WAR 04-21-2018-to-04-27-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
(317) 03-31-2018-to-04-06-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...4-06-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(318) 04-07-2018-to-04-13-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...4-13-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(319) 04-14-2018-to-04-20-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...4-20-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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https://defense.info/multi-domain-d...ssile-defense-to-a-21st-century-combat-force/

Multi-Domain Dynamics

The Centrality of Missile Defense to a 21st Century Combat Force

04/15/2018
By Richard Weitz

The newly enacted FY2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill provides urgently needed funding for U.S. defense priorities.

The spending package signed by President Trump supports fighting terrorism, rebuilding the U.S. Navy, developing next-generation capabilities to manage emerging challenges, and protecting Americans from immediate threats.

North Korea’s emerging nuclear missile capabilities are the most serious of these menaces.

We can hope that sanctions or summitry will quickly resolve this crisis, but experience strongly indicates otherwise—Pyongyang’s provocation pauses rarely last. We will always need to look to our defenses against North Korean missiles.

Similar to past administrations, the current White House, supported by Congress, is developing a layered defense system to maximize opportunities for destroying enemy missiles.

This ballistic missile defense (BMD) architecture combines ever-improving regional systems; “left-of-launch” capabilities that target missiles before they ascend; and an expanding Ground-Based Midcourse Defense network—Americans’ primary defense against incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM).

The current fleet of Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) offer the sole means of defending the continental United States from these missiles. The GBIs employ multistage solid-fuel boosters, based in Alaska and California, to propel “kill vehicles” into targets in outer space, obliterating them outside the atmosphere. They rely on a proven hit-to-kill technology to intercept incoming warheads and missiles.

The Pentagon’s senior evaluation and testing body has concluded that the U.S. BMD architecture has “demonstrated capability to defend the U.S. homeland from a small number of intermediate-range or intercontinental missile threats.”

To enhance this protection, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill boosts BMD spending to $11.5 billion, an increase of $3.3 billion from the previous year. The new resources will improve current capabilities, notably building a new long-range radar and deploying a Redesigned Kill Vehicle, and develop new ones, such as a Multi-Object Kill Vehicle that can attack many targets on a single flight.

Like all military systems, BMD has an imperfect test record.

Researching, developing, and deploying cutting-edge technologies is invariably difficult.

The solution to this challenge is more testing, under increasingly rigorous conditions.
Another less valid fear is that U.S. decision makers will presume invulnerability.

With an effective missile defense shield, this narrative runs, Washington can freely engage in wars of aggression.

President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders have propounded this theory for over a decade.

Surprisingly, now even respected outlets such as The New York Times have taken up Moscow’s line.

A recent editorial in the paper acknowledges that, “Missile defense needs to be part of the United States’ strategy,” along with international sanctions, regional defenses, proliferation interdiction, and diplomacy.

But the paper warns that President Trump not “to take military action against North Korea on the ground that the system could save the United States from retaliation.”

The Times is attacking a strawman.

No U.S. decision maker would presume the infallibility of our missile defenses or any other strategic technology.

Missile defenses can help deter and defeat attacks, reassure friends and allies, and reduce crisis instability—but it is widely understood that they are only one critical tool for addressing threats.

In particular, U.S. strategists do not see BMD as a cure-all to the North Korean problem, much less as a basis for pre-emptive military action on the peninsula.

The Trump administration pursues a broad approach regarding North Korea–direct diplomacy, robust sanctions, intensified interdiction, and other action.

Indeed, enhanced missile defenses will bolster the hand of U.S. negotiations and make achieving a diplomatic settlement with North Korea more likely.

With lower prospects of success decreasing the value of ICBM investments, Pyongyang will more likely accept constraints on its missile arsenal.

Effective missile defenses could also increase crisis stability by reducing pressure on U.S. policy makers to conduct preemptive strikes. BMD further lessens demands in Japan and South Korea to develop national nuclear weapons.

Most crucially, better protection will diminish nuclear war risks by raising doubts in Pyongyang that they can bombard U.S. cities with missiles.

The value of a well-resourced BMD architecture extends beyond a simple calculation of the physical effectiveness of individual platforms; one must also consider how missile defenses shape adversaries’ thinking.

