WAR 04-02-2016-to-04-08-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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http://fpif.org/trumps-remarks-reveal-fears-u-s-troops-harms-way-north-korea/

Trump’s Remarks Reveal Fears About U.S. Troops in Harm’s Way From North Korea

Donald Trump's calls for arming Seoul and Tokyo with nuclear weapons seems to be his way of keeping American troops out of the line of nuclear fire.

By Keith K C Hui, April 7, 2016.


All U.S. troops — 54,000 in Japan and 28,500 in South Korea — will be withdrawn by the time the Pentagon has been certain North Korea is in possession of nuclear warheads. It is the message implicitly conveyed by Donald Trump when saying repeatedly since late March that Japan and South Korea should have nuclear armament.

Although what Trump mainly referred to explicitly was about money — “to withdraw U.S. forces from both Japan and South Korea if they did not substantially increase their contributions to the costs of housing and feeding those troops” [Note 1], his remarks have revealed a well justified genuine under-the-table fear for the flesh and blood American soldiers in this region. Using the swelling federal debts as an excuse, Trump is speaking for each individual foot soldier’s concern of personal safety and his/her family’s worry. When any one of the missiles from North Korea could not be intercepted, many American GIs would die without mercy immediately. Trump’s words are out of lips after careful calculations.

Sending troops abroad for “defending the post-Second World War liberal international order — an imperative that every U.S. president since Harry Truman has appreciated” [Note 2] is based on an assumption that it is a man-against-man battle involving protective helmets, tactics, intelligence and most importantly, conventional weapons. When it is ‘nuclear bomb-against-man’, the above assumption is no longer valid.

Saying that Trump “only has experts on Middle East affairs … but no analyst specializing in Asian matters” [Note 3] is a foolish comment. Trump does not need an expert on this issue. It is simply and straightly common sense as Trump knows how hateful the American public is to read the body count of deaths. One single nuclear strike may kill 10,000 or more GIs, let alone many other civilians of American and other nationalities. Trump is telling the American voters that Pyongyang really means it when Kim Jong-un is capable of bombarding South Korea and Japan with missiles carrying nuclear warheads — “if they do, they do” [Note 4] — on the one hand, and assuring his electorate that he cares about their life and property, on the other. It is why Trump has been reiterating his unthinkable solution of arming Seoul and Tokyo with nuclear capabilities so that the Asians can fight against each other without Americans on this piece of dangerous soil subject to radiation. Using an economic reason can avoid the moral question on breaking up the alliance.

Trump’s proposal will have long-term impacts on the White House’s foreign policy. When the next President of the United States, whoever, knows that he or she cannot afford the consequences of informing the whole country of the large quantities of deaths and wounds in East Asia, this leader will not hesitate to pull out all the troops from Korea and Japan when the nuclear threat has been confirmed ‘real’.

If Seoul is still unwilling to take up this nuclear responsibility, conventional combats along the ‘38th parallel north’ would not be too bloody Park Guen-hye’s forces as their weaponry is much more advanced. However, the victories here cannot prevent Pyongyang from conducting military intrusions (not invasion) into South Korea — assailing the coastal areas to capture hostages, hijacking cargo vessels, and looting cities and towns near the seashores for consumables — to take all types of advantages. So long as the American GIs are absent, Kim would prefer to do something like drawing money out of ATMs regularly, rather than firing his limited quantity of nuclear warheads [Note 5].

The former president Lee Myung-bak’s mistake of abandoning the ‘sun-shine’ policy which showed how a nation gained strength “not by banditry, but economic production” has been irreversible [same Note 5]. Among the various new options, Seoul’s wisest move is to convince Beijing and Moscow that it is in their best as well as common interest to have Kim replaced by a much more controllable person, and then seal a deal among all the parties concerned to maintain nuclear non-proliferation, peace and order in East Asia. It is difficult to foresee whether China and Russia can have a good bargain in this deal but the United States is definitely a loser at least in terms of its credibility as an ally.

[Note 1]

2016 Mar 28

Korea Joongang Daily, “Dangerous remarks from Trump”, March 28, 2016.

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3016744

[Note 2]

The Diplomat, “Nukes for South Korea and Japan? Donald Trump sees no problem”, Marc 27, 2016

http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/nukes-for-south-korea-and-japan-donald-trump-sees-no-problem/

[Note 3]

The Asahi Shimbun, “Trump’s remarks about Asia cause bewilderment, unease in Japan”, March 30, 2016.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201603300035.html

[Note 4]

CNN, “Trump on potential war between Japan and N Korea, ‘If they do, they do’”, Apr 3, 2016.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/02/politics/donald-trump-war-japan-north-korea/index.html

[Note 5]

FPIF, Keith K C Hui, “You think North Korea is aggressive now?”, March 9, 2016.

http://fpif.org/think-north-korea-aggressive-now/


Keith K C Hui is a Chinese University of Hong Kong graduate, a Fellow of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK), and the author of Helmsman Ruler: China’s Pragmatic Version of Plato’s Ideal Political Succession System in The Republic, Singapore: Traffor.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.nknews.org/2016/04/no-more-room-for-doubt-over-north-koreas-missile-program/

No more room for doubt over North Korea’s missile program

Recent events a wake-up call for all those who doubted the extend of the regime's advances

Tal Inbar
April 8th, 2016
Comments 0

March 2016 was a hectic month for North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. From the unveiling of a miniaturized nuclear bomb designed to fit a long-range ballistic missile to a test of a missile nose tip to another revelation: a peek into Pyongyang’s clandestine program of building a multi-staged, large diameter, solid-fuel missile.

These were just a few items on Kim’s agenda. But wait, there was also the biggest artillery drill ever conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK); a test of long-range guided rockets. And what about that propaganda clip, right out of the regime’s animation studios, showing how a nuclear warhead would destroy Washington, D.C., hitting the U.S. capital smack in the middle of the National Mall.

This past month was hectic for the intelligence community as well. From governmental agencies and freelance open-source intelligence (OSINT) researchers to think tanks across the globe, all wanted to know what is driving North Korea, what are its true capabilities, and what non-proliferation threats are in store for us all.

The rapid pace of DPRK revelations on the capabilities it possesses in its arsenal was overwhelming. And it was a resounding affirmation for those naysayers who have long argued that Pyongyang was much more show than substance.

Since 2012, when North Korea first paraded its long-range ballistic missiles, dubbed KN-08, many Western experts, researchers and intelligence services questioned their authenticity. The same skepticism was applied to almost every achievement hailed by the Kim propaganda machine — from satellite launches to an underground nuclear test of a hydrogen bomb to a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

Now it seems that most of the unanswered questions and doubts are over. Yes, North Korea is a country that possesses long-range ballistic missiles (although it hasn’t conducted a flight test of these missiles yet). Yes, these missiles are being equipped with a credibly designed small nuclear bomb. And again, yes, the DPRK knows how to make the warhead withstand the inferno of the reentry phase through the atmosphere.

These revelations compel many analysts throughout the world to reassess their views on North Korea’s critical technologies in ballistic missile and nuclear warheads, among other things.

What are North Korea’s intentions and motivation? This question is perhaps the easiest to answer.

Kim Jong Un needs to build a credible nuclear arsenal and land- and sea-based delivery systems in order to consolidate his power, to maintain his reign and to project might against South Korea, Japan and the United States.

On the proliferation front, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, if exported, could yield an enormous amount of funds to the North’s sputtering economy. In turn, it would further help Kim build more weapons while improving the quality of life for the common people of North Korea, thus further positioning himself as the great benefactor and friend of the public. All this would bring Kim one step closer to the image of the DPRK’s founding father, his grandfather Kim Il Sung.

After the April 2012 military parade, with the debut of the KN-08 and their TELs (Transporter Erector Launchers), I coined the phrase “What you see today in Pyongyang, you will see tomorrow in Tehran.”

Several missile types already have been exported from North Korea to Iran, from the Scud to the Nodong to Musudan (BM-25). The new generation of the land-based KN-08 and submarine-based ballistic missiles as well as guided rockets could become a real threat if or when Pyongyang decides to sell them.

And Iran, after the nuclear deal which took effect last September, is likely to be a prime client now more than ever.

Main image: Rodong Sinmun

A version of this column originally appeared at DefenseNews.com.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160408000973

China says 'no comment' on envoy's remarks on N. Korea's nuclear progress

Published : 2016-04-08 21:22
Updated : 2016-04-08 21:22

China's foreign ministry on Friday declined to comment on published remarks by its point man on North Korea that the North has made significant progress in its pursuit of a hydrogen bomb.

China's special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs Wu Dawei made the remarks on Thursday in Japan during a meeting with Sadakazu Tanigaki, the secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to a report by Japan's Kyodo news agency.

During the meeting, Wu told Tanigaki that North Korea aims to complete development of a hydrogen bomb and has made significant progress, the report said.

Asked about the published remarks by Wu, China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei replied, "With regard to Mr. Wu Dawei's remarks, I have no comment at the moment." Hong did not elaborate further.

Wu is on a five-day visit to Tokyo. China said the trip was aimed at discussing ways to resume long-stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea was slapped with tougher U.N. sanctions earlier last month, following its fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.

