WAR 04-04-2020-to-4-10-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(411) 03-14-2020-to-03-20-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 03-14-2020-to-03-20-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(412) 03-21-2020-to-03-27-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 03-21-2020-to-03-27-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(413) 03-28-2020-to-04-03-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 03-28-2020-to-04-03-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(410) 03-07-2020-to-03-13-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** http://xf.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/03-07-2020-to-03-13-2020___-the-winds-of-war.569280/ (411) 03-14-2020-to-03-20-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****...

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China’s Coming Upheaval

If Xi continues on his current trajectory, eroding the foundations of China’s economic and political power and monopolizing responsibility and control, he will expose the CCP to cataclysmic change.

www.foreignaffairs.com

China’s Coming Upheaval
Competition, the Coronavirus, and the Weakness of Xi Jinping
By Minxin Pei April 3, 2020

Over the past few years, the United States’ approach to China has taken a hard-line turn, with the balance between cooperation and competition in the U.S.-Chinese relationship tilting sharply toward the latter. Most American policymakers and commentators consider this confrontational new strategy a response to China’s growing assertiveness, embodied especially in the controversial figure of Chinese President Xi Jinping. But ultimately, this ongoing tension—particularly with the added pressures of the new coronavirus outbreak and an economic downturn—is likely to expose the brittleness and insecurity that lie beneath the surface of Xi’s, and Beijing’s, assertions of solidity and strength.

The United States has limited means of influencing China’s closed political system, but the diplomatic, economic, and military pressure that Washington can bring to bear on Beijing will put Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) he leads under enormous strain. Indeed, a prolonged period of strategic confrontation with the United States, such as the one China is currently experiencing, will create conditions that are conducive to dramatic changes.

As tension between the United States and China has grown, there has been vociferous debate about the similarities and, perhaps more important, the differences between U.S.-Chinese competition now and U.S.-Soviet competition during the Cold War. Whatever the limitations of the analogy, Chinese leaders have put considerable thought into the lessons of the Cold War and of the Soviet collapse. Ironically, Beijing may nevertheless be repeating some of the most consequential mistakes of the Soviet regime.

During the multidecade competition of the Cold War, the rigidity of the Soviet regime and its leaders proved to be the United States’ most valuable asset. The Kremlin doubled down on failed strategies—sticking with a moribund economic system, continuing a ruinous arms race, and maintaining an unaffordable global empire—rather than accept the losses that thoroughgoing reforms might have entailed. Chinese leaders are similarly constrained by the rigidities of their own system and therefore limited in their ability to correct policy mistakes. In 2018, Xi decided to abolish presidential term limits, signaling his intention to stay in power indefinitely. He has indulged in heavy-handed purges, ousting prominent party officials under the guise of an anticorruption drive. What is more, Xi has suppressed protests in Hong Kong, arrested hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists, and imposed the tightest media censorship of the post-Mao era. His government has constructed “reeducation” camps in Xinjiang, where it has incarcerated more than a million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities. And it has centralized economic and political decision-making, pouring government resources into state-owned enterprises and honing its surveillance technologies. Yet all together, these measures have made the CCP weaker: the growth of state-owned enterprises distorts the economy, and surveillance fuels resistance. The spread of the novel coronavirus has only deepened the Chinese people’s dissatisfaction with their government.

The economic tensions and political critiques stemming from U.S.-Chinese competition may ultimately prove to be the straws that broke this camel’s back. If Xi continues on this trajectory, eroding the foundations of China’s economic and political power and monopolizing responsibility and control, he will expose the CCP to cataclysmic change.

A PAPER TIGER
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has replaced collective leadership with strongman rule. Before Xi, the regime consistently displayed a high degree of ideological flexibility and political pragmatism. It avoided errors by relying on a consensus-based decision-making process that incorporated views from rival factions and accommodated their dueling interests. The CCP also avoided conflicts abroad by staying out of contentious disputes, such as those in the Middle East, and refraining from activities that could encroach on the United States’ vital national interests. At home, China’s ruling elites maintained peace by sharing the spoils of governance. Such a regime was by no means perfect. Corruption was pervasive, and the government often delayed critical decisions and missed valuable opportunities. But the regime that preceded Xi’s centralization had one distinct advantage: a built-in propensity for pragmatism and caution.

In the last seven years, that system has been dismantled and replaced by a qualitatively different regime—one marked by a high degree of ideological rigidity, punitive policies toward ethnic minorities and political dissenters at home, and an impulsive foreign policy embodied by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar infrastructure program with dubious economic potential that has aroused intense suspicion in the West. The centralization of power under Xi has created new fragilities and has exposed the party to greater risks. If the upside of strongman rule is the ability to make difficult decisions quickly, the downside is that it greatly raises the odds of making costly blunders. The consensus-based decision-making of the earlier era might have been slow and inefficient, but it prevented radical or risky ideas from becoming policy.

Under Xi, correcting policy mistakes has proved to be difficult, since reversing decisions made personally by the strongman would undercut his image of infallibility. (It is easier politically to reverse bad decisions made under collective leadership, because a group, not an individual, takes the blame.) Xi’s demand for loyalty has also stifled debate and deterred dissent within the CCP. For these reasons, the party lacks the flexibility needed to avoid and reverse future missteps in its confrontation with the United States. The result is likely to be growing disunity within the regime. Some party leaders will no doubt recognize the risks and grow increasingly alarmed that Xi has needlessly endangered the party’s standing. The damage to Xi’s authority caused by further missteps would also embolden his rivals, especially Premier Li Keqiang and the Politburo members Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua, all of whom have close ties to former President Hu Jintao. Of course, it is nearly impossible to remove a strongman in a one-party regime because of his tight control over the military and the security forces. But creeping discord would at the very least feed Xi’s insecurity and paranoia, further eroding his ability to chart a steady course.

A strongman who has suffered setbacks—as Mao Zedong did after the Great Leap Forward, a modernization program that centralized food production, leading to some 30 million deaths by famine in the early 1960s—naturally fears that his rivals will seize the opportunity to conspire against him. To preempt such threats, the strongman typically resorts to purges, which Mao did four years after the end of the Great Leap Forward by launching the Cultural Revolution, a movement intended to eliminate “bourgeois elements” in society and in the government. In the years ahead, Xi may come to rely on purges more than he already does, further heightening tensions and distrust among the ruling elites.

LEAN TIMES AHEAD
A key component of Washington’s strategic confrontation with Beijing is economic “decoupling,” a significant reduction of the extensive commercial ties that the United States and China have built over the last four decades. Those advocating decoupling—such as U.S. President Donald Trump, who launched a trade war with China in 2018—believe that by cutting China off from the United States’ vast market and sophisticated technology, Washington can greatly reduce the potential growth of China’s power. In spite of the truce in the trade war following the interim deal that Trump struck with Xi in January 2020, U.S.-Chinese economic decoupling is almost certain to continue in the coming years regardless of who is in the White House, because reducing the United States’ economic dependence on China and constraining the growth of China’s power are now bipartisan aims.

Since the Chinese economy today is less dependent on exports as an engine of growth—exports in 2018 accounted for 19.5 percent of GDP, down from 32.6 percent in 2008—decoupling may not depress China’s economic growth as much as its proponents have hoped. But it will certainly have a net negative impact on the Chinese economy, one that may be amplified by the country’s domestic economic slowdown, which is itself the product of a ballooning debt, the exhaustion of investment-driven growth, and a rapidly aging population. The slowdown may be further exacerbated by Beijing’s attempt to shore up near-term growth with unsustainable policies, such as increased bank lending and investment in wasteful infrastructure projects.

As their standard of living stalls, middle-class Chinese may turn against the party.

As the economy weakens, the CCP may have to contend with the erosion of popular support resulting from a falling or stagnant standard of living. In the post-Mao era, the CCP has relied heavily on economic overperformance to sustain its legitimacy. Indeed, the generations born after the Cultural Revolution have experienced steadily rising living standards. A prolonged period of mediocre economic performance—say, a few years in which the growth rate hovers around three or four percent, the historical mean for developing countries—could severely reduce the level of popular support for the CCP, as ordinary Chinese grapple with rising unemployment and an inadequate social safety net.

In such an adverse economic environment, signs of social unrest, such as riots, mass protests, and strikes, will become more common. The deepest threat to the regime’s stability will come from the Chinese middle class. Well-educated and ambitious college graduates will find it difficult to obtain desirable jobs in the coming years because of China’s anemic economic performance. As their standard of living stalls, middle-class Chinese may turn against the party. This won’t be obvious at first: the Chinese middle class has traditionally shied away from politics. But even if members of the middle class do not participate in anti-regime protests, they may well express their discontent indirectly, in demonstrations over such issues as environmental protection, public health, education, and food safety. The Chinese middle class could also vote with its feet by emigrating abroad in large numbers.

An economic slowdown would also disrupt the CCP’s patronage structure, the perks and favors that the government provides to cronies and collaborators. In the recent past, a booming economy provided the government with abundant revenue—total revenue in absolute terms tripled between 2008 and 2018—providing the resources the CCP needed to secure the loyalty of midlevel apparatchiks, senior provincial leaders, and the managers of state-owned enterprises. As the Chinese economic miracle falters, the party will find it harder to provide the privileges and material comforts that such officials have come to expect. Party elites will also need to compete harder among themselves to get approval and funding for their pet projects. Dissatisfaction among the elites may spiral if Xi’s prized priorities, such as the BRI, continue to receive preferential treatment and everyone else must economize.

Finally, in the event of a dramatic slowdown, the Chinese government will most likely find itself confronting greater resistance in the country’s restive periphery, especially in Tibet and Xinjiang, which contain China’s most vocal ethnic minorities, and in Hong Kong, which was British territory until 1997 and retains a different system of governance with far more civil liberties. To be sure, escalating tensions in China’s periphery will not bring the CCP down. But they can be costly distractions. Should the party resort to overly harsh responses to assert its control, as is likely to be the case, the country will incur international criticism and harsh new sanctions. The escalation of human rights violations in China would also help push Europe closer to the United States, thus facilitating the formation of a broad anti-China coalition, which Beijing has been desperately trying to prevent.

Although middle-class discontent, ethnic resistance, and pro-democracy protests won’t force Xi out of power, such pervasive malaise would undoubtedly further erode his authority and cast doubts on his capacity to govern effectively. Economic weakness and elite demoralization could then push Beijing over the edge, leading the CCP toward calamity.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

BEATING THE DRUMS OF NATIONALISM
In theory, the CCP should be capable of avoiding or mitigating the damage from an economic slowdown. An effective strategy would incorporate some of the valuable lessons Xi’s predecessors learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moscow continued to provide significant aid to Cuba, Vietnam, and several vassal states in Eastern Europe well into the Soviet Union’s twilight years. The regime also pursued a costly military intervention in Afghanistan and funded proxies in Angola and Southeast Asia. To avoid those kinds of mistakes, Beijing should prioritize the conservation of its limited financial resources to sustain the open-ended great-power conflict. In particular, China should retrench from its expansionist projects, above all the BRI, and other foreign assistance programs, such as the grants and concessional loans it has provided to Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela, and several developing countries in Africa. Beijing might incur considerable short-term costs—namely, the loss of prestige and goodwill—but over the long term, China would avoid the perils of imperial overreach and preserve enough funds to recapitalize its banking system, which has been exhausted by excessive lending in the last decade.

Beijing should also build stronger ties with U.S. allies to prevent Washington from recruiting them into a broad anti-China coalition. To do so, the regime will have to offer enormous economic, diplomatic, military, and political concessions, such as opening the Chinese market to Japan, South Korea, and Europe; ensuring the protection of intellectual property; making significant improvements in human rights; and abandoning certain territorial claims. Xi’s government has already taken steps to repair ties with Japan. But to truly court U.S. allies and avert a slowdown, either Xi or his successors will need to go further, undertaking market-oriented reforms to offset the economic losses caused by decoupling. The large-scale privatization of state-owned enterprises is a good place to start. These inefficient behemoths control nearly $30 trillion in assets and consume roughly 80 percent of the country’s available bank credit, but they contribute only between 23 and 28 percent of GDP. The efficiency gains that would be unleashed by reining in the state’s direct role in the economy would be more than enough to compensate for the loss of the U.S. market. The economist Nicholas Lardy has estimated that genuine economic reforms, in particular those targeting state-owned enterprises, could boost China’s annual GDP growth by as much as two percentage points in the coming decade.

Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States.

Unfortunately, Xi is unlikely to embrace this strategy. After all, it runs against his deeply held ideological views. Most of China’s recent foreign and security policy initiatives bear his personal imprint. Curtailing or abandoning them would be seen as an admission of failure. As a result, the CCP might be limited to tactical adjustments: promoting public-private partnerships in the economy, deregulating certain sectors, or reducing government spending. Such steps would represent an improvement but would probably neither raise sufficient revenue nor appeal strongly enough to U.S. allies to decisively alter the course of the U.S.-Chinese confrontation.

Instead, Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States. Ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests—which shook the party to its core and resulted in a government crackdown on dissent—the CCP has ceaselessly exploited nationalist sentiment to shore up its legitimacy. In the event of decoupling and an economic slowdown, the party will likely ramp up those efforts. This should not be hard at first: most Chinese are convinced that the United States started the current conflict to thwart China’s rise. But ironically, fanning the flames of nationalism could eventually make it harder for the party to switch to a more flexible strategy, since taking a vigorous anti-American stance will lock in conflict and constrain Beijing’s policy options.

The party would then have to turn to social control and political repression. Thanks to its vast and effective security apparatus, the party should have little difficulty suppressing internal challenges to its authority. But repression would be costly. Faced with rising unrest fueled by economic stagnation, the party would have to devote substantial resources to stability, largely at the expense of other priorities. Strict social control would also likely alienate some elites, such as private entrepreneurs and high-profile academics and writers. Escalating repression could generate greater resistance in China’s periphery—Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong—and elicit international criticism, especially from the European countries that China needs to court.

AFTER THE DELUGE
The CCP is still far from dead. Short of China’s losing a direct military conflict with the United States, the party can conceivably hang on to power. That said, a regime beset by economic stagnation and rising social unrest at home and great-power competition abroad is inherently brittle. The CCP will probably unravel by fits and starts. The rot would set in slowly but then spread quickly.

It is possible, but unlikely, that mounting dissatisfaction within the regime could motivate senior members to organize a palace coup to replace Xi. The party, however, has adopted sophisticated coup-proofing techniques: the General Office of the Central Committee monitors communication among members of the committee, the only body that could conceivably remove Xi. What is more, Xi’s loyalists dominate the membership of the Politburo and the Central Committee, and the military is firmly under his control. Under such circumstances, a conspiracy against the top leader would be exceedingly difficult to pull off.

Typically, the fight for power that follows the end of strongman rule produces a weak interim leader.

Another possible scenario is a crisis that creates a split among China’s top elites, which in turn paralyzes the regime’s fearsome repressive apparatus. Such an event could be precipitated by mass protests that the security forces are unable to contain. As with the Tiananmen protests, divisions could emerge among top leaders over how to deal with the protesters, thus allowing the movement to gain momentum and attract broad-based support nationwide. But this scenario, although tantalizing, is unlikely to materialize, since the party has invested heavily in surveillance and information control and has developed effective methods to suppress mass protests.

The scenario that would entail the greatest likelihood of radical change is a succession struggle that would occur if Xi were to pass away or resign owing to infirmity. Typically, the fight for power that follows the end of strongman rule produces a weak interim leader: consider Soviet Premier Georgy Malenkov, who followed Stalin, or CCP Chair Hua Guofeng, who followed Mao. Such leaders are often pushed out by a stronger contender with a transformative vision: think Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping in China. Given this new leader’s need to assert his authority and offer a different, more appealing agenda, it is unlikely that Xi’s hard authoritarianism would survive the end of his rule.

That would leave the new leader with only two options. He could return to the survival strategy that the party had before Xi by restoring collective leadership and a risk-averse foreign policy. But he might find this to be a hard sell, as the party and all its previous survival strategies might have been discredited by this point. So he might instead opt for more radical reforms to save the party. Although stopping short of liberal democracy, he would, in this case, roll back repression, relax social control, and accelerate economic reform, just as the Soviet Union did between 1985 and its collapse in 1991. Such a course of action might be more attractive to a party elite traumatized by two decades of strongman rule; it might also resonate with Chinese youth yearning for a new direction.

If reformers gained the upper hand and embarked on such a path, the most critical issue would be whether they could avoid “the Tocqueville paradox,” named after the political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, who observed that the reforms that a weakened dictatorship pursues have a tendency to trigger a revolution that eventually topples the reformist dictatorship itself.

Moderate reforms might be more effective in China than they were in the Soviet Union, however, because a new Chinese leader would not have to deal with a collapsing external empire, as the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, did in Eastern Europe. Nor would a new leader face national disintegration, as the Soviet Union did in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when all 15 Soviet republics bolted from the center, because non-Chinese ethnic minorities make up less than ten percent of China’s population. They may cause serious problems in Tibet and Xinjiang, but otherwise, ethnic minorities pose no real threat to China’s territorial integrity.
Whatever the outcome after Xi’s political exit, the CCP will likely undergo dramatic changes. In the best-case scenario, the party may succeed in transforming itself into a “kinder, gentler” regime, one that endorses economic and political reforms and seeks a geopolitical reconciliation with the United States. By the end, the CCP could be unrecognizable. In the worst-case scenario, deep institutional rot, inept leadership, and the mobilization of anti-regime movements could very well cause a hard landing. Should that happen, it would be one of history’s greatest ironies. Despite the lessons the CCP has learned from the Soviet implosion and the steps it has taken since 1991 to avoid the same fate, the end of one-party rule in China could follow an eerily similar script.
THE SICK MAN OF EAST ASIA
Such a scenario will likely be dismissed as pure fantasy by those who believe in the durability and resilience of CCP rule. But the Chinese party-state’s botched initial response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus and the subsequent eruption of public outrage should make them think again. The worst public health crisis in the history of the People’s Republic of China has revealed a number of significant weaknesses. The regime’s capacity to collect, process, and act on critical information is much less impressive than most would have anticipated. Considering the enormous investments in disease control and prevention that China has made since the SARS outbreak in 2002–3 and the implementation of laws on emergency management in 2007, it has been staggering to see how thoroughly the Chinese government initially mishandled the new coronavirus epidemic. Local authorities in Wuhan—the epicenter of the outbreak—concealed critical information from the public even after medical professionals sounded the alarm, just as Jiang Yanyong, a veteran army doctor, did in 2003 about SARS. Although they received reports from Wuhan about the spread of the virus in early January, most members of the senior leadership did not take any serious action for two weeks.

The crisis has also revealed the fragility of Xi’s strongman rule. One likely reason that Beijing failed to take aggressive action to contain the outbreak early on was that few crucial decisions can be made without Xi’s direct approval, and he faces heavy demands on his limited time and attention. A strongman who monopolizes decision-making can also be politically vulnerable during such a crisis. A series of decisions Xi made after the Wuhan lockdown began—such as sending Li, the premier, to the epicenter of the virus instead of going himself and remaining unseen in public for nearly two weeks—undermined his image as a decisive leader at precisely the moment the system seemed to be rudderless. He reasserted control only weeks after the crisis began—by firing the party chiefs in charge of the city and the province where the outbreak started and imposing tight censorship rules on the press and social media.

But the brief window during which Chinese social media and even the official press erupted in outrage revealed just how tenuous the CCP’s control over information has become and highlighted the latent power of Chinese civil society. For unknown reasons, China’s censorship system performed poorly for about two weeks after the lockdown in Wuhan was announced. During that period, people were able to learn how the government had muzzled medical professionals who had tried to warn the public. Criticism of the government reached a peak when Li Wenliang—a doctor who in late December was among the first to warn Chinese authorities about the danger of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and who was subsequently interrogated and silenced by local police—died of the illness on February 7, showing that the CCP could lose public support quickly in a crisis situation.

The events of the past few months have shown that CCP rule is far more brittle than many believed. This bolsters the case for a U.S. strategy of sustained pressure to induce political change. Washington should stay the course; its chances of success are only getting better and better.

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[Housecarl]

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Mexican Cartels - Venezuela's Uninvited Guests Here to Stay

Talk of Mexico’s cartels in Venezuela has become commonplace, so much so that one town has been re-baptized after one of the world's most notorious criminal

www.insightcrime.org

Mexican Cartels – Venezuela’s Uninvited Guests Here to Stay

• Analysis

Written by
Venezuela Investigative Unit
-
April 3, 2020

Talk of Mexico’s cartels in Venezuela has become commonplace, so much so that one town has been re-baptized after one of the world’s most notorious criminal groups: the Sinaloa Cartel.


In San Felipe, a village near Machiques de Perijá in the northwestern state of Zulia, hearing Mexican accents has become routine. Local residents near the border with Colombia say that the presence of Mexicans is so strong the town has been unofficially renamed Sinaloa.


Sources on the ground provided InSight Crime with a range of evidence they say confirms the presence of emissaries from Mexican criminal groups. Ranchers, local manufacturers and residents have all witnessed luxury vehicles entering town, parties blaring with narcocorridos, increased demand for prostitution and other abnormalities that have changed everyday life here.


“Sinaloa isn’t just a random name, many of the pilots [of drug planes] are Mexican. We’ve seen them talking in hotels, and a person with this accent is easy to remember. They call this town of ours Sinaloa,” one local told InSight Crime on the condition of anonymity.


SEE ALSO: Venezuela News and Profiles


However, narco-culture isn’t the only thing the Mexicans have brought with them. San Felipe’s residents have been pressured into converting basic landing strips into sites able to accommodate planes carrying large amounts of cash and tons of drugs. Main roads, including that which connects the municipalities of Machiques de Perijá and Colón, have also been co-opted for these purposes, Infobae reported.


Local news outlet La Verdad reported on an incident from September 2019 when Venezuela’s Integral Aerospace Defense Command (Comando de Defensa Aeroespacial Integral – CODAI) allegedly detected two drug flights allegedly belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel.

InSight Crime Analysis

Venezuela has played a key role in the international drug trade, attracting the interests of a wide range of organized crime groups dedicated to trafficking drugs. The presence of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel comes as no surprise.


That said, Venezuela is not a primary transit point for US-bound cocaine, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) own data. “US officials have frequently stated that far more cocaine is trafficked through the so-called ‘Eastern Pacific’ route [through southwest Colombia and Ecuador] than through Venezuela,” according to a recent report from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).