Fortunately, Congress recognizes these benefits.

There is scant evidence that missile defenses provide decision makers with a false sense of confidence, and few Americans embrace Moscow’s self-serving rhetoric.
With its new resources, the U.S. missile defense architecture can now recover from its rushed rollout in the early 2000’s and its builders can properly test, develop, and grow the system.

Editor’s Note: The photo above shows Spc. Deven Glenn, Spc. Brandon Smith, both Patriot Crewmembers assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery driving a patriot Missile Launcher through Tallinn’s Old Town towards Freedom Square in Estonia Feb. 24, 2018.

The Patriot battery was invited to Estonia to participate and celebrate Estonia’s 100th year anniversary.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Sorry folks, aside from checking in and commenting on a few things the "meat world" and it's demands have been having its way with me of late...

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.military.com/daily-news...n-global-race-new-hypersonic-technologie.html

Pentagon Aims to Win Global Race for New Hypersonic Technologies

Military.com 22 Apr 2018 By Oriana Pawlyk

If the great Space Race that began in the 1950s helped define technologies that would take satellites and mankind into space, a new kind of global competition today will define technologies that move at more than five times the speed of sound.

The U.S. Air Force this week awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a contract to develop a prototype hypersonic cruise missile, or the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon. The project -- one of two hypersonic weapon prototyping efforts the service is pursuing -- could cost as much as $928 million over the course of its lifetime.

The award comes as Pentagon officials say they fear the U.S. may be lagging behind in hypersonics, while rivals Russia and China have made hypersonic technologies national programs of record and have made recent advances. Like nuclear weapons, officials have said speedy weapons can act as deterrents, as well as game changers, in responding to conflict from hundreds of miles away.

"The Air Force is using prototyping to explore the art of the possible and to advance these technologies to a capability as quickly as possible," spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement.

The service did not specify a timeline for the contract, as "funds are not obligated on this contract vehicle until task orders are issued and awarded," Stefanek said on Wednesday.

Related content:
US Losing Its Advantage in Race for Hypersonic Technology: Selva
Army Chief: Hypersonic Weapons 'Possible' But Early in Development
Air Force Wants to Invest Heavily in Next-Gen Technologies

Aside from additional concepts underway from the Air Force Research Lab and DARPA, the Air Force is also setting funds aside for its Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon, known as "Arrow." According to the fiscal 2019 budget request, the Air Force is asking for roughly $260 million for the Arrow experiment.

'It just means it goes fast'

One company that specializes in rockets, engines, missiles and spacecraft has been rapidly prototyping a variety of concepts in hopes of gaining more footing in the hypersonics game.

Aerospace and defense tech company Orbital ATK has in recent months tested a partially 3-D printed hypersonics warhead and a 3-D printed supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, engine part.

The company deemed both to be successful, and is waiting until the Defense Department chooses what type of weapons it may someday want to procure.

In its research and development phase, Orbital has been designing a hypersonic warhead to start preparing for "that day when somebody will want a hypersonic" mission, said Bart Olson, vice president of strategy and business development for Orbital ATK's defense group.

"They went from design to production to test in 60 days," said Michael Kahn, president of Orbital ATK's defense systems group.

In late March, the company for the first time tested a 50-pound warhead partially made with additive manufacturing, known as 3-D printing.

With the help of 3-D printing, engineers can work faster and make parts much more cheaply, Olson and Kahn said. Military.com sat down with both executives on April 10 during the annual Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

"Three-D printing is a big deal for us, especially from the engineering perspective because you can design something ... that you can't build with conventional machines," Kahn said.

The challenges for any weapon going beyond Mach 5 speeds has been to prevent overheating and control how the weapon strikes a target, Kahn said.

Olson said its common to tailor the warhead to the effects needed. But in hypersonics, there's more of an emphasis on fragmentation at such high speeds.

Depending on launch platform -- air, land or sea -- the company is testing payloads from as small as 7 inches to 40 inches in diameter.

"We're involved in the entire tradespace," Olson said.

