on Friday that North Korea had maintained readiness to conduct a new nuclear test at any time and U.S. officials also say they are concerned about additional missile and nuclear tests in the near future.

North Korea said last year it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile and has been ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations appear powerless to contain despite successive rounds of sanctions.

Also In World News
U.S. sees probable role in Mosul blast, probe under way
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U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday that North Korea had carried out another test of a rocket engine that could be part of its program to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish and Cynthia Osterman)

 

[Housecarl]

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https://warisboring.com/mosul-needs-35-000-cops-1bf2bac7c2ff

War Is BoringFollow
We go to war so you don’t have to
Mar 27 - 6 min. read

Mosul Needs 35,000 Cops
The Italians are on the job

by JUSTIN AMES

With the sound of small-arms fire popping away at a range in the background, an instructor from Italy’s military police force — the Carabinieri — expertly flips over a rifle to demonstrate a swift and efficient reload to the students in front of him.

The students are members of the Kurdish Zeravani, which are likewise a military police force. They fumble with their rifles in an effort to replicate his smooth motions.

The Carabinieri instructors that are present are nevertheless pleased with what they see. The students are only a few days into their training, which lasts for weeks or even up to a year, but they appear engaged and eager to learn.

They’d better be. The Italians estimated it could take more than 30,000 skilled policemen to maintain order in Mosul alone, once Islamic State surrenders the strategic city.

Although today’s session is on the proper use of their weapons, the overall focus of this class for the Zeravani is on police work. The classes in this program, taught in English and translated into Kurdish, are specifically intended to develop capabilities such as crime scene investigation, conducting vehicle and body searches, setting up checkpoints and the like.

The training, taking place at a sprawling site on the outskirts of Erbil known as the Zeravani Tiger Training Center, is a joint effort on the part of the Western governments operating against Islamic State including the Americans, Italians, British and Germans, but also the Dutch, Norwegians, Finns and Hungarians, who don’t receive as much attention for their involvement.

In order to unify the military assistance being offered by these many nations, they agreed to operate under an umbrella known as the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center. The Italians, second only to the Americans in the number of troops they have on the ground in Iraq, are offering something unique though.

Italy is the only country offering police training in all of Iraq, including Kurdistan.

The idea of police work in a region ravaged by full-scale warfare may, at first glance, seem of secondary importance. However, it should be emphasized that the Zeravani, just like their Carabinieri instructors, are a military police force.

During times of peace, Italy’s Carabinieri serve a police function. Should Italy find itself at war, however, the Carabinieri would be moved into regular combat roles. In other words, they wear two hats.

The Kurdish Zeravani operate in the same manner. They are under the control of the Kurdish Ministry of the Interior, but are also a part of the Peshmerga — the military forces of Kurdistan — thus providing support to civilian police and to the military.

“This dual role seems to be a good fit for the complexities of the landscape of Kurdistan,” one Italian cop said. The individual Carabinieri instructors asked to maintain their anonymity. “One minute they might need to be policemen doing police work and the next minute they might need to be soldiers.”

However, police work is increasingly relevant in Kurdistan as the threat from Islamic State has evolved with the numerous setbacks the extremist group has experienced since its peak in the summer of 2014. Islamic State has now been completely pushed out of the territory claimed by Kurdistan and is seemingly close to being pushed out of Iraq as well.

Therefore, the concern for Kurdistan at this time is on addressing an insurgency rather than engaging in large-scale, mechanized warfare.

Many in Kurdistan express the belief that an Islamic State operating as an insurgency will actually be more dangerous for Kurdistan than they are in their present form. “ISIS will be more dangerous after they are completely defeated than they are now. Now they are contained within the territory they hold, but after defeat they will be everywhere,” one Carabinieri reasoned.

The methods for contending with an insurgency are quite distinct from that of a conventional war. An insurgency requires police work. A specific example one Carabinieri instructor cited is that of an insurgent bomb-maker. Improvised Explosive Devices are among the most potent weapons in the insurgents’ arsenal.

They are quite deadly, but also, in experienced hands, are simple to prepare and to place. “It may take soldiers to clear a city held by an occupying enemy, but it takes the work of a police detective to carefully pick apart an IED, preserve potential evidence and then follow up on fingerprints or traces of DNA to track down a bomb maker hidden in the general population,” the Carabinieri instructor explained.

The training by the Italians takes place at three sites in Kurdistan — Sulaymaniyah, Atrush and Erbil — with Erbil hosting the largest training center. In Iraq as a whole, there is also a contingent of Carabinieri running a training program in Baghdad for the Iraqi government.

During our visit, the Italians gave the impression that they enjoyed their work and often lightheartedly joked around with Capt. Darsem Mawlud, the Kurdish coordination officer at the training center. However, they say that things are not always this easygoing. Sometimes in the beginning of a class they can face resistance from the students.

The Carabinieri are quite aware of the fact that they are offering advice to Kurdish men and women who have sometimes been fighting for decades. However, these same individuals, while not lacking in bravery or experience, are all too often almost completely untrained. Addressing this incongruity can require a fair degree of diplomacy.

The instructors explained they take a soft touch on their work with the Kurds. Rather than simply telling the Kurds the “right” way to perform a task, the Italians will have the Zeravani show them how they do something, such as handcuffing a suspect. After the Kurds demonstrate their methods, the Italians will then show the Zeravani how the Italian Carabinieri do the same thing.

The methods the Italians demonstrate typically allow for safer handling of suspects or more accurate pistol fire or some other form of improvement on whatever the subject under discussion might be. The Kurdish students can observe this and consequently their resistance to try out and adopt the methods utilized by the Carabinieri dissipates.

Thus, the exercise avoids bruising delicate egos and becomes an exchange of experiences rather than a hierarchical student-teacher relationship.

Although with the military and police training they are conducting, the Italians have trained many thousands of Iraqis and Kurds, one Carabinieri said that 35,000 policemen will be needed to secure Mosul after Islamic State has been pushed out.

With numbers like that, he speculated that the Italians and other Western powers that make up the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center would be needed in this part of the world for many years to come.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/03/28/bodies-american-swedish-un-experts-found-in-congo.html

Africa

Bodies of American, Swedish UN experts found in Congo

Published March 28, 2017
Associated Press

BENI, Congo – *The bodies of an American and a Swedish investigator with the United Nations and their Congolese interpreter have been found in Congo's Central Kasai province, authorities said Tuesday, more than two weeks after they disappeared while looking into recent violence there.

"After tests ... it is possible to identify the bodies as the two U.N. experts and their interpreter as being found near the Moyo river," said Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende. Investigations will continue to find other missing Congolese colleagues, he said.

Michael Sharp of the United States and Zaida Catalan of Sweden, along with interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers, went missing March 12 while looking into large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Congo's police inspector general Charles Bisengimana said the bodies were found Monday between the cities of Tshimbulu and Kananga, the provincial capital.

The confirmation came a day after Sharp's father, John Sharp of Hesston, Kansas, wrote on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in shallow graves in the search area for the U.N. investigators.

Related stories...
Congolese militia decapitates more than 40 police: Officials
Congo must help search for missing UN experts: Rights group
France warns against cuts to UN force in Congo before voting

"Since no other Caucasians have been reported missing in that region, there is a high probability that these are the bodies of MJ and Zaida," he wrote. "Dental records and DNA samples will be used to confirm the identities. This will take some time.

"All other words fail me."

There was no immediate comment Tuesday night from the United Nations.

Sharp and Catalan's disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch has said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for decades, but violence in the Kasai provinces in central Congo represents a new expansion of tensions.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting security forces since last year, with the violence increasing after security forces killed the militia's leader in August. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

When asked earlier Tuesday whether the investigators' disappearance could be a turning point in the U.N. sending experts to the region, the deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Farhan Haq, said: "We hope that we could continue to send experts to do their necessary monitoring activities wherever they need to go. Of course, that needs to be undertaken with full respect and understanding of the security condition on the ground."