Nonetheless, around 400 clandestine airstrips may have been taken over by Mexican traffickers in Zulia alone, with the help and support of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional — ELN), in order to land flights and send others off to the Caribbean and Central America. The border towns of Jesús María Semprún, Machiques and Rosario de Perijá have become preferred places to buy and sell shipments filled with weapons, money and drugs.


SEE ALSO: Clandestine Airstrips, Drug Flights Becoming More Frequent Across Venezuela


Mexican traffickers arrive at the homes of farmers and local producers offering large sums of money — in the neighborhood of between $40,000 and $60,000 — to use existing airstrips or to build new ones for drug planes to land on and take off from, according to several local farmers in Zulia who spoke to InSight Crime on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.


Those who don’t cooperate, however, reportedly run the risk of being incriminated with propellers, gas canisters and other spare parts left on their land that could later be used against them, according to local sources in Zulia.


And there have been cases of Venezuelan air force personnel collaborating with Mexican cartels. Former captain Gino Alfonso Garcés Vergara, for example, received $500,000 in exchange for allowing narco-flights loaded with drugs to pass through Venezuelan airspace undetected.


National Assembly Vice President Juan Pablo Guanipa has voiced his concerns about the presence of drug trafficking groups in this region, according to El Pitazo. Local farmers and manufacturers here are subjected to constant threats, preventing them from speaking out about the issue, according to Guanipa. In 2015, for example, farmer Gaspar Enrique Rincón Urdaneta was murdered after making his own concerns known.


But this isn’t the only evidence of links between the Venezuelan government and Mexican cartel emissaries. In June 2019, Prison Minister Iris Varela confirmed three Mexican nationals had escaped from jail after being captured on drug trafficking charges. The three allegedly secured their escape using information about internal logistics that was filtered to them and through open access to weapons.


The steady flow of Colombian cocaine and the silence of the Venezuelan government has made it so that Mexico’s powerful drug cartels feel right at home in Venezuela.

 

[Housecarl]

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League of the Revolutionaries threatens U.S. Embassy in Iraq | FDD's Long War Journal

Throughout its statements, the front group has made threatening the U.S. embassy one of its main talking points.

www.longwarjournal.org

League of the Revolutionaries threatens U.S. Embassy in Iraq

By Caleb Weiss & Joe Truzman | April 3rd, 2020 | weiss.caleb2_@gmail.com |

A new video released by the League of the Revolutionaries (LoR), a likely Iranian-backed front group, warned of a future attack against the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

The video begins by depicting the launch of rockets against American troops operating in Iraq with scenes of U.S. soldiers killed in action.

In addition to depicting the deaths of American soldiers, an aerial view of the American Embassy in Baghdad is shown. The video from the drone shows it maneuvering over different areas of the Embassy. The video highlights military vehicles, buildings and a helicopter landing pad, all presumed to be sensitive areas of the Embassy.

The publication ends with the message “US Embassy, our eyes observe their movements and they will not achieve what they want.”

Another graphic released with the video (shown below) quotes the group as further warning “this embassy of evil is within the sights of our rockets and if we want we can turn it into scattered dust.” It is unclear when the footage was filmed. However, an unidentified commercial drone hovering over the embassy last May caused the compound to enter a temporary lockdown.

If this incident was indeed the work of the LoR, it would further demonstrate its role as a front group as this was almost a year before its publicly announced creation.

This is not the first time that the LoR has threatened the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In its inaugural statement last month, it explicitly stated “and we say to the evil clients of the [American] Embassy: Your days are numbered, and you reap what you sow.”

Subsequent social media posts linked to the group have repeated this message.

As previously detailed by FDD’s Long War Journal, the “League of the Revolutionaries” is likely a front group for other, more established Iranian proxies in Iraq. The use of a one-off front is a tried-and true-method that allows for plausible deniability.

Moreover, the League of Revolutionaries’ logo, which mirrors that of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies across the Middle East, calls attention to its position within Iran’s ‘axis of resistance.’

The IRGC and its network have a long history of utilizing front names to claim more sensitive attacks – especially in Iraq. This includes the kidnapping of an American soldier in 2006 and the kidnapping of five Britons in 2007.

Graphic released by the group warning that the embassy is “within the sights” of its rockets:

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Special Operations News Update - Saturday, April 4, 2020 | SOF News

SOF News Update - Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts from around the world.

sof.news

Special Operations News Update – Saturday, April 4, 2020
April 4, 2020 SOF News Update 0

Curated news about special operations, national security, and conflicts from around the world.
SOF and Coronavirus
There are thousands of articles posted online each day about coronavirus. About 40 of these are about what the military is doing or not doing about COVID-19. Below are a few of the more interesting articles about SOF and coronavirus. Plus some stories about the military in general and the Wuhan virus.
US SOF Withdraws From Around the World. The coronavirus pandemic has forced some drastic action on the part of the U.S. military. One of these is the withdrawal of special operations troops from some conflict zones and the shuttering of longstanding missions. The directive to redeploy will help reduce the strain on a small but often-deployed portion of the U.S. military and to contend with the risk of operating alongside local forces in countries flooded with coronavirus. Read “U.S. Commanders Cite Pandemic as They Pull Back Elite Units Around the World”, The New York Times, April 3, 2020.
COVID-19: Rumor Control. Rumors can easily circulate within communities during a crisis but there are some trusted sources of information to go to. Coronavirus: Rumor Control, U.S. Department of Defense, March 31, 2020. (I mean, yes, there is a certain DoD spin, but still useful).
1st SFGA Making Face Masks. Medical professionals, logisticians, and riggers stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord are manufacturing personal protective equipment for the COVID-19 pandemic. The equipment includes respirator masks, face shields, and surgical masks for Madigan Army Medical Center and its regional partners. (Army.mil, Apr 2, 2020).
Marine Raiders: Adjusting Training. The Marine Corps elite special operations unit headquartered in North Carolina is being forced to adjust training to comply with state, defense, and federal health guidelines. Read “Marine Raiders adjust training, add online courses to weather COVID-19”, Marine Corps Times, April 2, 2020. (USAF, Apr 1, 2020).
Air Force Relaxes a Bit. The fly boys – on a temporary basis – have relaxed grooming and fitness guidance. Common sense prevails?
Navy Carrier Captain Fired. The Captain of a carrier with over 4,000 sailors aboard – many infected with COVID-19 – sent up a distress call on Sunday night (Mar 29th) for help. He wanted his sailors put ashore to alleviate crowded conditions, the spread of coronavirus, and to avert deaths aboard his ship. When his ship initially docked at Guam after a deployment in the Philippine and South China Seas the Acting Secretary of the Navy said nobody would be allowed to leave the ship “except on the pier.” His sailors finally got rooms in hotels in Guam (onshore quarantine) and by Thursday, of course, the Captain got fired. As he departed the USS Theodore Roosevelt for the last time the Captain was cheered by the crew.
Future reports on social media from a certain segment of the political world will likely reveal that the Captain was a chow thief during the mountain phase of Ranger school. There are some national security observers speculating that the firing took place because there were no recent violations of the fraternization policy. Can the Navy really afford to be firing Captains who DON’T ram other ships? In other news, the Navy is still conducting urinalysis exams – because, you know . . . national security overrides the welfare of the sailors.

“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset – our Sailors.”
Captain Brett Crozier, former Captain of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.

National Guard’s Role. Dennis Bittle, a member of the Mississippi National Guard, provides a description of the NG’s role in the battle against the Wuhan virus. Read “The Military and the Pandemic: An Explainer of the National Guard’s Role in the COVID-19 Response”, Modern War Institute, March 31, 2020.
More U.S. Military and Coronavirus News. Over 540 additional troops will deploy to the U.S. – Mexico border over COVID-19 concerns. The Pentagon confirms it has been asked to provide 100,000 body bags to FEMA. Morale is dipping in the Army for various reasons associated with the Wuhan virus.
SOF News
Disbanding CRF’s? This article says that U.S. SOCOM has ordered the disbanding of the five Crisis Response Force companies of U.S. Army Special Forces. The article may or may not be entirely correct. Read “Special Operations: Evolution in Action”, Strategy Page, April 2, 2020.
Armed Overwatch Demo. The US Special Operations Command will conduct a flight demonstration of light-attack aircraft prototypes in November 2020. The result may be the award of a production contract for 75 aircraft to be delivered over several years. (FlightGlobal.com, Apr 2, 2020).
PT and Preparing for Selection. Stew Smith, a former Navy SEAL and fitness author, provides advice to those seeking to enter the selection process of the U.S. military’s elite units. (Military.com, Apr 3, 2020).
“Medical Consequences of Diving”. The Department of Veterans Affairs published a letter that provides information on the disabilities that may result from diving. The intent of the memo is to ensure that VA decision makers are informed of the medical consequences of diving so that claims from veterans who were divers in service are properly developed and adjudicated. Read or download “Medical Consequences of Diving”, Department of Veterans Affairs, Training Letter 07-04, July 5, 2007, (pdf, 11 pages). Thanks to the Combat Diver Foundation for alerting us to this letter.
Release of CivTAK4.0.1. The public version of ATAK (used by SOF tactical teams for comms and situational awareness) is now available. Read “CivTAK4.0.1 Has Been Released & Its AWESOME”, CivTAK, March 31, 2020.

International SOF
Lithuanian SOF. The Lithuanian Special Operations Forces are celebrating the12th anniversary of becoming the fourth branch of the Lithuanian Army.
National Security
Casualty in Iraq Identified. The Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. SFC John Hilty, age 44, of Bowie, Maryland died on Monday, March 30, 2020 in Erbil, Iraq from a non-combat related incident. He was a member of the 227th Aviation Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division. (DoD, Apr 1, 2020).
US Hostage Families Slighted? Is the government supporting US hostage families? The families say more can be done. (Federal Times, Apr 2, 2020).
New USMC Body Armor. The Marine Corps is fielding a next-generation protective vest – Plate Carrier Generation III. (DVIDS, Apr 2, 2020).
SPMAGTF-SC to Deploy. The Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force -Southern Command was activated at Camp Lejeune on March 30, 2020. The unit wil be under the command of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, South and deploy into the Southern Command area of operations to provide crisis response preparedness efforts, security cooperation training and engineering events, and more. The intent is to help strengthen relations with partner nations throughout Central and South America.

Middle East
Canada Pulls Out. In a temporary measure Canada has pulled its military trainers out of Iraq as the pandemic spreads. They have redeployed to Kuwait. A lack of Iraqi troops to to train, attacks launched on U.S.-led coalition forces in recent weeks by Iran’s proxy militias, and the coronavirus have been factors in the repositioning of troops. Canada also has troops deployed to Ukraine and Latvia.(CBC.ca, Apr 2, 2020).
Books, Reports, and Pubs
WMD and Non-State actors. Major Stephen Hummel and Colonel John Burpo have collaborated on a 36-page report that details the impact of emerging technologies on WMD development and terrorists’ capabilities. See Small Groups, Big Weapons: The Nexus of Emerging Technologies and Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, April 2, 2020.

Videos, Games, and Movies
Video – ATAK Map. Watch a promotional video about a civilian version of the Android Team Awareness Kit. This is an Android smartphone geospatial infrastructure and military situational awaremenss app. As of 019 ATAK had an estimated 175,000 military and civilian users. ATAK is heavily used by U.S. SOF. Watch a video about the civilian version. (2017, 3 mins).

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tojMXYMVdyw

Video – 352d SOW Airborne Operations. Watch U.S. Air Force special tactics operators based at RAF Mildenhall, UK execute military freefall jumps. (DVIDS, 25 Mar 2020, 1 min).
352d SOW Airborne Operations
**********
Photo: U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Keon Miller, special mission aviator assigned to the 33rd Rescue Squadron, fires a GAU-18 machine gun aboard an HH-60G Pave Hawk, July 31, 2019, out of Kadena Air Base, Japan. The HH-60G Pave Hawk’s primary function is to recover personnel in hostile conditions day and night, no matter the weather. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Cynthia Belío)

About SOF News 686 Articles

SOF News provides news, analysis, commentary, and information about special operations forces (SOF) from around the world.

 

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Militant Attacks in Northern Mozambique Leave Civilians Reeling

Militants briefly took control of government buildings within 48 hours and raised their flag in both towns before retreating, local sources said

www.voanews.com

Extremism Watch
Militant Attacks in Northern Mozambique Leave Civilians Reeling
By Sirwan Kajjo, Amancio Vilanculos, Andre Bapista

April 03, 2020 05:42 PM


Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique

WASHINGTON/MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE - Residents in two districts in northern Mozambique are still reeling from violent attacks carried out by Islamist militants last week.

Mocimboa da Praia and Quissanga, two small towns in the province of Cabo Delgado, were assaulted and besieged by militants reportedly affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

The militants briefly took control of government buildings within 48 hours and raised their flag in both towns before retreating, local sources said.

“Many people saw what they had never expected to see,” said Rassul Daude, a resident of Quissanga. “The whole village was run by al-Shabab.”

Several radical militant groups have been active in Cabo Delgado in recent years, including Ansar al-Sunna, which has been responsible for terror attacks against civilians and government forces in northern Mozambique.

The group is known locally as al-Shabab, and it also goes by Ahlu al-Sunna and Swahili Sunna. Last week’s attacks were claimed by IS through its Amaq news agency.

Since 2017, militants affiliated with the group have carried out attacks in the Muslim-majority gas-rich region.

In April 2019, IS declared its so-called Central African Province, known as ISCAP. Attacks attributed to its Central African Province affiliate have been limited to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Fleeing residents
The recent attacks in Cabo Delgado has forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes, leaving behind their livestock and fisheries.

“Life here is not the same anymore,” said a local journalist, who demanded anonymity for fear of retribution from militants.

“Many residents understood their vulnerability and therefore left their villages. Others who had nowhere to go have remained, but they feel very unsafe,” he told VOA.

Another resident from Mocimboa de Praia described widespread looting caused by the extremists when they rampaged his hometown.

“The only public infrastructure that remained intact are the school and the hospital in Mocímboa da Praia,” he said, adding that as a result, a wave of displacement occurred among the local population.

According to the U.N., the violence in Cabo Delgado has displaced more than 100,000 people throughout the province.




Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique

Fear, captivity and uncertainty
Luis Fernando Lisboa, the Catholic bishop of Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado, said the attacks have left residents in constant fear.

“Many of them sleep in the bushes. They leave their houses as the sun sets down and move to the bushes to sleep. They feel safe there,” he told VOA.

When attacking villages in Cabo Delgado, militants reportedly set the houses of residents on fire and damage their properties.

“In this region, the population is already impoverished, and they just lost the little they had – their houses were burnt,” Lisboa said.

For many displaced people, the future holds little hope for them return to their houses anytime soon.

Supaque Abdala told VOA that his house in Quissanga was burned down by the insurgents. He now lives in Pemba.

Abdala says he is certain that he will not return to his village because “he doesn’t want to go through the same thing again.”

Other displaced residents describe the horrors they experienced when militants attacked their villages.

Badrune Assane, a resident of Quissanga, says he was detained by the insurgents during the onslaught. But Assane said he managed to escape along with his wife and daughter the same night he was arrested.

He added that despite leaving Quissanga, the insurgents still control small nearby villages and “say they will not leave [as long as] state military forces aren’t present.”

Weak government response
While Mozambican authorities insist the security situation in northern Mozambique remains under control, observers believe that government armed forces have failed to provide adequate security.

“If it is under control, then how come more people are getting killed?” Bishop Lisboa asked.

“People here are not happy with the government response,” he added. “When it all started, the government took a long time to even issue a statement. We hardly hear them saying anything about the situation on Cabo Delgado.”

Eric Morier-Genoud, a Mozambique expert at Queen's University Belfast, says recent attacks show how tactical Islamist militants have been to win support from local communities in Cabo Delgado, noting that they have been growing steadily in the last year.

“The insurgents are clearly benefiting from the army’s weaknesses and problems,” he told VOA.

“What is interesting is that they [extremists] did not choose to expand but instead to intensify their fight by taking it to the towns,” he added.

Coronavirus fears
This week, Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi declared a state of emergency to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. The country’s Ministry of Health says there have been 10 confirmed cases.

And there are fears the deadly virus could spread quickly among those recently displaced in Cabo Delgado.
“These people face the risk of COVID-19. They have come in large groups to Pemba and cannot be in social isolation,” Lisboa said.

“It’s a dire situation, and we look anticipate [a response] from the government,” he added.

Related Stories

Africa

Mozambique Struggles to Recover from Last Year’s Devastating Cyclone Idai

World Food Program reports communities in the south of the country are suffering from severe food shortages because of prolonged drought

By Lisa Schlein

Sun, 03/15/2020 - 10:33

Extremism Watch

Mozambique Islamist Insurgency Prompts Calls for 'State of War Declaration'

Since 2017, the Muslim-majority Cabo Delgado province has been the target of terror attacks claimed by Islamist militants

By Sirwan Kajjo

Tue, 03/10/2020 - 21:19

Extremism Watch

Islamic State Stepping Up Attacks in Mozambique

Since 2017, Islamist militants have carried out deadly attacks against the military and local residents in Cabo Delgado, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands others

By Sirwan Kajjo

Wed, 02/26/2020 - 21:38

Written By
Sirwan Kajjo

Multimedia Journalist, Extremism Watch Desk

 

[Housecarl]

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Major drug-gang shootout leaves 19 dead in northern Mexico

The bloody battle broke out in the border state of Chihuahua, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have been at war

www.theguardian.com

Mexico

Major drug-gang shootout leaves 19 dead in northern Mexico
The bloody battle broke out in the border state of Chihuahua, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have been at war
Associated Press
Sat 4 Apr 2020 21.09 EDT

A major shootout between rival drug gangs has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico border state of Chihuahua, officials say.

The state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday that 18 corpses, two grenades, vehicles and guns were found at the scene of the clash in the hamlet of Chuchuichupa the township of Madera.

Two other men were found armed and wounded on the dirt road where the confrontation occurred late Friday. One died later at a hospital, and the other is in custody.

The office said police and soldiers had been sent to secure the area, where groups allied with the Sinaloa cartel have been fighting those aligned with the Juarez cartel.

Cowed and outgunned: why Mexico’s police 'don't stand a chance' against drug cartels




Read more


In November, nine US-Mexican dual citizens from a Mormon community were ambushed and slain by suspected drug gang assassins in an area about 60 miles (100km) to the north of Friday’s clash. It was not clear if any of the same groups were involved in the two sets of killings.

The shootings come in the wake of Mexico’s bloodiest ever month, as March saw the country’s homicide rate race to a new record even as Covid-19 spread across the nation and authorities urged the population to stay home and practise social distancing.


Mexico registered 2,585 homicides in March – the highest monthly figure since records began in 1997 – putting 2020 on track to break last year’s record total for murders.

The surge in killings comes as federal and state officials put resources into containing the Covid-19 crisis and confront the prospect of an already sluggish economy falling even further – potentially deepening the misery for the more than 40% of the population living in poverty.

“It’s business as usual [for drug cartels] with a risk of further escalation, especially if at some point the armed forces are called away for pandemic control,” said Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Violence has flared throughout the country, but it has been especially intense in the central state of Guanajuato, where criminal groups have battled over lucrative territories rife with theft from pipelines.

The bloodshed has hit shocking levels in the city of Ceyala – home to a major automotive manufacturing plant – with gunmen engaging security forces in shootouts, blockading streets and torching businesses.

• Additional reporting by David Agren

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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INTERVIEW/ Brad Roberts: Conventional strike capability by Japan good for deterrence : The Asahi Shimbun

Brad Roberts: Conventional strike capability by Japan good for deterrence

By TAKETSUGU SATO/ Senior Staff Writer
April 5, 2020 at 13:55 JST

China's push to develop intermediate- and medium-range missiles is a growing security concern for nations in Northeast Asia.

Meeting this challenge is among topics being discussed by defense officials of Japan and the United States in the context of increased bilateral cooperation.

Brad Roberts, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy under U.S. President Barack Obama, was asked his views about the effects of China’s missile threat on the bilateral alliance.

As deputy assistant secretary, Roberts also served as policy director of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review and had lead responsibility for implementing decisions.

Excerpts of the interview follow:
* * *
SECURITY ENVIRONMENT IN NORTHEAST ASIA
Question: Looking at the security environment in Northeast Asia, how do you assess the current missile capabilities of China and North Korea?

Brad Roberts: North Korea is improving slowly, but steadily to develop a traditional ballistic missile. I think North Korea is a very long way from having an advanced hypersonic capability. But it's got the capability to reach, of course, all of Japan and probably some or all of the United States. And China has a small force of intercontinental range missiles. But it has a triad (consisting of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles), which it did not have before. It has a modern command and control system, which it didn't have before. And it's developing an early warning system.

But when it comes to (land-launched) short- and intermediate-range missiles capable of striking Japan and U.S. bases elsewhere in the region, and U.S. forces at sea, the approximate current ratio is that China has approximately 1,900 such missiles and the U.S. has zero.

MISSILE DEFENSE AND JAPAN'S STRIKE CAPABILITY
Q: North Korea’s missile technology is getting more sophisticated, while China is developing its own missile capability. Do you believe the current U.S.-Japan missile defense system is still effective?

A: Yes. It is not reasonable or necessary to ask of our missile defenses that they could defeat every missile launched at us. The value of missile defense is in protecting us from limited strikes. Because very large-scale strikes by North Korea or China would be the beginning point of general war.

They should be deterrable by our capability to fight a general war. But it's the attack with one or two or three, or some small number that's aimed at avoiding general war, that can make missile defense. They know that firing 500 would start a big war. And having missile defense allows us to stand up in time of crisis and not back down. For this, missile defense can remain effective.

Q: Some U.S. and Japanese defense experts contend that Japan needs to consider possessing a conventional strike capability. What is your reaction to that?

A: Historically, the United States has been very reluctant to see its allies acquire significant strike capability. For example, the Tomahawk cruise missile is exported to only one country, Britain. I believe this is changing. And I think it's in American interests to have allies who are capable of defeating A2/AD or helping us to defeat A2/AD (anti-access/area denial strategy of China designed to prevent access by U.S. forces and other adversaries to its particular region or to contest their freedom of operations in the area).

And the willingness of allies to take these risks is good for deterrence. The benefit would be in reducing the confidence of enemy leaders that they could strike Japan or U.S. forces in Japan without the risk of a strong Japanese response.