The 'secret sauce' to hypersonics? Their engines and propulsion, they say.
"We've been building hypersonic engines for many years, for NASA, the Air Force," Olson said. "We currently hold the record for the fastest air-breathing demonstration in history, which was a Mach 10-plus."

"We have motors that come in all shapes and sizes," he continued. "On the propulsion front, we've had numerous tests of solid propellant solutions and ... on the air-breathing side, all across the spectrum of need."

Kahn added how it's propelled shouldn't matter. "Hypersonics just means it goes fast," he said.

In January, the company announced a partnership with DARPA to study a possible integration of turbine and hypersonic engine technologies under DARPA's Advanced Full Range Engine (AFRE) program.

Orbital said they're encouraged by recent commentary from Mike Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who has zeroed in on hypersonics, but also other emerging technologies in an era where Russia and China continue to make vast strides ahead of the U.S.

The U.S.'s "earlier research work in hypersonic systems development was basically what our adversaries have used to field their own systems," Griffin told lawmakers this week.

"It is time for us to renew our emphasis on and funding of these areas in a coordinated way across the department, to develop systems which can be based on land for conventional prompt strike, can be based at sea, and later on can be based on aircraft," he said during a House Armed Services committee hearing on innovation.

There has been more of an "energy from DoD" to get hypersonics involved in major systems beyond just design phases, Kahn said.

"Up until now there's been a lot of design, a lot of testing, not a lot of fielding," Kahn said.

Olson added, "We're very encouraged by ... the new philosophy from new leadership to go on past it."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter ar @oriana0214.

Video
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
:dot5::dot5::dot5:


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...eal-is-scrapped-senior-official-idUSKBN1HV0UU

#World News April 24, 2018 / 2:01 AM / Updated 23 minutes ago

Iran might withdraw from NPT if nuclear deal is scrapped: senior official

Reuters Staff
1 Min Read

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran might withdraw from the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) if U.S. President Donald Trump scraps the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers in 2015, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Tuesday.

In a news conference broadcast live on state television, Shamkhani told reporters in Tehran before departing for Russia that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was ready for some “surprising actions” if the nuclear deal was scrapped.

Answering a question about the possibility of Tehran withdrawing from the NPT, Shamkhani said: “This is one of three options that we are considering.”

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Kevin Liffey
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...eal-or-face-severe-consequences-idUSKBN1HV0MY

World News April 24, 2018 / 12:30 AM / Updated 25 minutes ago

Iran warns Trump to remain in nuclear deal or 'face severe consequences'

Reuters Staff
2 Min Read

LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday to stay in the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers in 2015, or face “severe consequences”, as other signatories stepped up efforts to save the agreement.

Trump has said that unless European allies fix what he has called “terrible flaws” in the deal by May 12, he will restore U.S. economic sanctions on Iran, which would be a severe blow to the pact.

Related Coverage

Iran might withdraw from NPT if nuclear deal is scrapped: senior official

The other powers that signed the deal - Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France - have all said they want to preserve the agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting most sanctions.

“I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments, the Iranian government will firmly react,” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

“If anyone betrays the deal, they should know that they would face severe consequences,” he told a cheering crowd of thousands gathered in the city of Tabriz. “Iran is prepared for all possible situations,” he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron is in Washington, trying to convince Trump not to tear up the accord.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he had agreed with his Chinese counterpart that Moscow and Beijing would try to block any U.S. attempt to sabotage the nuclear deal.

Iran has warned that it will ramp up its nuclear programme if the deal collapses.

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Kevin Liffey
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/netanyahu-turns-volume-iran-deadline-nears-195530834.html

Netanyahu turns up volume as Iran deadline nears

AFP • April 23, 2018

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a fresh call Monday for an overhaul of the Iran nuclear deal as US President Donald Trump's deadline for further Iranian concessions edged closer.

Trump has threatened to tear up the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs to its nuclear activity, unless it curbs its ballistic missile programme by May 12.

"Israel will not allow regimes that seek our annihilation to acquire nuclear weapons," Netanyahu told an audience of diplomats in a speech in Jerusalem.

"This is why this deal has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed," he said in English.

Iran says it is ready to relaunch its nuclear programme -- which the West suspects is designed to produce a bomb -- if Trump kills the deal.