North Korea's latest nuclear test further raised worries about the North's defiant pursuit of atomic weapons as it claimed that the fourth test was based on a hydrogen device. (Yonhap)

 

[Housecarl]

The Four Horsemen - Week of 04/03 to 04/10
Started by Ragnaroký, 04-03-2016 12:18 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?488744-The-Four-Horsemen-Week-of-04-03-to-04-10

_____

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldk...a-tough-question-for-u-s-forces/#4eec92dc365d

Apr 8, 2016 @ 04:49 AM 891 views

What's Worse? North Korean Bluster Or China's Bases In Sea? Tough Question For U.S. Forces

Donald Kirk, Contributor
Asia news from Korea's nuclear crisis to Indian foreign policy.

Which presents the greatest concern – North Korea’s escalating threats of nuclear destruction or China’s steady build-up in the South China Sea?

North Korea appears to have gone beyond the realm of bluster in claiming to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a mid-range Rodong missile capable of reaching any target in South Korea and Japan. U.S. and South Korean analysts believe North Korea may have attained exactly that level of expertise – and that one reason for recent missile tests off the North’s east coast is to test the missiles for accuracy and reliability.

Compounding concerns, South Korea’s Defense Minister Han Min-Koo has said North Korea has developed a multiple-launch rocket system capable of raining 300-millimeter projectiles on targets as far as 200 kilometers away – just about anywhere in South Korea and parts of Japan as well. He predicted, moreover, that North Korea might fire the rockets in the near future, possibly this year.

Somehow, though, such fearsome weapons appear unreal, the stuff of fantasy. It’s China’s activities in the South China Sea that are setting off the most alarm bells. The question is how to stop the Chinese without risking an open clash that could spiral into a regional war.

The U.S. commander in the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris, has reportedly called for intensified air and sea patrols around the Spratly Islands, where China is expanding its air and naval presence, and also the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcropping about 125 miles west of the critical Philippine naval base at Subic Bay.

The fear is the Chinese may envision a base on rocks in the Scarborough Shoal that now protrude only a few feet above water. Construction of an artificial island covering the rocks has already begun amid concerns, as reported in the Navy Times, that China could threaten Manila, the Philippines’ capital and largest port, 140 miles from the shoal.

The Chinese have already shown their engineering expertise by expanding islands that they control in the Spratlys, building an airstrip on one of them for both transport and fighter planes. The U.S. and the Philippines, which holds two of the Spratlys, have complained loudly but have done nothing to stop the Chinese advance. U.S. navy patrols and flights over the islands have outraged the Chinese but otherwise have been ineffective.

Worries about China’s claim to the entire South China Sea have inspired a dramatic reversal in Philippine attitudes toward both the U.S. and Japan. U.S. ships now regularly dock at Subic, the largest U.S. naval base outside the U.S. until the Philippine Senate voted against renewing the lease on the base 25 years ago, and the Philippines has agreed U.S. troops and supplies can remain permanently on five bases – signs of a return to a bygone era.

While U.S. troops are staging war games in South Korea, inspiring rhetorical denunciations from North Korea, U.S. and Philippine forces also opened annual military exercises. About 5,000 American and 3,500 Philippine troops are participating in what’s called Balikatan – meaning shoulder to shoulder – in a show of strength that seems more relevant than ever in view of concerns about China and the weakness of the Philippine armed forces.

Just as significant, the Japanese are asserting themselves in the South China Sea to a degree that was unimaginable a few years ago. A Japanese destroyer, the Ise, carrying helicopters is to call at Subic Bay on the way to military exercises with the Indonesian navy. A Japanese submarine accompanied by two destroyers called at Subic Bay before going on to Vietnam – a show of force aimed at China.

Yorizumi Watanable, a professor at Keio University with a long background as a diplomat, told me the South China Sea is as much a concern to Japan as the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea where China challenges Japanese control. Despite its distance from Japan, the South China Sea is at a vital crossroads in traffic to South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the source of most of Japan’s oil.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has succeeded in making it easier for Japan to send forces far beyond Japan’s shores despite article nine of Japan’s post-war constitution banning Japan from deploying troops overseas. Now Japan has the right to “collective self-defense” in support of an ally — the rationale for entering the South China Sea.

Japanese, like Americans, worry tensions are increasing with no way out.

Watanabe predicted the Chinese would declare an “air defense identification zone” in the South China Sea just as they have in the East China Sea. In other words, all aircraft flying over the South China Sea would have to declare identity and flight plan – and could be turned back.

Would Japan challenge the ADIZ in the South China Sea as it has in the East China Sea? And what would Japan, the U.S. and others do in response? Those questions have gone unanswered as all sides assert themselves in a standoff that appears as far from a happy conclusion as the confrontation on the Korean peninsula.


To read more of my commentaries on Asia news, click on www.donaldkirk.com, and the details of my books are available here.

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...China-Sea-Pentagon-and-top-admiral-say-no-way.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hina-sea-pentagon-and-top-admiral-say-no-way/

Checkpoint

Gag order issued on South China Sea? Pentagon and top admiral say no way.

By Dan Lamothe April 7 at 4:57 PM
Comments 15

The Obama administration and a four-star admiral have denied that the White House issued a “gag order” on senior U.S. military officials discussing the disputed South China Sea, a politically charged region that is dogging the administration in its last months in office.

The denials came after the independent Navy Times reported Wednesday that national security adviser Susan Rice decided to “muzzle” Adm. Harry Harris, the chief of U.S. Pacific Command, and other senior military officials as the Obama administration prepared to host a nuclear summit in Washington last week that included China’s president, Xi Jinping. Rice’s request was designed to give President Obama room to maneuver politically as he met with the Chinese president, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous officials.

But Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Harris have “been able to provide frank and informed counsel to the president and the National Security Council on a host of issues related to the Asia-Pacific area of responsibility.”

[China testing Obama as it expands its influence in Southeast Asia]

“We are confident that counsel has been considered and valued,” Cook said. The Defense Department “fully supports the current maritime strategy in the Pacific and is working to execute that strategy to the best of their ability. We continue to coordinate our communications within the framework of the interagency process in a way that advances that strategy.”

Cook added: “To be clear, there never has been a ‘gag order,’ as described by anonymous officials in the article.”

Harris said in a statement released to The Washington Post that “any assertion that there is a disconnect between U.S. Pacific Command and the White House is simply not true.” He declined to discuss what he has recommended, saying his private counsel to President Obama and Carter during classified deliberations “wouldn’t be worth much if it weren’t private.

Video

“Maintaining that trust is why senior military admirals and generals won’t discuss our counsel in public,” Harris said. “During recent congressional testimony and press engagements in Washington just a few weeks ago, I was very public and candid about my concerns regarding many issues in the Indo-Asia-Pacific to include the fact that China’s militarization of the South China Sea is problematic. So any suggestion that ‘the White House has sought to tamp down’ on my talking about my concerns is patently wrong.”

Harris said that he is satisfied that his concerns and recommendations are “solicited, listened to and considered.”

The president has accepted many of Harris’s recommendations, including resuming freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea a few months ago to demonstrate waterways in that region will be patrolled by the Navy, said one defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the subject.

The issue exposes a couple of nerves for the Obama administration as it closes out its final year in the White House. For one, the previous three Pentagon chiefs have all voiced frustrations with perceived administration micromanagement after leaving office. Those former defense secretaries — Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel — made those points again in an interview with Fox News that aired Wednesday.

Video

The Obama administration also has faced questions this year about how it will handle tensions in the South China Sea, in light of China continuing to add weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, in the region despite protests from U.S. partners such as Taiwan and the Philippines.

Harris and other senior military officials — including Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — have increasingly raised concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea for months. During congressional testimony in February, Harris said “you have to believe in a flat Earth” to think China’s goal is not to militarize the area and achieve “hegemony in East Asia.”

China has specifically developed capabilities that counter U.S. strengths, including missiles that would help protect against U.S. aircraft, Dunford told the House Appropriations Committee in late February. Beijing’s “rapid military modernization is quickly closing the gap with U.S. military capabilities and is eroding the joint force’s competitive military advantages,” the general said.

The issue is likely to get even more exposure in coming days, as Carter visits the Philippines as part of a trip to Asia. The United States recently signed an agreement that will allow it to regularly use five Philippine bases. The deal led Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying to comment: “The U.S. has talked about militarization in the South China Sea. But can it explain whether its own increased military deployment in the region is equivalent to militarization?”

Related on Checkpoint:

These are the military bases the U.S. will use in the Philippines. China isn’t impressed.

Navy admiral warns of growing sense that ‘might makes right’ in Southeast Asia


Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...rviews_david_lampton_from_a_to_xi_109236.html

April 8, 2016

The Crouching Tiger Interviews: David Lampton From A to Xi

By Peter Navarro

Video

As part of the research for my Crouching Tiger book on the rise of China’s military and its companion documentary film, I interviewed 35 of the top experts in the world from all sides of the China issue. These are key edited excerpts from my sit-down at the Johns Hopkins University with Professor David Lampton, author most recently of Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping.

This interview was the last of those I conducted in Washington, D.C. (on my way to the US Naval War College for wonderful discussions with Toshi Yoshihara, Jim Holmes, and Lyle Goldstein), and it was a classic case of saving one of the very best interviews for last within the Beltway.