Secondly, it would send a message to potential enemy leaders that Japan is willing to run risks in time of crisis to defend its shared interest with the United States.

Q: If Japan decides to possess strike capability like Tomahawk and other long-range cruise missiles, how would that impact regional stability and how do you imagine Chinese would respond?

A: Well, we all imagine that the Chinese would respond badly. There are specific Chinese concerns about any step we take together as allies to strengthen our alliance.

So, would there be some instabilities associated with a Japanese pursuit of independent strike capabilities? Yes, of course. These have to be weighed against the instabilities of Japan not pursuing these, and the rising Chinese and North Korean confidence in their ability to separate Japan and the United States from each other in a time of crisis. I think that's the core idea.

Q: In your report, as you pointed out, there could be some risk if Japan decided to follow that course. How do you assess the risk of Japan possessing strike capability?

A: I think it depends on the kind of strike capability. Imagine the possibility that Japan might choose to acquire 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Imagine at the other extreme that Japan would choose to develop only one fighter with one long range missile. Two very different force postures. And a Japanese strike force that's primarily capable only against a small North Korean threat would be received differently in the region from a buildup of missiles capable of operating at long-range against targets in China, especially if those missiles were possessed in large numbers.

The design of Japan's strike capability would be a key factor in the regional reactions to it. And closely related of course would be the degree of integration of Japan's strike capabilities with U.S. strike capabilities. I mean, in Europe the fact that NATO coordinates planning for strike operations helps to reduce the concern about any one country having strike capability.

Q: However, in the context of Japan's Constitution and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, as well as Japan's focus on a protective shield as a purely self-defense posture, should we rely on the U.S. capability of strike as a spear? Do you think we should re-examine that structure? Shield and spear?

A: Well, I think the basic concept is still sound. But some spear would be helpful to deterrence. But a big spear or many spears would be counterproductive. In the Cold War deterrence was all a part of the sword, the spear. And it was provided by the United States. Now the deterrence is something that both Japan and United States look at as something we do together. And this is true. And it calls into question the value of that old way of thinking with a clear differentiation of roles between the defense and the offense.

Our deterrence posture requires that we be stronger in both. And in space and counter-space. And missile defense, is it a tool of offense? We say no. The Chinese say yes, you can hide behind your defense and punch us. In all of these new domains, this simple dividing line between offense and defense is really getting very blurry.

POST-INF MISSILES
Q: Secretary of Defense Esper said he favors placing a new type of INF-range missile, middle range or short-range missiles in Asia to counter-balance Chinese missile capability. What will become of the strategic stability in East Asia now that the United States has formally withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty?

A: In East Asia, as in Europe, we have adversaries who have developed strategies for deterring and defeating the United States and its allies. And a major part of their theory is that they would be able to separate allies from the United States and cripple American power projection, A2/AD.

We are today in a situation of strategic instability. Not just because of the number of intermediate-range forces they deployed, not primarily because of the number, but because they have strategies and they have capabilities that line up with the strategies. And we depend on nuclear deterrence and the risk of a long conventional war to negate their strategies.

But these are not very reliable. Our threat to make a nuclear war in response to a very limited use of missiles in this region is not credible. To your question, we already exist in a situation of instability. If we do nothing about it, it's going to become even more unstable. Missile defense alone does not address all of the instability.

It's an important part of the solution, but not the entire solution. We must have some ability to impose costs and risks. And the INF treaty did not prevent us from doing sea-based or air-delivered capabilities, but it did forbid ground-based. If we were having the option to bring in intermediate range non-nuclear missiles and deploy them on the ground, this would strengthen deterrence in a number of ways and thus reduce instability.

Now, would it be politically popular? No. Do the circumstances exist to do it today politically? No. So my thought is that we should approach this the way we approach the nuclear part of our deterrence, our regional deterrence architecture, which is we have the ability to bring into the region in times of crisis with our dual-capable aircraft and nuclear bombs.

So, we should have the ability in time of crisis to bring into the region INF, non-nuclear, and maybe in the future nuclear in a real crisis. And we should have allies who have committed to accepting those capabilities in time of crisis.

Q: How should U.S.-Japan respond or adjust to the new security circumstances and their posture?

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

A: We should take the opportunity to strengthen our deterrence posture because right now we're overly reliant on nuclear deterrence and missile defense, which may not be credible (as deterrence) in the scenarios that most concern us. Whereas the threat to use non-nuclear intermediate-range missiles may be credible and effective. But the shortest answer to your question is we should see this as an opportunity to take some useful steps to strength our deterrence posture.

NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Q: You said the meaning of extended deterrence and strategic stability is changing now, as compared to the status quo that existed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Could you elaborate on the difference between the situation today and the Cold War?

A: First of all, Russia and China have developed different ideas. The core Cold War ideas were really two. Strategic stability was all about the nuclear relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. And in the nuclear relationship, there were really two possible problems.

One was that one side might believe it could use an arms race to gain a decisive advantage over the other. And the second problem was that one or both sides might build nuclear forces of a kind that might not survive the first attack by the other side. And thus, they might conclude that they would have to go first in a crisis.
So, this is arms race instability and crisis instability. Now Russia and China have introduced a different way of thinking about this. Their argument is that strategic stability relates to the distribution of power in the international system. And the United States is the primary source of strategic instability. Because what we are, in their eyes, what we are trying to do is to gain Absolute Security.

They define this as being the freedom of the United States to attack anybody and the United States being free of attack by anybody. And their view is that so long as they can keep America vulnerable and its allies vulnerable, America won't be tempted to exercise its power. Of course, this is a way of thinking about strategic stability with which we disagree.

Well, America is not seeking Absolute Security as they define it. But if any of us of the three were seeking Absolute Security, that would be dangerous. There are two other important factors in this discussion of strategic stability. One is that we had that old idea that was about a bilateral relationship, but we're moving into a multi-polar world. More complicated. And secondly, the old idea with its focus on nuclear issues has given way to a world in which the nuclear problem remains, but we've got all these other strategic capabilities.

Missile defenses, non-nuclear strike capabilities, cyberspace, outer space, artificial intelligence. All of that affect strategic stability, but we're not yet sure how.

Q: The United States founded its Extended Deterrence Dialogue with Japan in 2013. I believe you played a great role in that. What was the background or motivation of creating EDD, Extended Deterrence Dialogue?

A: There were two primary motivations. One was the 2009 Nuclear Posture Review process, in which we conducted international consultations with all interested stakeholders. And I conducted more than 70 such meetings. But some of the most substantive and important were with the government of Japan. And we mutually concluded that continuing would be beneficial.

So, the second factor was we then looked around and discovered that there really was no mechanism to continue this kind of dialogue. In the U.S. transatlantic relationship, we have inside NATO the Nuclear Planning Group. And it is supported by the High-Level Group. The Nuclear Planning Group consists of defense ministers, so the High-Level Group is a lower level.

And there was no such institution in the U.S.-Japan alliance, so we had to create one. The Nuclear Posture Review report reflected the judgment of President Obama and the rest of the administration that it was necessary to strengthen extended deterrence. We all agreed, we and the interested U.S. allies, all agreed that there was a need to strengthen extended deterrence.

And this was because of developments in the external environment, North Korea, China, Russia. The focus of discussion was less on a deficit than on opportunities to strengthen extended deterrence. In the dialogue we, the Obama administration and our Japanese counterparts, wanted also to promote a stable strategic relationship with China.

STABILITY-INSTABILITY DILEMMA
Q: When we talk about countering China on nuclear deterrence, I heard the term “stability-instability dilemma.” Could you explain that?

A: Stability-instability paradox is much the same as security dilemma. You take steps to improve stability by strengthening your position and you end up in a less stable situation. Well, where this idea came from was South Asia where we observed India and Pakistan both acquiring nuclear weapons. And then what happened, they both felt confident enough to start regional conventional wars because they believed that they could prevent the other side from escalating.

And a more stable relationship between them at the nuclear level produced instability below the nuclear level. And this is the big debate about China's nuclear modernization. Is it simply going to produce a more safe and secure China that is willing to reduce tensions or is it going to embolden China to do new things at the conventional level?

And the evidence so far is that a China with more confidence in its nuclear deterrence is also more willing to press for advantage in the gray zone.

Q: At the conventional level, how do you estimate the current Chinese military capability?

A: I think China has gained confidence through its nuclear modernization program that the United States will not be able to strike first and eliminate, so China has a credible threat to retaliate through nuclear means. Now the problem with this argument is that China also has improving conventional forces. And China also perceives a moment of political weakness between the United States and its allies, and thus the ability to drive a wedge. It may be that a more assertive China right now has nothing to do with this nuclear posture. We don't know.

Q: How about in the context of North Korea?

A: Well, it's the same basic question. This is our deep fear that a North Korea that's become confident in its nuclear deterrent will return to conventional provocations such as we saw in 2010. And perhaps even more destructive in an effort to create the political conditions to achieve a political settlement on the peninsula that it would prefer.

Kim Jong Un is a revolutionary actor who wants to change the power arrangements on the Korean Peninsula. And he seems interested in nuclear weapons not just for self-defense but for something more.

Q: When you were in the Pentagon, what did you discuss about the stability-instability paradox with your Japanese counterparts, especially in the context of concerns the Japanese side expressed?

A: Well, I don't want to give away the details of government discussions. But in the extended deterrence dialogue, we had very wide-ranging discussions about the security environment and emerging deterrence challenges. Policymakers don't really speak the language of academics. A few of us spoke about the security dilemma and the stability-instability paradox.

But mostly we spoke about the developments in North Korea and China, their possible implications for our security, and the actions we should take to preserve our security and try to encourage them to make choices that would be better for all of us.

MORAL IMPLICATIONS
Q: Pope Francis came to Japan last year. And our media reported that the pope said not only using but even possessing nuclear weapons is immoral during his stay in Japan. From a realistic perspective or a strategic perspective, what's your response to his criticism on nuclear deterrence?

A: Well, from a moral perspective, he raises the same moral question that the disarmers raise. The use of nuclear weapons, again, would be immoral. And thus, the threat to do so must be immoral. And the possession of them to support the threat must be immoral. This is a very clear moral logic with which I disagree.

Of course, it's the case that the employment of these weapons was a humanitarian tragedy and a moral tragedy, as it would be again. But how can it be immoral to greatly reduce the risk of war among major powers? And if war occurs, to be able to save lives in the millions? I think deterrence does have a moral value. And if I believe that we could replace nuclear deterrence with conventional deterrence, then I would support his moral argument.

But conventional weapons alone cannot replace the deterrence effects of nuclear weapons. And the Japanese people should understand that there is a deep moral discussion about nuclear weapons.

* * *

Brad Roberts is director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research.

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You are at :Home»News»Russia Approves SSGN Deployment Plan Between Northern & Pacific Fleets


Kazan, the first Russian Project 885M Yasen-M-class SSGN. Russian MOD picture
Russia Approves SSGN Deployment Plan Between Northern & Pacific Fleets
Sources in the Defense Ministry said the final SSGN deployment plan had been approved. Five submarines will serve in Russia's Northern fleet, including the first of the Yasen-M class SSGN.
Xavier Vavasseur 03 Apr 2020

By TASS Russian news agency

Yasen-M-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine (SSGN of project 885M) will serve in the Arctic. Five nuclear submarines will operate in the Northern fleet. They will be armed with Kalibr cruise and Tsirkon hypersonic missiles. A well-protected base will be built with all the necessary infrastructure for combat duty. Experts said the SSGN will increase the national defense capability. They can control the whole Atlantic Ocean and the eastern US coast, the Izvestia daily writes.

The SSGN can engage in a broad range of missions, expert Igor Kurdin said:

“The subs will reinforce the Navy. They will fight aircraft-carrying groups, monitor adversary submarines with strategic weapons, and strike at important ground targets. The SSGN in the Northern fleet will constrain adversary aircraft carriers. It is not possible to let the carrier with 90-100 aircraft close to the coast. Yasen-class SSGN have the necessary torpedoes and missiles to cope with the task. The patrol areas of aircraft-carrying forces are well known, as well as the methods to fight them,”

Project 885M SSGN are noiseless and enjoy a major modernization potential to operate for a long time.

The Navy is balancing multirole submarines between the Northern and Pacific fleets, expert Dmitry Boltenkov said:

“The Pacific fleet has five Antey-class nuclear submarines of project 949A. Two of them are being upgraded to carry Kalibr, Onix and Tsirkon missiles. The Northern fleet operates only three submarines. It means the fleets have different capabilities in fighting aircraft carriers and their escorts. The new submarines will target Europe, the Atlantic and the eastern US coast,”

Project 971 nuclear submarines in both fleets are more suitable to hunt adversary nuclear submarines, the expert believes.

Project 971 Akula Class submarines. Russian Ministry of Defense picture.

The Northern fleet operates the Severodvinsk Yasen-class lead submarine of project 885. It became operational in 2014. In the coming two years, the Navy has to get several modified submarines of project 885M. They have a modern element base, better equipment and materials against the Severodvinsk.

The nuclear reactor has a new design and its heat-exchanging pipes of the first contour are located in the hull. It decreases the possibility of accidents and crew exposure to irradiation. A multirole information-command system has been designed to control radioactive emission and alarm the crew about excessive irradiation. The life cycle of the rector without recharge is 25-30 years which is comparable to the life cycle of the submarine.

Project 885 SSGN have a revolutionary architecture. Traditionally, Russian nuclear submarines had two hulls. Project 885 has a one and a half hull architecture with most single-hull sections located along the length.

Severodvinsk project 885 Yasen-class submarine launching a Kalibr cruise missile

Another change is the location of 553mm torpedo launchers behind the central post. They can fire antisubmarine torpedoes and missiles. Project 885M SSGN have universal vertical launchers with Onix, Tsirkon and Kalibr missiles. The submarines can stay underwater and strike at surface warships and submarines, stationary ground targets and covertly lay minefields. The SSGN can deliver a missile strike in a surfaced position even close to the berth in the base, the Izvestia said.

Russia Approves SSGN Deployment Plan Between Northern & Pacific Fleets - Naval News

Sources in the Defense Ministry said the final SSGN deployment plan had been approved. Five submarines will serve in Russia's Northern fleet, including the first of the Yasen-M class SSGN.

www.navalnews.com

 

[jward]

Taliban warn deal with US in Afghanistan near breaking point
US military in Afghanistan rejects Taliban claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement.

Taliban also accused the Afghan government of using 'indefensible arguments' to explain the repeated delays in releasing a promised 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 government personnel. [Hussein Sayed/AP Photo]
more on Afghanistan

• Afghan forces announce arrest of local ISIL leaderyesterday
• In Pictures: Buzkashi, Afghanistan's 'game of unity'2 days ago
• Weakened ISIL's sectarian agenda exacts heavy toll in Afghanistan3 days ago
• Afghanistan gov't, Taliban begin talks on prisoner swap4 days ago

The Taliban has said the deal with the United States aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan was nearing a breaking point, accusing Washington of violations that included drone attacks on civilians, while also chastising the Afghan government for delaying the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners promised in the agreement.
The Taliban said it had restricted attacks against Afghan security forces to rural outposts and had not attacked international forces or Afghan forces in cities or military installations.
More:

• Taliban team in Kabul for prisoner exchange process
• Opinion: Afghanistan's peace process is in danger of unravelling
• Taliban, Afghan government to discuss prisoner release

The group warned of more violence if the US and the Afghan government continue alleged violations of the deal, adding that continued violations would "create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements, but also force mujaheddin to a similar response and will increase the level of fighting".
"We are seriously asking the Americans to abide by the contents of the agreement and to alert their allies to fully abide by the agreement," the Taliban statement read.
The Taliban has accused the Afghan government of using "indefensible arguments" to explain the repeated delays in releasing a promised 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 government personnel.
The US military in Afghanistan rejected the Taliban's claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement and that Taliban's assertions were "baseless".
"USFOR-A has been clear - we will defend our ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security Forces) partners if attacked, in compliance with the agreement," US Forces Afghanistan spokesman Colonel Sonny Leggett tweeted.

Political feud
In February, US officials and Taliban representatives signed an agreement after months of negotiations in Qatar aimed at ending the United States' longest war, fought in Afghanistan since 2001. The deal paves the way for the gradual withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan.
Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a one-billion-dollar cut in American aid to Afghanistan after he failed to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political foe, Abdullah Abdullah, to end a feud that has helped jeopardise a US-led peace effort.
Ghani and Abdullah both claimed the presidency following a disputed September election marred by allegations of fraud.
The country's Independent Election Commission has declared Ghani a winner, but Abdullah and the Elections Complaint Commission have charged widespread irregularities.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

posted for fair use

Taliban warn deal with US in Afghanistan near breaking point

US military in Afghanistan rejects Taliban claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement.

www.aljazeera.com

Taliban warn peace deal with US near breaking point

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The Taliban said their peace deal with the United States was nearing a breaking point, accusing Washington of violations that included drone attacks on civilians, while...

apnews.com

 

[mzkitty]

 

[Housecarl]

Taliban warn deal with US in Afghanistan near breaking point
US military in Afghanistan rejects Taliban claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement.

Taliban also accused the Afghan government of using 'indefensible arguments' to explain the repeated delays in releasing a promised 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 government personnel. [Hussein Sayed/AP Photo]
more on Afghanistan

• Afghan forces announce arrest of local ISIL leaderyesterday
• In Pictures: Buzkashi, Afghanistan's 'game of unity'2 days ago
• Weakened ISIL's sectarian agenda exacts heavy toll in Afghanistan3 days ago
• Afghanistan gov't, Taliban begin talks on prisoner swap4 days ago

The Taliban has said the deal with the United States aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan was nearing a breaking point, accusing Washington of violations that included drone attacks on civilians, while also chastising the Afghan government for delaying the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners promised in the agreement.
The Taliban said it had restricted attacks against Afghan security forces to rural outposts and had not attacked international forces or Afghan forces in cities or military installations.
More:

• Taliban team in Kabul for prisoner exchange process
• Opinion: Afghanistan's peace process is in danger of unravelling
• Taliban, Afghan government to discuss prisoner release

The group warned of more violence if the US and the Afghan government continue alleged violations of the deal, adding that continued violations would "create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements, but also force mujaheddin to a similar response and will increase the level of fighting".
"We are seriously asking the Americans to abide by the contents of the agreement and to alert their allies to fully abide by the agreement," the Taliban statement read.
The Taliban has accused the Afghan government of using "indefensible arguments" to explain the repeated delays in releasing a promised 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 government personnel.
The US military in Afghanistan rejected the Taliban's claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement and that Taliban's assertions were "baseless".
"USFOR-A has been clear - we will defend our ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security Forces) partners if attacked, in compliance with the agreement," US Forces Afghanistan spokesman Colonel Sonny Leggett tweeted.

Political feud
In February, US officials and Taliban representatives signed an agreement after months of negotiations in Qatar aimed at ending the United States' longest war, fought in Afghanistan since 2001. The deal paves the way for the gradual withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan.
Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a one-billion-dollar cut in American aid to Afghanistan after he failed to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political foe, Abdullah Abdullah, to end a feud that has helped jeopardise a US-led peace effort.
Ghani and Abdullah both claimed the presidency following a disputed September election marred by allegations of fraud.
The country's Independent Election Commission has declared Ghani a winner, but Abdullah and the Elections Complaint Commission have charged widespread irregularities.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

posted for fair use

Taliban warn deal with US in Afghanistan near breaking point

US military in Afghanistan rejects Taliban claim, saying it had upheld the military terms of the agreement.

www.aljazeera.com

Taliban warn peace deal with US near breaking point

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The Taliban said their peace deal with the United States was nearing a breaking point, accusing Washington of violations that included drone attacks on civilians, while...

apnews.com

Well, we now have a better grasp of who's who in their TO so if they want to go there, we'll have a better idea of where to address the JDAMs and other party favors......

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Leader of ISIS in Afghanistan arrested, security officials say

The head of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate has been arrested along with 19 other militants, Afghan officials said Saturday.

www.stripes.com

Leader of ISIS in Afghanistan arrested, security officials say

By PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 4, 2020

KABUL, Afghanistan — The head of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate has been arrested along with 19 other militants, Afghan officials said Saturday.

Abdullah Orakzai, who goes by Aslam Farooqi, was detained by forces from the National Directorate of Security, the country’s main intelligence agency said in a statement.

It was unclear where the arrests took place. Farooqi and the others were detained on Friday, NDS spokesman Haris Jebran told Stars and Stripes. Jebran declined to provide further details.

U.S. airstrikes and raids have targeted the terrorist group’s regional affiliate, known as ISIS-Khorasan Province, since 2016. ISIS had declared the group’s formation early the previous year.

Last April, Farooqi replaced the group’s former leader, known by the nom de guerre Abu Omar Khorasani, the United Nations said in a report in July. ISIS reportedly demoted Khorasani over “poor performance” and operational failures in late 2018 in eastern Nangarhar province.

Farooqi’s arrest is the latest setback for ISIS-K, which saw roughly 300 of its fighters surrender to government forces in the final months of 2019.

Sustained American airstrikes, security forces operations and fighting between ISIS-K and the Taliban led to the surrenders, the U.S. military said January in a report describing the group’s stronghold in Nangarhar as “dismantled.”

Still, the group continues to claim high-profile attacks throughout the country, such as when gunmen stormed a Sikh temple in Kabul’s old town on March 25, killing over two dozen people.

That attack came less than a week after an ISIS-K fighter fired mortars at Bagram Airfield, the largest American base in the country and a hub for the U.S.-led coalition. The mortars were shot down without causing injuries or damage to the base, coalition and local officials said.

The U.S. military estimates between 2,000 and 2,500 ISIS-K fighters remain active in Afghanistan according to the latest data reported by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
wellman.philip@stripes.com
Twitter: @pwwellman

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

A Look at Strategic Geography for Pacific Defense: Putting the Chinese Military Challenge Into Strategic Context | Defense.info

The Chinese Communist Regime led by “lifetime” leader Xi Jinping has enhanced its military capabilities as part of it overall rise to regional and then global power. Notably, it has not led with the use of military power as its key instrument, but has combined manufacturing growth, supply chain...

defense.info

A Look at Strategic Geography for Pacific Defense: Putting the Chinese Military Challenge Into Strategic Context

04/05/2020
By Robbin Laird






The Chinese Communist Regime led by “lifetime” leader Xi Jinping has enhanced its military capabilities as part of it overall rise to regional and then global power.