Netanyahu said the 2015 agreement leaves Iran able to quickly reboot its nuclear programme to enable military production.

"It gives Iran a clear path to a nuclear arsenal," he said. "It allows, over a few years, unlimited enrichment of uranium, the core ingredient required to produce nuclear bombs."

The United States delivered much the same message Monday, at a meeting of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva.

Christopher Ford, US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation, said the Islamic republic's nuclear programme remained "dangerously close to rapid weaponisation".

Iran insists it never intended to build a nuclear weapon.

100 reactions
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Lieberman: If Syria uses Russian air defense missiles against us, we'll retaliate

Alexandra Lukash, Nir Cohen|Published: 04.24.18 , 11:25
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Tuesday that if Syria uses Russian-made air defense missiles against Israel, the IDF will strike back.


"What's important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won't be used against us," Lieberman told Ynet, talking about Russia's plans to give Syrian President Bashar Assad S-300 missiles. "If they're used against us, we'll act against them."


The defense minister went on to say that Israel "doesn't interfere in Syria's internal affairs, but on the other hand we won't allow Iran to flood (the country) with advanced weapons systems that would be aimed against Israel."https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5239410,00.html
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
TAIWAN FIGHTS OFF CHINESE INVASION IN MOCK WARFARE DRILLS

BY BRENDAN COLE ON 4/24/18 AT 4:55 AM Taiwan will simulate taking on an invading force in war games next week amid its increasing tensions with China.

Taipei will conduct exercises in which it will repair a major air base and use civilian operated drones, Reuters reported.

The annual Han Kuang drills, which start on April 30, make no mention of China, only “offensive forces invading Taiwan” and will include a live-fire field training exercise and “enemy elimination on beaches.”Drones will aid with battlefield surveillance, building companies with runway repairs for the Ching Chuan Kang airbase and there will be air defense drills and exercises with the navy. Live fire drills will take place between June 4 and June 8 in what will be the first time civilian forces will work with other government branches.“Civilian resources will also be integrated into this exercise to support military operations,” Taiwan’s defense ministry said.

In January, Taiwan held a military drill at the Port of Hualien using reconnaissance planes and F-16 fighter jets.

China’s claim on Taiwan, which has autonomy, has become more vociferous after the election of Tsai Ing-Wen as president, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.China has breached Taiwan’s sea and air borders over the last year during its increased military maneuvers. On April 18, it undertook live-fire military exercises.

Chieh Chung, from the Taipei-based think tank, the National Policy Foundation, said Beijing's actions were part of its mind games with its neighbor.

"What is worth noticing is that over the past one or two years, Beijing has regularly taken advantage of these cheap, routine, small-sized, regional drills to serve its purpose of psychological warfare against Taiwan," he told Channel News Asia.

The U.S. recognizes Beijing’s One China policy but has stated it would defend the island against any Chinese invasion and equipped it with American-made weapons.

In a survey conducted in January by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, 68 percent of people said they would join the army or find other means of resistance should China invade.

Some 55 percent of people said they would go to war for Taiwan’s independence while 91 percent said they preferred the status quo, whereby it kept its de facto sovereign status.

Only 1.5 percent of people believed Taiwan should be reunited with the mainland, the National Interest reported.http://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-fights-chinese-invasion-mock-warfare-drills-898407
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Syrian Army will likely raise new armored brigade with equipment captured in east Qalamoun – details

BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:55 A.M.) – The Syrian Army will most likely raise a new armored brigade with heavy weapons recently acquired from surrendered rebel forces in Syria’s eastern Qalamoun region.

As video evidence shows, the Syrian Army has come into possession of dozens of armored vehicles – most of them main battle tanks – that are, for the most part, in very good condition.

Indeed, not only was such a great quantity of armored assets captured, but also a considerable amount of spare parts and sub-systems (engines, tracks, cannons, etc) necessary to keep such heavy equipment fully operational in the field.

Finally, it is important to note that key support vehicles – including Shilka self-propelled guns and tracked recovery vehicles – were also reclaimed in addition to dozens of main battle tanks, these representing organic support assets which need to exist within any armored detachment larger than a battalion.