I found Professor Lampton to be a highly engaging and joyous man, albeit neck deep in one of the most serious international relations issues facing the world. Here’s how Professor Lampton framed that issue:

Right now, I think Asia's one of the more unstable geopolitically central places in the world. You have competing nationalism between China and Japan. Korea and Japan. India and Japan. So, while this isn't the general perception, it is a volatile area in which people are basically strategically distrustful of each other. So we have this huge economic state in t this fragile security circumstance; and historically, and I think currently, the United States has tried to play a stabilizing role. I think that's essential.

So how can we play that stabilizing role, deter conflict among these potentially competing countries and at the same time maintain our economic advantage in the region? I think that's essentially the geopolitical problem.

As a key part of coping that problem, Lampton sees a compelling need to redirect America’s focus on domestic issues after more than a decade of war and economic stagnation:

I think Americans would say since 9/11, we've been terribly engaged in a draining conflicts that have produced relatively little for our national interest. They see our manufacturing job population going down. The middle class is eroding, and frankly, they are right to put the focus on our domestic development. And if foreign presence has to pay a price for that, I think, in general, they're willing to have that price paid. And there's much to recommend that point of view.

Professor Lampton is not, however, a neo-isolationist. Instead, he wants to take a page out of the China’s own strategic playbook and focus this country on building what the Chinese call “comprehensive national power.” These next few words you are about to hear are some of the most important for this country during this 2016 presidential election season in which a rising China has taken center stage:

My view would be that the comprehensive national power of the United States, the quality of our human resources, the quality of our infrastructure, the quality of our K-12 education, the quality of our research and development – these are the bases of power. And quite frankly the Chinese respect those.

When we are healthy along those dimensions, the Chinese stand up and pay attention. If we're declining in terms of our comprehensive national power and our national capabilities in these ways, I think basically the Chinese are going to be more difficult to deal with.

So I think we may be at a point in our history where we relatively have to pay more attention to our domestic circumstance. If we create the long-term basis for renewed American power, we'll be more effective.

I do fear, as many Americans do, that we will over-invest on the military front. We'll create enemies, we'll create the de-stabilization that we're trying to prevent, and in the process, we'll weaken ourselves economically and intellectually.

So I think the American instinct not to retreat from the world but to pay relatively more attention to solving our own problems rather than solving everybody else's problems -- which we in the end rarely do in any event is the right instinct. So I'm with the American people as I would understand their views on this.

One of Professor Lampton’s biggest concerns is that of a classic arms race in Asia catalyzed by the reactions of America and its allies to China’s own military rise. Here, he examines the possible pitfalls of an American “dispersal strategy” of its Asian bases and a concomitant “action-reaction” cycle:

I think there are experts who say as our forces become more vulnerable to power projection systems that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has or is developing, we need to disperse our forces to make them less vulnerable. So it might be smaller concentrations of U.S. forces more widely dispersed on the region.

Of course, this then creates a whole set of problems of their own because wherever you have U.S. forces or foreign forces in a country, you have a whole set a problems dealing with the local population and local governments, that's a problem.

We got thrown out of Philippines in the early 1990s so we've been around that track. The Vietnamese want us there but in a very low-key way. It’s the same in Singapore and so forth. So there is some merit to this dispersion of forces, but don't underestimate the problems that this also brings.

However, there is also this more troubling aspect: If we would react and do things and the Chinese wouldn't react and it all stopped there, that would be fine. However, the Chinese are going to react and they're going to take measures to deal with that. It may be to proliferate the number of missiles so they can strike more dispersed forces, in which case we'll be reacting to that.

So what we have is what I would call an action, reaction cycle that it leads us to ever higher expenditures, ever higher concentrations of force and lethality and we all end up at greater cost with less security. So it seems to me the intelligent policy is how do we not get on this treadmill?

Here, Professor Lampton reflects on the difficulty of negotiating with the Chinese – a difficulty deeply rooted not just in China’s so-called “century of humiliation” but also in our own narrative of American Exceptionalism:

Every country has its narrative, and our respective narratives about our own history, our own values, our own sense of ourselves. It shapes our behavior deeply, and the Chinese are have a narrative and that narrative – I did 558 interviews with Chinese leaders over the last forty years – and the word that keeps appearing in Chinese rhetoric is “we've been bullied. We are the nation that has been bullied, pushed around, humiliated.” And this does make the Chinese very prickly to deal with and to see mal-intentions where we may not in our own proposals to the Chinese see that.

I'll be the first to say it's not necessarily easy from an American point of view to have dialogue and mutual understanding with the Chinese. But I think there are some people who say well, therefore, you really can't trust or make progress through dialogue because this narrative that the Chinese have is so obstructing, and I think that's demonstrably not true.

So I think we need to avoid a sort polarized discussion. You either can talk to the Chinese or you can't. I would say you can, but it's difficult; and that, therefore, we've got to persist.

And remember, America has its narrative, too. We're the indispensable nation. We're the exceptional nation. We alone have a responsibility to lead in the world; and of course this leads us to a rather assertive posture, particularly on political issues around the world.

So, if were talking to a Chinese, they would say the American narrative isn't so easy to get along with either.

One of the biggest obstacles to peace may well be the polar opposite approaches that China and the US take towards deterrence:

Americans and Chinese think very different about how to achieve deterrence, and this creates a huge problem. I think the United States, because we've been the preeminent power in the world since World War II, basically thinks you deter by showing your capability and making it clear to the opponent that they cannot prevail and that the cost of trying is going to be so high our opponents are going to decide it's not even worth going down that road. And you can look at U.S. policy – whether it's our naval presence, our space presence – dominance is a key aspect of this.

Now of course when we are dominant, we feel secure. The problem is when we're dominant, others may feel insecure. And so how do you find a stable point of balance when one wants to be absolutely dominant? That is difficult because there is no equilibrium point if the other person wants to feel secure. So there is a problem.

Now when the Chinese look at deterrence, they've usually been the weaker party; and therefore, they try to deter by keeping the opponent uncertain of what they have: Obfuscate the situation. Obfuscate your capabilities.

So we have us believing clarity and capability leads to deterrence. There they think obscurity and non-transparency will deter us because we're not sure what China can do or what China would do or how China would react. So I think there is this.

However, I think there's one thing that's changing, and that is as China is becoming stronger, it is moving towards that position of more confidence in its own capabilities; and therefore it is more willing, I believe, to show its capabilities. However, this is a gradual. You know, the weak fear transparency, and the strong flout their power.

While we complain about the difficulty of dealing with the Chinese government, Professor Lampton points out American democracy is no bed of roses when it comes to negotiations:

I remember back when Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in February of 1979, he got a briefing on the U.S. Government and checks and balances and our federal system and the courts and all of that and he expressed to President Carter the following sentiment. He says: “Mister President. How many governments do you have?

Here, Professor Lampton laments the use of bogeymen in the political arena to justify increased defense budgets in both China and the U.S.

I think it's naive to think that in either society, there aren't constituencies that favor more military spending; and if you're going to justify more military spending, you have to have a plausible threat of a large scale. So essentially, after the Cold War, China's the last man standing in terms of big powers that could conceivable threaten us across a broad range of national power. So I think almost by default, China has become a ploy in budgetary politics – but quite frankly the same thing is going on in China.

As for China’s president Xi Jinping, Professor Lampton is concerned Xi may be setting himself up for a very hard fall:

It's been impressive the degree to which Xi has consolidated his power over the military and over the key nodes of policy-making that control various parts of the financial system, the economic reform system, the military system, the crisis management system. So at this point, Xi looks like he's going to be a strong leader.

However, I guess I'm a little off the consensus maybe of American people who pay attention to China in detail because I think he may be overreaching.

He's trying to eliminate very important power factions in the elite; and it's not clear that to me he won't threaten a lot of very important political actors and pay a price for that. We'll see about that.

One of the traps Professor Lampton is worried President Xi will fall into is that of nationalism – a clear case of playing with fire:

The problem in Asia is that nationalism is on the rise in many places, not least China; and Xi Jinping is sort of hooking his cart to the horse team of nationalism; and trying to increase his own legitimacy by appealing to the deeply felt resentment, particularly of Japan, but secondarily the United States and some of its neighbors.

So you're kind of unleashing an aggressive impulse here that you may not yourself be able to satisfy; and we've already seen anti-Japanese nationalism spill over into the destruction of Japanese property, intimidating overseas nationals who may be in China at any given moment. It gets ugly very fast. So I think this is playing with fire.

As a long time observer of China, Professor Lampton seems both puzzled and disappointed with China’s abandonment of its peaceful rise in recent times:

I think China has made a tremendous strategic error, and you could identify it in 2008 or 2009 and certainly by 2010. Everybody would agree this trend towards more Chinese assertiveness has been apparent; and I think it was bordering on a strategic blunder because, the story of China's reform from 1977 when Deng Xiaoping came back [into power] to I think about 2008 was China's comprehensive national power growing at a very steep gradient.

And if you had a line also on that graph of how anxious were China's neighbors or even the United States and other bigger powers, that line of increasing threat would be much shallower. In other words, China managed to grow its power without correspondingly increasing the worry and sense of threat up until about 2008.

And then for reasons that we're still trying to understand, China began to act in a much less reassuring – that's the diplomatic way of putting it – or threatening way, and therefore China's neighbors have begun to do two things.

One is acquire their own military capabilities to more adequately defend themselves; and so you're seeing an incipient, if not actual, arms race occurring in the region.

Second, they're all trying to crowd under the U.S. security umbrella to get U.S. deterrence against China as it deals with its neighbors; and this is profoundly not in China's interest because China has an enormous domestic agenda that its own external actions are diverting the capacity to focus on those because of this external challenge.