 

[Housecarl]

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Asia & Pacific

As North Korea fires missiles, some in Japan want the ability to launch strikes

By Anna Fifield
March 27

TOKYO — As the threat from North Korea’s missiles grows, so the calls in Japan for a stronger military response are getting louder.**

An influential group of politicians is publicly arguing for technically pacifist Japan to acquire the ability to strike North Korea instead of having to rely on the United States for its defense.*

“Japan can’t just wait until it’s destroyed,” Hiroshi Imazu, the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s security committee and a proponent of the idea, said in an interview. “It’s legally possible for Japan to strike an enemy base that’s launching a missile at us, but we don’t have the equipment or the capability.”*

Gen Nakatani, defense minister until last year and a member of the committee, agrees. “I believe that we should consider having the capacity to strike,” he told The Washington Post.*

Their public pronouncements have not come out by accident, analysts say. Such senior members of the powerful ruling party would not raise the issue unless it was being promoted at the highest levels.*

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly supports consideration of the idea. “I’d like to encourage the party to have this discussion and am keeping an eye on how it’s going,” he said in the Diet on Friday when asked whether he was in favor of acquiring the capability to strike.*

[ North Korea says it was practicing to hit U.S. military bases in Japan ]

Under the American-written constitution imposed in the wake of its World War II defeat, Japan may defend itself if it comes under attack but is not allowed to go on the offensive.**

Imazu said that the current arrangement made Japan a “peculiar” country.*

“Our country is protected by other countries, but we can’t do anything to protect them. This is not acceptable in the international community anymore,” Imazu said. “We cooperate with the U.S. and other nations to protect our country and also to contribute to peace in East Asia. In this environment, it’s only proper that we should discuss how we could protect our country.”*

Abe has been trying to loosen the constitutional shackles on Japan’s military, notably with a 2015 law to allow Japan to come to the aid of the United States. He has signaled he would like to revise the constitution to allow Japan to have a normal military.*

North Korea is now giving Abe plenty of ammunition to bolster his case.

It has been firing missiles at a steady clip into the Sea of Japan between the two countries, and three of the most recent salvo have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The regime in Pyongyang said it was practicing to hit American military bases in Japan.**

Japan is now upgrading its PAC-3 Patriot missile batteries to double their range, and is considering other defensive measures. At a forum in Washington last year,*defense minister Tomomi Inada said that Japan was considering acquiring the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile system*recently deployed to South Korea — she even went to Guam to see it — and the Aegis Ashore, a land-based version of the SM-3 interceptors that Japan already has mounted on its Aegis destroyers.

With North Korea’s increasingly threatening tone and its clear progress in missile technology, talk of military action against Pyongyang is becoming more prevalent. Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, said on a recent trip to Asia that “all options are on the table,” a stance that his South Korean counterpart appeared to support, despite the prospect of a conventional artillery attack on Seoul in retaliation for any strike against North Korea.*

[ North Korea launches more missiles; 3 land in Japanese waters ]
Appetite for action is growing in Tokyo, too.*

“We know that North Korea’s missile capability has improved considerably,” said Itsunori Onodera, another former defense minister in the Abe administration and the chairman of an LDP committee on responding to the North Korean missile threat.*

“Right now, we are discussing how we can make sure to prevent them,” he said, adding that the committee could make a proposal as soon as this week.*

Onodera was particularly concerned by North Korea’s recent launch of missiles simultaneously, a move apparently designed to outsmart interception systems.*

“In that case, we would come under attack one missile after another unless we strike the enemy base and stop them,” he said. “So the discussion is around the need to neutralize the missile launch base.”*

Acquiring strike capability might be legally permissible under international law, but it will be difficult to sell to the Japanese public, the majority of whom have been resistant to the small changes Abe has made so far.*

Analysts say that senior politicians could be floating a trial balloon to test public reaction to the idea.*

“This discussion is not random,” said Brad Glosserman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Pacific Forum, saying the likes of Onodera would not raise such an idea without the prime minister’s encouragement. “The bottom line is that a strike capability gives Japan more control over its destiny.”*

[ Tillerson says ‘all options are on the table’ when it comes to North Korea ]

Discussion about acquiring a strike capability also arose during Abe’s first tenure as prime minister, in 2006-2007, a time that coincided with North Korea’s first nuclear test.*

“Now, the threat is more crystallized. Some in Japan are saying, ‘We want to have our own fingers on the trigger, we want to be able to defend ourselves,’ ” Glosserman said.*

But the Abe government has already taken one step that could take it halfway there — it decided to*acquire 42 F-35 stealth fighter jets for air defense, which could be fitted with strike capability.*

“The question is whether to use the F-35 to its full extent,” said Narushige Michishita, a North Korea expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. Another option is to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States. *

The U.S. Marine Corps already has 10 F-35Bs deployed at its air station in Iwakuni, in western Japan.

“Abe is politically astute and realistic in understanding what he can do,” Michishita said, describing how the prime minister is harnessing the momentum provided by North Korea’s threats. “F-35s might not be enough, but they’re a good place to start.”*

Any change would not happen without extensive consultation with the Americans, said Nakatani, Inada’s predecessor as defense minister. “Japan doesn’t have the capacity to launch an attack on North Korea by ourselves,” he said. “In order for Japan to do that, it would take a lot of discussion with the U.S.”
**
Read more:
Japanese prime minister accused of giving secret donation to far-right school
Okinawan anti-base activist released after five months in detention
Trump targeted Japan, but its prime minister is embracing the new president.

35 Comments
*
Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East. Follow @annafifield

 

[Housecarl]

Well this is primed to go real ugly.....Particularly considering that the NORKs were helped by PRC banks to do this....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-heist-philippines-idUSKBN1700TI?il=0

TECHNOLOGY NEWS | Wed Mar 29, 2017 | 4:21am EDT

Bangladesh Bank heist was 'state-sponsored': U.S. official

The heist of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve last year was "state-sponsored," an FBI officer in the Philippines, who has been involved in the investigations, said on Wednesday.

Lamont Siller, the legal attache at the U.S. embassy, did not elaborate but his comments in a speech in Manila are a strong signal that authorities in the United States are close to naming who carried out one of the world's biggest cyber heists.

Last week, officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed North Korea.

"We all know the Bangladesh Bank heist, this is just one example of a state-sponsored attack that was done on the banking sector," Siller told a cyber security forum.

An official briefed on the probe told Reuters in Washington last week that the FBI believes North Korea was responsible for the heist. The official did not give details.

The Wall Street Journal reported U.S. prosecutors were building potential cases that would accuse North Korea of directing the heist, and would charge alleged Chinese middlemen.

The FBI has been leading an international investigation into the February 2016 heist, in which hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and used the SWIFT messaging network to order the transfer of nearly $1 billion from its account at the New York Fed.

The U.S. central bank rejected most of the requests but filled some of them, resulting in $81 million being transferred to bank accounts in the Philippines. The money was quickly withdrawn and later disappeared in the huge casino industry in the country.

There have been no arrests in the case.

A Chinese casino owner in the Philippines told that Senate inquiry he took millions of dollars from two Chinese high-rollers in February. He said the two men were responsible for transferring the stolen money from Dhaka to Manila.

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Philippine investigators have filed criminal charges against several individuals and a remittance company for money laundering in connection with the heist at the country's Department of Justice (DOJ).

None of these cases have yet been filed in court, however.

Siller said the FBI was working closely with the Philippines government "to ensure those responsible for the attack do not go unpunished."

"So for us in the FBI, it is never over. We are going to bring these individuals to justice so that we can show others, that you maybe be able to muster such attacks, even state-sponsored, but you will not get away with it in the end."

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4357782/Pro-Erdogan-Turkish-daily-calls-Turkey-nuclear.html

Pro-Erdogan Turkish daily calls on the country to obtain nuclear weapons and hints that it should stop fighting ISIS

• The column appeared in the Tayyip Erdogan-supporting Yeni Safak newspaper
• Ibrahim Karagul, the daily paper's editor, wrote the article for Monday's edition
• In it, he criticizes the western world and reserves special mentions for Germany
• 'Global showdown' is nearing and a weak nation without weapons won't survive

By Gareth Davies For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 14:03 EDT, 28 March 2017 | UPDATED: 02:37 EDT, 29 March 2017

A pro-government Turkish newspaper has called on the country to obtain nuclear weapons and hinted it should stop fighting ISIS.

In is column on March 27, the editor of Tayyip Erdogan-supporting daily Yeni Safak, which translates to New Dawn, wrote that Turkey should withdraw from attacking the enemies of the West, thought to mean Islamic State.

The article, penned by Ibrahim Karagul, criticizes the western world and reserves special mentions for Germany.

It comes as Turkey prepares for a referendum on April 16, which the newspaper is calling to be used as a platform for Turkey to 'fight for its existence'.

Yeni Safak editor Mr Karagul said: 'The Western world is old now and has entered a period of stagnation.

'It is not as strong and determinant as it was after the two world wars.

'The future of the world can be shaped through the differentiation of the East and West.