Notably, it has not led with the use of military power as its key instrument, but has combined manufacturing growth, supply chain dominance (enabled by the Western approach to globalization), investments within the West and the Third World, along with sophisticated means for political influence and information war.

And they have built a significant nuclear force underlying their ability to enhance direct defense of the mainland.

How then best to counter the Chinese challenge?
Clearly, the military aspect of this is contextual and not the sole element of the challenge.

A multi-faceted response by the allies and the United States is clearly necessary to reshape the world in ways that constrain Chinese behavior and protect the interests of the liberal democracies.

We have discussed a wider range response to China in a report which we published three years ago with the help of the late Danny Lam.

The point then and now is that a wide range of responses are required, rather than a narrowly focused “great power” defeat the Chinese in their homeland military strategy or how to operate inside the littorals of the Chinese mainland which some American military leaders seem to be espousing.

In any case, such a strategy will prove counterproductive for shaping the kind of coalition which can attenuate Chinese influence within the Pacific region.
China is a significant nuclear power, as is the United States.

Any direct threats to either sides homelands will certainly lead to nuclear use of some kind.

And the question then is how nuclear weapons when weaved with the kind of conventional capabilities being built to disrupt adversarial command and control will play out in any calculation for nuclear use or the conduct of nuclear tipped conventional operations.

This means that any Western strategy which operates within the Chinese projected first island chain raises these kinds of nuclear engaged conventional operations, or with inside the perimeter of our closest allies, the Japanese and the Australians or against American core force generation areas, notably the littorals of the United States, which certainly since Pearl Harbor start with Hawaii.

We have seen as well the expansion of what analysts refer to as gray zone activities in which the Chinese are engaged in the Pacific.

But from my point of view, both gray zone ops and hybrid war ops are part of a broader strategic reality, namely, the nature of crisis management facing the liberal democracies competing with the authoritarian states in a peer-to-peer competition.
The challenge can be put bluntly — deterrence has been designed on the Western side with large scale engagement of enemy forces in mind.

What if deterrence in this sense is the necessary but not sufficient capability to constrain the actions of the authoritarians?

What if you can deter from full scale war, but by so doing not be able to control what your adversary is doing in terms of expanding his global reach and reshaping the strategic environment to his benefit?

What if you have organized yourself for deterrence but not effective crisis management?

What if the US and its key allies are not willing or able to respond and the Chinese expand their approach over time?

How do we constrain Chine, and not just deter it?
What we clearly do not want to do is what President Obama did — namely, to draw a red line in the sand and have it blown away by the actions of adversaries who simply are not deterred by the prospects of total war perceived to be in the distant future or a risk calculus that does not have effective intervention forces available at the leverage point early in the process of crisis management.

One way to look at shaping an effective inter-allied approach is to overlap three strategic geographies and to shape interlocking air, maritime, and relevant land force capabilities into a defense grid from which power can be projected to push back against Chinese incursions into the Pacific.

And to do so without triggering the threat of CO-Nuclear war (Co-mingled conventional means to support limited nuclear war fighting).

There are four critical overlapping strategic geographies which can be looked at from this point of view: the first island chain for Australia, the expanded outer perimeter for Japanese defense and the strategic triangle for the U.S. for force generation and with the strategic quadrangle for U.S. and allied power projection into the regional force engagement effort to influence Chinese behavior.

Australia’s First Island Chain
In a recent article by Brian Weston, a board member of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation, published in the Australian Defence Business Review, the author highlighted the importance of the first island chain to shaping an effective Australian defense and deterrent strategy for Australia.

In the graphic below, Weston highlighted both China’s first island chain (seen in the yellow markings) and Australia’s first island chain (seen in the white).

The red zone indicated covers what I would consider the joint expanded Japanese perimeter and the strategic triangle for operating U.S. forces for power projection in the region.

From the red and white dotted lines are what we would consider to be the strategic quadrangle, which is discussed later in the article.

Weston argued that a 21st century concept of Australia’s first island chain could be defined as stretching form Sri Lanka, along the Indonesian archipelago from Sumatra and Java, to Irian Jaya through Papua New Guineas and the Solomon Island, and on to Vanuatu and Fiji. Obviously, this theater of operation is primarily maritime, but given the nature of the force rebuild ongoing in the ADF it is an area of air-maritime-land operations understood in terms of the capabilities of an evolving integrated distributed force.

The author argued “military operations within this area play to Australia’s strengths of high levels of professional military mastery, and an aptitude for the exploitation of technologically advanced capabilities.

“Australia’s continuing investments in surveillance, reconnaissance, information and intelligence capabilities is key to the successful conduct of sub-surface, surface and above-surface maritime operations.”

By having a solid capability to operate within the first island chain, and to do so by building out an integrated distributed force, the ADF can cross link with the U.S. and Japanese allied forces to operate within the strategic quadrangle as needed by the allied force or desired by Australia’s decision makers.

Japan’s Expanded Perimeter Defense
In our 2015 book on Pacific defense, a key part of the analysis revolved around the reshaping of Japan’s defense concept.

The Japanese concept for the dynamics of change was the need for a new “dynamic defense” concept in which the SDF was able to integrate much more effectively with new 21st century capabilities such as acquiring Ospreys, F-35s and rebuilding their Navy to be able to extend the perimeter of their defense beyond a narrow concept of homeland defense.

At the same time, the approach has been clearly constrained due to historical memories and experiences, but it is about shaping greater air land, maritime integration to provide for a “defense bubble” over the nation and one which can interoperate with its closest ally the United States, but also reach out to Australia in their mutually expanding relationship.

One of the key features of our appraoch was and continues to be how to leverage the new systems we are already bringing on line which allows us to expand our deterrence in depth capabilities.

There is way too much emphasis Inside the Beltway on hypothetical wartime futures, rather than taking a hard headed look at the full spectrum crisis management challenges facing us now and into the decade ahead and military capabilities be interlinked with appropriate allied and national political strategies.

To get the world in 2050 without domination by the authoritarian powers, we have to effectively engage in co-opetition with them in the decade ahead, and exercise the kind of military capabilities which empower political engagement and effective crisis management.

We argued in our 2103 book on Pacific strategy, that Japan would work to enhance its perimeter defense and move eventually towards what we called a two anchor appraoch.

We argued that expanded perimeter defense is a key part of what we referred to as the “dynamic defense” phase in Japanese policy.

We argued that “this meant greater reach of Japanese systems., better integration of those systems within the Japanese forces themselves, more investments in C2 and ISR, and a long-term strategy of reworking the U.S.-Japanese military relationship to have much greater reach and presence.

“The dynamic defense phase carries with it the seeds for the next phase — the shaping of a twin-anchor policy of having reach in the Arctic and the Indian Ocean.
“Obviously, such reach is beyond the capabilities of the Japanese themselves and requires close integration with the United States and other allies.

“And such reach requires much greater C2, ISR and weapons integration across the Japanese and allied force structure.”

In the graphic below, the box highlights the expanding perimeter of defense in which the defense bubble needs to operate.

But as they build out more effective forces, ones which are capable of integrability, they can enhance as well their capabilities to operate with allies in defending the Northern and Southern reaches of their defense concerns as well.,

The Strategic Triangle and Quadrangle
The tyranny of distance and the challenge of providing persistent presence will be beyond the kin of the United States with declining assets in the 21st century, if 20th century concepts of operations persist.

What is needed is another look at geography and another way of thinking about military approaches with allies and collaborative technologies.

One way to think about this is to look at the forward side of the Pacific. The closer in side of the Pacific from Hawaii back involves the defense of the littorals and the key roles of Alaska and the Artic.

Looking west of Hawaii, the United States operates in two strategic geometries.

The first strategic geometry involves the triangle from Hawaii to Guam to Japan. This triangle is at the heart of the ability of the U.S. to project power into the Western Pacific.

With a 20th century approach which is platform centric and rooted in step by step augmentation of force, each key part of the triangle needs to be populated with significant numbers of platforms which can be pushed forward.

The U.S. faces a tyranny of distance in dealing with the Pacific. And needs to operate in a strategic triangle from Hawaii, to Guam and to Japan. And in a strategic quadrangle which reaches from Japan to South Korea, to Singapore and to Australia. Credit: Graphic Second Line of Defense
To be clear, having capability in this triangle is a key element of what the United States can bring to the party for Pacific operations, and remains fundamental.
But with a new approach to an attack and defense enterprise, one would use this capability differently from simply providing for PUSH forward and sequential escalation dominance.

Rather than focusing simply on the image of projecting power forward or planning to operate against China based on primarily trying to operate within the Chinese first island chain, the enablement of a strategic quadrangle in the Western Pacific is crucial to any successful allied or American Pacific defense and security strategy.

Competition among allies in the Western Pacific is historically rooted and as a former 7th USAF commander underscored, “history still matters in impeding allied cooperation.”

In spite of these challenges and impediments, shaping a strong collaborative quadrangle from Japan, to South Korea, to Singapore to Australia can shape new possibilities.

Enabling the quadrangle to do a better job of defending itself and shaping interoperability across separate nations has to become a central strategic American goal.

This will require significant cultural change for the United States.

Shaping capabilities to operate in both in the 21st century will see the need to craft an effective synergy between U.S. and allied assets, or we will suffer a Ben Franklin moment: “We will all hang separately or we will hang together.”

This version of the graphic was included in the AOL Defense now Breaking Defense article some years ago.Rather than thinking of allies after we think about our own strategy, we need to reverse the logic.

The intersection of the various strategic geographies needs to become a key focus for strategic attention.

Without enabled allies in the Western Pacific, the United States will simply NOT be able to execute an effective Pacific strategy. Full stop.
The quadrangle of Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore can be populated by systems, which enable the shaping of a C2/ISR grid that can able a honeycomb of deployed forces, ones which are integratabtle on demand to deal with crisis management tasks and capable of scalability to the level required for escalation management.

The population of the area with various sensors aboard new tankers, fighter aircraft, air battle managers, UAVs or aboard ships and submarines creates the pre-condition for shaping a powerful grid of intersecting capabilities.

Indeed, an attack and defense enterprise in the Western Pacific can be shaped which the United States can easily plug into, if indeed interoperability and mutually leveraging one another’s capabilities is seen as the strategic goal of the new Pacific strategy.

This will require culture change, and not only by the Asian powers.

Conclusions
With the Australians and Japanese reshaping their perimeter defenses, the U.S. engagement within those perimeter defenses as well as strengthening U.S. capabilities to enhance and protect its forces within the strategic triangle is a priority.
To be clear, an ability to defend the perimeter is the first priority. Shaping a solid defense grid which is a barrier to Chinese adversarial operations inside the perimeter is crucial to Pacific defense.

By doing so through enhanced inter-connectedness among the there three national forces, allows the coalition to defend more effectively their operational needs and strategic interests to operate in the strategic quadrangle.

Enhancing the capability to dissuade the Chinese from threatening the interests of the liberal democracies in the strategic quadrangle is crucial and its from those enclaves that we can collectivity operate to constrain, deter, and deflect the Chinese as the operate outward from the first island chain.

The question then remains how best to deal with the Chinese within the first island chain, understanding that this is a CO-Nuclear zone but is very unlikely to be an area from which one would credibly plan to attack China directly.

That is best left to appropriate longer range strike assets as needed or desired; whether launched from land, underwater or surface platforms, or from aircraft.

Shaping an appropriate strike mix to defend the defense perimeter but to be able as well to project power into the strategic quadrangle is a focus of the strike and defense enterprise going forward this decade.

Also, see the following: (PDF is 43 pages long....HC)

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Colin Gray and the Revival of Classical Geopolitics

Colin S. Gray, who died in late February after a long battle with cancer, was one of the great strategic thinkers of our time. He authored more than 30 books and 300 articles, founded the National Ins

www.realcleardefense.com

Colin Gray and the Revival of Classical Geopolitics

By Francis P. Sempa
April 06, 2020

Colin S. Gray, who died in late February after a long battle with cancer, was one of the great strategic thinkers of our time. He authored more than 30 books and 300 articles, founded the National Institute for Public Policy, served as a defense advisor to American Presidents and British Prime Ministers, and taught international relations and strategic studies at the University of Reading in England.

His greatest contribution to Anglo-American strategic thought was to revive interest in, and apply and update to the contemporary analysis of international politics, the ideas and concepts of the great classical geopolitical thinkers, such as Britain’s Halford Mackinder, and America’s Alfred Thayer Mahan and Nicholas Spykman.

He began that process in 1977, with the publication of The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era: Heartland, Rimlands, and the Technological Revolution. The date of publication is important. In 1977, the new U.S. President Jimmy Carter told the world that the United States had lost its “inordinate fear of communism,” at a time when the Soviet Union was engaged in a massive military (conventional and nuclear) build-up and was on the geopolitical offensive around the world in the wake of America’s defeat in the Vietnam War. The only member of Carter’s national security team who understood classical geopolitics was Zbigniew Brzezinski (who later wrote several books on the subject, including Game Plan and The Grand Chessboard), but Carter listened more to the dovish Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, at least until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The domestic divide as a result of the Vietnam War shattered the Cold War foreign policy consensus. The national Democratic Party, with a few notable exceptions such as Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, sat out the remaining years of the Cold War. Throughout the 1980s, Democratic leaders, for the most part, opposed the Reagan Administration's strategic offensive policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union—a policy that won the Cold War.

Colin Gray, in The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era, framed the U.S.-Soviet struggle as the latest contest between a great Eurasian land power and the world’s leading insular sea power. He insisted that the era of nuclear weapons had not rendered geography and geopolitics obsolete. The Soviet Union, he explained, occupied what Mackinder called the Heartland of Eurasian landmass, the northern-central core of the continent. Western Europe, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and East Asia occupied what Spykman called the Rimland. The United States, England, and Japan were allied outer or insular sea powers that applied the lessons of history as taught by the works of Mahan, especially in his book The Problem of Asia (1901). The Cold War in its geopolitical essentials was a contest for control of the Rimland.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration, under the leadership of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Navy Secretary John Lehman (an intellectual disciple of Mahan), expanded the Navy to 600 ships and formulated a maritime strategy for victory in the event of war. Simultaneously, the administration embarked on a build-up of strategic nuclear forces at home, at sea, and in Western Europe, and launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—Colin Gray advised the President on such matters. Reagan also solidified America's alliances with the nations of Western Europe and Japan and continued the de facto strategic alliance with China.

In 1986, Gray wrote Maritime Strategy, Geopolitics, and the Defense of the West, which he called an “extension” of The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era. He praised the U.S. naval build-up and its Rimland alliance strategy. “Rimland Eurasia,” he wrote, acts “as a barrier against the Soviet Union, [and] protects North America through its ability to deny Moscow the means and the opportunity to use preponderant landpower as the basis for a bid for preponderant seapower (and air-seapower).” Here, Gray, like Mackinder and Spykman before him, recognized that land-air and sea-air power could each be translated into the other. Mahan’s analysis in 1901, Mackinder’s analysis 1904 and 1919, and Spykman’s analysis in 1942 and 1944, taught the same lesson to strategists in the 1980s: the United States could thwart Soviet plans for victory in the Cold War by denying Soviet control of major Rimland power centers.

Two years later, Gray synthesized the arguments he made in both of those books in The Geopolitics of Super Power. The two earlier books were 70 and 80-page monographs. The Geopolitics of Superpower was 270 pages. The book’s focus was on what Gray called “the strategic meaning of geography.” He used classical geopolitics to examine the Cold War. Containment, he believed, coincided with a Mackinder-Spykman worldview. The policy sought to contain the Soviet Union within its Heartland base by using Mahanian sea power, strategic nuclear superiority, and alliances to maintain the independence of the Rimland. Although Gray did not foresee immediate victory for the West in the Cold War, he argued for a policy of “dynamic containment” that included an effort to politically “rollback” the Soviet Empire, especially in Eastern Europe. Such a policy, he wrote, could “shake the edifice of the entire power structure of the Soviet state.”

In 1990, Gray expanded on this argument in War, Peace, and Victory: Strategy and Statecraft for the Next Century. The Cold War was ending, but Gray saw the need for the United States to be guided by classical geopolitics in the emerging post-Cold War world. He followed that book with The Leverage of Sea Power (1992). Here Gray was at his neo-Mahanian best, noting that “[g]reat sea powers or maritime coalitions have either won or, occasionally, drawn every major war in modern history.” This book was a tour de force in which Gray analyzed conflicts between Persia and the Greeks in the ancient world, the Peloponnesian War, the struggle between Rome and Carthage, the wars of the Byzantine Empire, the rise and fall of Venice, the Anglo-Spanish wars of the 16th century, the struggles between Britain and France between 1688 and 1815, the First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War. These conflicts proved to Gray that the “connecting and isolating value to strategy of superior sea power is a persisting fact of physical and political geography.”

In 2004, Gray called upon the United States to use its preponderant military power to protect the world order it had fashioned since the end of the Cold War. The book was called The Sheriff: America’s Defense of the New World Order. If America retreated from the world, he argued, the resulting geopolitical vacuum would invariably be filled by another power or no power, leading to international anarchy.

China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence, however, convinced Gray that a tri-polar geopolitical world was emerging. In an article for the National Institute for Public Policy in February 2019, Gray urged the United States to act as a “balancer” between China and Russia, reminiscent of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of the early 1970s. For this reason, he wrote, the United States needed to remain committed to Europe and Asia.

America and the West owe a debt of gratitude to Colin Gray. He used his brilliant intellect and persuasive writings to empower the United States and its allies to approach the world with realism based on an understanding of the “strategic meaning of geography.” He explained in The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era, that “the leitmotiv of the geopolitical perspective enables one to discern trends, and even patterns, in power relations.” He did that exceedingly well to our benefit.


Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.

 

[Housecarl]

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How Jihadists Are Reacting to the Coronavirus Pandemic

While governments around the world are still trying to contain the coronavirus pandemic, al-Qaeda is attempting to use the crisis to win new recruits. Last week, jihadist websites and social media channels...

www.fdd.org

April 6, 2020 | The Dispatch
How Jihadists Are Reacting to the Coronavirus Pandemic
By calling it “divine retribution” and inviting Westerners to convert to Islam, for starters.

Thomas Joscelyn
Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD's Long War Journal

While governments around the world are still trying to contain the coronavirus pandemic, al-Qaeda is attempting to use the crisis to win new recruits. Last week, jihadist websites and social media channels circulated a long missive from al-Qaeda’s senior leadership titled, “The Way Forward: A Word of Advice on the Coronavirus Pandemic.” The six-page statement was clearly written for a Western audience, as English and Arabic versions were disseminated at the same time. The authors, who are fluent in English, have been closely following our news.

Al-Qaeda crows that the pandemic “has exposed the brittleness of a global economy dominated by the United States,” after President Trump was “bragging” just “a few weeks back” about “economic growth, historically low unemployment rates and one of the longest ever bull rallies [on] Wall Street.” All of that economic prosperity has been reversed by the virus, a “powerful tsunami” that has left millions out of work and raised the prospect of a “long-term recession.”

It is not unusual to see al-Qaeda comment on the American economy. One of the organization’s long-running themes is that the 9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an inordinate amount of money, draining its blood and treasure. But in the new statement, the economic critique merely sets up al-Qaeda’s real message: a call for men and women in the West to convert. An entire section of the statement is devoted to “A General Call for the Masses in the Western World to Embrace Islam.” An “invisible soldier” has supposedly exposed the inherent weakness of the West’s materialistic ways.

“O’ people of the Western World! You have seen with your own eyes the power and might of Allah exhibited in this weak, invisible soldier,” the statement reads. Al-Qaeda offers a long litany of grievances and complaints against the West, repeating the tired trope that the American and European governments are at war with all of Islam.

“We invite you to reflect on the phenomenon that is COVID-19 and carefully consider its deeper causes,” al-Qaeda’s senior leaders write. “The truth remains, whether we like it or not, that this pandemic is a punishment from the Lord of the Worlds for the injustice and oppression committed against Muslims specifically and mankind generally by the governments you elect.” After inviting Western citizens to convert, al-Qaeda stresses that “Islam is a hygiene-oriented Religion,” which “lays great stress on principles of prevention so as to protect one from all forms of disease.”

Al-Qaeda repeats the claim that COVID-19 is a “Divine” retribution for the alleged moral and intellectual decadence of the West. The obvious problem with the terrorists’ argument: The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate by religion, ethnicity, or geography – and many of al-Qaeda’s own could easily suffer from the virus. Some of the group’s most senior leaders, including its global emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are elderly and potentially susceptible.

Al-Qaeda isn’t the only terrorist group to see Allah’s hand in COVID-19. So does ISIS. In a series of articles in ISIS’s weekly, Arabic Al-Naba newsletter, the former caliphate has called on its followers to plan new attacks, now that security services are distracted. ISIS wants its men to use this opportunity to conduct operations such as those carried out in Europe in the past. The U.S. and its allies have systematically targeted ISIS’s international terrorist wing, thereby limiting the jihadists’ ability to launch spectacular attacks in the West. It’s easy to see why ISIS would want to exploit any opening it can.

Like al-Qaeda’s senior leaders, ISIS is pleased by the economic damage wrought by the virus in the West – claiming that the “Crusaders” are on the verge of “economic calamity.” ISIS has also provided its followers with rudimentary health advice, claimed the virus is Allah’s punishment for the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uighur Muslim minority, and warned that international travel, including to Europe, could lead to COVID-19 spreading across Muslims lands.

Both ISIS and al-Qaeda operate global networks, which stretch across multiple continents. And their regional arms are reacting to the coronavirus pandemic as well. One particular concern is that they will launch operations to spring their imprisoned comrades – as both have argued that detained Muslims shouldn’t be forgotten during this health pandemic.

Shabaab is al-Qaeda’s branch in Somalia, where the jihadists are attempting to build an Islamic emirate, or state. Shabaab blames the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and its Western allies for spreading COVID-19 throughout Somalia, saying the “international Crusaders” are responsible for bringing the pandemic to East Africa. Of course, this is entirely self-serving, as AMISOM is one of the main forces opposed to Shabaab’s expansionist designs. Shabaab’s main “news” site has provided near-daily reports on the situation throughout Africa, documenting how the virus has spread throughout one country after another.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban seeks to resurrect its own Islamic emirate. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad concluded a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban on Feb. 29, promising a full American retreat in exchange for the Taliban’s vague and entirely dubious counterterrorism assurances. Pompeo claims the Taliban has agreed to “destroy” al-Qaeda’s organization in Afghanistan, even though the written accord says no such thing.