So I think to the degree that China is not reassuring its neighbors, this is a huge problem for China's own development.

My mother used to say: “You never have a second opportunity to make a first impression.”

And I think the Chinese assertive policy is what many of China's neighbors feared [was hidden behind the “peaceful rise” rhetoric]. And some ill chosen remarks and actions by China have, made many of its neighbors think now we've seen the real China here. And so I think China's got a big problem in overcoming this.

Here, Professor Lampton was on the same page as many of the experts I spoke to: weakening America’s Asian alliances would be highly destabilizing for the region. However, he also acknowledged weaknesses in the current alliance structure and openly wonders how we can bring China into the tent rather than create an “us against China” enemy.

If the United State precipitously weakened or disassociated itself from its five alliances in Asia – Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines -- this would be very destabilizing and force those countries to acquire their own deterrent, which quite conceivably in some cases could mean nuclear weapons. That would be totally contrary to our counter-proliferation policy.

Alternatively, it would lead the nations and the region to conclude they need to accommodate to China and go along with China on issues, economic and otherwise that would be harmful to us. So precipitous, disassociation from our alliances, I think would be catastrophic.

But, I think you have to ask a further question and that is: How are we going to eventually have security in Asia if the structure of the security apparatus is China's neighbors aligned with the U.S. against China? That's not a stable structure either.

So, I think we have to, at the same time we are very careful how we treat our alliances and preserve them, we have to think about how we build a new security structure, maybe several security structures that have China inside. It is not, to me, credible to think that a security structure that has China on the outside as important and powerful as it is, is going to be a stable structure there.

So the problem is how do we get from the world we created after World War II and the Cold War, how do we get to a new security structure where the Chinese feel invested in it rather than alienated from it.

If we think our security lies in a structure that freezes out China and makes it the explicit opponent, I think you're going to get just progressively worse behavior from China.

To Lampton, the hope is that such worse behavior doesn’t end in a nuclear war – and he urges great caution.

Unfortunately, when you're dealing with an opponent as big as China, you just can't run up the escalatory ladder because with China, it ends with nuclear weapons. And this is why you don't want to get into a conflict with China because it gives you nothing but bad choices.

On China’s “nine dash line” claim to much of the South China Sea, Professor Lampton sees this simply as a political quagmire for China.

I think the nine-dash line is millstone, really, around the neck of the Chinese for a number of reasons. It goes almost down to Indonesia. It really would make the South China Sea a Chinese Lake if those were to be the territorial waters of China. Not acceptable to the United States. Not acceptable to any of the states around the South China Sea.

So it's really a line that the Chinese communists inherited from the Kuomintang and the Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. And the PRC doesn’t want to be less steadfast defenders of Chinese sovereignty then Chiang Kai-shek was.

So, in a sense, part of the story is they've inherited a line they now have to defend, even though the world's a rather different place.

But, I think overall, China is making more enemies in the end, according to International Law, I think, doesn't have a good case. And so, I would think the, the best part of wisdom for China would be to negotiate this issue with its neighbors, cut an equitable deal, sign a code of conduct and move on. This is just a millstone around China's neck.

As for how America and its allies should respond to China’s aggression, he acknowledges the difficulties – but hopes for the best in China:

I think this whole question of how one responds to what you might call Chinese salami tactics in the South China Sea, you just sort of peel off one atoll after the next and pretty soon you've got yourself a set of facts that mirror this nine-dash line; and in the end, possession is nine tenths of the law.

And so you've actually presented the world with a set of fait accomplis about which you don't any longer feel you have to negotiate. And I think that's, quite frankly, probably the strategy China's pursuing.

It's a strategy difficult for us because, in effect, many of these atolls are not a national interest of the United States; but on the other hand, you don't want to reward this kind of tactic.

My hope would be that the Chinese would see that they have a larger problem, and that is they will have no peace with their neighbors. They will not be able to focus on their internal development as long as they keep intimidating their neighbors.

So I guess part of my hope is that the Chinese recognize what I believe is their own interests and begin to act accordingly. If they don't, they're going to face a bigger military buildup by all its neighbors and the United States. They're going to find a more assertive Japan; and that's not going to be a world the Chinese like.

We ended the interview with this grim assessment of why North Korea is highly unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons.

Professor Lampton’s assessment of the North Korean proliferation issue is particularly grim as he sees little hope the North Koreans will give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for anything:

Nuclear capability is their ultimate insurance policy because when all is said and done, the United States and its allies have never attacked a nuclear power. And, when Libya gave up its nuclear program, it went down the hill.

And so it’s my judgment that North Korea is not going to get rid of their weapons. This is both the regime’s insurance policy and it's their legitimacy with their own people – in a sense that despite all the privation, we're a strong country. They lose this, and the Communist Party in North Korea is gone.

So I think that's a death sentence for the North Korean leaders and so they're going down the nuclear route and my guess is nothing can divert them; and that we're going to have to unfortunately deal with that reality.



Peter Navarro is a professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (Prometheus Books) and director of the companion Crouching Tiger documentary film series. For more information and to access film interview clips, visit www.crouchingtiger.net or see his book talk on CSPAN2.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lt-gen-clarence-e-mcknight-jr-/obamas-blind-spot_b_9632622.html

THE BLOG

Obama’s Blind Spot

04/07/2016 01:47 pm ET | Updated 19 hours ago
Lt. Gen. Clarence E. McKnight Jr.
Author and former head of the Signal Corps

Giving Away The Store
by Lt. Gen. Clarence E. McKnight, Jr.


My first war was the Korean War which never quite rated war status in the history books because Congress never formally declared war on anyone. President Harry S Truman described it as a “police action” which went down hard with the soldiers on the ground, of whom I was one. To us it was a real war. More than 33,000 Americans paid the ultimate price in it, and another 7,500 are still unaccounted for. More than 60 years later we still have troops there.


The Korean War was a blunder. In a 1950 speech before the National Press Club in Washington, Secretary of State Dean Acheson described a vital “defense perimeter” for the U.S. in Asia that did not include South Korea. In the view of many, this assertion signaled the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung that South Korea was his for the taking.


President Obama fancies himself a student of history but I believe he missed class the day that came up. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg published in the latest issue of The Atlantic, Obama repeated that mistake saying that eastern Ukraine, Moldova and Crimea are essentially fair game for Russia. “Now, if there is somebody in this town that would claim that we would consider going to war with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, they should speak up and be very clear about it,” Obama said.


Obama made the same basic mistake when he warned Syrian dictator Bashar Assad not to use chemical weapons on his people, insisting he was drawing a “red line” against that form of behavior. Assad ignored Obama’s red line and used chemical weapons. Obama did nothing. Presumably he figured no one in this town wanted to go to war over Syria either.


Anytime foreign crises pose the prospect of possible U.S. military action Obama hides behind the fig leaf of “multilateralism,” not as a pretext for raising a posse, but as a deterrent to American arrogance. “One of the reasons I am so focused on taking action multilaterally where our direct interests are not at stake is that multilateralism regulates hubris,” Obama said.


Well, I believe we can all agree that hubris is dangerous, but so is inaction in the face of brutal aggression. Obama apparently believes the fate of Syria does not fall within the parameters of “our direct interests,” but if the deaths of 250,000 people and the inundation of Europe with Syrian refugees does not impact our direct interests, I am left to wonder what does.


It would appear to me that the chaos Assad has let loose, in particular the Islamic State, impacts the direct interests of every civilized nation. And there is a long-held presumption among the people of the civilized world that we are the primary guardians of that civilization.


This is what can happen when we put a neophyte in the White House who has no grasp of international power politics. It is sheer folly to telegraph aggressive dictators like Putin that certain nations are beyond our “defense perimeter,” especially when no one has asked us to define that perimeter, and it is similarly inept to impose a red line when you have no intention of making it stick. The next President will inherit a daunting mess.


Lt. Gen. Clarence E. “Mac” McKnight, Jr., (USA-Ret) is the author of “From Pigeons to Tweets: A General Who Led Dramatic Change in Military Communications,” published by The History Publishing Company.

Follow Lt. Gen. Clarence E. McKnight Jr. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hankhcox

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-usa-idUSKCN0X50KB

World | Fri Apr 8, 2016 11:20am EDT
Related: World, Iraq

Kerry urges Iraq not to let politics impede war against IS

BAGHDAD | By Arshad Mohammed

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Baghdad on Friday, urged Iraq not to let its political crisis interfere with the fight against Islamic State and voiced unequivocal support for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Abadi last week unsettled Iraq's political elite with a proposed cabinet reshuffle that aims to curb corruption by replacing long-time politicians with technocrats and academics.

His aim is to free Iraqi ministries from the grip of a political class that has used the system of ethnic and sectarian quotas instituted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to amass wealth and influence.

U.S. officials fear the political unrest may harm Iraq's efforts to retake territory it has lost to Islamic State militants, notably its second city of Mosul, seized when parts of the Iraqi army collapsed in 2014.

Kerry told reporters that decisions about the reshuffle were for the Iraqis to decide but said he had indicated to Abadi that it was important to have political stability in Iraq so that military operations are not affected.