'It is necessary to look at the entirety of this picture while discussing Turkey's fight and the new Western attacks aimed at Turkey.

'If not, determining a position for Turkey based solely on positions within the country is the indication of terrible blindness.'

The article goes on to say the Turkish people should not focus their efforts on helping countries in Europe.

Mr Karagul believes a global showdown is imminent and that a weak nation without weapons will not survive.

He wrote: 'There is a major, historical plan behind the despicable attacks we see in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in almost all of Europe.

'The enmity toward Turkey, which they started on top of enmity toward Islam, is not limited to elections alone. It will not get better after elections either.

'We must prepare according to this new situation.

'We must first put aside fighting against whatever there is that the West has declared a threat whether it be an organization or something else.

'We do not have to waste our strength on their enemies while these financiers of terrorism invade our country and cities through terrorist organizations.

'We should focus on our own priorities and our own definitions of threats.

'We are not Europe's border guard, counterterror team or refugee prevention force, and we should no longer act as such.'

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/abe-scraps-japans-1-percent-gdp-defense-spending-cap/

Abe Scraps Japan's 1 Percent GDP Defense Spending Cap

The announcement removes one of the major obstacles to Japan’s defense transformation.

By John Wright
March 29, 2017

On March 3, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced to the Diet, with little accompanying fanfare, an official break with his predecessors’ policy of restricting defense spending to 1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This break is notable for a variety of reasons and is a decisive step toward achieving the Liberal Democratic Party’s defense revitalization goals.

English-language resources hardly address the subject, but the 1 percent policy (which is not law) was, next to the constitution itself, one of the most tenacious obstacles restricting meaningful defense reform in Japan. Like the glacial five-year Midterm Defense Plan system Japan currently utilizes for defense spending, the 1 percent restriction was an antiquated feature that needed to go. Its origins, stretching back to 1976 and reflecting a Japan seeking to halt runaway Cold War defense expenditures, worked for Japan’s own particular situation and era; that of a Japan which turned toward a Japan-based U.S. forward presence as a main deterrent to the Soviet Union, abstaining from both expensive standing armies and pricey nuclear forces. Times have clearly changed.

There is only one immediate implication of this policy adjustment: we can expect Abe to raise the defense budget as high as he and his administration dare beyond 1 percent of GDP. Despite the removal of this significant barrier, Japan’s emaciated defense budget still faces multiple hurdles if it is to grow in order to meet East Asia’s rapidly changing defense environment. First and foremost of these hurdles is the power and entrenchment of the Ministry of Finance. While the Japanese constitution clearly gives the Diet the role of passing a budget, whether or not that budget survives the process is up to the Ministry of Finance.

In reality, the Ministry of Finance, through its veiled bureaucratic processes, exercises particularly strong control over what gets funded versus what does not. Japan’s usual budgetary process involves the Cabinet giving the Ministry of Finance its budget requests, whereupon the Ministry makes cuts and changes and incorporates policies that*may remain behind from previous cabinets, unbeknownst to the current Cabinet. Put in a simplified form, the budgetary process has predictably repeated itself, with little change, over and over in past decades, like a bibliophile reassured by the comforting embrace of an old book: the Cabinet hands the Ministry of Finance optimistic budgeting desires, whereupon they are considered, edited, and returned with an apology and an explanation that the Cabinet’s wishes could not possibly be met given precedent and available funds. The Ministry hands the Cabinet an edited budget, complete with all pertinent policy references and explanations (such as the 1 percent limitation), and wishes the Cabinet luck in the Diet. The prime minister grits his teeth, sends the budget to the Diet, at which time his Lower House majority*passes the budget and sends it to the Upper House, starting a ticking clock which, after expiration, ends in a budget approved in the form sanctioned by the Ministry of Finance.

This time, however, Abe has an ace in the hole: his deputy prime minister, and former prime minister himself, Taro Aso, doubles as his finance minister, head of the Ministry of Finance. With such influence at his disposal, it is likely Abe is now able to place significant pressure on the Ministry of Finance after the Cabinet submits its budgets. This helps explain the notable changes in Japanese defense spending regarding budgets under the Abe administration, despite the 1 percent limit; now with no limit, the Ministry of Finance has a great deal of work ahead of it.

Future strategic impacts of the change are noteworthy. First, Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party are now poised to seize any and all defense-focused domestic political momentum in Japan. The Japanese polity, for a variety of reasons, is politically apathetic to defense to a degree unseen in many countries. However, it has shown signs of “waking” to the changing defense environment in which Japan finds itself, especially younger Japanese who, as of last year, have been granted suffrage as early as 18 years old. The Liberal Democratic Party, alone, stands ready to reap whatever harvest of voters its emphasis on defense brings. Further, the door to a nuclear-armed Japan has cracked a bit farther open. Without an artificial budgetary constraint, Japan is free to procure what its Cabinets can wring from the Ministry of Finance — including expensive equipment, like nuclear systems. This newfound potential could also explain Japan’s hesitation to be as vocal about anti-nuclear weapons as it has been in the past. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, regional adversaries can no longer mathematically determine the maximum level of Japanese defense potential. From here on out, Japan is more prepared to react faster and with more spending to growing defense concerns.

While Japan’s Cabinet still faces significant challenges to get the defense spending it wants, the removal of the 1 percent policy, at least in this administration, is a seminal event that signals significant change ahead.

Major John Wright is a U.S. Air Force officer, pilot, and a Mike and Maureen Mansfield Fellow.* He is currently serving as Japan Country Director, International Affairs, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Honolulu, HI. The views expressed in this article are his own.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-china-state-spy-20170329-story.html

U.S. diplomat arrested, accused of conspiracy with Chinese intelligence agents

By Joseph Tanfani, Contact Reporter
March 29, 2017, 5:55 PM | Reporting from Washington

A longtime State Department employee was arrested Wednesday and charged with repeatedly lying about her contacts with Chinese businessmen who had plied her with thousands of dollars in cash and gifts to glean inside information about U.S. economic policy, U.S. officials said.

Candace Claiborne, 60, has training in Mandarin and a top secret clearance. She worked for the department for 18 years, rotating on assignments in China, Sudan, Libya, Morocco and most recently in Washington in the department’s office of Caucasus affairs.

The case offers a window into Beijing’s efforts to gain an advantage in its economic jockeying with the United States, and how business owners in China often double as agents for state intelligence.

While stationed in China in 2007, Claiborne began dealings with two Chinese businessmen, including a Shanghai importer — not identified in the documents — who federal authorities believe was gathering information for Chinese state security.

“Clairborne used her position and her access to sensitive diplomatic data for personal profit,” said a statement by Mary B. McCord, acting assistant attorney general for national security.

In 2011, the importer wired $2,500 to Claiborne’s U.S. account and a month later asked her for information about how the U.S. government was evaluating economic negotiations with Beijing, the affidavit says. She responded with publicly available information.

“What they are looking for is what they cannot find on the Internet,” the businessman responded, according to the affidavit.

Claiborne received about $3,000 cash for herself, authorities say. Most of the rest of the gifts went to a younger family member who was not identified. He wanted to study fashion in China but Claiborne could not afford it on her State Department salary, officials said.

The relative received plane tickets, dinners, an apartment and tuition at the Raffles Design Institute in Shanghai, the affidavit says. When he was charged with a serious crime in China in 2013, the two businessmen helped him leave the country, a sign of their influence, the government says.

Worried that she could get in trouble, Claiborne asked the younger relative to cut ties with the men, authorities said. “I really don’t want my neck or your neck in a noose regarding another party/person that has made this possible for you,” she wrote at one point, according to the affidavit.

In interviews with State Department and law enforcement officials, Claiborne repeatedly failed to report the contacts.

Two months ago, the FBI sent an undercover ethnic Chinese agent to her door pretending to seek assistance. He mentioned the names of the businessmen and identified himself as an agent of Chinese intelligence.

Claiborne didn’t deny her previous work, but refused to help him or accept his money, authorities say. She did not report the encounter.

Later, upon questioning by the FBI, Claiborne acknowledged that she eventually realized the two were trying to get information for the government. She said she also passed them information about a dissident who was living at the U.S. Embassy, but insisted that she always provided unclassified information.

Times staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-china-spratlys-idUSKBN16Z005

SOUTH CHINA SEA | Tue Mar 28, 2017 | 6:46am EDT

China able to deploy warplanes on artificial islands any time: U.S. think tank

By David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON
China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.

The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennae on Fiery Cross and Subi.