More than one month after the agreement was finalized, there is no evidence of social distancing between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. However, the Taliban is using the pandemic to portray its emirate as a responsible and legitimate government. The Taliban has produced dozens of images of its “public awareness and quarantine centers” throughout Afghanistan. The photos show the Islamic Emirate’s “Health Commission” handing out literature, isolating individuals who appear to be infected, and providing some rudimentary treatments. The group has also used the virus to agitate for the release of its prisoners held by the Afghan government, claiming that the facilities make it easy for men to be infected. While this is probably true, the Taliban has an obvious interest in seeing its fighters freed, so they can rejoin the jihad.

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

 

[Housecarl]

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North Korea's "increasingly sophisticated" nuclear program threatens U.S.: DOD | NK News

North Korea’s “increasingly sophisticated” nuclear weapons and missile programs threaten the United States and its allies, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a new report published on Monday outlining Washington’s “rationale” for possessing its own nuclear arsenal. The statement comes after...

www.nknews.org

North Korea’s “increasingly sophisticated” nuclear program threatens U.S.: DOD
Pentagon cites deterrence against North Korea in its "rationale" for U.S. nuclear arsenal

Jacob Fromer April 7, 2020
Image: NK News

North Korea’s “increasingly sophisticated” nuclear weapons and missile programs threaten the United States and its allies, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a new report published on Monday outlining Washington’s “rationale” for possessing its own nuclear arsenal.

The statement comes after the DPRK conducted four rounds of missile tests in March — its most ever in a one-month span — and also follows Secretary of State Pompeo’s recent call for the world to “remain united” in enforcing sanctions against the North, as punishment for its various weapons programs.

The nuclear issue is one of the biggest areas of disagreement in the icy relationship between the two countries, and the Defense Department’s report is the latest sign that Washington’s stance — that the weapons are dangerous and should not exist — remains wholly unchanged.

“Rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran are destabilizing regions through their pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,” the report said.

“North Korea continues its illicit pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile capabilities in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions,” it continued.

“It has conducted increasingly sophisticated nuclear and ICBM flight tests, which pose a threat to the U.S. homeland and our allies.”

North Korea last conducted a nuclear test in 2017, but U.S. officials have said that the North’s nuclear weapons program did not stop after that, despite a vague denuclearization pledge that President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un signed when they met for the first time, at their Singapore summit in 2018.

When Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, appeared before Congress last November, he said there was “no evidence” that the North had ended its production of nuclear materials. Biegun is also the deputy secretary of state.

Last month, General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, told Congress in written testimony that the DPRK may be preparing an “even more capable” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design — one “that could enhance Kim’s ability to threaten our homeland during a crisis or conflict,” he said.

An ICBM can travel thousands of miles.

“In the last year, North Korea has tested several new short-range missile systems, demonstrating advancing technologies that could eventually be incorporated into its strategic systems,” O’Shaughnessy wrote.

And amid the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea has not slowed down its weapons programs either, according to recent testimony from another senior American military commander.

Pyongyang’s own rhetoric seems to support those statements as well.

At the end of last year, in a speech to senior Workers’ Party leaders, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un said his country would not give up its nuclear weapons if the U.S. didn’t back off and stop threatening the North first, according to North Korean state media.

“If the U.S. persists in its hostile policy towards the DPRK, there will never be the denuclearization on the Korean peninsula,” he said, “and the DPRK will steadily develop necessary and prerequisite strategic weapons for the security of the state until the U.S. rolls back its hostile policy towards the DPRK and lasting and durable peace-keeping mechanism is built.”

“Hostile policy” is a catch-all term that the North uses to describe American policies and actions it opposes.

In the same speech, Kim also warned of a “new strategic weapon,” though it is still unclear what, exactly, that means.

Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told NK News that the Defense Department’s new report is a “reflection of reality,” adding that it pushes back against skeptics who might question whether North Korea’s ICBMs can actually hit the U.S. homeland.

“But we want to be careful that we don’t hype the threat to justify something crazy,” he said.

Alexandra Bell, a former senior advisor in the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, added that it’s one thing for the Pentagon to state a fact about the DPRK’s weapons capabilities, as it did in this report — but another entirely to figure out what to do about it.

“It is not news to anyone that North Korea continues to advance its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities or that Iran continues to improve its ballistic missile technologies,” said Bell, the senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation in Washington. “What no one seems to know is how the Administration plans to actually reduce these threats.”

Trump, she added, has “completely failed to get anything close to a lasting, substantive deal out of the North Koreans.”

“Now we seem to be on a road to confrontation with Pyongyang,” she told NK News. “Perhaps the Pentagon did not realize that inadvertently illustrating the shortcomings of the Administration would not aid in justifying an already questionable budget request.”

According to the report, the Defense Department is requesting $28.9 billion dollars from Congress for maintenance and “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal next year.

 

[Housecarl]

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North Korea Could Be Using Fertilizer Plants to Make More Nuclear Material, Report Shows

North Korea might be the usage of factories it’s development to produce extra nuclear subject matter by way of extracting uranium from phosphate fertilizers, in accordance to a brand new find…

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North Korea Could Be Using Fertilizer Plants to Make More Nuclear Material, Report Shows

April 7, 2020 admin 0 Comments

North Korea might be the usage of factories it’s development to produce extra nuclear subject matter by way of extracting uranium from phosphate fertilizers, in accordance to a brand new find out about.

Researcher Margaret Croy mentioned this system can be utilized by way of North Korea as some way to hide it used to be achieving uranium as a part of the rustic’s fervent force to spice up agricultural output.

If North Korea—formally referred to as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—is development fertilizer crops for this function, it “has the potential to considerably alter open-source estimates of how much yellowcake uranium the DPRK is able to produce annually, which in turn affects estimates of how many nuclear warheads the DPRK can make,” Croy instructed Newsweek.

Croy, a analysis affiliate of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, made her case in a paper revealed by way of the middle known as “Dual Use in the DPRK: Uranium Extraction from Phosphate Fertilizer Factories.”

In it, she builds a circumstantial case to show that this system might be in use nowadays. She didn’t turn out definitively that the rustic is making uranium from fertilizer factories. The paper used to be reviewed by way of an interior panel of researchers sooner than e-newsletter.

Croy instructed Newsweek that she stumbled upon this system of enrichment when carrying out analysis on nuclear actions in Syria—the place North Koreans reportedly lent help—after which seemed into its software in Egypt and Iraq as smartly. After studying Robert Kelley and Vitaly Fedchenko’s May 2017 EU Non-Proliferation Consortium paper on uranium extraction from phosphate fertilizers, she mentioned, she discovered she “had not yet seen anyone connect this method of yellowcake acquisition with the DPRK.”

“A quick and cursory initial search of the phosphate fertilizer industry in North Korea revealed that this was an industry that DPRK leadership was spending a lot of time, money, and energy on,” Croy instructed Newsweek. “While the DPRK absolutely needs better fertilizer to deal with numerous crop shortages, given the track record of success with this method in other countries, rising international pressure on the DPRK to ‘roll back’ their nuclear programs, and the Kim regime’s prioritization of creating a national nuclear deterrent, I felt I had to dig further.”

“10 months later…and this research grew into a much larger project than I initially would have suspected, but there was an absolute wealth of evidence to sort through,” she added.

North Korean superb chief Kim Jong Un gestures as he speaks to workforce on the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory in his first seek advice from of the 12 months to an financial website online as observed on this image launched January 7 by way of the professional Korean Central News Agency.
Korean Central News Agency

North Korea has operated in a similar fashion previously when it built nuclear warheads and introduced intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) doubtlessly in a position to wearing them internationally regardless of world sanctions that prohibit its get right of entry to to the most important portions and gear. North Korea brazenly enriches uranium to weapons-grade ranges, viewing its nuclear program as central to its nationwide safety within the face of what it perspectives to be international aggression from the United States.

Such actions draw grievance from in a foreign country, on the other hand. North Korea isn’t a known nuclear state in accordance to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which became 50 remaining month, and Pyongyang withdrew from the pact in 2003. In 2006, North Korea examined its first nuclear instrument and has spark off 5 extra, maximum lately carrying out its maximum robust detonation in September 2017.

Supreme chief Kim Jong Un, the 3rd and youngest of North Korea’s dynasty to rule, has speeded up his nation’s nuclear efforts whilst additionally hanging emphasis on financial and infrastructural building. In the weeks between North Korea’s first two ICBM exams in July 2017, the rustic’s state-run media introduced the groundbreaking rite of the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory.

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“The factory is of important significance in increasing the agricultural production by producing more fertilizer,” the Korean Central News Agency reported on the time.

It’s this manufacturing unit that Croy taken with.

While she said that different, previous phosphate fertilizer websites within the nation can have served as a part of “a pilot program” for uranium extraction, she mentioned Sunchon, which is recently below building, used to be doubtlessly the rustic’s “the first phosphate fertilizer plant that will conduct uranium extraction activities at full scale.” The timing of this plant’s groundbreaking could also be important, Croy mentioned.

“I think the pressure that Kim Jong Un has faced to ‘denuclearize’ since he took power (but particularly since 2017) is very significant, and I would imagine that such pressure might cause DPRK leadership to more closely examine how they might be able to continue to generate nuclear material, quietly if need be, and I think this method hits that sweet spot quite well,” she instructed Newsweek.

A loss of professional information on North Korea’s uranium and phosphate manufacturing makes it tough to resolve what sort of affect this procedure can have the rustic’s uranium stockpiles, however the find out about’s estimates, in keeping with annual manufacturing figures revealed by way of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability for 2 websites, Nampo and Moon-Pyong, display even a low restoration proportion of 25 %—in comparison with the United States’ charge of 92 to 95 %—may produce greater than 3,800 kilograms of U3O8 yellowcake uranium each and every.

“If one considers any recovery at all from all the factories that do not have their annual production numbers published, the hypothetical number becomes quite large quite quickly,” Croy instructed Newsweek. “I certainly don’t mean to imply that such a level of production is currently transpiring, but rather, that it is a possibility to which we should be attuned.”

U.S.-North Korea tensions eased considerably after 2017, with the first-ever assembly between each nations’ sitting leaders the next 12 months and two follow-up conferences in 2019, however loss of growth achieve a denuclearization-for-peace settlement has frequently destabilized this budding detente. Kim has thus far maintained a 2018 self-imposed moratorium on nuclear or ICBM exams however mentioned this previous New Year’s Eve he now not felt certain by way of it.

Days later, Kim visited the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory, adopted by way of parliamentary presidium President Choe Ryong Hae in February. After repeated media updates in regards to the website online’s growth, the Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday that the manufacturing unit has “been landscaped on the eve of the completion.”

A poster revealed January 22 by way of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party reads: “Let us finish construction of the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory as soon as possible!”
Korean Central News Agency

If Croy’s argument displays fact, this is able to imply North Korea is at the verge of a big uptick in nuclear manufacturing. While mavens have observed different nations produce uranium on this style, the argument that North Korea used to be following go well with has now not but received traction.

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“Previous clandestine nuclear weapons programs have used phosphate enrichment and it is surprising that DPRK’s fissile materials program has not been analyzed through this lens before,” Rose Tenyotkin, a analysis analyst at Arlington-based analysis and research group CNA’s China and Indo-Pacific Division. “This report is a valuable contribution to the field of nonproliferation.”

Croy instructed Newsweek that the phosphate enrichment approach has been in large part brushed aside within the U.S. and different Western nations as inefficient due to its costliness—an element much less necessary to North Korea as heading off international scrutiny.

“I think it is an enduring and ever-present challenge for analysts and officials to see beyond their own innate biases, and consider how differently something might be perceived in the context of a different time or place,” Croy mentioned. “We naturally want to relate what we see/read about/consume/et cetera to that which is familiar to us, but sometimes, that blinds us to other possibilities. A U.S. analysis of cost-effectiveness will have some fundamental differences from a North Korean one for a whole host of reasons, the most obvious of which being our different economic systems.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://venturesafrica.com/unknown-armed-men-kill-25-malian-soldiers-in-bamba/

Unknown armed men kill 25 Malian soldiers in Bamba
Author
Synka JyteDavis
Published
April 7, 2020


On Monday 6th April 2020, a military base was raided by unknown armed men who killed at least 25 Malian soldiers in the northern town of Bamba.

The government disclosed that during the attack, 12 armed men were neutralized. But they did not specify which group was responsible as no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since Sunday 5th April, armed men were seen riding motorbikes around nearby villages before the attack on Monday morning. This was confirmed by an anonymous resident of Bamba.

The resident said they saw 23 bodies on the spot and the fighters had destroyed the camp and made away with equipment. Also, no civilian was hurt hence this is seen as an attack targeted at the military.

Mali’s army has repeatedly suffered heavy casualties from armed groups active in the area with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).

Mali has experienced a domestic revolt that began in northern Mali since 2012 and has spread to the centre of the country and to neighbouring states like Niger, Burkinafaso. The security in these affected bordering states has rapidly deteriorated in the last one year due to a myriad of conflict that can be connected to several armed groups, military campaigns by national armies and foreign partners and local militias.

In Mali, Niger and Burkinafaso, a death toll of about 4,000 people was recorded in 2019. This is five times more than the deaths in 2016, according to the United Nations.

France has deployed thousands of troops across the Sahel, but French officials acknowledge they have failed to slow down the violence.

This attack comes amid efforts to revitalize the country’s political activities with the expectation of bringing an end to the death tolls. Despite being faced with threats of violence and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the country still held its much delayed parliamentary elections on March 29th, 2020.

Hopes are high as the country expects that the new National Assembly implement reforms from the 2015 peace agreement signed between Bamako and several armed groups. The implementation has staggered for years, but this year, the Malian army deployed units comprised of both rebels and regulars. This is a major provision of the peace agreement as demanded by some of the rebel groups, the deal also provides for government decentralization.

Amid the peace efforts, the government in Bamako has also declared that it is open to commencing talks with armed groups as armed groups linked to Al-Qaeda have made known their preparedness for negotiations with the government on the condition that French and UN troops pull out.

Giving the plans to revisit and begin implementation of the peace pact signed in 2015, hopes are high that the activities of the armed group will be reduced in the region as well as in neighbouring states, thus gradually reinvigorating the political life, social life, safety and well-being of the region.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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Why Is the US Military Fighting in Niger? | Geopolitical Monitor

And will it be there for much longer?

www.geopoliticalmonitor.com

Why Is the US Military Fighting in Niger?

Opinion - April 7, 2020
By Abhijit Mohanty

In October 2017, the Islamic State killed four US military officers and five Nigeriens soldiers in Niger; the ambush was widely reported by media agencies in the U.S. and around the world. It was one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. forces in Africa since the ‘Black Hawk Down’ battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, 24 years earlier.

Following the incident, geopolitical analysts repeatedly raised one vital question: Why is the United States fighting in Niger and more broadly in Africa as a whole?

In 2002, only months after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration launched a little-known counterterrorism program called ‘The Pan Sahel Initiative.’ It was created to work with the militaries of African countries and assists their capacities to crackdown on terrorist groups in the region. The U.S. saw the vast deserts in these countries as areas where terrorist groups could thrive, potentially using them as base to launch attacks. Besides, in West Africa, poverty levels coupled with poor governance and failed states created perfect conditions for the mushrooming of several terrorist organizations.

Despite the presence of superpowers like the U.S. and even the France, terror groups began to flourish in the region, especially the al-Qaida affiliate known as the Islamic Maghreb, whose main goal was to install an Islamic caliphate and promote sharia law. Terrorist groups like this pose serious threats to regional powers and Western interests and, as a result, the U.S. once again strategically expanded its military footprint in the region. In 2007, Washington created a unified military command center for Africa, known as AFRICOM, which is responsible for all U.S. military involvement in 53 African countries on the continent. In this way, the presence of the United States has dramatically increased in Africa over the years.

A conflict in Mali broke out in 2012, when a Taureg rebel group captured the northern part of the country, then quickly lost control to an Islamist terror group. Several African countries and France sent military troops to Mali to fight with the rebel groups in the early phase of the conflict. But in 2013, the U.S. got involved when President Obama deployed 100 soldiers to neighboring Niger in a bid to suppress rebel groups and provide intelligence support.

This was only the beginning of a growing US-Niger partnership.

In 2016, the U.S. announced a plan to build a $100-million-dollar military base right in the middle of Niger to help combat radical groups and protect its border from insurgents. The U.S. military base in Agadez is headquarters to the drone and surveillance programs operating in Niger, Mali, Libya, and beyond. Today more than 800 U.S. troops are based in Niger and over 6,000 throughout the entire African continent.

“Are they really here to help our soldiers?” asks Boulama Hamadou Tcherno, a civil society leader in Niger. “Terrorism has increased since the arrival of U.S. soldiers; in fact, their presence on the ground does not make any changes” says Tcherno. In a similar note, Mariama Bayard, leader of the opposition asserts, “U.S. soldiers are creating a perfect condition for the Sahel to blow up.” On the contrary, Air Force Colonel Christopher Karns, an AFRICOM spokesman declares that “a safe, stable, secure and prosperous Africa is an enduring United States interest.”

Niger is one of the most militarized countries in Africa. The landlocked country is a part of five-nation anti-insurgency force also known as G5 Sahel, which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Mauritania. The G5 Sahel is backed by a 3,000-strong French military force. According to AFRICOM, there are currently approximately 1,200 US military personnel in all of West Africa, while the majority of them are in Niger. Despite such a presence of foreign forces in Niger, security analysts say the insurgency there is escalating at an alarming rate. According to the United Nations, terrorist attacks in parts of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso spiked in 2019 by five times the 2016 rate, leading to more than 4,000 deaths. For instance, in just one incident last year, more than 70 soldiers were killed in an ambush by suspected Islamist militants at a military post in western Niger.

Amidst this fragile situation, the Trump administration has recently begun to debate a potential reduction or withdrawal of US troops from West Africa. “The U.S. mission in West Africa is worthy”, said Emily Estelle, the Africa team lead for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “The threat in the Sahel have been growing even with this mission, but it will certainly worsen more rapidly if the mission ends,” foretells Estelle.

Many experts believe that it is exactly the wrong moment to pull U.S. troops out of Africa. In the words of French President Emmanuel Macron: “support from the U.S. to combat against the militants [would be] irreplaceable.”

 

[jward]

Libya War Escalates as Health Care System Crumbles
By Heather Murdock, Walid Ghariani
April 07, 2020 02:35 PM





Locals examine a street recently hit by a bomb in Tripoli, Libya, March 27, 2020. (Courtesy of resident Mohammed Kikly)


ISTANBUL, TURKEY - Minutes after the explosion on Monday, doctors and other witnesses started circulating videos online. Another hospital compound in Tripoli had been hit.
“Look at this,” said one man, filming the fire from a hospital balcony. “We are doctors, only peaceful doctors.”
Last month, both sides of Libya’s now one-year-old war for Tripoli again agreed to a cease-fire as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world. But since then, bombings can be heard daily from Tripoli homes as the fighting escalates and the health care system crumbles.
An added level of horror hit Tripoli, after an attack Tuesday on a water facility apparently cut pipelines into the city. By afternoon, some families reported their faucets were running dry at a time when their main defense against the virus is hand washing.
“My wife opened the sink and there was nothing,” said Ahmed, 37, a goldsmith and father of two on the phone from Tripoli.
Tripoli residents are living under a 19-hour-a-day lockdown to try to prevent the pandemic from spreading beyond the 18 cases and 1 death reported as of April 6.




Volunteers spray disinfectant spray in Tripoli, March 23, 2020. (Courtesy of Mohammed Ghiblawi)
But the continued battles have left the country vulnerable to disaster, according to local aid workers, and the capacity of the hospitals is rapidly decreasing.
“Countries that used to receive wounded patients from the war are now locked down because of coronavirus,” said Mohammed Ghiblawi, a youth-activist leader who is trying to set up field hospitals ahead of a potential outbreak in Tripoli. “Local hospitals are now already almost full with wounded fighters and people with other diseases.”




Mohammed Ghiblawi is trying to set up field hospitals ahead of a potential outbreak in Tripoli, March 23, 2020. (Courtesy of Mohammed Ghiblawi)
After the attack Monday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Libya, Yacoub El Hillo, released a stark warning.
He said 27 health facilities have been damaged in the fighting in the past five weeks alone, and 14 have already closed. The war has killed more than 350 civilians and nearly 150,000 people have fled their homes.
“If Libya is to have any chance against COVID-19, the ongoing conflict must come to an immediate halt,” Hillo said in a statement.
Curfew
While confined to their homes, Tripoli residents can hear bombs every day, said Wasef Gelani, 40, a father of four living in a downtown apartment. He fled his suburban apartment after fighting engulfed his neighborhood last year.




Wasef Gelani and his four children fled their home a year ago, and now they remain in a rented apartment hearing bombings everyday, March 23, 2020.
Gelani sells paper products to grocery stores in the city but since the lockdown began last month, his limited hours and the rapidly declining economy have stunted his business.
On the phone, Gelani said he can minimize contact with the outside world and wear gloves and a mask for protection against the virus. But he cannot stop the battles from harming him or his family.
“The war is more dangerous than the coronavirus,” he explained. “There is no way to cure or prevent falling missiles and bombs.”




A picture of herself shared by Aisha Salheen Emhemed with VOA.
Fear now colors every aspect of life, added Aisha Salheen Emhemed, a 23-year-old law student in Tripoli. Her university closed more than three weeks ago, and bad internet connections forced the students and professors to give up attempts to hold classes online.
With the health care system in shambles, she said, she fears getting infected and having nowhere to go for help. But like Gelani, coronavirus is not her greatest worry. Prices of basic food items are soaring as incomes for many people are dwindling to little or nothing.
“The hardest thing for Libyan families is the financial situation,” she said. “Between the war and the curfew, how will we survive and pass this time without starving?”

War to what end?
Despite the cease-fire brokered in January, an arms embargo and another cease-fire agreement in March, battles have intensified in the past month, with both sides ramping up attacks, supported by international allies.
The war is essentially between Libya’s two competing governments. In the east, strongman Khalifa Haftar leads forces known as the Libyan National Army. In the west, forces loyal to the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord hold Tripoli, Libya's historic capital.