"I want to reiterate the support of President Obama, Vice President Biden, myself as secretary, and the entire administration (in) the United States for Prime Minister Abadi, who has demonstrated critical leadership in the face of enormous security, economic and political challenges," Kerry told reporters at the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

Kerry met earlier with Abadi, who is grappling with an economy battered by low oil prices and strained by the cost of the war against Islamic State which has displaced more than three million people and destroyed towns and cities.


Related Coverage
› Kerry says Iraq's Abadi did not request new U.S. troops

Kerry said the United States was providing an additional $155 million in humanitarian aid to Iraqis displaced by Islamic State.


MOSUL OFFENSIVE ON HOLD

Asked if there had been any discussion about more U.S. troops going to Iraq, Kerry said there had been no formal request from the Iraqis and the issue had not been raised on Friday.

The United States, which withdrew its forces from Iraq in 2011, has redeployed several thousand as part of a coalition it is leading against Islamic State.

In the past two weeks, Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air strikes have retaken significant parts of Hit, a town 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

However, an offensive billed as the first phase of a campaign to recapture the northern city of Mosul has been put on hold until reinforcements arrive.

Kerry said Abadi had made clear his commitment to retaking Mosul and that he has a timetable for doing so.

"The fact is, in Iraq, Daesh fighters have not been on the offensive in months," Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "They are losing ground, including more than 40 percent of the territory that they once controlled in Iraq."

Baghdad is also hamstrung by the plunge in global oil prices that has shriveled its main source of revenue.

On Thursday, officials from the International Monetary Fund and the government said the oil price forecast in the 2016 budget would be cut to about $32 a barrel from $45, widening Iraq's fiscal deficit by several billion dollars.

Kerry also met Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani.


(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Stephen Kalin; Editing by Janet Lawrence and John Stonestreet)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nato-envoys-idUSKCN0X51GU

World | Fri Apr 8, 2016 11:47am EDT
Related: World, Russia

NATO, Russia council to meet for first time since Crimea crisis

BRUSSELS | By Robin Emmott and Lidia Kelly


A forum bringing together Russia and its former Cold War adversary NATO will convene in the coming weeks for the first time since the Ukraine crisis halted its activities, both sides said on Friday.

The NATO-Russia Council was established in 2002 but was effectively suspended months after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014. Both sides have now agreed to hold talks at ambassador level in Brussels in the next two weeks.

While the West and Russia remain at odds over Ukraine, the meeting is a sign of willingness to improve diplomatic relations that could help avoid any accidental military clashes in the region.

Earlier on Friday, Alexey Meshkov, a deputy Russian foreign minister, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying the meeting could happen "in the coming weeks". NATO confirmed the meeting would take place at its headquarters in the next two weeks but did not give a precise date.

NATO has said any meeting would have to address the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014. The West accuses Russia of supporting the rebels, something Moscow denies.

"The NATO-Russia Council will discuss the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk agreements," NATO said in a statement, referring to the two rounds of peace efforts agreed in the Belarusian capital but which have yet to be implemented.

"We will discuss military activities, with particular focus on transparency and risk reduction," it said, adding that Afghanistan and regional threats were also on the agenda.

As NATO accelerates its biggest military build-up in eastern Europe since the Cold War, the alliance wants to talk to Moscow about improved military transparency to avoid misunderstandings.


(Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Robin Pomeroy)

 

[mzkitty]

28m
Kevin Patrick Dawes, US citizen freed in Syria, was taken to Moscow, handed to US Embassy and has left Russia - Russian Foreign Ministry via Reuters
End of alert


4h
US officials: Syrian regime releases US photographer Kevin Patrick Dawes, who was abducted in 2012 - Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...28e5d0-fd88-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html

 

[Possible Impact]

Sadegh Ghorbani ‏@GhorbaniSadegh 6h
#Iran & #Russia considering building a huge canal,
connecting Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf, Iran ambassador says.

 

[mzkitty]

Wow. Well, I don't know why but that shocks me !! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Housecarl]

Interesting.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...e-technology-transfer-to-China/3621460127815/

Russia postpones missile technology transfer to China

There might be concern in Moscow the technology could end up in North Korean hands.

By Elizabeth Shim | April 8, 2016 at 11:12 AM

MOSCOW, April 8 (UPI) -- Russia has postponed the transfer of missile engines to China, out of concern the technology could be passed on to a third country – like North Korea.

Russia's space agency told local newspaper Izvestia China is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, an informal and voluntary association of countries that coordinate efforts to block proliferation.

In order for the transfer to take place, the Moscow space agency official said China needs a legal foundation that requires it to fulfill nonproliferation objectives, first, before trading in missile technology.

China had hoped for a supply of missile engines, Yonhap reported.

The Russian official said Beijing and Moscow have formed a working group in order to find a solution. It's likely by the end of 2016 the deal would be settled, the official said.

South Korea press reported there might be concern on the Russian side the technology could end up in North Korean hands.

China is a traditional North Korea ally and Pyongyang's closest economic partner.

MTCR was established after an agreement was reached in 1987 among the Group of Seven or G7 countries, which includes the United States.

MTCR protocol prevents the proliferation of nuclear warheads that weigh more than 1,100 pounds and missiles that travel more than 180 miles.

Concern is growing that North Korea is developing more lethal weapons of mass destruction.

The Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., issued a report Tuesday, stating that it's highly likely Pyongyang has been extracting plutonium for nuclear weapons.

According to the organization, it is possible the North has produced 10-15 pounds of plutonium after 2013. To manufacture one nuclear weapon, about 2-4 pounds of plutonium is required.

Related UPI Stories
•Navy orders more missile canisters for MK 41 VLS system
•Sanctions won't solve North Korea nuclear issue, envoy says
•South Korea launches guided-missile submarine

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...essfully-tests-long-range-rocket-engine0.html

N Korea says it successfully tests long-range rocket engine

Published April 08, 2016 · Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Saturday it has successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic rocket engine that will give it the ability to stage nuclear strikes on the United States.

The engine's ground test, if true, would be a big step forward for the North's nuclear weapons program, which saw its fourth atomic test earlier this year. But the North may still need a good deal of work before it can hit the U.S. mainland with nuclear missiles. South Korean officials say North Korea doesn't yet have a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile, let alone the ability to arm it with a nuclear warhead.

The test, announced by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, is only the latest in a string of what Washington and its allies consider North Korean provocations, including last month's launch of a medium-range ballistic missile that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibit any ballistic activities by North Korea. It was the North's first medium-range missile launch since early 2014.

The North has also threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul and fired short-range missiles and artillery into the sea in an apparent response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills and tough U.N. sanctions imposed over the recent nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

Some analysts think young leader Kim Jong Un's belligerent stance is linked to a major ruling party congress next month meant to further cement his grip on power. The outside pressure and anger caused by bombastic threats and repeated nuclear-related tests, the argument goes, is meant to rally the North Korean people around Kim as he stands up to powerful enemies trying to crush the North.

With typical rhetorical flourish, the North's KCNA said that Kim was delighted as the "higher-power" rocket engine spewed out "huge flames with (a) deafening boom" during the ground test at the Sohae Space Center in the country's northwest, the site of its February long-range rocket launch. KCNA did not say when the test was conducted.

The agency quoted Kim as saying that the North can now tip intercontinental ballistic missiles with more powerful nuclear warheads that could keep the U.S. mainland within striking distance and "reduce them to ashes so that they may not survive in our planet."

The North recently has gone to great lengths to tout alleged advancements in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Those claims have often been met with doubt by South Korean officials and experts. The North's official media on March 9 showed a smiling Kim posing with nuclear scientists beside what appeared to be a model trigger device of a nuclear warhead. Kim declared that warheads had been miniaturized for use on ballistic missiles.

The North has also claimed to have mastered a re-entry technology designed to protect a warhead from extreme heat and other challenges when it returns to the atmosphere from space following a missile launch. It also said it had successfully conducted a high-powered, solid-fuel rocket engine test. Solid-fuel missiles are generally harder to detect before they are launched than liquid-fuel missiles.

The most recent test, like all the North's atomic and missile claims, will cause worry in Washington and the North's neighbors, but outsiders have so far been powerless to stop the North's nuclear progress: international disarmament talks have been stalled for years and increasingly tough sanctions have done little to dissuade Pyongyang from pushing forward.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...-soldiers-to-deal-with-major-foes-milley.html

Army Needs 220K More Soldiers to Deal With Major Foes: Milley

Apr 07, 2016 | by Matthew Cox
Comments 104

The U.S. Army's chief of staff told lawmakers Thursday that the service would need another 220,000 soldiers before it could confidently handle major operations with emerging military foes around the world.

Gen. Mark Milley told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Army is operating at "high military risk" if it continues to operate at the proposed total Army troop strength of 980,000 soldiers.

By fiscal 2018, the Army's active force is slated to have 450,000 soldiers in its ranks. The National Guard will have 335,000 and the Army Reserve will have 195,000 soldiers.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, has been one of several lawmakers who's been very vocal about his concern that the Army is too small.

"Everything that I have heard from your generals is there is no way we can meet the imminent threats that we have around the world with 980,000 soldiers," Manchin said.

"It's high risk," Milley said.

Manchin asked Milley, "What would it take for us not to be at high risk?"

Milley said he has a series of studies that are looking at this issue.

"If we operate under our current national security strategy, the current defense planning guidance, in order to reduce significant risk or moderate risk, it would take roughly speaking about a 1.2 million-person Army," Milley said.

That would mean adding about 50,000 soldiers to the active force alone, Milley said.