"So look for deployments in the near future," he said.

China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain "freedom of navigation."

China's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday she was unaware of the details of the think tank's report, but added the Spratly Islands were China's inherent territory.

"As for China deploying or not deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own territory, this is a matter that is within the scope of Chinese sovereignty," she told a daily news briefing.

A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Gary Ross, declined to comment on the specifics of the AMTI report, saying it was not the Defense Department's practice to comment on intelligence.

But he said that "China's continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful resolution of disputes."

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AMTI said China's three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel chain further north would allow its military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route that Beijing claims most of.

Several neighboring states have competing claims in the sea, which is widely seen as a potential regional flashpoint.

The think tank said advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs, as well as Woody Island, and smaller facilities elsewhere gave it similar radar coverage.

It said China had installed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles at Woody Island more than a year ago and had deployed anti-ship cruise missiles there on at least one occasion.

It had also constructed hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief and enough hangars at Fiery Cross for 24 combat aircraft and three larger planes, including bombers.

U.S. officials told Reuters last month that China had finished building almost two dozen structures on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross that appeared designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China by saying it should be denied access to islands it had built up in the South China Sea.

Tillerson subsequently softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified "contingency," the United States and its allies "must be capable of limiting China's access to and use of" those islands to pose a threat.

In recent years, the United States has conducted a series of what it calls freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, raising tensions with Beijing.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Richard Chang, Leslie Adler and Nick Macfie)

NEXT IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

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MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday accused the United States of having a provocative stance on the South China Sea and said its inaction when China started building manmade islands was the cause of tensions now besetting the region.

Philippine president says trusts China won't build on disputed shoal
MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said he trusted China would not build anything on a disputed South China Sea shoal because he was given its "word of honor" and Beijing would not want to jeopardize a new friendship.

 

[Housecarl]

China Warns That US Weapons Can’t Save Taiwan
Started by China Connection‎, Yesterday 08:06 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?514440-China-Warns-That-US-Weapons-Can%92t-Save-Taiwan

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/trump-must-boost-taiwan-arms-sales-now/

Trump Must Boost Taiwan Arms Sales Now

It is essential that the administration gets off to a strong start less the Taiwan Strait flashpoint boil over.

By Ian Easton
March 29, 2017

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both failed to make available to Taiwan the arms needed to mount a credible self-defense. President Donald Trump and his team now have the opportunity to do a better job. It is essential they get off to a strong start. If nothing changes, the long simmering Taiwan Strait flashpoint is likely to boil over.

It is difficult to overstate how dysfunctional America’s security policy is when it comes to democratic Taiwan. Despite China’s disquieting military buildup and expansionist posture, Washington has increasingly dithered on meeting its legal and moral commitments to Taiwan’s defense. The trouble began during the Bush administration, when Washington shocked Taipei by refusing to accept a letter of request for three squadrons of new F-16 fighter jets.

Things deteriorated further when the Bush White House proved unable to deliver on its promise to assist Taiwan in acquiring diesel-electric submarines at a price Taipei’s testy parliament could accept. Even worse, the administration tried to curtail the Ministry of National Defense’s homemade cruise missile project ― a legitimate capability needed for deterring Chinese ballistic missile strikes on Taiwan’s cities.

The Obama administration delivered an even more lackluster performance. It refused Taiwan’s repeated requests for new fighter jets, while actively marketing low-end, cheap capabilities that seemed calculated to be inoffensive to China. In 2014, Taiwan’s government, by now aware of Washington’s self-limiting approach to Beijing, proudly announced its resolve to build its own submarines and invited America to join other countries in providing selected technical knowhow in a low-key fashion.

The invitation backfired. In response, Obama’s team forbade the American defense industry from competing for access to the Indigenous Defense Submarine program. They then went on a rhetorical campaign to erode Taiwan’s confidence that it could and should go forward with the submarine build, which enjoyed widespread bipartisan support on the island. This was a remarkable reversal of what Pentagon experts under Clinton and Bush had previously counseled: namely, that submarines were an ideal asymmetric capability and necessary for defending against Chinese invasion.

The absence of top-tier arms sales to Taiwan has directly contributed to an imbalanced security situation across the Strait. The American decisions to withhold support for a next generation Taiwanese air force and navy have negatively impacted the perceived reliability of the United States. This is true not just in Taipei, but also in Tokyo, where the Japanese foreign policy elite regard Taiwan’s fate as tightly intertwined with their own.

China’s colossal armaments drive continues to erode the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait. Compounding the problem, the iron-fisted leader of China, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly hinted that an attack may be just over the horizon. After his turbulent rise to power in 2012, Xi ramped up covert actions and coercive operations against Taiwan. More recently, he has sent bombers and warships out on patrols that circled around the island.

To be clear, there is no chance Taiwan will submit to being ruled by China. The Taiwanese people are rightfully proud of their democratic achievements and unimpressed with Beijing’s intimidation tactics. The blessings of self-determination and the power of nationalism are too deeply rooted for them to back down. Taiwan and China have had separate governments for 67 years, and this reality is almost certainly not going to change by 2021, or even by 2049. But a critical question remains: will Taiwan’s free future be secured by the pen or by the sword?

To ensure that cross-strait conflict is averted, the Trump administration should make available to Taiwan new fighter jets, submarine technology, and many other weapons that have long been off the table. Few things would signal America’s restored strength and renewed sense of purpose to observers in Asia like frequent and high-caliber arms sales to Taiwan. Yes, China will bluster and complain, but Beijing will have only itself to blame. If Xi dismantled the offensive missiles he has pointed at Taiwan and declared his willingness to respect the will of its 23 million citizens, Taipei would undoubtedly invest its national resources differently.

Unfortunately, the threat is likely to get much worse. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed wing of China’s Communist Party, has embarked on an ambitious reform program, with both Taiwan and America in its crosshairs. The PLA intends to transform itself into a joint fighting force that is capable of invading and occupying Taiwan while simultaneously defeating the U.S. Pacific Fleet. This is an extremely tall order. It nonetheless represents a disturbing indication of intent.

PLA reforms will probably take a decade or more to succeed ― if they can succeed at all. In the meantime, few options are as likely to make China think twice about the cost of aggression as bolstered arms sales. To keep the Asia-Pacific region peaceful and prosperous, the United States needs a well defended and confident Taiwan.

President Trump and his new team have their work cut out for them. Fixing the policy mistakes of the past will take a concerted effort. Their prospects will be excellent if they cast off the legacy they have inherited and chart a new course.

Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute and author of the forthcoming book, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://sentinel.tw/taiwan-missile-defense-dilemma/

Taiwan and the Missile Defense Dilemma

Posted On March 30, 2017 Michal Thim and Liao Yen-fanMichal Thim and Liao Yen-fan
Comments 2

Missile defense continues to play a major role in Taiwan’s defense plans, and getting it right as the threat matrix evolves will be a great challenge for defense planners here.

Beijing’s reaction to the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, North Korean missile tests, and the recently confirmed addition of Dong Feng 16 (DF-16) medium-range ballistic missile to the already existing arsenal aimed at Taiwan have put the general public on notice about one of the defining features of East and Southeast Asia’s military developments.

For all the impressive modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), it is the deployment of ballistic missiles by the PLA Rocket Force (formerly the Second Artillery Corps) that epitomizes China’s military threat to Taiwan. Thus, it is no wonder that the option of acquiring new missile defense capabilities has been on the minds of Taiwanese defense planners for some time.

Efforts to develop a capability to counter missiles have been in place for as long as the missile threat itself. In the final years of World War II, the United Kingdom employed a set of passive and active counter-measures against the threat of V-1 missiles, the predecessor to modern cruise missiles. Active measures involved shooting down the missile, either by anti-aircraft artillery (using analog computers for fire prediction) or through interception by fighter planes, a challenging task given the relatively high speed at low altitude, the small size of V-1s, and the lack of vulnerable kill points on the missile. Passive counter-measures included a barrage of balloons. However, with another type of Nazi missiles, the V-2, none of this was possible. The V-2 was too fast, and as soon as it was in the air, there was no way of stopping it. The V-2 was also a disaster because it was very expensive to produce; each V-2 that often fell miles away from an intended target cost as much as one fighter plane, sorely needed on the frontline.