Thus accounting for the fact that almost a brigade’s worth of armor (as far as wartime standards are concerned) has been captured in good condition along with plenty of spare parts and that support vehicles are among the seizure, it is hard to see that the newly acquired weapons will be dispersed among other units.

Instead it appears that the loot is ‘whole’ enough (so to speak) to raise a new formation entirely – something that the Syrian Army may very well do as part of an ongoing effort to buttress its forces in central Syria. https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...-equipment-captured-in-east-qalamoun-details/
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Syrian Army intensifies offensive in southern Hama amid collapse of peace talks

BEIRUT, LEBANON (12:10 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) resumed their offensive in the southern countryside of the Hama Governorate, today, striking the Islamist rebel defenses near the provincial axis of Homs.

Led by the 4th and 11th divisions, the Syrian Arab Army began their assault on Tuesday by striking the Islamist positions around the towns of ‘Ayn Hussein, Hamrat and Salim.

According to a military source in the Hama Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army now possesses fire control over the small town of Salim.

Salim was lost a few weeks ago, when the Islamist rebels launched a swift counter-offensive to regain the territory they lost to the Syrian Arab Army in southern Hama.

In addition to their ground assault, the Syrian military is launching several airstrikes over southern Hama and northern Homs.

This latest offensive by the Syrian military is meant to force the Islamist rebels to return to the negotiations table; however, the latter has repeatedly rejected the reconciliation terms offered by the Russian Reconciliation Center.https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...n-southern-hama-amid-collapse-of-peace-talks/
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Ivan Sidorenko- @IvanSidorenko1 · 2 min.
#Syria #Damascus #SouthDamascus #SouthernDamascus Photos from today showing #ISIS #Daesh positions being intensely bombarded
Dbi-lJ_VwAEsetp.jpg:large
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Breaking: 4 civilians killed in ISIS-led attack on Damascus

BEIRUT, LEBANON (3:10 P.M.) – At least four civilians were killed this afternoon, when the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) launched an attack on Damascus City, Al-Masdar’s field correspondent Ibrahim Joudeh reported from the capital.

Joudeh reported that the Islamic State terrorists fired several mortar shells towards a crowded market in the Nahar ‘Aisha suburb, killing the four civilians and wounding more than 20 others.

The ISIS attack took place from southern Damascus, where they are currently under siege by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their Palestinian allies.

No further details were released at this time. https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-4-civilians-killed-in-isis-led-attack-on-damascus/
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
President Assad and First Lady host Armenian delegation from Aleppo, on the eve of #ArmenianGenocide remembrance day. #Syria
Dbg2TMDXUAAFsQ0.jpg:large
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Russian Black Sea Fleet’s warships practice sea battle in Mediterranean

The frigates Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen and the guard ships Pytlivy and Smetlivy are practicing a sea battle in drills in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea Fleet’s press office reported on Tuesday.

“In compliance with the combat training plan, the Black Sea Fleet’s naval taskforces comprising the frigates Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen, the guard ships Pytlivy and Smetlivy are holding two-side maneuvers in the distant operational zone. In the course of the drills, the crews are practicing the algorithms for a group of warships to conduct a sea battle,” the press office said.

“During the drills, the frigates as a strike group notionally attacked the guard ships, which in turn practiced measures to jointly repel a simulated enemy’s attack, the press office said.

“After that, the personnel of combat posts practiced the procedure to deliver missile strikes against coastal targets. The crews are also being trained in damage control to provide assistance to a ship damaged in a battle,” the press office said.

After the scheduled drills are over, the warships will continue performing missions according to the plans drawn up by the command of the Navy’s taskforce in the distant operational zone, the press office said.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1001497
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Syrian Air Force strikes Jaysh Al-Islam’s command center in Yarmouk Camp

BEIRUT, LEBANON (4:00 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) carried out powerful airstrikes over the Yarmouk Camp and Hajar Al-Aswad, today, targeting several areas under the control of Jaysh Al-Islam.

According to a source in Damascus, the Syrian Air Force struck Jaysh Al-Islam’s positions in response to the group refusing to handover their points in Yarmouk Camp to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their Palestinian allies.