"And at $1 billion for every 10,000 soldiers, the money is not there, so we are going to make the most efficient and effective use of the Army that we have," Milley said.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, said he wanted to see the Army's active force grow larger than the scheduled 450,000, but asked Milley to talk about the consequences of such a mandate with no additional funding.

Milley said the Army would have to make drastic moves to offset the costs, such as making more cuts to modernization and closing installations.

"At the end of the day, we would risk literally having a hollow Army," Milley said. "We don't have a hollow Army today, but many on this committee can remember the days when we did -- when people didn't train and units weren't filled up at appropriate levels of manning strength and there were no spare parts -- all of those things would start happening if we increased the size of the force without the appropriate amount of money to maintain its readiness."

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, called it a "remarkable statement" when a service chief talks about high military risk.

Sullivan asked Milley if he has looked at how much larger the active force would need to be to reduce some of that risk.

"We do we have it broken down for active, Guard and Reserve," Milley said. "The active piece comes out to just a little bit more than 500K or so.

"But it's not just numbers; it's the readiness of that force, it's the technological capability of that force, it's how that force plays into the joint force. ... It's the sum total of all those things. We tend to laser focus on size. I think that is critical -- capacity, size. I think that is fundamental to the whole piece, but there are other factors to calculate beyond just the numbers of troops."

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

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/275501-isis-has-doubled-presence-inside-libya-commander-says

Top general: ISIS doubled number of fighters in Libya

By Kristina Wong - 04/07/16 01:53 PM EDT
Comments 29

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has doubled its presence inside Libya in the last year, the top U.S. military commander overseeing operations in the region said Thursday.

The number of ISIS fighters in Libya doubled to between 4,000 to 6,000 in the last 12 to 18 months, Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez said at a Pentagon briefing.

ISIS fighters in Libya are coming from within northern Africa and from Iraq and Syria, the general said. Some militants already within Libya have also switched alliances from other groups to ISIS, he added.
Rodriguez said the militants aspire to carry out external attacks against Western and U.S. targets, similar to ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria.

"That's been their aspirations all the time, and they are continuing with the same threats that ISIS main is making," he said.

The Obama administration has faced criticism over its ISIS strategy, with Republicans saying more must be done to stop the group.

The administration, though, insists it will defeat ISIS, including outside of Iraq and Syria. Officials are also considering military options inside Libya, according to The New York Times.

The U.S. military conducted an airstrike on Feb. 19 on an ISIS training camp and on Nov. 13 against the senior ISIS leader in Libya. The November strike marked the first U.S. strike against an ISIS leader in Libya.

Rodriguez said the U.S. is Libya is only striking targets that pose an "imminent threat to U.S. personnel and facilities."

"Not the 'intent' to do that — the ones that 'do' that," he said.

Rodriguez said ISIS's largest home in Libya is in and around Sirte, the former home of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

"They also have a presence out in the east in Benghazi and Darnah, as well as over in Sabratha in the west," he added.

He said his top concern with ISIS's growing presence in Libya is the challenge it presents to Libya's budding government.

"The government is just getting its feet under itself there," he said. "This is going to take some time for them to, you know move this thing forward."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-07/nato-isn-t-obsolete-but-it-could-be-more-vital

NATO Isn't Obsolete. But It Could Be More Vital.

April 7, 2016 2:00 AM EST
By Editorial Board
Comments 48

Neither U.S. President Barack Obama nor NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg mentioned Donald Trump after their impromptu meeting on Monday, but the Republican front-runner's claim that the alliance is "obsolete" hung heavily in the atmosphere. So, too, did Obama's own recent comments that many allies are "free riders" taking advantage of U.S. military prowess.

NATO remains vital to European and global security, as Obama and Stoltenberg noted -- particularly given Russian aggression in Ukraine; Europe's refugee crisis; the persistent threat from Islamic State; and recent terror attacks in Ankara, Brussels and Paris. But the alliance is insufficiently prepared to meet the threats to Europe that can be expected in coming years.

One symptom of this weakness is the failure of 23 of NATO's 28 member countries to fulfill their pledge to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on their militaries.

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iN7_gvrDxIBE/v1/-1x-1.png

Another is their lopsided defense budgets, which spend more than is needed on personnel and too little on drones, warships, anti-missile defenses and other warfighting hardware. Groups of countries should be encouraged to pool funds for major acquisitions, as 10 of the 28 members did to purchase the three C-17 transport planes now based in Hungary. This model could be used to replace the alliance's aging fleet of AWACS early warning planes.

Organizational changes could also improve efficiency. NATO's website lists nearly 50 separate civilian agencies and offices; consolidate both the military and non-military staffs, and the number of personnel could be trimmed by at least 20 percent, according to retired U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander.

Bureaucracy also hampers readiness. Last summer, the supreme allied commander, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, was given greater authority to mobilize troops without engaging in a cumbersome approval process. But he still lacks some of the powers his Cold-War predecessors had. Most immediately, he needs the authority to unilaterally deploy the alliance's new rapid-reaction Spearhead Force.

NATO could also stand to improve its ability to counter "hybrid" warfare, such as Russia has practiced in Ukraine, combining military aggression with political destabilization, cyber-attacks and propaganda. At the least, this calls for integrating mock cyber-operations into major training exercises, taking advantage of the new NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence in Talinn, Estonia.

To address the Russian threat directly, NATO should consider making permanent the additional armored brigade that the U.S. plans to rotate through Poland and the Baltic states. A new airbase in Eastern Europe may also be needed, as well as a facility in the region from which to operate NATO's fleet of Global Hawk drones.

The U.S. needs renewed commitments from the five countries that now host its forward-deployed nuclear weapons -- especially Germany, whose Bundestag voted six years ago to begin preparations to remove the arsenal.

A stronger NATO would be better able to respond to the many other challenges it faces, from carving out a safe haven in northern Syria to pushing back against Islamic State. NATO is, as Obama said, a "linchpin" of U.S. security, but it needs greater investment and some restructuring to do the job well.

To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg View’s editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thelocal.se/20160406/why-this-swedish-star-director-shot-an-anti-nato-film-for-his-mum

Why a Swedish director shot an anti-Nato film for his mum

Published: 06 Apr 2016 12:32 GMT+02:00

Sweden's Golden Globe-nominated filmmaker Ruben Östlund has told The Local why he has produced a video protesting a new cooperation deal his country is about to sign with Nato.
•Swedish troops train with Nato forces in northern op (04 Mar 16)
•Pressure piles on Sweden to join Nato (21 Jan 16)
•Russia warns of 'risks' should Sweden join Nato (18 Jun 15)


Sweden's parliament is voting this month on a proposal to become a so-called host country for Nato. But the bid has sparked a stir in the traditionally non-aligned nation and on Wednesday one of its top directors joined the debate, by producing an anti-Nato campaign video for his mother.

"Could you film? We want to create a 'click monster'. Two weeks ago I was asked by my 71-year-old mum if I could document a flashmob she was participating in," wrote Ruben Östlund as he published his video online for Sweden's biggest tabloid, Aftonbladet. "Of course I'll do that, mum!"

In the video, the 'No to Nato' activists are seen rehearsing a flashmob, which they later carry out in central Gothenburg, while singing a traditional Swedish song and 'Give Peace A Chance'.

Östlund, the Swedish star director behind Golden Globe-nominated 2014 film 'Force Majeure' ('Turist'), winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Jury Prize, told The Local that he had not been able to say no to his mother when she asked him to shoot the video for her and her friends.

"It was moving. She's 71 years old and the grandmother to my children and I was touched by the fact that she and this group of pensioners wanted to make this statement together about something that's important to them," he said, speaking to The Local while working on his new movie, 'The Square', to be released next year.

"It's a nice old-fashioned approach. They are not affiliated to any political party and are engaging in this together, which is rare today when people tend to position themselves individually."

Sweden has seen increased debate in the past year about seeking membership in the military defence alliance. A poll released in September 2015 suggested that 41 percent of Swedes are in favour of joining Nato, 39 percent are against the idea and 20 percent are uncertain.

The rise in support is largely credited to growing fear of what is perceived as a potentially aggressive Russia, with Sweden's security service Säpo saying that the biggest intelligence threat against Sweden comes from its eastern neighbour.

Östlund, who hopes his name will give the anti-Nato campaign a boost, would like to see more debate about the Nato host country agreement and explains he is sceptical of claims that Sweden should join the organization for military protection.

"I am critical of the general media's warmongering on the whole. What happens when Nato moves its positions forward and creates a fear of external threats? The arms industry has an interest in military build-up and makes a huge amount of money on this," he said.

The new Nato deal, which is likely to be approved in parliament, means that Sweden will be able to invite the military alliance to base its troops in Sweden and use its territory for transportation.

It has also sparked concerns among its critics that it could allow Nato to ultimately place nuclear weapons in Sweden, which Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist has said is not an option.

"We are not prepared to accept nuclear weapons on Swedish territory, in Swedish ports or in Swedish airspace. I expect that future governments will stick to that as well," he told the TT newswire last month.