The high-intensity terror campaign of cheaply made V-1s proved at the early stage that missile defense is a costly endeavor. To defend London, the British had to establish special anti-aircraft defense zones and divert some of their most advanced fighter planes away from the frontlines. However, Nazi Germany also paid a high price by investing a great amount of its scarce resources (money and material) into a program that, in the end, could not make a difference and had subpar results. Unlike their modern successors, V-weapons also had atrocious accuracy (compounded by British disinformation on accuracy and damage assessment fed back to Germany via double agents).

Evolution

Seventy years have passed, and defenders’ options are better than what the Allies had at their disposal in 1944. Far from achieving the goal of total defensive coverage of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (known colloquially as “Star Wars”), modern missile defense systems (or perhaps more precisely air defense systems with missile defense capability) are, however, capable of shooting down ballistic and cruise missiles. The THAAD has the ability to intercept missiles at the apex of its descending path. If interception at that altitude fails, the defender still has time for a second shot, and also to intercept incoming missiles with low-tier systems like the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3). In the case of South Korea, Japan, and the U.S., to name countries facing a missile threat from either China or North Korea (or both), they can also deploy SM-3 BMD aboard Aegis destroyers. Taken together, THAAD, PAC-3, and interceptors aboard Aegis vessels constitute theater missile defense (TMD). Having a multi-layered TMD is therefore the ideal option.

Despite the increasing capabilities that a defender can field, offensive missiles have also become more formidable. Modern cruise missiles are capable of skimming the surface to evade air defenses or perform evasive maneuvers, which is also true for the latest versions of ballistic missiles warheads. However, this is not the greatest headache for BMD advocates. The doctrine for engagement of an incoming missile by the PAC-3 system is to “ripple fire” two interceptors to increase the probability kill (pK) to an acceptable level (generally 90%). That means two costly interceptors against one missile. A limited number of interceptors is not the only problem, however. Should the PLA manage to launch hundreds of missiles against Taiwan, command and control (C2) systems could struggle to effectively deal with the incoming threat even if a sufficient number of interceptors is available. In short, it is easier to assemble a large arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles and overwhelm an adversary’s defenses than to mount a corresponding defense.

The challenge that China would face is the number of transporter erector launchers (TEL) it can deploy, thus limiting the number of missiles that can be fired in one large salvo, as well as the distribution and proper guidance of missiles to their targets. This is where a scenario involving a Chinese missile attack on Taiwan enters uncharted waters. Due partly to the fear of an escalation resulting in a nuclear exchange, never before has one state launched a massive coordinated ballistic missile strike against another with a developed network of missile defense systems. All of this, moreover, under conditions of integrated electronic and information warfare that would render the reliability of sensors and guidance systems used by both Taiwan and China questionable.

Taiwan's Challenge

China’s missile threat to Taiwan is a test case for almost every possible aspect of the missile defense dilemma. The Chinese military has fielded large numbers of short-range ballistic missiles of the Dong Feng variety; most relevant are the short-range DF-11 and DF-15, most of which underwent upgrade from the 1990s for increased accuracy. Moreover, China began fielding new models like the short-range DF-12, short-to-medium-range DF-16, which is considered an eventual successor to older DF-11s and DF-15s, and the medium-range DF-26. The number of ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan is estimated to be at least 1,500. This number is further augmented by hundreds of land- and ship-based cruise-missiles.

To counter this formidable threat, Taiwan has fielded nine batteries of PAC-3 systems, with one held in reserve (some of them are older PAC-2 GEM systems upgraded to PAC-3 standard). The PAC-3 was specifically developed for BMD purposes at the expense of other capabilities. Currently, Patriots in service in Taiwan use a mix of PAC-3 and PAC-2 GEM interceptors, partly because there is not a sufficient number of PAC-3 interceptors yet; the 444 MIM-104F interceptors acquired in 2008 and 2010 have all been placed within their respective launchers with no reserve for rearming for another salvo. However, Taiwan’s BMD does not rest just on Patriots. The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), the country’s premier defense research institution, has also developed its own system, the Tien Kung 3 (TK-3).

The ROCAF Air Defense Missile Command is planning to deploy a total of 12 companies (1 company consists of 1 battery) of TK-3 by 2024 at the cost of NT$74.8 billion (US$2.47 billion) on top of the roughly NT$180 billion it paid for the PAC-3. Currently, the 611th and 612th battalion, deployed in the north and south respectively, each consists of three companies. Plans are to replace the MIM-23 Hawk batteries with TK-3s; the current composition of Hawk batteries consists of three battalions, the 621st (5 companies) in the north, the 623rd (4 companies) in the south, and the 625th (3 companies) in the east coast. Together with the already fielded PAC-3 systems, Taiwan will therefore have in place a total of 21 (+1) batteries.

Approximately NT$240 billion (to compare: the current annual defense budget is roughly NT$300 billion) may seem like a high price for a low-tier system with limited efficiency; after all, many incoming missiles will still make it through. How many missiles would be intercepted is, to a considerable extent, guesswork. The easy way is to take the number of available interceptors and divide it by two, though in reality this could be further complicated as Taiwan’s air and missile defenses would come under sustained electronic and information attack. Regardless, even if attempts to jam Taiwan’s targeting sensors were thwarted, it is still a challenging task to engage a large number of targets in the most efficient way. All that being said, if missile defenses can take out hundreds of incoming missiles, it seems worth the hefty bill. When the Chinese missiles start to fly, the economics of missile defense would arguably not be the primary concern.

As noted above, a multi-layered BMD increases the chances for the defender. But is this an option for Taiwan? A THAAD system could be one option to augment the current and planned BMD deployment with the capability to intercept incoming missiles at their highest point in their descent. However, the effectiveness of an intercept at terminal high altitude must be balanced against the exorbitant price of the THAAD system (estimated NT$30 billion for nine launchers, 48 missiles, and support), and political backlash from the PRC that would certainly follow a THAAD sale to Taiwan. As to the sea-borne element of TMD, Taiwan’s Navy intends to add a missile defense component with development of an Aegis-like system, but under current plans these are to support fleet operations and thus will not be available for augmenting land-based defenses. Thus, Taiwan will need to rely in the foreseeable future on a low-tier missile defense only.

The primary mission of BMD defense for Taiwan is twofold: to sustain civilian morale and protect vital infrastructure such as runways, bridges, or communication nodes during a first strike. The current deployment of Patriots and TK-3s favors the former, which given the political situation is a logical choice. However, provisions should be made to mobilize the units around key infrastructure should PLA intentions, either terror bombing or first strike in preparation for an invasion, be known in advance.

An efficient deployment and mobilization of Taiwan’s existing BMD assets could increase the strategic initiative for Taiwan’s defenders by introducing an element of uncertainty on how heavily defended Taiwan’s key infrastructure is. This needs to be done in conjunction with hardening of passive defensive measures such as underground communication centers, penetration-resistant bunkers, and reinforced hangars, among other passive counter-measures. The proper combination of active and passive defenses will increase the overall cost of a saturation attack or increase the survivability of individual targets by forcing China to scatter its ballistic missiles in an initial salvo. Moreover, although the overall material cost of the BMD system would well exceed the cost of the incoming salvo of ballistic missiles, it is well justified should the systems ensure the survival of Taiwan’s C4ISR and Air Defense capabilities, and deny the PLA the window it would attempt to create and exploit.

Ultimately, the asymmetry between the cost of a ballistic missile and cost of missile defense is not the only, and ultimately not a very useful, metric. The proper deployment of BMD systems could provide Taiwan a measure of initiative in the case of all-out attack. It is also an effective deterrent against missile attacks short of all-out war. Missile defense therefore continues to play a major role in Taiwan’s defense plans, and getting it right will be a priority of defense planners here.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/03/29/...+dodbuzz+(DoD+Buzz)&comp=7000029710983&rank=0

Boeing Ramps Up Bomb Production as Stockpiles Decrease

POSTED BY: ORIANA PAWLYK MARCH 29, 2017
Comments 11

The Navy and Air Force, as well as U.S. allies, have asked Boeing Co. for more bomb kits, including laser-guided, amid declining JDAM stockpiles due to the air war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

“We’re ramping significantly across the portfolio, not just with [Joint Direct Attack Munition],” said Cindy Gruensfelder, Boeing’s director of direct attack munitions.

“But with JDAM, we’re currently on a path by July of this year to ramp to a 150 weapons a day [rate] or over 36,500 [tail kits] per year — that is two full shifts at our facility,” she told reporters during a media briefing Tuesday at Boeing’s facilities near Washington, D.C.

Gruensfelder said Boeing is looking to break the 36,000 kit annual production ceiling because of international partner requests.