An apartment building after a bombing, March 27, 2020, in Tripoli. (Courtesy of resident Mohammed Kikly)
In April 2019, Haftar declared his forces would rapidly take Tripoli, but since then neither side has been able to claim victory.
“Can you believe it’s been a year?” said one GNA soldier on the phone from his base in the Tripoli suburbs. “Haftar said he would take Tripoli in 48 hours and now look at this. He just ruined our life without any results.”
Both sides officially welcomed the latest cease-fire, and both sides claim the continued hostilities are in their own defense.
“It’s ridiculous,” added the soldier at his base. “I now rub sanitizer on my hands before going off to shoot mortars.”

Libya War Escalates as Health Care System Crumbles

Tripoli residents are living under a 19-hour-a-day lockdown to try to prevent coronavirus pandemic from spreading beyond 18 cases and 1 death reported as of April 6

www.voanews.com

 

[jward]

Don’t Forget the Historical Context of Russo-Turkish Competition
Jeffrey Mankoff

April 7, 2020

Rarely do two countries’ leaders hold a joint press conference proclaiming their intention to “deepen relations” barely one week after a clash between their militaries left dozens dead. Yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did just that on March 5 following more than six hours of talks at the Kremlin, where they agreed to a ceasefire to prevent the increasingly dangerous crisis over the Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib from escalating. The talks came after Russian planes bombed Turkish positions south of Idlib on February 27, killing dozens of Turkish soldiers. After the bombing, Turkish troops carried out drone and artillery strikes that, Ankara claimed, killed hundreds of Syrian soldiers and destroyed several Russian-supplied air defense systems. Turkish F-16s also shot down two Syrian Su-24 fighter jets.

These clashes were the most serious confrontation between the Russian and Turkish militaries in the Syrian civil war where, despite their competing ambitions, Ankara and Moscow have been at the forefront of efforts to reach a political settlement through the so-called Astana Process. Cooperation in the Syrian civil war provides the most striking manifestation of the new partnership between Russia and Turkey. However, it also exemplifies one of the most enduring challenges to that partnership, namely Ankara and Moscow’s incompatible regional ambitions — not just in the Middle East but throughout much of their shared periphery, which is much bigger than the Middle East. Their shared periphery also includes the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the eastern Mediterranean. Even as Russia and Turkey’s respective ambitions across these areas have grown, Ankara and Moscow have sought to manage the resulting tensions because both see a greater challenge emanating from the West.

Become a Member

Competing ambitions in their shared neighborhood nonetheless remain a stumbling block and source of mistrust. As Ankara and Moscow continue to disagree about the Syrian endgame, the ceasefire alone will not prevent future clashes. With Russia committed to consolidating a bloc of like-minded states to challenge the Western-led global order while Turkey seeks strategic autonomy and regional pre-eminence, the two countries have plenty of differences that could endanger their entente.

There Goes the Neighborhood
Combining geopolitics with a longing for past imperial grandeur, regional competition is a longstanding driver of Russo-Turkish rivalry. For centuries, the Russian and Ottoman empires were strategic rivals throughout their shared neighborhood. Russia’s largely successful efforts to displace the Ottomans from the Balkans, the northern Black Sea, and the Caucasus resulted in the massive displacement of populations and contributed to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.
Ostracized by the Western powers in the 1920s, Ankara and Moscow managed to resolve territorial disputes, boost trade, and pursue military cooperation. Ankara also adopted a statist development model patterned in part on the Soviet experience — notwithstanding the virulent anti-Communism of the Kemalist elite. Some of these ties endured even after Turkey joined NATO in 1952 in response to Stalin’s demands for territorial concessions and the right to place Soviet forces in Turkey. Under Atatürk and especially his successor, İsmet İnönü, Turkey adopted a Western-focused orientation that entailed downplaying Ottoman-era links to neighboring regions like the Balkans and the now-Soviet-controlled Caucasus. Weakened by the political and economic turmoil of the Yeltsin years, Russia’s own regional ambitions remained modest into the mid-2000s. Post-Cold War Turkey, meanwhile, adopted a more independent strategic orientation, seeking what former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu termed “strategic depth” and “zero problems with neighbors” that entailed efforts to position Turkey as a regional power and extend Turkish influence across much of its periphery, including in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Ankara positioned itself as a key economic and security partner for Georgia and Azerbaijan (even Turkish officials sometimes refer to Turks and Azeris as “one nation, two states”), allowing the two countries to reduce their dependence on Moscow.

Ankara and Moscow backed opposing sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh war of the early 1990s as well as during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. Erdoğan added a renewed focus on the Middle East, looking to Muslims there and, to a lesser degree, throughout the “post-Ottoman space” as a natural vehicle for expanding Turkish influence. Meanwhile, Putin traded an interest in Western integration for the pursuit of hegemony in Eurasia. While Turkey and Russia shared illiberal politics, aspirations for strategic autonomy, and territorial revisionism, they increasingly clashed in areas where both sought to create spheres of influence.

The Road to Damascus
The resulting clashes became particularly dangerous in the Middle East following the outbreak of the 2011 Arab Spring. Turkish support for anti-regime protestors — many of them Islamists — in countries ranging from Libya to Egypt to Syria ran counter to Russia’s policy of propping up secular authoritarians, notably Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. While Moscow has been Assad’s principal foreign patron, Turkey demanded Assad leave power and provided military assistance to groups like the Syrian Turkmen Brigades and the hardline Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra. While Turkey further aimed to prevent the Kurds from consolidating power along the Syrian-Turkish border, Russia cultivated ties with the Kurds as part of its regional balancing approach.
These competing objectives have already brought Russia and Turkey to blows. In November 2015, Turkey’s air force downed a Russian jet that crossed into its airspace. In response, Russia imposed sanctions that caused Turkish exports to fall by more than half, forcing Erdoğan to issue an apology. Still, Turkey and Russia managed these incidents without sparking a fundamental break because both Ankara and Moscow prioritized the maintenance of strategic independence from the West over regional quarrels, whether in Syria or elsewhere. Today’s Russo-Turkish entente grows out of a shared alienation from the West and its institutions, resulting in an “axis of the excluded.” While Russia has long viewed itself as standing apart from the West, it adopted an increasingly aggressive posture following Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012. Under Erdoğan, Turkey has adopted a parallel — if less effective — pursuit of authoritarian rule and regional influence. Despite a history of rivalry and Turkey’s entrenched fear of Russian power, domestic factors as well as a shared opposition to aspects of U.S. policy in the Middle East have pushed Ankara and Moscow together.

An important catalyst in their rapprochement was the U.S. decision in late 2014 and early 2015 to partner with and eventually arm the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in the fight against ISIL. An offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party that has conducted a long-running insurgency for independence from Turkey, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units set up an autonomous statelet in northern Syria that Turkey believed could become the nucleus of an independent Kurdish state. With Washington committed to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units to carry the burden of combatting the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Ankara began openly pursuing a rapprochement with Moscow. Despite its tactical origins, this pivot towards Russia comes from a more fundamental divergence between Ankara and Washington’s visions of the Middle East.

The point of no return came with the fallout from the July 2016 coup attempt against Erdoğan. The Turkish president blamed the United States for being slow to condemn the coup — in contrast to Putin, whose support for Erdoğan was immediate and unambiguous — and for refusing to extradite the Pennsylvania-based cleric, Fethullah Gülen, whose followers in the military appear to have organized the putsch.
The clearest signal of Erdoğan’s subsequent pivot towards Russia was the decision to purchase the Russian-built S-400 air defense system after failing for years to strike a deal to buy the U.S.-built Patriot instead. Washington’s subsequent decision to expel Turkey from the F-35 fighter program and threat of sanctions show how the deal has helped drive a wedge between Turkey and its traditional partners while giving Russia a valuable partner inside NATO.



Posted for fair use
photos and notes at source

Don’t Forget the Historical Context of Russo-Turkish Competition - War on the Rocks

Rarely do two countries’ leaders hold a joint press conference proclaiming their intention to “deepen relations” barely one week after a clash between

warontherocks.com

 

[jward]

...continued

Out of the Sandbox and Into the Fire?
Under the circumstances, both Ankara and Moscow have an incentive to manage their regional disputes, including those in Syria. Such disputes remain the most significant medium-term obstacle to maintaining the Russo-Turkish entente — nowhere more so than in Syria, where both sides have shown a willingness to use large-scale force and where the ceasefire did little to resolve the underlying conflict.
As long as Ankara holds the keys to Idlib, Moscow — as well as Damascus and Tehran — has little choice but to take Turkish concerns, especially those connected to the Kurdish issue, into consideration. The Turkish military’s ability — and willingness — to target both the Syrian government and Russian assets inside Syria shows that Moscow should carefully weigh the costs of any escalation. Though Russia has by far the more powerful military while Turkey’s NATO allies have shown little appetite to come to its aid on Syrian territory, the proximity of the Turkish border to the battlefield helps tilt the balance.

In addition, Ankara and Moscow remain at odds over future political arrangements in Syria. Apart from the Idlib demilitarized zone, Turkish forces have carried out repeated cross-border incursions to push the Kurdish People’s Protection Units back from the frontier. In the process, Ankara has established de facto control over pockets of northern Syria on both sides of the Euphrates River. Although Moscow appears prepared to tolerate this Turkish presence for the time being, it remains an obstacle to Assad’s campaign to restore control over the entirety of the country and an impediment to a permanent resolution of the conflict.
Problems in other regions appear manageable on their own but remain potential flashpoints considering, for instance, if the situation in Syria further deteriorates. In Libya, Turkey is providing military assistance, including troops, to support the internationally recognized Government of National Accord, while Russia has dispatched weapons and mercenaries to the warlord Khalifa Haftar.

Ukraine is another potential source of tension. With the Russian-backed separatist conflict in the East grinding on, Turkey is seeking greater cooperation with Kyiv, including on defense and security issues — not to mention the fate of the Turkic Crimean Tatars who have faced systematic oppression since Russia’s annexation of their homeland (shortly after the bombing of Turkish positions near Idlib, Erdoğan pointedly shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” during a state visit to Kyiv). Increasing volatility in the Balkans — particularly in divided Bosnia-Herzegovina — and the South Caucasus also presents opportunities for Russo-Turkish tensions to spill over.

Dances of Wolves and Bears
Despite their incompatible objectives across these regions, both Ankara and Moscow want to manage their disagreements rather than risk a larger conflict. Both the Turkish attacks on Syrian government forces and the Russian bombardment of Turkish positions are best understood as part of a complex bargaining process instead of a prelude to a larger conflict. Though all indications suggest that Russian planes knowingly bombed the Turkish positions near Idlib, the Russian Ministry of Defense suggested that Turkish casualties were collateral damage from strikes targeting “terrorist forces.” Meanwhile, Ankara went out of its way to blame the attack on Syrian government forces rather than on Russia.
Such dodges indicate the importance that Erdoğan and Putin assign to keeping their competition in Syria manageable while they focus on their more fundamental quarrels with the West. Both the United States and Europe are deeply frustrated with Erdoğan’s courting of Moscow — not to mention his recent decision to open Turkey’s border with Greece to refugees. Turkey’s appeals for military assistance from the United States are likely to go unheeded as long as Ankara insists on operating the S-400. Eventually, Turkey will need to take steps to repair relations with its NATO partners yet, in the meantime, has little choice but to avoid a direct clash with Moscow. At the same time, facing sanctions and a confrontation with the West that shows no signs of abating, Russia has every incentive to continue trying to peel Turkey away from its Westward orientation — even at the cost of accommodating some Turkish interests in Syria.

The pursuit of regional primacy and post-imperial spheres of influence is one of the main reasons for the alienation of both Turkey and Russia from the West. Yet, those same ambitions represent an enduring source of competition between Russia and Turkey. Despite a couple of close calls in Syria, Russia and Turkey have thus far succeeded in keeping that competition manageable.

The Syrian endgame will be the first important test of the two leaders’ ability to manage this competition. Assad still aims to restore his control over all of Syria. Control of Idlib is Turkey’s bargaining chip while the ability to unleash another flood of refugees toward the border is that of Russia. In late February, Moscow agreed to let Assad take a beating rather than press the issue, sending a message to Damascus about the limits of Russian support in the process. Still, as long as Idlib remains outside Syrian government control, at least some in Damascus may be tempted to try again in the hope of forcing Moscow’s hand. Thus far, Russia has skillfully balanced its Syrian ally and Turkish partner. Absent a fundamental shift such as Turkey pulling out of the S-400 deal, Moscow will try to maintain that balancing act as long as possible. However, miscalculations are possible. Russia and Turkey’s continued ability to manage their respective regional ambitions — in Syria and beyond — will be a crucial determinant of whether their entente endures.

Become a Member

Jeffrey Mankoff is a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Ceanter for Strategic and International Studies and the author of the forthcoming Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security.
Image: Russian Kremlin

posted for fair use.....

Don’t Forget the Historical Context of Russo-Turkish Competition - War on the Rocks

Rarely do two countries’ leaders hold a joint press conference proclaiming their intention to “deepen relations” barely one week after a clash between

warontherocks.com

 

[jward]

AFRICOM kills ‘foundational’ Shabaab leader in strike

By Bill Roggio | April 7, 2020 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio


U.S. Africa Command killed Yusuf Jiis, who was described as “one of the foundational members” of Shabaab – al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa – in an airstrike on April 2.
AFRICOM has stepped up its air campaign against Shabaab in the first three-plus months of the year, already targeting the group 33 times in 2020 – more than half of 2019’s total.
Jiis was a “was a long-standing, high-ranking leader in the al-Shabaab terrorist organization,” AFRICOM said in a press release that announced his death today. Jiis was among three Shabaab members that were killed in an April 2 airstrike near the town of Bush Madina in Bay province. AFRICOM followed up the April 2 strike with another on April 3, also in Bush Madina, that killed five Shabaab operatives.
Jiis was described as “one of the foundational members” who “held many significant positions that facilitated al-Shabaab’s violent and harmful activities throughout East Africa.”

AFRCOM has significantly increased its targeting of Shabaab this year, particularly after the group attacked the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya on Jan. 5. That early morning attack resulted in the death of an American soldier and two U.S. contractors, as well as the destruction of several aircraft. Shabaab also attacked a nearby base where U.S. troops were stationed.
Initially, AFRICOM claimed that U.S. and Somali forces “repelled” the assault and accused Shabaab of Shabaab of exaggerating the effects of its operation.

AFRICOM later admitted that Shabaab “achieved a degree of success in its attack.”
AFRICOM has launched 33 strikes against Shabaab since the Manda Bay assault, according to information compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal. Exactly 21 of those strikes have taken place in the last six weeks since AFRICOM killed one of the operational commanders behind Manda Bay.

For comparison, in 2019, AFRICOM launched 51 airstrike over the course of 12 months.
The U.S. military has maintained that Shabaab remains both a regional and global threat.
“Al-Shabaab remains a disease in Somalia and is an indiscriminate killer of innocent people and their only desire is to brutalize populations inside Somalia and outside of Somalia,” said Maj. Gen. William Gayler, AFRICOM’s Director of Operations.

Shabaab is one of Al Qaeda’s most effective branches. Its fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the past decade, as it has weathered numerous offensives from an array of local, regional, and international actors, including the United States. It continues to plot against the West even as it wages a brutal insurgency that provides control of an estimated 25 percent of Somali’s territory.

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

posted for fair use.. . ..

AFRICOM kills ‘foundational’ Shabaab leader in strike | FDD's Long War Journal

AFRICOM has stepped up its air campaign against Shabaab since the beginning of the year, targeting the group 33 times.

www.longwarjournal.org

 

[vestige]

The only good shish kabob is a dead shish kabob.

 

[biere]

Saying thanks to those who post. This does get read, gonna need to take more time and take notes to get my brain more engaged.

 

[jward]

What Will Iran Do As the US Negotiates a Withdrawal from Afghanistan?

• By Colin P. Clarke Adjunct Senior Political Scientist, RAND Read bio
• Ariane Tabatabai Senior Associate, CSIS' Proliferation Prevention Program Read bio

April 6, 2020


Tehran is eager to deepen its influence on Kabul, the Taliban, and other Afghan actors.


Iran is watching closely as U.S. and Taliban negotiate an end to America’s operations in Afghanistan. If the expected withdrawal of significant U.S. forces destabilizes Afghanistan, how much influence will Tehran assert its influence over its neighbor to the east?
Iran has worked to increase its soft power resonance in Afghanistan, through foreign direct investment and the development of infrastructure linked to communications and transportation. It’s also spent years building ties to key stakeholders in that country, including groups with ethnic, cultural, and religious ties to Iran, as well as the Taliban. But Tehran has failed to achieve the same level of political influence that it wields in the countries to its West, such as Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. In other words, Iranian influence on political and military affairs in Afghanistan has never reached its full potential—something Tehran is eager to correct.

Iran’s experience working with Afghan proxies goes back decades to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, where Afghan fighters fought on Iran’s behalf against Saddam Hussein’s forces. In the present era, Iran has cultivated a range of militias and Shia foreign fighters, including the Liwa Fatemiyoun, who could be redeployed to Afghanistan to help provide security and guard Iranian interests. The IRGC-QF could select the most elite members of the Liwa Fatemiyoun and use them for specialized terrorist operations in Afghanistan or elsewhere. In Syria, these fighters operated under direct Iranian command and did not take orders from Syrian regime troops. This suggests a familiarity with the Iranian way of war and has implications for a robust command-and-control relationship. In fact, the Fatemiyoun come much closer to being a proper Iranian proxy under Iranian command than most of the regime’s other non-state partners and allies, including even the poster child of Tehran’s non-state strategy, Lebanese Hezbollah.

Although in the past decade Iran’s historically tense relationship with the Taliban has improved, and Tehran has even lent modest support to the insurgents, it’s not clear whether this cooperation will continue as U.S. forces draw down. The Taliban stand to gain considerable political power in Afghanistan as a result of the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan.” Recent Iranian actions in Afghanistan suggest that the country is eager to ensure that the Taliban’s rise doesn’t result in a resumption of tensions and conflict as was the case in the 1990s. As recently as late 2018, Iranian leadership and high-ranking Taliban members met to discuss potential areas of cooperation to stabilize Afghanistan after a U.S. withdrawal. At various points throughout the nearly two-decade long conflict between the United States and the Taliban, Iran has provided weapons, training, and funding to the Afghan insurgents. Iran has also sent some of its commandos to fight alongside Taliban units in battles against U.S. and Afghan forces. But there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding how Iran would seek to coexist with the militants.

Related: How Does This War End? Afghanistan Endgame, Part 2
Related: Explainer: The US-Taliban Deal in Afghanistan
Related: Sending Troops Back to the Middle East Won’t Stop Iran

As the United States begins to end its involvement in Afghanistan, the primary objective is for Tehran to hedge its bets in the event that the Taliban eventually take control over large swaths of Afghanistan, as they did for years prior to 9/11. In fact, this consideration has played no small part in driving Iran’s more overt overture to the Taliban in recent years.
Another factor explaining the unlikely Taliban-Iran relationship lies in a shared enemy in the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, the ISIS’s affiliate in Afghanistan. It behooves Tehran to have a stable neighbor in Afghanistan to prevent ISKP from planning and executing attacks on Iranian soil from there. This makes Iranian assistance to the Afghan government increasingly likely as Tehran seeks to stabilize the country in the wake of a U.S. drawdown. And as Iran’s economy continues to suffer under U.S. sanctions, it finds a key partner in Afghanistan—a market whose cultural, ethnic, and linguistic similarities to Iran make it significant for Iranian businesses starving for opportunity.

In the pursuit of these objectives, Iran will face competition from other countries in the aftermath of the recent deal with the Taliban. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has long maintained links to members of the Taliban, while countries like China, Saudi Arabia, India, and Russia will also seek to lay the foundation for a relationship with whatever government a power-sharing agreement produces.
Iran is well-positioned to strike a delicate balancing act in Afghanistan. It has long maintained positive working relationships with various members of the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan, including influential individuals and groups from Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara communities that wield political power in the current Afghan government. Iran has even signed a defense cooperation agreement with the government in Kabul.

There are still further hurdles to the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement, however, and it is not unrealistic to foresee a situation where the United States follows through on a troop withdrawal, while the Taliban and the Afghan government are unable to make meaningful progress during the intra-Afghan negotiation period. If that scenario comes to pass, Afghanistan could be facing the prospect of yet another civil war, plunging it into further chaos.
This potential future would also require a more hands-on role for Iran, with Tehran working to mitigate spillover violence while at the same time seeking to influence key political and economic powerbrokers amidst warring factions.
Regardless of which scenario unfolds, Iran is likely to remain a significant player in Afghanistan. Unlike in Syria, for example, where Tehran’s involvement has largely produced a net negative for the country and exacerbated the conflict, in Afghanistan Iranian presence is more mixed. Iran’s relations with some non-state actors may pose a challenge to the United States as it seeks to end its intervention in Afghanistan (especially if the tensions between the two countries pick up once again). But ultimately, Iran has an interest in preserving some degree of stability in the country.

posted for fair use.

What Will Iran Do As the US Negotiates a Withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Tehran is eager to deepen its influence on Kabul, the Taliban, and other Afghan actors.

www.defenseone.com

 

[jward]

Taliban touts more elite ‘Red Unit’ fighter training on social media

By Bill Roggio | April 8, 2020 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

Taliban special forces trainer Ammar Ibn Yasir prays with members of the “Red Unit.”
There has been no slowdown in the Taliban’s propaganda, as two of the group’s top spokesmen continue to take to social media to tout the training of its military personnel.
One of their latest posts appears to show fighters from the Red Unit, the Taliban’s special operations unit that spearheads its assaults throughout the country.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid pushed out the images of the Red Unit on Twitter on April 4. Qari Yusuf Ahmadi promoted images from a Taliban camp in Paktika on Twitter on April 7. The images have yet to be published on the Taliban’s official website, Voice of Jihad.
However, the photographs bear the watermark of El Emara Studio, which is the official media wing of the Taliban.
While Mujahid did not explicitly identify the fighters in his photographs as members of the Red Unit, a prominent Taliban booster who has accurately reported on Taliban issues has confirmed. The photographs support his claim.
In his tweet, Mujahid named the lead trainer: Ammar Ibn Yasser, who is described as “the Mujahideen of Mujahideen.” In the photographs, Yasir and two other trainers were seen wearing shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Taliban’s “special forces.” The fighters were also wearing a distinctive red headband, which is associated with the Red Unit.