 

[Codeno]

The rise in support is largely credited to growing fear of what is perceived as a potentially aggressive Russia, with Sweden's security service Säpo saying that the biggest intelligence threat against Sweden comes from its eastern neighbour.[/B]

Between the perceived Russian threat, and the all too real muslim occupation, the Swedes are probably sleeping with one eye open.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...bout-one-thing-nato-is-obsolete-a6973231.html

Donald Trump is right about one thing: Nato is obsolete

There are times when an iconoclast speaks a truth that others are unprepared to face, and this is one of them

Mary Dejevsky |@IndyVoices | Thursday 7 April 2016 | 23 comments

All right, so Donald Trump looks slightly less likely to become the next President of the United States than he did a week ago. He was soundly beaten by Ted Cruz in the Republican primary in Wisconsin, a swing state that may be a more accurate gauge of overall electability than most. Nor has he given any even a hint of reining in his unguarded self, although his statements on abortion could already have cost him a large part of the female vote.

But the fact that this untamed politician says things that are widely unacceptable, or just plain daft, does not automatically make everything he says wrong. As with George Galloway here at home, it well suits those who disagree with him to damn all his views by association. But there are times when an innocent or an iconoclast speaks a truth that others are unprepared to face.

Trump’s description of Nato – the hallowed North Atlantic alliance – as “obsolete” is a case in point. His terseness may have shocked, but he is right.

So are his reasons. As currently constituted, he says, Nato is ill-suited to combating international terrorism, which is for him the world’s “single biggest threat”. He especially objects to the US footing so much of the bill, saying that other allies should “pay up or get out”, and refuses to see the US as the “world’s policeman”. As he told a town hall meeting in Wisconsin: “Maybe Nato will dissolve and that’s OK, not the worst thing in the world.”

To judge by the response to his words, though, on both sides of the Atlantic, it would appear to be the worst thing, or close to it. In casting doubt on the future of Nato, Trump has challenged an establishment consensus that goes far beyond Washington DC. Both Trump’s Republican rivals have denounced his view. Hillary Clinton, the probable Democrat nominee, accused him of “putting at risk the coalition of nations we need to defeat Islamic State”.

Practically every general and admiral between the US and the Baltic States reached for their verbal swords. Every transatlantic think-tank, every Atlanticist professor, and even President Obama joined the fray. Trump’s words, said Obama, had shown that “he doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy... or the world generally”.

It is worth noting a couple of ironies here. Obama is on the record – in his last State of the Union address and in his recent Atlantic magazine interview – as rejecting, more explicitly than any of his immediate predecessors, a “world policeman” role for the US. Both he, and his former defence secretary, have also criticised the lacklustre contribution to the alliance of some Europeans. To question Nato’s very existence, however, is another matter. For a sitting president, countenancing the twilight of the North Atlantic alliance is a step far too far.

There are times, though - and this is one of them - when a measure of distance and “not knowing” may foster much-needed clarity. Seen from the perspective of 2016, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is not only “obsolete”, but has been so in spirit since 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, and in fact since the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The end of the Cold War should have celebrated, and made final, by the dissolution of both the alliances of the era. In the event, only the Warsaw Pact was wound up. Nato survived, and has spent the best part of 30 years casting around for something else to do.

There are reasons why Nato was not disbanded. Some are understandable: there was so much going on, so many uncertainties to deal with, that there was no time to take on additional distractions. Nato also offered an element of solid security in a suddenly fluid world. Other reasons are, in their way, admirable. Those countries now freed from the extinct Soviet bloc still feared Russia and sought the defensive shelter they believed Nato could provide. The mistake was less to admit them, almost a decade later, than that the alliance was still there.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a lost opportunity for a new security settlement across the whole of Europe. But a second opportunity was lost, too. During the late 1990s there were tensions between the US and the European Union, which had begun to harbour defence ambitions of its own. While Washington was all in favour of its European allies taking a greater interest in their own security, it did not want them to run their own show. Had the Europeans asserted themselves more, had the British been better Europeans, had Nato expansion not obscured the dilemma, the EU might now have its own defence union, albeit not without a – possibly unpleasant – split with Washington.

It is tempting to look back at what might have been - and specifically what different security arrangements for Europe might have prevented. The obvious example here is the Ukraine crisis and the new stand-off with Russia which gives Nato a revived (and thoroughly regrettable) purpose. In the end, though, perhaps the least contentious way for Nato to bow out would not be in a new 1991-style cataclysm, nor for the Europeans to declare defence independence, but for the US to conclude that the alliance is no longer in its national interest.

Or, as Donald Trump put it, that Nato is obsolete, that it may dissolve, and that’s OK.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters...udi-businessman-familiar-with-matter/42075992

No more 'free' Saudi money for Egypt - Saudi businessman familiar with matter

Apr 8, 2016 - 18:48
By Asma Alsharif

CAIRO (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's financial support for strategic ally Egypt will no longer involve "free money" and will increasingly take the form of loans that provide returns to help it grapple with low oil prices, a Saudi businessman familiar with the matter said.

"This is a change in strategy. Return on investment is important to Saudi Arabia as it diversifies sources of revenue," the businessman told Reuters on Friday during what has been described as a "historic" visit to Cairo by Saudi King Salman.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait showered Egypt with billions of dollars after then-military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

But low oil prices and differences over regional issues have called into question whether such strong support is sustainable.

Egypt is struggling to revive an economy hit by years of political upheaval since the 2011 uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, as well as an Islamist insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula.

The more measured Saudi approach could increase pressure on Sisi to deliver on promises of an economic turnaround and job creation in the most populous Arab nation through infrastructure mega-projects.

"Saudi Arabia will be making investments and soft loans. No more free money," said the businessman.

Later on Friday, Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr said Cairo had signed development agreements with Saudi Arabia worth $590 million.

The agreements, signed with the Saudi finance minister, covered development in the Sinai peninsula, agriculture, housing and a university, Nasr told Al-Ahram newspaper.

Gulf monarchies applauded Sisi after he seized power in 2013, removing the Muslim Brotherhood -- seen as an existential threat to their wealthy nations -- and mounting the fiercest crackdown on dissent in Egypt's modern history.

Sisi went on to become elected president on promises of stability but cracks are beginning to appear in what was once the cult-like adulation he enjoyed among many Egyptians, with TV talk show hosts increasingly critical of government officials.

The Gulf Arab allies have grown increasingly disillusioned at what they see as Sisi's inability to address entrenched corruption and inefficiency in the economy, and at Cairo's reduced role on the regional stage.

Riyadh's new approach does not mean the Gulf States will abandon Egypt financially or politically.

With Iraq, Syria and Yemen immersed in civil war, and Saudi Arabia preoccupied by its region-wide rivalry with Iran, Riyadh is determined to stop the Egyptian state from failing. It will maintain some aid despite its own tighter budgets from falling global oil prices, analysts say.

After meeting Sisi on Friday, King Salman announced that a bridge connecting Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be built across the Red Sea. No details were given.

Saudi Arabia is expected to sign a $20 billion deal to finance Egypt's oil needs for the next five years and a $1.5 billion deal to develop its Sinai region, two Egyptian government sources told Reuters.

Saudi businessmen are investing $4 billion in projects including the Suez Canal, energy and agriculture, and have already deposited 10 percent of that sum in Egyptian banks, the deputy head of the Saudi-Egyptian Business Council said this week.


(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robin Pomeroy/Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-saudi-succession-stalemate-15724

The Saudi Succession Stalemate

Karen Elliott House
April 9, 2016
Comments

(Editor’s note: this excerpt is adapted from the report “Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown,” which is available in full here. It is published with permission the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.)

After more than two decades of domestic drift under geriatric rulers and overdependence on U.S. protection in a dangerous region, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is starting to stand up to shape its own future. There are two major reasons for this change. The royal family itself has put power in the hands of a new generation of leaders who are more self-confident and assertive. In the meantime—in Riyadh’s view—the United States, long the kingdom’s protector, has increasingly shied from leadership in the Middle East under President Obama.

By far the greatest change in Saudi Arabia is within the ruling family, and in this absolute monarchy, that dictates everything else. The Al Saud family, rulers of Arabia for most of the past three centuries, finally has passed power to a new generation of princes. At the same time, power arguably is more concentrated in fewer Al Saud hands now than at any time since the death in 1953 of Abdul Aziz al Saud, the founder of this latest Saudi state.

King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, 80, will be the last of the founder’s sons to rule. Salman made sure of that last April by firing his youngest half-brother, Mugrin bin Abdul Aziz, 68, as crown prince a few months after Salman became king in January 2015 upon the death of the late King Abdullah, their half-brother. This ended the tradition of passing the crown to one after another of the late founder’s sons and brought about a generational change when the new king named two of the founder’s grandsons in line for the throne.

King Salman elevated his nephew, Mohammad bin Nayef, 56, a respected and well-known prince, to the role of crown prince and surprisingly named his own son, Mohammad bin Salman, 30, as deputy crown prince. This young prince, largely unknown to most Saudis, has quickly begun to consolidate his own power, sparking speculation that he is challenging his cousin, the crown prince, to become the Kingdom’s next ruler. Within months, Mohammad bin Salman has become minister of defense, economic czar and the man in charge of ARAMCO, the Saudi oil company which is the source of roughly 80 percent of the kingdom’s revenues. In every area the young prince is shaking up the sclerotic Saudi system and along with it the somnolent Saudi society. Not since King Abdul Aziz, his grandfather, has a prince his age wielded such power. The rise of the young prince has upset some other branches of the royal family, but for the time being, with his father’s full support, he is firmly in charge.