The airstrikes would result in the death of a dozen Jaysh Al-Islam militants, including two field commanders that were based in a command center in the Yarmouk Camp.

Jaysh Al-Islam has repeatedly refused to handover their points in the Yarmouk Camp and Hajar Al-Aswad to the Syrian Army, despite they are besieged alongside the Islamic State.https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...ysh-al-islams-command-center-in-yarmouk-camp/
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Russia opposes Bosnia and Herzegovina’s accession to NATO

BANJA LUKA, April 24. /TASS/. Russia calls against militarization of European countries, including the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO, Federation Council (upper house) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Tuesday after meeting with President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik.


"Russia’s position is consistent, open and clear: we oppose NATO’s expansion into Europe and are against militarization of European countries and creation of division lines. We believe this worsens the security situation on the European continent," Matviyenko said answering a question about Russia’s stance on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s accession to NATO.

According to Matviyenko, "security can be only one and undivided for all countries and European security is impossible without Russia like Russia’s security is impossible without Europe." "Therefore, we are making every effort to hold dialogue with our partners and we are explaining our position."

"We continue calling for a single political and economic field, a security field from Lisbon to Vladivostok so that our common and united European house should be prosperous and safe, and this can be done only by joint efforts of European countries," she stressed



More:
http://tass.com/politics/1001499
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Trump praises Kim as 'very open,' 'very honorable'

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Donald Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Tuesday for being "very open" and "very honorable" ahead of their potential meeting in May or June.

Trump made the remark as he prepares to sit down with Kim to talk about the denuclearization of the regime.

"We are going to be having a meeting with Kim Jong-un, and that will be very soon," Trump said at the start of talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. "We have been told directly that they would like to have the meeting as soon as possible and we think that's a great thing for the world."

The North Korean leader has expressed a commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and Trump has agreed to meet Kim in May or early June.

The two sides have been having "very good" discussions, Trump said. "Kim Jong-un -- he really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we're seeing."http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2018/04/25/0200000000AEN20180425000251315.html?sns=tw
 

Shacknasty Shagrat

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Good that Israel is clear about its intentions.
SS

'
We May Hit Russian Systems in Syria, Israel Says After Threats of 'Catastrophic Consequences'

Russia to send advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Assad, officials said Monday, warning Israel not to attack the new air defense systems

Haaretz and Reuters Apr 24, 2018 1:39 PM






Everyone’s talking about Russia’s S-300. Why now, and why should Israel be worried?
Revealed: Israel 'struck advanced Iranian air-defense system' in Syria
Syria chemical attack: Footage shows families 'gassed to death'; death toll could surpass 100
The preventable war crime: How the West failed to prevent one Syrian chemical attack after another

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that Israel may strike the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems in Syria if they are used against Israel.

>> Everyone’s talking about Russia’s S-300. Should Israel be worried? <<

"One thing should be clear - if someone fires on our planes, we will destroy them," Lieberman said in an interview with the Israeli website Ynet. "What's important to us is that the weapons defense systems that the Russians transfer to Syria are not used against us. If they are used against us, we will act against them."

Lieberman's comments come a day after senior Russian officials told the Kommersant newspaper that Russia is expected to provide the Bashar Assad regime with S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems soon. If Israel attacks the new air defense systems, then it will suffer “catastrophic consequences,” the officials said.

The S-300 PMU-2 “Favourite” version of the anti-aircraft systems will be provided to the Syrians for free and very soon, the Kommersant reported.


Lieberman said that the S-300 are already being operated on Syrian soil, though they are only being used by the Russians and not being employed against Israel. Lieberman added that Israel will not allow an Iranian foothold in Syria, saying that this is the principle guiding Israel. "If someone fires on us, we will respond. Let there be no doubt, it doesn't matter what system - S-300, S-700 or something else."

Russian air defense systems have, in fact, been deployed in Syria for years. Syria's air defenses are Russian made, and Israel has struck them several times, lately - after the downing of its F-16 jet in February. The Wall Street Journal revealed that Israeli military targeted a Russian-made Tor advanced air-defense system after Iran deployed it to the T4 base in Syria earlier this month. In addition, Russia has deployed their own S-400 systems to protect its soldiers deployed in Latakia.


Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Russia had not yet decided whether it would deliver advanced S-300 missile systems to Syria, but would not make a secret of the matter if it took such a decision, the TASS news agency reported.

"We'll have to wait to see what specific decisions the Russian leadership and representatives of Syria will take," TASS cited Lavrov as saying on Monday during a visit to Beijing.

"There is probably no secret about this and it can all be announced (if a decision is taken)," Lavrov added.

The Kommersant reported that experts believed Israel would react negatively to the development and might bomb the area where the missile systems would be deployed.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...hreats-of-catastrophic-consequences-1.6027919
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2...ncrease-presence-near-china-isr-capabilities/

Naval

Incoming US Pacific Command chief wants to increase presence near China

By: Mike Yeo  
1 day ago

MELBOURNE, Australia ¯ The nominee to be the next chief of the U.S. forces in the Pacific has called for an increase in U.S. forces from all three services stationed in the vital region, adding that China is now effectively able to control the South China Sea and challenge the U.S. presence in the region.

In his testimony at last week’s Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Adm. Philip Davidson also said he will work to recalibrate U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific region to align with the recently released 2018 National Defense Strategy, an effort he said “entails ensuring the continued combat readiness of assigned forces in the western Pacific (and) developing an updated footprint that accounts for China’s rapid modernization.”

Davidson, who has been nominated to take over U.S. Pacific Command, or PACOM, also said the strategic and operational environment outlined in the NDS clearly identifies the importance of developing and fielding a force posture that is capable of “countering Chinese malign influence in the region,” while describing actions in the South China Sea such as the One Belt One Road Initiative as China executing its own deliberate and thoughtful force posture initiatives.

Due to the distances involved in the Indo-Pacific, Davidson stressed that the U.S. cannot solely rely on surge forces from the continental United States to deter Chinese aggression or prevent a fait accompli. He also said PACOM must maintain a robust, blunt layer that effectively deters Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

However, he added there is insufficient forward-deployed and rotational forces from all three services in PACOM’s area of responsibility, or AOR, and the current force structure and presence does “not sufficiently counter the threats in the Indo-Pacific.”

He specifically noted that PACOM only has a quarter of its required intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability in its AOR, although he declined to go into further details of the ISR shortfall, instead saying “the shortfalls are identified and have been highlighted in PACOM’s regular contacts with the Joint Staff.”

Additional requirements for the AOR include command-and-control capabilities, as well as the “integration of long-range, high-speed, lethal, survivable and precision munitions capabilities in ships, submarines, patrol craft, land-based formations, bombers and fighters.” These, combined with robust numbers of fifth-generation platforms and the necessary tankers and transports, will provide U.S. forces an advantage in a denied environment in the near term, the officer explained.


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Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, admits he's a "naturally uncomfortable person" and how that affects his view of the supply chain and making sure war fighters are properly equipped.
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Davidson also touched on the continuing effort to field a new generation of weapons such as the Conventional Prompt Global Strike long-range hypersonic weapons, which he said “will help meet military requirements in PACOM” by expanding the competitive space and by taking on adversaries in areas where the U.S. possesses advantages and adversaries lack strength.

Still, he cautioned that China has already been doing the same by weaponizing space and improving its ballistic missile technology and cyber capabilities.

The state of follow-on forces to be deployed to the AOR in the event of a conflict was also an area of worry, with Davidson expressing concern about the manning, training and equipping of U.S. follow-on forces. He emphasized that continuing resolutions, delayed appropriations and sequestration stemming from the budget impasse directly impacts the size and speed of a military response.

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Housecarl

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https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/time-to-terminate-escalate-to-de-escalateits-escalation-control/

Time to Terminate Escalate to De-Escalate — It’s Escalation Control

Jay Ross
April 24, 2018
Commentary

“Escalate to de-escalate” is catchy, it rhymes, and it rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately, it is also wrong — but not for the reasons experts usually focus on.