Taliban special forces trainer Ammar Ibn Yasir with members of the “Red Unit.”
Raza and his cadre of trainers are tasked with conducting “military training aimed at removing obstacles to Islamic sovereignty.” The Taliban has explicitly stated that it seeks to reestablish its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by force, through jihad, and install its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, as its emir.
Background on the Red Unit
The Red Unit, also known as the Red Group or the Blood Unit, operates throughout Afghanistan and is often at the tip of the spear of assaults on district centers, military bases and outposts. The Red Unit operates more like shock troops rather than traditional Western special forces.
Afghan military officials confirmed the existence of a Taliban “Special Forces Unit,” also called the Red Group or Danger Group, in the summer of 2016. An Afghan Army special forces commander said the group uses “advanced weaponry, including night vision scopes, 82mm rockets, heavy machine guns and US-made assault rifles.”
The Taliban has touted the existence of “special forces,” and in the past has promoted its training camps as well as units in the field.
While the Taliban’s Red Unit certainly isn’t trained to the same standards and proficiency as US special operations forces, it has proven to be effective on the battlefield against its Afghan adversaries.
Tariq bin Ziyad Camp in Paktika

Yusuf’s photoset also showed Taliban fighters training in a snow-covered mountainous region. These Taliban fighters sported new weapons, full uniforms (including helmets and knee pads), and boots.
“Dozens of Mujahideen graduated from the Tariq bin Ziad Military Corps after completing their religious and military training,” Yusuf noted in his tweet accompanying the photographs.
The Islamic Jihad Unit, an al Qaeda ally that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan and fights alongside the Taliban, republished the photographs. The IJU noted that the camp was located in the eastern province of Paktika, a bastion of the Haqqani Network – the powerful Taliban subgroup that is closely allied with al Qaeda. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the HAqqani Network, also serves as one of the Taliban’s two deputy emirs as well is its military leader.

Posted for fair use.. . ..
photos at source.. . ..

Taliban touts more elite ‘Red Unit’ fighter training on social media | FDD's Long War Journal

The Taliban again highlighted the Red Unit, the group's special operations unit that spearheads its assaults throughout Afghanistan.

www.longwarjournal.org

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Smarter Ways to Improve Missile Defense Capability

The January 7 Iranian missile attack against al-Asad air base in Iraq immediately led many to question why the base had no missile defenses in place. The United States is now moving a Patriot battery

www.realcleardefense.com

Smarter Ways to Improve Missile Defense Capability

By Patty-Jane Geller
April 08, 2020

https://www.usa.gov/government-works
The January 7 Iranian missile attack against al-Asad air base in Iraq immediately led many to question why the base had no missile defenses in place.

The United States is now moving a Patriot battery to Al-Asad. Similarly, the U.S. sent Patriot and THAAD batteries to Saudi Arabia after the September 2019 cruise missile and UAV attacks on its oil facilities.

In these actions, the U.S. appears to be chasing the Iranian threat, one step behind. These linear and reactionary deployments are understandable for the short term, but, like a game of whack-a-mole, this approach will become unsustainable. Outpacing the threat requires smarter and more imaginative methods. As President Trump said last year, we need revolutionary rather than incremental improvements.

It is true that Iranian attacks reveal a vulnerability in U.S. forward deployments, and for now, deploying more Patriot, and THAAD batteries will help fill gaps. But the number of Patriot and THAAD batteries will always be limited. It’s unfeasible to deploy more interceptors to more unprotected locations ad infinitum. Moreover, to attempt to do so is to misunderstand the concept of operations behind regional missile defense. While missile defenses will always be finite, their presence can bolster regional deterrence by introducing doubt, thereby complicating an adversary’s decision-making.

Deployed missile defense batteries in a region force the adversary to account for defended targets when planning an attack. To achieve deterrence by denial, one need only do enough to convince an adversary that the odds of him achieving his desired outcome are too low relative to the cost and risk of launching a missile attack. If the adversary makes that calculation due to the presence of missile defenses, he will abandon or alter his attack plans, perhaps choosing a less lucrative target instead.

Choosing which assets to protect is a matter of policy, based on factors such as an assessment of where defenses would provide the most value. Establishing a missile defense force posture in one region often, by default, requires accepting a greater level of risk at undefended locations—e.g., al-Asad in January. In a world of finite resources, locating missile defense systems at every base and installation within a given region would prove cost-prohibitive and likely operationally infeasible.

Instead, at unprotected locations, the U.S. military typically relies on passive defense measures like shelter and early warning, while maintaining the option to conduct left-of-launch strikes (i.e., preemptive cyber, electronic, or even kinetic strikes) if intelligence indicates an impending attack. Even though interceptors were not deployed in Iraq, radars (which are part of the missile defense network) provided early warning, giving soldiers some time to prepare for the strikes.

As tension increased between the United States and Iran, perhaps a Patriot system should have been deployed at al-Asad. But if the Iranians knew that al-Asad was adequately protected, might they have just chosen a different unguarded target, instead? There will always be more assets we want to defend than missile defenses available. The real question, then, is how to achieve more with less.

The answer lies in increasing distributed missile defense operations. The Army’s new command and control network for missile defense, the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), will serve as a necessary step to achieving this solution. Scheduled for initial use in 2022, IBCS will link all missile defense sensors and interceptors to one fire control center, as opposed to today’s more stove-piped approach in which each unit independently operates its co-located sensor and launcher. By permitting air and missile defenses to function as a joint kill web, rather than a linear kill chain, IBCS will be able to determine the best shooter to take down an incoming missile.

Such integration permits a commander to disperse each missile defense system's various sensors, shooter, and fire control elements without loss of capability. For example, instead of having to move an entire Patriot battery or battalion from place to place within a region, a regional commander can separate launchers or sensors from the battery and distribute them more freely. Such flexibility expands the defended area, introduces doubt about where defenses are located, and further complicates an adversary’s decision-making.

Other steps toward more flexible operations include THAAD remote launch. If a THAAD unit can remotely fire an interceptor, then a commander does not have to cluster THAAD interceptors near its radar or control system, and can instead locate the interceptors elsewhere to expand the defended area.

The Army also plans to incorporate a Patriot battery’s PAC-3 MSE launchers into THAAD units. This would further improve the ability to spread out launchers and expand shooter coverage in a region.

To meet the increasingly complex air and missile threat, acquiring more missile defense batteries for both the United States and its partners would certainly be a welcome step. But improving capacity alone is not a sustainable nor a cost-effective solution. Instead, improved integration, distributed deployments, and flexible concepts of operation will lead to real success in revolutionizing air and missile defense capabilities.

Patty-Jane Geller is a policy analyst specializing in nuclear deterrence and missile defense at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm…..

Posted for fair use.....

Controlling Chinese weapons: The Wuhan virus and nuclear weapons - Washington Examiner

The world is in the grips of a pandemic with economic, political, and strategic consequences and, most importantly, a human toll we don’t yet understand. Will the loss of life rival the scale of the Spanish flu of 1918 or the swine flu of 2009? We don’t yet know. There will be time to assess

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Opinion

Controlling Chinese weapons: The Wuhan virus and nuclear weapons

by Tim Morrison

| April 02, 2020 03:09 PM

Video

The world is in the grips of a pandemic with economic, political, and strategic consequences and, most importantly, a human toll we don’t yet understand. Will the loss of life rival the scale of the Spanish flu of 1918 or the swine flu of 2009? We don’t yet know.


There will be time to assess what could have been done better in the response to the virus. What we should all be able to come together to focus on is the origin of the virus and its initial spread: the corruption of the Chinese Communist Party. Why is this important? Because to prevent a repeat of the circumstances of this outbreak, we must understand its origins.

While there is controversy over what to call this virus — COVID-19, the Wuhan virus, or the CCP virus — there is no controversy that it originated in the city of Wuhan. There is also seemingly no disagreement that the Chinese Communist Party knew about the outbreak of this virus for weeks, if not months, before it informed the Chinese people, other nation-states, or international health authorities.

According to the World Health Organization, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China initially knew of the “Wuhan virus” as early as Dec. 8, 2019. Some reports suggest Chinese health authorities were aware as early as November of last year. Yet, initial substantive disclosures to the WHO did not take place until Jan. 11, 2020.

If your neighbor knew the brakes on his car were faulty before he loaned you the car, you’d hold him accountable, right? Of course, you would. There will be time for accountability, and assignment of responsibility will be critical.

There will also be time to evaluate how the virus emerged. Did it, for example, emerge from an open-air wet market in Wuhan, as some have speculated? Or did it emerge from China’s only Biosafety Level 4 facility — which is rated for the deadliest pathogens to humans, rating the highest level of safety and containment, and which is located in Wuhan and opened in 2017?

Is this why the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine is working so hard to falsely accuse the United States, and the U.S. Army in particular, of being the source of the virus? Are they attempting to inoculate themselves once the truth of the virus’s origin is known? Is this a case where “the lady doth protest too much,” as Hamlet said? The answer to these questions will come in time — but the world and the U.S. government must get answers.

What is known is that in its annual report on arms control compliance, the Department of State has found that the Chinese government “engaged … in biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raises concerns regarding its compliance with the [Biological Weapons Convention].” Moreover, the report stated that “the United States does not have sufficient information to determine whether China eliminated its assessed biological warfare (BW) program, as required under Article II of the Convention.” Are any of these activities taking place in Wuhan?

We are at a moment of reckoning for the U.S. relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. The party’s decision to attempt to hide the virus from the world is directly responsible for its spread to our shores. Thousands of people are dead as a consequence.

Such opacity is in the genetic code of the Communist Party. Like any genetic mutation, cancer is inevitable; its malignance was not inevitable, but that is the consequence of it being ignored for too long. Imagine the consequences of this malignance for the world’s most dangerous weapons: nuclear weapons. That is just what has been happening as the world has assented to China exempting itself from nuclear arms control.

In remarks at the Hudson Institute in May 2019, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, provided previously classified details about China’s nuclear weapons program. Ashley stated: “Over the next decade, China will likely at least double the size of its nuclear stockpile in the course of implementing the most rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in China's history. ... Their trajectory is consistent with President Xi's vision for China's military … that China's military will be fully transformed into a first-tier force by 2050.”

President Trump was, of course, aware of this trajectory and prudently has seen fit to push to include China in nuclear arms control. For too long, China has gotten a free ride and has been able to pursue a massive build-up of its nuclear forces, “testing and training [more ballistic missiles] than the rest of the world combined,” and may be undertaking activities that are not consistent with the “'zero yield’ nuclear weapons moratorium adhered to by the United States.”

The president has noted that we’re at war with the coronavirus. In Trump’s National Biodefense Strategy, the administration stated, “biological threats … are among the most serious threats facing the United States and the international community.”

We are witnessing the dangers of biological threats. But they pale in comparison to the threats posed by nuclear weapons. We cannot afford to let the Chinese Communist Party continue to avoid its place in nuclear arms control. The president must reaffirm his push for trilateral arms control when the near-term crisis of the “Wuhan virus” has passed.


Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and served in the Trump administration as senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.

 

[Housecarl]

Merde……...

Posted for fair use.....

Air Force Wants To Use External Pylons To Arm The B-1B Bomber With 31 Hypersonic Missiles

The configuration would revolutionize the B-1's standoff strike capability and it would keep the jet relevant as it enters the twilight of its career.

www.thedrive.com

Air Force Wants To Use External Pylons To Arm The B-1B Bomber With 31 Hypersonic Missiles
The configuration would revolutionize the B-1's standoff strike capability and it would keep the jet relevant as it enters the twilight of its career.
By Joseph TrevithickApril 8, 2020

• The War Zone

A top U.S. Air Force officer has detailed plans to add the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, as well as the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept, both of which are hypersonic missiles, to the B-1B Bone bomber's arsenal. He also curiously talked about the potential for these aircraft to carry a conventionally-armed version of the future Long Range Stand Off stealthy cruise missile, something Congress effectively canceled last year.

U.S. Air Force General Timothy Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees all of America's bomber fleets, gave an update on future B-1B loadouts in a recent interview with Air Force Magazine. Last year, the service highlighted work to expand the bomber's ability to carry hypersonic weapons and other new stores, both internally and externally. This all also comes amid already controversial plans to retire 17 of its 60 remaining Bones in the 2021 Fiscal Year and has severely scaled back the activities of the fleet as a whole, prohibiting crews from flying at low altitudes and restricting total annual flight hours, which you can read about more in this past War Zone exclusive.


Congress Poised To Cancel Non-Nuclear Version Of Air Force's Future Stealth Cruise MissileBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Air Force Touts B-1B Bomber's Potential To Carry Huge Hypersonic Missiles And External StoresBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Behold The First Flight Of A B-52 Bomber Carrying The AGM-183A Hypersonic MissileBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
B-1B Bombers Can No Longer Fly At Low-Level And Their Annual Flight Hours Have Been RestrictedBy Stephen Walker Posted in The War Zone
Wanting To Retire B-1B Bombers Is One Thing, Actually Making It Happen Is AnotherBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

"My goal would be to bring on at least a squadron’s worth of airplanes modified with external pylons on the B-1, to carry the ARRW [Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon] hypersonic cruise missile," General Ray told Air Force Magazine. He added that the service had contemplated several options for integrating the AGM-183A onto the bombers, "but we believe the easiest, fastest, and probably most effective in the short term will be to go with the external pylons."

At present, B-1 squadron typically has 18 aircraft, according to Air Force Magazine. Ray appears to have misspoken in describing ARRW, which is pronounced "arrow," as a "cruise missile." The AGM-183A has an unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle as its warhead. The weapon's rocket booster lofts that vehicle to an appropriate speed and altitude, after which it then glides down along a level trajectory within the Earth's atmosphere to its target. The weapon's high speed and unpredictable flight path make it difficult for opponents to detect and track, which makes it hard to move critical assets out of the target area, if at all possible, or otherwise take shelter before the strike hits, or even attempt an intercept.

Rockwell had designed the Bones to carry external stores on up to eight external hardpoints. The Air Force had also developed special pylons that would have allowed the bombers to carry two nuclear-tipped AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCM) on each one. Following the end of the Cold War, the B-1Bs lost their nuclear mission and, as a result, the external pylons fell into disuse. Today, the bombers use just one of the hardpoints to carry the AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP).

It's not clear what other modifications or upgrades the B-1Bs might need to be able to physically carry the AGM-183As or how many of these missiles the bombers might be able to carry at once. While we don't know how much the ARRW weighs, we do know that a B-52H Stratofortress bomber carried a prototype during a test last year using one of its heavyweight underwing pylons, which are rated to carry stores in the 5,000 pound class or lighter. The AGM-86B weighs around 3,200 pounds and the B-1B's original pylons were each supposed to carry two of them at once.

It's also worth noting that the Air Force's is looking to halt work on the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) program in its latest budget proposal for the 2021 Fiscal Year in favor of the AGM-183A, specifically because the latter is smaller. The HCSW missile, which the service planned to designate AGM-182A Hacksaw, has a different hypersonic boost-glide vehicle warhead, which is a common design also found on ground and submarine-launched weapons that the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy are working on, respectively.

USAF via FOIA
The relevant portions of a request made in January 2019 to designate the HCSW missile as the AGM-182A Hacksaw.

"The reason we went with ARRW was not that HCSW was bad, but ARRW is smaller," Will Roper, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, explained in March 2020. "We can carry twice as many on the B-52, and it’s possible it could be on the F-15[E Strike Eagle] … It’s in the class to be able to fit on the centerline."

General Ray did tell Air Force Magazine that some of the B-1s will need significant structural work," but it's unclear if this is directly related to plans to integrate the AGM-183A. The bombers have been flown hard in recent years and their airframes have seen greater than expected wear and tear as a result, which is part of the reason for the halt to low-altitude flight operations, which put additional physical stress on the aircraft.

The Air Force is also looking at the B-1B as a potential platform to carry the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept, or HAWC. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been leading the development of this powered hypersonic cruise missile, though the Air Force Research Laboratory has also been involved. Air Force Magazine says that the Bones, using external pylons and common rotary launchers in their internal bomb bays, could potentially carry a mix of up to 31 hypersonic missiles in total.

Interestingly, General Ray also raised the possibility of adding a conventionally-armed variant of the Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) stealthy cruise missile, which is presently in development, to the B-1B's arsenal in the future. “Right now, we’re not asking for that, based on the prioritization of the nuclear piece, … but there’s things that could change in the future,” he told Air Force Magazine.

This is curious because Congress specifically eliminated its requirement for a conventional version of the LRSO in the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2020 Fiscal Year, which President Donald Trump signed into law in December 2019. The law's language did not expressly prohibit the Air Force from pursuing this capability on its own, but removed an immediate legal demand for the service to do so.

Ray said that there could be a demand for this weapon based on a desire for "an even longer-ranged cruise missile with conventional capability" and because the AGM-86 series is "aging out on us." However, the Air Force has already retired the conventional AGM-86C/D variants and has initiated the development of an "extreme range" variant of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile cruise missile, also known as the AGM-158D or JASSM-XR.

The exact range capability the Air Force is seeking from JASSM-XR is unknown, but it is said to be in excess of 1,000 miles, which would already give it a substantially greater range than the AGM-86C/D. In addition, the service is hoping to have this missile, which will leverage existing work on the JASSM, including the AGM-158B JASSM-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) version, out of development by 2023, with the first examples hopefully entering service relatively soon thereafter. The nuclear-armed LSRO is not supposed to reach initial operational capability until at least 2030.

It's possible that Ray's comments may be informed in some way by his knowledge of what the Air Force, as well as other services, might be doing in the classified realm. The LRSO program itself has been shrouded in secrecy and there are few hard details about the weapon's overall design or capabilities.

In March, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein alluded to the development of at least one classified air-launched anti-ship munition, as well. He told senators at a hearing that the AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, which is a derivative of the JASSM, was the only such weapon he could discuss in an unclassified setting. The Air Force has already integrated LRASM onto the B-1B.

Regardless, General Ray's comments do make clear that the Air Force is still very interested in expanding the B-1B's arsenal and what roles and missions the fleet might be able to perform in the backend of the aircraft's career. The head of Air Force Global Strike Command noted that integrating new weapons onto the Bones could also help ease the test and evaluation burden on the B-52 fleet, which are presently set to be the primary platform for testing any new hypersonic missiles, as well as other advanced air-launched munitions, in addition to employing them operationally.

The new capabilities look set to help the remaining B-1Bs remain relevant to Air Force operations for years to come.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Conversation(87)

 

[Housecarl]

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Pakistani Security Forces Say Seven Militants Killed Near Afghanistan

Security forces raided two militant hideouts in former Taliban strongholds in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border on April 7, killing seven militants, the military said.

www.rferl.org

Pakistan
Pakistani Security Forces Say Seven Militants Killed Near Afghanistan
April 07, 2020 18:55 GMT

• By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal

Security forces raided two militant hideouts in former Taliban strongholds in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border on April 7, killing seven militants, the military said.

Four militants were killed in the first raid in North Waziristan, which in recent years was the base of several local and foreign militant groups, according to a statement by the military.

Three more militants were killed in the former tribal region of Mohmand, the statement said.

Security forces seized a cache of weapons from both militant hideouts, the military said.

It wasn't immediately clear what militant group was raided and the military provided no further details.

The military's claim could not be independently confirmed.

The Pakistan Taliban had been based in North Waziristan until 2017 when the military launched a series of large-scale operations that it claimed had dismantled the militants' network and killed, arrested, or dislodged many of them.

However, violence has continued in the region.
With reporting by AP and dawn.com

• 
  RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal
  Radio Mashaal is a public-service broadcaster providing a powerful alternative to extremist propaganda in Pakistan's remote tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Military Daily News

Daily updates of everything that you need know about what is going on in the military community and abroad including military gear and equipment, breaking news, international news and more.

www.military.com

US, Iraq to Hold Talks on Troop Future

8 Apr 2020

Agence France Presse

The United States will hold talks with Iraq in June on the future of its troop presence in the country, whose parliament has voted to expel them, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday.

With Iraq increasingly becoming a proxy battleground between Iran and the United States, President Donald Trump has refused to pull the 5,200 US troops and earlier even threatened sanctions on Baghdad if it moved forward.

But Pompeo, without signaling a decision on troop levels, said the military presence would be on the table in a "strategic dialogue" scheduled for mid-June.

"With the global COVID-19 pandemic raging and plummeting oil revenues threatening an Iraqi economic collapse, it's important that our two governments work together to stop any reversal of the gains we've made in our efforts to defeat ISIS and stabilize the country," Pompeo told reporters.

"All strategic issues between our two countries will be on the agenda, including the future presence of the United States forces in that country and how best to support an independent and sovereign Iraq," Pompeo said.

The United States will be represented by David Hale, the top career diplomat at the State Department.

Iraq's government was furious in January when the United States killed Iran's most prominent general, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone attack at the Baghdad airport.

Iraqi Shiite paramilitary forces have been blamed for more than two dozen rocket attacks since October against bases housing U.S. troops and foreign embassies.

The fighters are closely linked to Iran, which is the target of a "maximum pressure" campaign by the Trump administration that includes sweeping sanctions.

Weakening Iraq's clout, its government has been in chaos since the eruption of major protests last year.

Adnan Zurfi, who is considered pro-Western, was last month given 30 days to pull together a cabinet.

Pompeo said the United States would support any Iraqi leader who moves "away from the old sectarian model that ended up with terror and corruption."

U.S. Central Command recently pulled back troops from smaller bases in Iraq, where they are vulnerable to attack, but said it was responding to risks from the coronavirus pandemic.

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple dictator Saddam Hussein, starting a disastrous war that wreaked havoc across the country.

U.S. troops returned in 2014 as part of a coalition to fight the Islamic State extremist group.

This article was from Agence France Presse and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

 

[jward]

China’s Strategic Assessment of Afghanistan
Yun Sun

April 8, 2020

With the U.S. troop withdrawal in sight, Afghanistan’s future seems less certain than ever. As a neighboring state with significant interests at stake, how does China view and prepare for Afghanistan’s future?
Since 9/11, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has presented a dilemma for China. On the one hand, Beijing instinctively sees American troops in China’s “backyard” as a serious strategic threat. However, China believes that it has benefited from the security that the United States has provided there, especially in terms of curtailing the growth and spread of anti-China terrorist groups. The implication of this dilemma is that China wants the United States to withdraw — but only when the withdrawal is responsible and does not leave a chaotic power vacuum that would destabilize the region. The reality, however, is that the American decision regarding Afghanistan will be made in Washington — not Beijing — and that China must react to whatever moves the United States makes going forward.