Unquestionably, the young prince’s meteoric rise has injected energy into the kingdom, but along with it, uncertainty. Both Al Saud royals and normal Saudi citizens watch what is seen as an unfolding power struggle between the two next-generation princes with rapt interest and no little trepidation. A monthlong visit to the kingdom in January found young Saudis mostly enthusiastic about the thirty-year-old deputy crown prince. That is important because 70 percent of the Kingdom’s population is thirty years old or younger. (Saudis number twenty million in a total population of thirty million, with foreign workers making up the difference.)

Young Saudis express pleasure at Mohammed bin Salman’s willingness to take risks. He has waged war in Yemen against the Houthis, a tribe he claims is doing the bidding of Iran. He also has supported more assertive policies against Iran’s influence in Bahrain, Iraq and Syria, including committing to sending Saudi troops to Syria if the United States would deploy its own troops there to battle Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That, of course, is a very big “if,” at least under the Obama administration. Furthermore, the prince has organized a thirty-four-nation Islamic coalition against terrorism and taken the lead in meeting with the leaders of Russia and China to underscore to the United States that Saudi Arabia has international options.

Equally important, the deputy crown prince, who chairs the newly created Council of Economy and Development, has laid out an ambitious plan to reform the kingdom’s economy away from oil dependence, setting a 2030 goal to raise non-oil revenue from 10 percent of the kingdom’s revenues to 70 percent. His promised privatization of the economy, something the kingdom has been unable to achieve over many decades, seems essential to guarantee young Saudis a bright future even if oil prices, now around $30 a barrel, remain low.

Such a transformation, however, is a Herculean challenge given that it will require nothing short of a complete change in the Saudis’ decades-long mindset of depending on government for their total livelihood, including jobs, education and healthcare. In short, the traditional Saudi social contract has been loyalty (and obedience) to the regime in exchange for prosperity and ensuing stability. That social contract is at risk if the regime can’t reform the economy to create high-paying private-sector jobs for Saudis, since the government can no longer afford to create nearly enough jobs to soak up the three hundred thousand young Saudis annually expected to enter the job market between now and 2030. The deputy crown prince has pledged to create six million new jobs by 2030, a goal popular with Saudi millennials, among whom unemployment is stagnant at roughly 30 percent. But given that the Kingdom’s net employment increase in 2015 was only 417,000 jobs, only forty-nine thousand of which Saudis were willing to take, indicates the dimensions of the challenge.

Young Saudis like not only the deputy crown prince’s willingness to take risks but also his informality. Mohammad bin Salman meets visitors in a long thobe, the Saudi national dress that resembles a floor length long-sleeved dress shirt. He often is bareheaded and also shuns the royal “bisht,” the gold-trimmed flowing floor-length brown cape royals don around their shoulders for formal meetings. “He rolls up his sleeves and really works,” says one admiring young Saudi.

Not all Saudis are enamored of the young prince. Generally, older Saudis with whom I spoke also endorse the deputy crown prince’s policies abroad by standing up to Iran and at home by seeking to transform the Saudi economy. But experience has simply made them skeptical about the regime’s ability to sustain two wars in Yemen and Syria and, even more so, to reform a sclerotic economy so addicted to oil revenue. While some of these middle-aged Saudis prefer as their next king Mohammad bin Nayef, whom they see as more experienced, they insist that society will be content with either young prince. “We are relieved with the appointment of MBN and MBS to see the generational change in leadership behind us,” says one Saudi, summarizing an oft-repeated sentiment. “I can be confident my grandchildren will be well under either prince as both have a long runway.”

Some within the royal family are far less sanguine. Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz, 85, a son of the founder, speaks openly about his distaste for what he sees as his half-brother King Salman’s effort to disenfranchise the other heirs of their late father and seize control of the throne for only his own son and grandsons in the future. The founder sired forty-four sons by twenty-two wives. Some thirty-six of those boys lived to adulthood. Six of those brothers have followed each other as kings of Saudi Arabia since their father’s death in 1953. Another dozen remain alive, including King Salman. All are elderly, most are infirm and none are seen as likely ever to sit on the throne.

Those thirty-six sons, in turn, produced a plethora of princes—sons, grandsons and great-grandsons—said to number nearly seven thousand in all. And at least some echo Prince Talal’s unhappiness at what they see as King Salman’s attempt to establish a British-style monarchy that will pass the throne from father to son. “When Salman appointed his son, this emphasizes the theory that this will be followed by another decision,” Prince Talal tells me, meaning that the king soon will name his son crown prince and remove yet another crown prince. “He is appointing his son and grandsons to be the kings.” Prince Talal has long been a critic of the Al Saud family, who banished him to Egypt in the 1960s for favoring democratic reforms in the kingdom.

But other royals, too, express unhappiness, though not for attribution, given the code of silence observed by most senior royals on succession issues. A prominent royal official who said he hopes the young deputy crown prince will learn and mature in coming years expresses a sentiment that surely sums up a lot of royal thinking: “Given all the problems we face now with Iran and our economy, it is no time for a lack of cohesion in the kingdom.”

Obviously, only King Salman knows what he intends. Given that he is elderly and yields much to his son’s control, it raises the question of why he hasn’t already named his young son, in whom he has such confidence, as crown prince. Some insist the young man has prepared a decree for the king to sign that would do just that. Timing here could be everything. Were the king to die without having promoted his son to crown prince, many Saudis believe that Mohammed bin Nayef as king would waste little time before removing his cousin from power. The issue isn’t personal animosity between the princes, but rather how power will be passed in the future. Mohammed bin Salman already has sons who could succeed him. The crown prince, unusual for a Saudi, has only daughters. That fact clearly eases the minds of other branches of the royal family who still could have an opportunity to be king.

Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, who is also minister of interior and the individual in charge of keeping his country safe from domestic terrorism, is largely invisible these days. While the young deputy crown prince appears nightly on television alongside his father meeting foreign dignitaries, Prince Mohammad bin Nayef is visible primarily on omnipresent posters depicting the king and his two deputies. Trapped between the king he must serve and the cousin who may well dislodge him, Mohammed bin Nayef has quietly continued to earn plaudits from his fellow countrymen for largely keeping the kingdom safe from Islamic State terrorists and their young Saudi collaborators. He is seen as a quiet doer, not a talker. Many express the view that the king, however devoted to his son, is reluctant to remove the crown prince who has been so effective for most of the last twenty years first in defeating Al Qaeda in the kingdom and more recently in quelling the Islamic State. As minister of interior, this English-speaking prince has worked very closely with the United States on counterterrorism and is widely admired by U.S. officials. This, however, could be a negative for the prince, given the palpable disappointment in the royal family over U.S. Mideast policy in recent years.

Saudis, royal or otherwise, are convinced the king has the sole power to make whatever decision he chooses. Indeed, King Salman almost surely has more power than any of his brothers did as king precisely because his once-powerful brothers are dead. Certainly over the past few decades, the kingdom had multiple centers of power functioning almost as mini-kings under the powerful Al Saud senior brothers: Salman as governor of the capital city of Riyadh for more than forty years; his brother Sultan as defense minister and then crown prince before his death in 2011; and their full brother, Nayef, crown prince and minister of interior with access to all the kingdom’s secrets and the ruthlessness to use them to control royals and ordinary Saudis alike before his death in 2012. The late King Abdullah, as head of the Saudi National Guard for nearly fifty years, had his own power base even before becoming king in 2005. All are gone, and there are no more princes with genuinely independent power bases of their late fathers, not even Mutaib bin Abdullah, who succeeded his father as head of the Saudi National Guard, or Mohammed bin Nayef, who like his late father is the minister of interior.

“Salman can do anything he wants to,” says a longtime Saudi businessman and former member of the Shura Council, Saudi Arabia’s unelected parliament. “He is the only King who could. Power is concentrated now. He is popular with the people and strongly supported by the religious scholars.”

In sum, the passing of power from the late King Abdullah to King Salman underscores a stark fact of the Saudi monarchy: the power of a ruling monarch is unchallenged while he is alive, but dies absolutely with him. In his last years as king, Abdullah made unprecedented efforts to control Al Saud succession from his grave. Never fond of the so-called “Sudairi seven,” a group of seven full brothers including three who served him as crown prince—Sultan, Nayef and Salman—he sought to deny their sons, especially Mohammed bin Salman, a role in leadership by creating the new position of deputy crown prince in 2014 and naming his youngest half-brother, Mugrin. In effect, he was selecting a future King Salman’s crown prince, according to knowledgeable Saudis. As Abdullah saw it, these observers say, upon his death when his crown prince, Salman, became king, Prince Mugrin would become the new crown prince and be able to block Mohammed bin Salman’s entry to the Al Saud succession.

But King Salman waited less than four months to remove Mugrin and elevate a Sudairi, Mohammed bin Nayef, to crown prince, and then use the deputy crown prince slot the late king had created to put his own son into the line of succession. Obviously, if the king doesn’t name his son crown prince before his death, history may repeat itself with a new king also removing his inherited crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Karen Elliott House is a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

 

[Housecarl]

Sadegh Ghorbani ‏@GhorbaniSadegh 6h
#Iran & #Russia considering building a huge canal,
connecting Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf, Iran ambassador says.

Hummm.....

That's just down the coast form the Pakistani port the Chinese are upgrading for trade and the PLAN. I'm guessing putting in a good heavy duty rail and highway between the port on the Caspian and the Gulf would be a lot quicker and cheaper, even after taking into account loading and unloading.