The ramp-up began last July, when an average of 130 tail kits a day were being produced.

The Air Force — flying more than half the sorties for Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the operation against ISIS — in December 2015 revealed bomb stockpiles were decreasing in light of the air war, which began in 2014.

The stockpiles were strained further when the joint force began sharing weapons with coalition partners engaged against the terrorist group in the Middle East, said then-Lt. Gen. John Raymond, deputy chief of staff for operations at Headquarters Air Force at the time.

Chicago-based Boeing recently celebrated its 300,000 JDAM production, Gruensfelder said.

“To fast forward to the usage rates we’re seeing from some of the warfighters … usage of weapons for JDAM in particular was 80 a day on average,” she said of Boeing’s contribution.

Small diameter bomb production will also see an increase. Boeing, which makes the GBU-39 kit, currently produces 1,000 units a year, primarily based on international needs, Gruensfelder said. But the company is in contract negotiations with the Air Force to have 5,000 units a year for the next lot, with the potential of 8,000 the following year.

Over time, the JDAM has come down in cost, she said, adding Boeing aims to “drive it down even further.” She did not offer specific numbers because of ongoing negotiations.

The laser-guided JDAM, first delivered in 2008, is “going through some ramps as well,” Gruensfelder said. “The modularity really allows for the weapon to be assembled in the field in minutes and is very capable — both the U.S. Navy and Air Force employ laser JDAMs as well as 17 international partners.”

Nearly 18,000 laser-guided JDAMs have been delivered to date, she said. Negotiations are underway with the Navy for direct attack moving target capability, or DAMTC, for the laser JDAM kits, she said.

“We will be working with our supplier base to ramp even further beyond 8,000 units per year,” she said.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...69934184168_story.html?utm_term=.1c9ae76f3452

Venezuela plunged into turmoil as top court muzzles congress

By Jorge Rueda and Joshua Goodman | AP March 31 at 1:13 AM

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelans have been thrust into a new round of political turbulence after the government-stacked Supreme Court gutted congress of its last vestiges of power, drawing widespread condemnation from foreign governments and sparking calls for protests.

Governments across Latin America on Thursday condemned the power grab, with the head of the Organization of American States likening it to a “self-inflicted coup” by socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s “regime” against the opposition-controlled congress.

In a surprise decision, the magistrates ruled late Wednesday that as long as lawmakers remain in contempt of past rulings, the high court, or an institution it designates, can assume the constitutionally assigned powers of the National Assembly, which has been controlled by the opposition for nearly a year and a half.

The ruling and one earlier in the week limiting lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution capped a feud that began when the long-marginalized opposition won control of the legislature by a landslide in December 2015 and then mounted a campaign to force Maduro from office. The leftist leader, who has seen his approval ratings plunge amid widespread food shortages and triple-digit inflation, responded by relying on the Supreme Court to unseat several lawmakers and then routinely nullify all legislation voted there.

“This isn’t any old sentence. It marks a point of no return on the road to dictatorship,” said Freddy Guevara, the No. 2 leader in congress.

Peru’s government immediately recalled its ambassador in protest of what it called “a flagrant break in the democratic order.” Chile’s left-of-center president, who has been reluctant to openly criticize Maduro, said she was deeply worried by the ruling and ordered her ambassador to return home for consultations.

The U.S. State Department reiterated its call for Maduro to free political prisoners and hold immediate elections to resolve the crisis, saying the court decision to “usurp” the National Assembly’s powers represented a “serious setback for democracy in Venezuela.”

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro called for an emergency meeting of the regional group, which held two angry sessions on Venezuela earlier this week. That meeting ended with 20 governments led by the U.S. and Mexico voicing deep concern about the Venezuelan situation but no concrete actions to hold Maduro accountable.

Luis Vicente Leon, a Caracas-based pollster, said that while the ruling completely “pulverizes the separation of powers,” Venezuela long ago stopped operating like a normal democracy with a clear rule of law and independent institutions. He sees the government hardening its position in the face of mounting economic woes and international pressure, further dashing hopes for dialogue and an electoral solution.

“It’s perfectly predictable that the government is going to keep radicalizing,” he said.

The main opposition alliance said it was holding around-the-clock meetings to determine its next steps, but some leaders were already calling for protests as early as Saturday. Meanwhile, some hard-liners called for the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela and an important crutch for Maduro, to intervene.

While the capital was generally quiet Thursday, as night fell a few people in wealthier eastern Caracas gathered on balconies and in front of homes banging pots and pans and shouting “Get out Maduro!”

“The 30 million Venezuelans need to take to the streets and confront the dictatorship,” said Daniela Tani, a coordinator for one of Venezuela’s opposition groups who joined about 50 people briefly blocking one of major roadways in Caracas. The protesters waved flags and stopped traffic until being surrounded by police trying to clear the street.

But it was not clear if critics of the government were in the mood for another street fight after past attempts fizzled or ended in bloodshed with little to show. Weeks of unrest in 2014 resulted in more than 40 deaths and dozens of arrests, while a mass protest last September was followed by authorities a few days later cancelling a recall petition campaign seeking to force Maduro from office before his term ends in 2019.

The Supreme Court’s ruling stemmed from congress’ refusal to authorize Venezuela’s state-run oil company to form joint ventures with private companies, including Russia’s Rosneft. State media said the ruling was not seeking to supplant congress but rather to guarantee the rule of law so long as legislators remains obstructionist by refusing to sign off on a budget and key economic decisions.

Maduro kept out of the debate, appearing twice Thursday on state TV but leaving to his aides to denounce his critics.

“We denounce the conspiracy by the region’s right-wing to attack Venezuela’s democratic system,” Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said on Twitter.

___

Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press photographer Fernando Llano in Caracas contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...est-sparks-homicide-surge-in-mexico/99833240/

"El Chapo" arrest sparks homicide surge in Mexico

Alan Gomez , USA TODAY Published 12:05 a.m. ET March 31, 2017 | Updated 6 minutes ago
Comments 6

Last year’s capture of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán led to a surge in homicides in Mexico as cartel leaders fought to fill the vacuum created by his arrest.

The apprehension of Guzmán in January 2016 was hailed by Mexican and U.S. officials as a watershed moment in the war on drugs. But Mexico's homicide rate for the year spiked to 21.3 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, a steep rise from 17.5 in 2015 that rivals record numbers earlier in the decade, according to a report released Friday by the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego.

Mexico had just started emerging from its bloody battle with drug cartels, with murder rates dropping for four consecutive years from 2011 to 2014. After the removal of Guzmán, violence is back on the rise. The drug lord was extradited to the United States in January to face criminal charges for his leadership of the trafficking syndicate known as the Sinaloa Cartel.

"It's kind of two steps forward, one step back," said David Shirk, director of the Justice in Mexico Project and co-author of the report. "We took out a very powerful and important drug trafficker. But as a result, we have destabilized the ecosystem of organized crime in a way that has led to internal struggles within the Sinaloa Cartel, and encroachment from other organizations that would like to take over their business."

The spike in violence also helps explain why the United States is seeing a resurgence in heroin use. The problem has become so widespread that President Trump created a national opioid addiction commission. On Wednesday he hosted a White House "listening session" with addicts, including one recovering heroin addict.

Shirk said the battles between Mexican drug cartels have upset the "traditional" drug routes — including cocaine — that originate in South America and funnel through Mexico to the U.S. That has made it more difficult for American users to find cocaine, opening the door for heroin and other opioids, which can be produced in Mexico and smuggled more easily into the U.S.

Heroin profits are smaller, Shirk said, but they provide those cartels with quick and easy cash as they focus on fighting for control of territories left vacant by Guzmán's arrest.

"When you fragment drug trafficking organizations, they're going to look for readily available products," Shirk said.

Read more:

Deadly turf war for control of El Chapo's empire erupts in Mexico
Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman extradited to U.S.
Footage shows operation that led to 'El Chapo' arrest
Mexico experienced its worst period of violence starting in 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderón announced an aggressive campaign to fight against the country's drug cartels. That led to Mexico's homicide rate increasing from a record low of 8.1 per 100,000 in 2007 to a record high of 24 just four years later.

The Mexican government was able to quell that violence through a combination of anti-corruption measures and big increases in military and police spending. Mexico received help from the U.S. government, which sends $320 million a year to improve the southern neighbor's security, justice, economy and education systems.

That could change under President Trump, who has proposed slashing State Department and foreign aid budgets by 37%. Trump has also infuriated Mexico by saying it will pay for expanding a wall along the border between the two countries.