Become a Member

The United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement in Doha on Feb. 29, 2020. The agreement has been met with official optimism in the United States. China, however, is less sanguine about the agreement. Beijing has little confidence in the internal Afghan peace process. Instead, China expects that the U.S.-brokered agreement will lead to more instability, and that the region eventually will have to seek multilateral alternatives — including U.N. peacekeeping operations — to escape the abyss.

China’s Historical Posture Toward Afghanistan
China’s fundamental interest in Afghanistan is stability. Chaos in Afghanistan, from Beijing’s perspective, stokes Islamic fundamentalism that threatens domestic security in China, particularly in Xinjiang. If anything, China is not a revisionist power in Afghanistan. Given the choice, China would prefer to see an Afghanistan with internal stability and a functional government that is preferably but not necessarily neutral among great powers. Having witnessed the quagmire in which Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States were each entrapped, China has always been convinced that Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires.” Traditionally, Beijing believed that it should avoid serious entanglement in Afghan affairs at all costs.
China’s overall view of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is a mixture of conflicting factors. On the negative side, China saw the invasion as the United States establishing a foothold in the heart of the Eurasian continent that could then be used to contain China. Beijing views the ongoing war with the Taliban as the United States “irresponsibly” destabilizing the country and rattling the region. From the Chinese perspective, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan fostered the radicalization of Muslims in the region and directly contributed to the unrest in China’s northwest Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. But, on the positive side, the Chinese have viewed America’s wars since 9/11 as the best thing that has happened to China since the end of the Cold War — a god-sent “window of strategic opportunity” that gave Beijing a decade to build its strength while Washington was distracted, bogged down, and spending trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the United States needed China’s nominal support for its war on terror, China played up the terrorist threats in Xinjiang, using the global war on terror to justify its policy in the Uighur region.
Afghanistan has never been a priority economic partner for China. Even at the peak of Beijing’s “Going Out” strategy (the previous reincarnation of the Belt and Road Initiative that encouraged Chinese companies to explore global markets), few Chinese companies demonstrated much interest in Afghanistan. The exceptions were firms involved in the Aynak copper mine in 2008 and the Amu Darya oil exploration in 2011.

Any hope of lucrative investments in Afghanistan quickly evaporated with the deteriorating security situation forcing all major projects to a stop. Despite an official narrative portraying Afghanistan as an important link for the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese investment in Afghanistan has been minimal, totaling $2.2 million in 2016 and a mere $400 million in all investment stocks by the end of 2017. By contrast, the story in Pakistan is very different: Chinese investment in Pakistan reached $1.58 billion in 2017–2018, bringing the total investment stock to $5.7 billion by the end of 2017.
Stagnant economic ties between Beijing and Kabul are primarily due to security concerns. The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan renders the security situation even more uncertain. For as long as the Afghan peace process has existed, the Chinese have been keenly aware of and concerned with the potential security vacuum in the country and the potential resurgence of even more violence. What China cannot figure out are the sincerity and the scale of the U.S. withdrawal of troops, on which Chinese planning depends. Beijing will enhance its development aid, diplomacy, capacity building, military assistance, and intervention if the United States completely exits Afghanistan and China has to invest more vigorously in stabilization efforts. However, China is intrinsically skeptical that the United States will abandon its presence and influence in Afghanistan given the country’s critical geopolitical location and the high costs the United States has incurred since 2001. A small American military presence remaining in Afghanistan would provide the most concrete payoff to Washington after a 19-year-long war.

Pessimism about the Future of Peace
China’s policy toward Afghanistan is based on its assessment of the security implications of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement. From Beijing’s perspective, the situation doesn’t look positive. The internal reconciliation process between the Taliban and the Afghan government will be significantly more difficult than the negotiations between Washington and the Taliban. A dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban will be incredibly fraught. Early indicators from after Feb. 29 seem to support this view. Disagreements between the Taliban and the Afghan government over releasing Taliban prisoners continue to fester and, while not in violation of the U.S. deal, the Taliban has continued military operations against Afghan government forces.
The disputes around the results of the presidential election in Afghanistan do not help. The ongoing political impasse in Kabul between President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah undermines the government’s negotiation strategy vis-à-vis the Taliban. China has officially endorsed Ghani’s political victory yet remains convinced of Abdullah’s ability to undermine the negotiation process. Although the Chinese see neither Ghani’s political advantage or power base adequately challenged by Abdullah, nor the impasse leading to instability within the central government, the “dual-track” politics in Kabul will likely continue.
What China fears — and anticipates — is that the delicate power equilibrium in Afghanistan may be shattered by the U.S. troop withdrawal. In that event, the Taliban may reject direct peace talks with the Afghan government. In the worst-case scenario, a civil war between the Taliban and what remains of the central government would ensue.

Chinese Criticism of U.S. Policy in Afghanistan
From China’s perspective, the United States has decided on an irresponsible way to exit Afghanistan. In its wake, the United States will leave a mess for Afghans and regional countries to clean up — especially if Washington follows through on its threats to significantly cut aid to Afghanistan. Official Chinese media has compared the U.S.-Taliban peace deal to America’s “disgraceful” exit from Vietnam in the 1970s. The United States seems to have delayed its exit from Afghanistan out of concern for not only the implosion of the country but also the reputational damage it would incur for creating that implosion. In the Chinese view, the “peace” the United States has achieved is a “peace” for only itself — not a peace for Afghanistan or the region. The United States plans on leaving Afghanistan having spent $2 trillion and lost 2,400 soldiers, while the Taliban remains a powerful political force and Afghan security remains perilous.
While China had been expecting President Donald Trump, motivated by his reelection campaign, to push hard for a peace deal with and an American exit from Afghanistan, the most trenchant Chinese concern is that the U.S. withdrawal irresponsibly leaves behind no path to a sustainable peace. As a result, China and other regional countries will face the inevitable spillover effects of conflict, possibly over the course of many years. The irony of the Chinese position is that, while China opposed the U.S. invasion in 2001 for destabilizing the region and deploying U.S. forces closer to China’s borders, it equally criticizes the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At the same time, many Chinese observers are skeptical that the United States will completely withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Beijing remains incredulous that the United States would willingly abandon its strategic presence and influence in Afghanistan as a geopolitical foothold in the center of the Eurasian continent. Trump — known for his inconsistency and unpredictability — could dramatically reverse his decision in Afghanistan if it suits his interests.

Hedging between Kabul and Taliban
China’s primary concern with Afghanistan lies in its security situation and in instability and radicalization spilling over into China. Addressing this challenge requires China to work with both Kabul and the Taliban. As a result, Beijing has consistently supported political inclusiveness and the reconciliation between the two sides. Despite China’s prior support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, its views of the Taliban gradually evolved to differentiate among factions that are anti-United States and factions that promote Islamic radicalization. Furthermore, a transactional relationship began to emerge given China’s need for the Taliban to deny Uighur militants safe havens and the Taliban’s need for China to play some advocacy role on its behalf. Starting in 2014, Taliban delegations began to publicly and regularly visit China, culminating in secret talks that China facilitated between Kabul and the Taliban in Urumqi.
On counter-terrorism, China has maintained close ties with Kabul for bilateral security cooperation primarily targeted at organizations associated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and the Islamic State. Through military assistance, China helped Kabul build its military mountain brigade in the Wakhan Corridor near Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province with the primary goal of preventing infiltration by the Islamic State into China. According to Afghan researchers, China provided more than $70 million in military aid to the Afghan government from 2016 to 2018.
China’s relationships with Kabul and the Taliban have given it a special role in negotiations between the two sides. Beijing takes pride in its relative neutrality and proudly proclaims that — unlike most of Afghanistan’s neighbors and the United States — China has never invaded Afghanistan. It has consistently issued visas to Taliban representatives to visit China for meetings, enabling China to play a faciliatory role between the Taliban and Kabul.

In anticipation of the Taliban’s strengthened legitimacy, role, and influence in Afghanistan, China will most likely enhance its relations with the organization in the future. China moved over the hurdle of its own non-interference principle in the Afghan case a long time ago, both in the name of mediation and in the effort to protect its interests on the ground. While China continues to support Ghani and his government, Chinese analysts’ favorable views of the Taliban have been on the rise. Pang Guang, a senior Chinese expert on the Middle East and counter-terrorism, called the group “supported by the poor people who make up more than half of the country’s population” while, in contrast, saying that the Kabul government “supported by the Americans.” In such analysts’ view, the peace deal between the United States and the Taliban has strengthened the legitimacy of the Taliban, giving the organization the influence to develop relations with foreign governments — especially Pakistan and China. Although China does not and cannot support a caliphate in Afghanistan as it could pose a direct challenge to China’s control of its Muslim population, it does observe that the Taliban’s political ideology has shown signs of moderation.

 

[jward]

continued...


China’s Approach: Multilateral over Unilateral
China remains pessimistic about Afghanistan, even after the U.S.-Taliban deal. The biggest challenge for China would be a significant deterioration of the security situation inside Afghanistan if the intra-Afghan peace process falls apart.
Currently, there are several preparatory assessments in Beijing that signal different approaches China might take in the months and years ahead. First, China will prioritize a multilateral approach over a unilateral approach. If the internal security of Afghanistan deteriorates, Chinese strategists have called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission that includes Chinese troops rather than a unilateral intervention by any regional country. In no scenario does China consider a unilateral intervention an option at this stage. China is not a party or a cause to the internal conflict in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s reputation as the “graveyard of empires” constantly deters China from direct intervention that would undermine its current advantageous hedging position with both the Taliban and Kabul. Due to regional countries’ stakes and involvement in the intra-Afghan peace process, a unilateral solution is simply out of question.
Second, in case the U.N. approach turns out difficult or unlikely, China has been testing the water and suggesting that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization step up its role in Afghanistan over the past decade. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a regional organization dedicated to security issues that was founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in 2001. India and Pakistan both joined as formal members in 2017. The grouping encompasses almost all regional stakeholders and could offer the political legitimacy and regional endorsement that an intervention would require in any new power vacuum created by the American troop departure. Although the Shanghai Cooperation Organization does not have specific military or civilian security capabilities, it has taken on a strong mandate of ensuring regional peace and stability. Beijing has examined how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could play a counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics role, but more developments are worth watching for outside observers. Eventually, if Afghanistan stabilizes, China will support the incorporation of Afghanistan into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s security mechanisms and framework.

Third, China sees a multilateral security arrangement as the precondition for its enhanced economic development effort in Afghanistan. Chinese experts have repeatedly attributed the failures of two mega-infrastructure projects — the Anyak copper mine and the Amu Darya oil project — in the last decade to the poor security environment in the country, with infrastructure construction and resource exploration infeasible during an ongoing conflict. Although the economic appeal of Afghanistan is not alone sufficient to attract China, China will not refrain from a bigger economic role when given local reassurances and multilateral support. On the question of “local reassurances,” China has received some tacit reassurance from the Taliban about the security and protection of its future projects in Afghanistan such as the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor via a railway to Kandahar. Details, however, remain elusive.
Fourth, China is uncertain whether Afghanistan will remain a focal point for U.S.-China cooperation, but the hope remains. In the last decade, the United States and China have cooperated on capacity-building programs in Afghanistan, including police training and demining. At first, the Chinese viewed the U.S. military presence and Chinese economic engagement as mutually complementary. The extent to which the United States will remain committed to the future of Afghanistan is a determining factor for the nature and scope of China’s efforts in the country.

Last but not least, the U.S. deal with the Taliban undercut India in favor of Pakistan, which could strain ties between New Delhi and Washington. India’s goal in Afghanistan is to mitigate the strategic influence of Pakistan there so that it can’t be used as a safe-haven for anti-India terrorist groups, including those that attacked Indian diplomatic missions. As a result, India has opposed the Taliban, seeing it as Pakistan’s proxy in Afghanistan. India has also attempted to turn Afghanistan into an access corridor to Central Asia in an effort to circumvent and outflank Pakistan, including by financing the Chabahar port in Iran near the Afghan border. However, the strategic value of Afghanistan for India is predicated on the presence of the U.S. military in the country. With the pending American withdrawal, India’s strategic investment looks to be a largely sunk cost.
For China, India’s failure means Pakistan’s victory. With the American exit, Pakistan is believed to have significantly more influence over events in Afghanistan, effectively alleviating its strategic vulnerability of being encircled by a hostile Afghanistan to the north and a hostile India to the south. The enhancement of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan will not only indirectly contribute to China’s influence but also potentially improve the negotiation positions of both Islamabad and Beijing vis-à-vis Washington. Although China bears a negative and pessimistic view over the internal peace and stability of Afghanistan following the peace deal, there are some silver linings in terms of regional geopolitics.

Conclusion
After two decades of developing ties with both the Afghan government and the Taliban, China has emerged with a special faciliatory role in the peace process. It is pleased to see plans for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan yet remains skeptical that Washington will go through with it. At the same time, Beijing is deeply pessimistic about the future of the peace process and a power vacuum left by departing American forces, and is preparing for multilateral engagement down the road to address the issue.
China sees its role in Afghanistan beyond the peace deal as cautious and flexible. It sees its role in Afghan security in three ways: as marginal in the sense that it is not a primary party to the conflict; as indispensable in the sense that China is a great power and a neighboring country that cannot be ignored; and as central in the sense that Chinese investment will be critical for the country’s future post-conflict reconstruction and economic development. The Afghan peace process still has a long way to go, and China will not be excluded.

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Yun Sun is the director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center.
Image: Chinese Embassy, Afghanistan

posted for fair use

China’s Strategic Assessment of Afghanistan - War on the Rocks

With the U.S. troop withdrawal in sight, Afghanistan’s future seems less certain than ever. As a neighboring state with significant interests at stake,

warontherocks.com

 

[jward]

Iran Deploys Missiles Covering The Strait Of Hormuz

Apr 7, 2020,07:50am EDT
Aerospace & Defense
H I SuttonContributor
I cover the changing world of underwater warfare.

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Evidence suggests that Iran has deployed an array of anti-ship missiles and large rockets overlooking Strait of Hormuz, which is vital for the supply of oil from the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The waterway is being patrolled by U.S. Navy and its allies to protect vessels from Iranian action.


Multiple amateur videos and photos of the weapons lined up overlooking the beach began surfacing on social media on April 4. Geospatial analysis has confirmed that the location of one of the batteries is on Qeshm Island.

The site of the deployment, on the eastern end of Qeshm Island, covers the Strait of Hormuz. Weapons ... [+]

H I Sutton
The images show the weapons were deployed beside the coast road, facing east towards the Strait, between Qeshm and Borka Khalaf, and were lined up behind a protective sand berm. The space between them suggests a tactical deployment. It’s unclear whether it is an exercise or a show of force, and whether or not it was supposed to be seen.


Today In: Aerospace & Defense

The weapons appear to belong the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The systems seen include the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). The Fajr-3 carries twelve 240mm (9.5 inch) rockets. These have a range of 27 miles and carry a large warhead. All twelve rockets can be loosed off in under two minutes.


The larger Fajr-5 can hit targets 45 miles away. Only four are carried on each launcher however. Unlike the Fajr-3, which was based on a North Korean design, this rocket appears to be truly Iranian in origin. In 2017 Iran revealed a satellite guided version with a reported range of up to 80 miles, but it is unclear whether this has entered service. From their positions the Fajr-3 rockets can reach most of the way across the Straits of Hormuz, and the larger Fajr-5s the whole Strait.


More potent than the rockets are anti-ship missiles. At least one mobile anti-ship missile launcher has been identified in the footage. The Khatam-5 system carries Noor sea-skimming missiles which are derived from the Chinese C-802 system. They are generally equivalent to the U.S. Navy’s Harpoon. They are carried on a truck which can be disguised as a regular civilian vehicle. The cab is the ubiquitous white and the missile and radar can be retracted into a box-like back. With the missiles in carry mode the vehicle would be very difficult to identify.


The location will be familiar to naval planners. There are several missile sites and naval facilities on the island, including one with an underground tunnel for boats and submarines. Deployment positions like this are transient and the systems have likely been moved since the imagery was taken. Their presence on the island sends a message of Iran’s preparedness however and reminds us that the Straits remain a potential flash point.


Iran continues to build up its naval capabilities across the board. The Iranian Navy recently announced that it is working on a large submarine and a 6,000 ton destroyer.

posted for fair use.....

Iran Deploys Missiles Covering The Strait Of Hormuz

Open source intelligence shows that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has deployed disguised anti-ship missile launchers on Qeshm Island. The Strait is being patrolled by the U.S. Navy and its allies,

www.forbes.com

 

[Zagdid]

Japan’s First Soryu-Class Attack Sub Fitted With Lithium-Ion Batteries Arrives at Homeport

The new attack submarine arrived at a Japanese naval base in Kure in southwestern Japan on April 7.

thediplomat.com

Looking fairly formidable in a regional theater

Japan’s First Soryu-Class Attack Sub Fitted With Lithium-Ion Batteries Arrives at Homeport

By Franz-Stefan Gady April 08, 2020 fair use

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) first Soryu-class diesel-electric attack submarine (SSK) fitted with lithium-ion batteries, the JS Oryu (pennant number SS 511), arrived at its new homeport in Kure, Hiroshima prefecture on April 7, the service said in a statement.

The JS Oryu will serve with the JMSDF’s Submarine Flotilla 1.

The JS Oryu was commissioned into service at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) facility in Kobe, in Hyogo Prefecture in west-central Japan on March 5. The boat is the 11th Soryu-class SSK commissioned into service and the sixth built by MHI. The SSK was launched in October 2018.

Lithium-ion batteries will enable the Oryu to shut off its diesel-electric propulsion and operate on battery power alone for longer periods under water. Batteries are less noisy than diesel-electric engines and reduce the SSK’s acoustic signature, making detection harder.

The JMSDF is currently the only naval service in the world to have installed this technology aboard a submarine.

In November last year, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) launched the 12th and final Soryu-class SSK, the future JS Toryu (pennant number SS 512). Like the JS Oryu, the Toryu, slated to be commissioned in March 2021, will also be fitted with lithium-ion batteries.

Soryu-class SSKs are also the first submarines of the JMSDF to be equipped with air-independent propulsion systems, as I explained elsewhere:

The (…) Soryu-class boats are the JMSDF’s first SSKs to be fitted with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems, enabling the submarines to stay underwater for up to two weeks. (…)

Soryu-class SSKs are powered by two Kawasaki 12V 25/25 SB-type diesel engines and four Kawasaki Kockums V4-275R Stirling AIP engines for silent running. The boats have an estimated range of 6,100 nautical miles (11,297 kilometers) with a maximum surface speed of 13 knots and a subsurface travelling speed of 20 knots. The maximum diving depth of the sub is around 650 meters.

The Soryu-class is fitted with six HU-606 533 mm torpedo tubes that can accommodate Type 89 heavyweight homing torpedoes and UGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Next to bow-and-flank-mounted Hughes/Oki ZQQ-7 sonar arrays, the sub is also equipped with a towed array sonar capable of detecting ships over 70 kilometers away.

The Oryu displaces 2,947 tonnes when surfaced and 4,100 tonnes when submerged. It has a beam of 9.1 meters and a hull draught of 8.4 meters.

The boat’s crew consists of nine officers and 56 sailors. The JMSDF on April 8 released a picture of the crew posing in front of the submarine wearing face masks to protect against infection with the new coronavirus.

 

[Zagdid]

Philippines backs Vietnam after China sinks fishing boat

In an unusually pointed statement, Manila laments loss of trust among neighbours due to incidents in disputed seas.

www.aljazeera.com

Philippines backs Vietnam after China sinks fishing boat
16 hours ago
The Philippines has expressed solidarity with Vietnam after Hanoi protested against what it said was the ramming and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a Chinese coastguard vessel in the disputed South China Sea.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila expressed deep concern over the reported April 3 sinking of the boat off the Paracel Islands. There were eight fishermen on board at the time.

The incident happened at a time when a common approach was crucial in confronting the coronavirus pandemic, it said.

"COVID-19 is a very real threat that demands unity and mutual trust. In the face of it, neither fish nor fictional historical claims are worth the fuse that's lit by such incidents," the unusually strong-worded statement from Manila said.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has built several islands equipped with military installations in the area, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Vietnam has been a consistent and vocal opponent of Beijing's increasingly muscular territorial ambitions.

The Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs recalled that 22 Filipino fishermen were left floating in the high seas, after a Chinese vessel sank their boat at Reed Bank on June 9 last year. They were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing vessel.

"Our own similar experience revealed how much trust in a friendship is lost by it and how much trust was created by Vietnam's humanitarian act of directly saving the lives of our Filipino fishermen," the department said.

'Chinese maritime militia'
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, however, played down the incident within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, even as it sparked anger in the streets.

The owner of the Chinese vessel later apologised for the incident and promised to compensate the Filipino fishermen for the damage to their fishing boat.

There has been speculation that the Chinese vessel involved in the boat-ramming was part of a "maritime militia" deployed by Beijing to intimidate vessels from other countries in the area.

The United States has also expressed serious concern over the reported sinking of the Vietnamese vessel and called on China to remain focused on supporting efforts to combat the pandemic and "stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea."

Amid the pandemic, China "has announced new 'research stations' on military bases it built on Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef and landed special military aircraft on Fiery Cross Reef," US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement, referring to two of seven islands China built on disputed shoals in the South China Sea.

China has also "continued to deploy maritime militia around the Spratly Islands," she said, referring to a hotly contested group of islands and citing a 2016 decision by an international tribunal that invalidated China's sprawling claims in the South China Sea.

China has said it has the right to build in waters where it exercises sovereignty and has ignored and continued to defy the arbitration ruling.

The Philippines warned that incidents like the sinking of the Vietnamese boat undermine the potential for a trusting relationship between the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China.

It cited "positive momentum" in talks between ASEAN and China on a proposed "code of conduct" - a pact to prevent large clashes in the South China Sea, which many fear could be Asia's next flashpoint.

China responded to Vietnam's diplomatic protest and demands for an investigation with its own statement accusing the Vietnamese boat of illegally entering Chinese waters. It said it collided with the Chinese ship Haijing 4301 after conducting "dangerous actions."

All eight Vietnamese sailors were rescued by the Chinese and admitted to wrongdoing, China Maritime Police spokesman Zhang Jun was quoted as saying in a statement.

China seized the islands from Vietnam in 1974 and frequent confrontations have occurred there.