"There's a need for both countries to resolve this problem. And in many ways, we're at a high water mark in U.S.-Mexico security cooperation," Shirk said. "The only question now is how (Trump) will continue to work with Mexico to address this shared responsibility."

The group's report is based on a collection of data from the Mexican government, private companies and media organizations that track homicides in Mexico.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoda...2017/03/033117-Mexico-drug-violenceONLINE.png

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/...be-rethinking-nuclear-first-strikes.html?_r=0

India, Long at Odds With Pakistan, May Be Rethinking Nuclear First Strikes

The Interpreter
By MAX FISHER MARCH 31, 2017

India may be reinterpreting its nuclear weapons doctrine, circumstantial evidence suggests, with potentially significant ramifications for the already tenuous nuclear balance in South Asia.

New assessments suggest that India is considering allowing for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Pakistan’s arsenal in the event of a war. This would not formally change India’s nuclear doctrine, which bars it from launching a first strike, but would loosen its interpretation to deem pre-emptive strikes as defensive.

It would also change India’s likely targets, in the event of a war, to make a nuclear exchange more winnable and, therefore, more thinkable.

Analysts’ assessments, based on recent statements by senior Indian officials, are necessarily speculative. States with nuclear weapons often leave ambiguity in their doctrines to prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps in their proscriptions and to preserve flexibility. But signs of a strategic adjustment in India are mounting.

This comes against a backdrop of long-simmering tensions between India and Pakistan — including over state-sponsored terrorism and the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir — which have already led to several wars, the most recent in 1999.

The new interpretation would be a significant shift in India’s posture that could have far-reaching implications in the region, even if war never comes. Pakistan could feel compelled to expand its arsenal to better survive a pre-emptive strike, in turn setting off an Indian buildup.

This would be more than an arms race, said Vipin Narang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who studies nuclear powers.

“It’s very scary because all the ‘first-strike instability’ stuff is real,” Mr. Narang said, referring to a dynamic in which two nuclear adversaries both perceive a strong incentive to use their warheads first in a war. This is thought to make nuclear conflict more likely.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Hints of a high-level Indian debate over the nuclear doctrine mounted with a recent memoir by Shivshankar Menon, India’s national security adviser from 2011 to 2014.

“There is a potential gray area as to when India would use nuclear weapons first” against a nuclear-armed adversary, Mr. Menon wrote.

India, he added, “might find it useful to strike first” against an adversary that appeared poised to launch or that “had declared it would certainly use its weapons” — most likely a veiled reference to Pakistan.

Mr. Narang presented the quotations, along with his interpretation, in Washington last week, during a major nuclear policy conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“There is increasing evidence that India will not allow Pakistan to go first,” he told a gathering of international government officials and policy experts.

Mr. Menon’s book, he said, “clearly carves out an exception for pre-emptive Indian first use in the very scenario that is most likely to occur in South Asia.”

The passage alone does not prove a policy shift. But in context alongside other developments, it suggests either that India has quietly widened its strategic options or that officials are hoping to stir up just enough ambiguity to deter its adversaries.

After Mr. Narang’s presentation generated attention in the South Asian news media, Mr. Menon told an Indian columnist, “India’s nuclear doctrine has far greater flexibility than it gets credit for.”

Mr. Menon declined an interview request for this article. When told what the article would say, he did not challenge its assertions. India’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Whether these signals indicate a real shift or a strategic feint, analysts believe they are intended to right a strategic imbalance that has been growing for almost a decade.

The Pakistan Problem

Should India sustain a nuclear attack, its doctrine calls for a major retaliation, most likely by targeting its adversary’s cities. When this policy was announced in 2003, it fit the threat posed by Pakistan’s arsenal of long-range, city-destroying weapons.

Since then, Pakistan has developed smaller warheads designed for battlefield use. These were meant to address Pakistan’s India problem: The Indian military is much larger, virtually ensuring its victory in an all-out war.

Such weapons could be used against invading Indian troops, halting a war before it could be lost. This would exploit a gap in India’s doctrine: It is hard to imagine that India would escalate to total nuclear war, as its doctrine commands, over a small battlefield strike on Pakistani soil.

This created a Pakistan problem for India: Its chief adversary had made low-level nuclear war thinkable, even potentially winnable. Since then, there have been growing hints of debate over modifying the Indian doctrine.

B. S. Nagal, a lieutenant general who led India’s nuclear command from 2008 to 2011, argued in a 2014 article for a policy of “ambiguity” as to whether India would launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

Also that year, the Bharatiya Janata Party said it would consider changing India’s doctrine, but then abandoned this position. It took power in national elections a few weeks later.

Last November, Manohar Parrikar, then the defense minister, said India’s prohibition against nuclear first use was too restrictive, though he added that this was only his opinion.

Another reason analysts suspect change: India’s doctrine initially served to persuade the United States to drop economic sanctions it had imposed over nuclear tests. Given President Trump’s softer stance on proliferation, that impetus may no longer apply.

‘The Seductive Logic’

Mr. Menon, in his book, seemed to settle on an answer to India’s quandary: “Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon use would effectively free India to undertake a comprehensive first strike against Pakistan,” he wrote.

The word “comprehensive” refers to a nuclear attack against an adversary’s arsenal, rather than its cities. It is meant to instigate and quickly win a nuclear exchange, leaving the other side disarmed.

Taken with a policy of pre-emption, these two shifts would seem to address India’s Pakistan problem, in theory persuading Pakistani leaders that a limited nuclear war would be too dangerous to pursue.

For India, Mr. Narang said, “you can really see the seductive logic” to such an approach. This would be “really the only pathway you have if you’re going to have a credible nuclear deterrence.”

It is impossible to know whether statements like Mr. Menon’s are intended to quietly reveal a policy shift, while avoiding the crisis that would be set off by a formal change, or merely stir doubt.

Either way, the intent appears the same: to create just enough uncertainty in the minds of Pakistani leaders that they become restrained by the potential threat of pre-emptive Indian strikes.

But if that threat is plausible, then the distinction between a real threat and a feint blurs.

Use It or Lose It

Shashank Joshi, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said he suspected that Mr. Menon was signaling something subtler: a warning that India’s strategy could adapt in wartime, potentially to include first strikes.

That distinction may be important to Indian officials, but it could be lost on Pakistani war planners who have to consider all scenarios.

Mr. Joshi, in a policy brief for the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, tried to project what would happen if India embraced such a policy, or if Pakistan concluded that it had.

First would come the arms race.

The fear of a first strike, Mr. Joshi wrote, “incentivizes Pakistan to undertake a massive nuclear buildup, in order to dispel any possibility of India disarming it entirely.”

India, whatever its strategy, would feel compelled to keep pace.

Second comes the tightening of nuclear tripwires, Mr. Joshi warned, as “this reciprocal fear of first use could pull each side in the direction of placing nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert.”

Finally, in any major armed crisis, the logic of a first strike would pull both sides toward nuclear escalation.

“If Pakistan thinks India will move quickly, Pakistan has an incentive to go even quicker, and to escalate straight to the use of the longer-range weapons,” Mr. Joshi wrote.

This thinking would apply to India as well, creating a situation in which the nuclear arsenal becomes, as analysts dryly put it, “use it or lose it.”

‘That Can Blow Back Real Quick’

The most optimistic scenario would lock South Asia in a state of mutually assured destruction, like that of the Cold War, in which armed conflict would so reliably escalate to nuclear devastation that both sides would deem war unthinkable.

This would be of global concern. A 2008 study found that, although India and Pakistan have relatively small arsenals, a full nuclear exchange would push a layer of hot, black smoke into the atmosphere.

This would produce what some researchers call without hyperbole “a decade without summer.” As crops failed worldwide, the resulting global famine would kill a billion people, the study estimated.

But nuclear analysts worry that South Asia’s dynamics would make any state of mutually assured destruction less stable than that of the Cold War.

For one thing, Pakistani leaders view even conventional war with India as an existential threat, making them more willing to accept nuclear risks. For another, a large-scale terrorist attack in India could be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as Pakistan-sponsored, potentially inciting war. The disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, where conflict sometimes boils over, adds a troubling layer of volatility.

“Maybe it is this Reaganesque strategy,” Mr. Narang said, comparing India’s potential strategic shift to President Ronald Reagan’s arms race with the Soviet Union. “But Pakistan has a much bigger security problem than the Soviet Union did. And that can blow back real quick.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...months_for_defense_spending_plans_111082.html

U.S. Gives NATO Allies 2 Months for Defense Spending Plans

By Lorne Cook
March 31, 2017

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned NATO allies Friday to boost defense spending or come up with plans to reach the alliance's budget guidelines within two months.

Tillerson, in his first talks with NATO counterparts in Brussels, said that Washington is spending a "disproportionate share" on defense compared with its 27 partners, and that he expects action by the time President Donald Trump meets with other alliance leaders on May 25.

NATO leaders pledged in 2014 to halt defense spending cuts and move toward a guideline target of 2 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. Only four other nations currently meet the target: Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland.
*
"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson told the ministers.

Tillerson did not say what would happen if European allies and Canada fail to respect their pledges. During election campaigning, Trump suggested that he might not come to the defense of those allies who do not do their fair share, rocking allies near an increasingly aggressive Russia, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

However, Tillerson sought to calm any fears, saying Friday that "we understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.

The United States is by far NATO's most powerful ally. It spends more on defense than all the others combined; 3.61 percent of GDP in 2016, according to NATO estimates, although U.S. spending, too, has tapered off in recent years.

Germany spent 1.19 percent of its overall budget on defense last year.

But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it would be "unrealistic" for his country to hike spending from 35 billion euros ($37 billion) a year to over 70 billion euros, which would see Berlin allocate more to defense than Russia currently.

"I don't know a politician in Germany who believes that this would be achievable or even desirable," Gabriel said.

He said security is also about crisis prevention, not just combat, and noted that Germany spends a lot of money on refugees who arrive because military interventions have failed.

Seven countries — including Canada, Italy and Spain — would have to virtually double their spending to reach the target.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that beyond money, "it's also really important to look at capabilities and what countries are actually doing."

"We really feel that we're doing our share," she said, highlighting Canada's troop deployment to Latvia to help deter Russian aggression.

Tillerson also urged NATO to do more to fight the Islamic State group and other extremists, notably by countering IS online messaging and propaganda.

NATO has fought insurgents in Afghanistan, and is training Iraqi officers so that local forces can make a strong stand against extremists. There is no appetite to deploy troops in counter-terrorism operations. Allies believe that the international coalition against IS should be leading combat operations, not NATO.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the lesson learned from operations in Afghanistan, but also in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, is that "in the long run it is much better to fight terrorism and project stability by training local forces, building local security institutions, instead of NATO deploying a large number of combat troops."
___
Sylvain Plazy in Brussels contributed to this report.© Copyright 2017

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/john-hyten-nuclear-weapons-ban-united-nations-236751

POLITICO

Top commander says banning nukes would make wars worse

By Jacqueline Klimas 03/31/17 11:31 AM EDT

The nation's top nuclear commander on Friday slammed a draft U.N. resolution to ban nuclear weapons, asserting that before the nuclear age the world was marred by “death and destruction" and that the advent of atomic arms dramatically reduced great-power conflict.

“Can I imagine a world without nuclear weapons? Yes, I can. That’s a world I didn’t like,” Air Force Gen. John Hyten, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, told the Military Reporters and Editors Association annual meeting, hosted by POLITICO and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

He argued that nuclear weapons have prevented conflicts from escalating into large-scale wars with large numbers of casualties, pointing out that in the six years before the introduction of nuclear weapons in 1945, as many as 80 million people were killed in World War II — or about 33,000 people a day.

All the conflicts that followed “don’t even come close," he said. “As horrible as the world is today — and it is nasty — it is not anywhere near like that."

The United Nations began considering a draft resolution this week that would call for a global ban on nuclear weapons. The conference that’s working on the proposal will meet for a second time this summer.

But Hyten questioned what a world without nuclear weapons would look like.
Even if countries get rid of their nuclear stockpiles, they would likely still have the scientific capability and materials to rebuild bombs — possibly in secret.

And although the U.S. has de-emphasized investment in its nuclear capabilities, Hyten stressed that “the rest of the world did exactly the opposite.”


Trump: Flynn should seek immunity in Russia probe ‘witch hunt’
By Louis Nelson


Specifically, he pointed to investments by Russia and China, as well as advancements by North Korea and Iran in developing nuclear weapons.

Instead of doing away with the nation's nuclear arsenal, Hyten argued that modernizing the three legs of the so-called triad — including a new nuclear bomber, ballistic missile submarine and intercontinental ballistic missile — must be a top priority.

Some lawmakers, however, see developing more modern weapon systems as just too expensive in a time of budget constraints. By some estimates, the plan would cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

But Hyten maintained that modernizing the force would cost only 6 percent of the annual defense budget, about 2 percent to 3 percent higher than the investment today.

“Deterrence will always be cheaper than war,” he said.

In coming months, he said, the Pentagon will consider new options to deliver lower-yield nuclear weapons as part of its so-called nuclear posture review.

The Defense Science Board, a top Pentagon advisory panel, recently recommended the military research a low-yield warhead that could offer a new option for a limited nuclear strike.

“I think it’s a valid question to ask,” Hyten said, noting the subject will be part of a so-called Nuclear Posture Review conducted over the next six months.

As part of the review, Hyten also said he will be “adamant” that all three legs of the nuclear triad — bombers, subs and missiles — are critical to the nation’s security.

While Hyten was adamant about the need to update the U.S. arsenal, he also said pursuing arms control agreements with other nuclear powers is just as critical.

He expressed strong support for the 2011 New START Treaty, which limits the number of nuclear warheads in the United States and Russia and requires regular inspections by both sides.

President Donald Trump has called the pact a "bad deal."

“In the early days, when we didn’t have any arms control agreements, you never knew how much was enough," Hyten said. "We understand how much is enough now: 1,550 deployed warheads is enough to deter Russia, and their 1,550 is enough to deter us."

 

[Housecarl]

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Stratcom Commander Makes Case for Modernizing Nuclear Triad

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

ROSSLYN, Va., March 31, 2017 — Nuclear capabilities are the bedrock of American defense and will remain so, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command said at the Military Reporters and Editors annual meeting here today.

Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten said the United States has about the right numbers of nuclear weapons, but they need to be modernized.

Saluting Stratcom’s People
Hyten saluted the sacrifices of the service members under his command who stand watch as they maintain America’s nuclear deterrent and other missions.

“Deterrence will always be cheaper than war, and there is nothing more expensive than losing a war,” the general said, quoting from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein.

Hyten said it will take roughly 6 percent of the defense budget to modernize the country’s nuclear arsenal. Right now, nuclear arms take about 3.5 percent of the budget.

“We have to increase [spending] somewhere between 2.5 and 3 percent,” he said. “That leaves 94 percent of our defense budget to do the things we have to. When you think of the survival of our nation -- and I think that is the most important reason we have a military … the backstop of all of that is the nuclear enterprise.”

Nuclear Deterrent: Backbone of Homeland Defense
The general said it would irresponsible to not fund nuclear modernization, as the nuclear deterrent is the backbone of homeland defense.

Hyten said people often ask him if it is possible to eliminate nuclear weapons. They want to know if he can imagine a world without nukes. “And the answer is yes, I can imagine a world without nuclear weapons,” he said. “In fact, I know what a world without nuclear weapons looks like, because we had a world without nuclear weapons until 1945.”

He asked the reporters to imagine what the world was like in the six years preceding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “In those six years, the world in conflict killed somewhere between 60 million and 80 million people,” he said. “That’s about 33,000 people a day, a million people a month.”

As horrible as the world is today, he said, there is nothing remotely resembling this situation. The world has seen bloody conflicts -- Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom were awful, but nowhere near the level of carnage the world had experienced, he said.

VIDEO | 02:21 | General Discusses Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Global Affairs

What changed in 1945, Hyten said, was the reality of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons, he added, prevented the major power conflict that had plagued the world in previous centuries.

“They prevented the kind of wanton destruction that you saw in World War II, and somehow the world has stayed that way,” the general said.

Necessity to Modernize Nation’s Nuclear Triad
Hyten said nuclear weapons undergird the motto of Strategic Command and its predecessor organization, the Strategic Air Command: Peace is our profession.
Deterrence has changed in the 21st century, Hyten said, and the command must modernize the nuclear triad and the command-and-control systems that are part of them.

“The submarines are the most survivable element of it; the ICBMs are the most ready; the bombers are the most flexible,” he said. “When you put those pieces together, it gives our nation the ability to withstand any attack and respond if we are attacked, which means we won’t be attacked.”

(Follow Jim Garamone on Twitter: @GaramoneDoDNews)

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