Since Russia released its 2014 National Defense Strategy, and especially after the publication of America’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, U.S. officials, pundits, and national security wonks have used the phrase either to describe Russia’s strategy, or as a launching point to criticize that description. Buzz phrases like “escalate to de-escalate” tend to spread through officialdom where they are misunderstood and misused as quickly as they are shared. The problem with the term is not that Russia doesn’t have capacity or plans to use calculated escalation (nuclear or otherwise) to contain or terminate a conflict. It’s that such escalation is only one part of a larger strategic approach, and the focus on Moscow’s nuclear threshold risks missing the forest for the trees.

Russia’s approach to conflict is better described as “escalation control,” a concept that was a part of the American strategy lexicon until the end of the Cold War. The United States, facing non-peer adversaries in post-Cold War conflicts, has been able to dominate opponents at any level of conflict where an adversary is capable. Under this framework of “escalation dominance,” careful calculations of thresholds and escalation triggers have been more a matter of preference than necessity for state survival. Russia, on the other hand, has had no such advantage vis-à-vis the West and has instead adopted escalation control — a strategic approach that relies on carefully calculated, proactive measures to ensure a conflict is contained at lower, more acceptable levels. Through this approach Russia can control the level of conflict escalation, dominating the mechanics and circumstances of escalation rather than dominating conflict levels themselves. De-escalating actions are just one tool in this strategy’s larger toolbox.

Russia’s strategy should be addressed in whole rather just the part focused on the nuclear end of the conflict spectrum. To truly appreciate Moscow’s approach, and the variety of tools available at levels below kinetic conflict, the West needs to dust off its understanding of escalation control. Failing to use the correct framework to understand today’s evolved capabilities, and the blurred delineations between military and nonmilitary lines of effort, can lead to miscommunication and, possibly, miscalculation.

Problems with the Bumper Sticker Version
“Escalate to de-escalate” tends to focus solely on Russia’s thresholds for nuclear weapons use, rather than taking a holistic approach to conflict. De-escalatory strikes are essentially an action to deter further aggression — that is, to control escalation – but such actions do not need to take place in the nuclear realm. For instance, Russia “escalated to de-escalate” in 2015 and 2016, when it deployed S-400 and S-300 air defense systems to Syria, against the backdrop of increasing tensions between U.S. and Russian forces operating in close proximity there. As one U.S. official quipped when asked about the intent behind the 2016 S-300 deployments, “Nusra doesn’t have an air force do they?” The United States took note of the possibility Russians might shoot down a U.S. aircraft. The increased risk that both nations would stumble into a conflict forced the Pentagon to avoid sustained unilateral actions against regime forces (limited cruise missile strikes aside) because the potential gains did not justify the risk of direct conflict with Russia. In ZAPAD-2017, another example, tactical nuclear weapons were not incorporated into the exercise scenario, but the exercise nonetheless showed how Russia planned to use overwhelming artillery and rocket fire to change the enemy’s cost-benefit analysis. De-escalatory actions don’t have to use nuclear weapons.

A second, more dangerous problem is that policymakers (and policy wonks) tend to misinterpret the phrase as meaning Russia has lowered its nuclear threshold. It’s easy to mentally reduce “escalate to de-escalate” to simply a strategy of out-escalating the other party, perhaps very early in a conflict, by turning to nuclear weapons more quickly than the United States would. But consider that the United States is able to project combat power to Russia’s backyard, a mere 300 miles from Moscow, holding the country at risk of a mass attack of shock and awe. If Russia responded with nuclear strikes in this scenario, U.S. officials may misinterpret the reaction as “escalate to de-escalate” in action. But in fact nuclear use in this case would have been driven by Washington’s approach, not Moscow’s.

Further, focusing on whether Russia will resort to nuclear use risks overlooking other actions taken intentionally below NATO’s escalation thresholds. In 2014, Russia could have virtually guaranteed a decisive military victory over Ukraine by displaying its modern military advancements and dominance, sending multiple divisions across the border, supported by thunderous artillery and heavy bombers. It did not, of course, choosing instead to try and achieve as many of its goals operating at as low a level of conflict as possible, and doing so quickly, to avoid NATO intervention.

Additional spin-off terminology has aggravated the problem. The commander of U.S. Strategic Command recently described Russia’s strategy as “escalate to win,” but this term is unhelpful as it leaves open the definition of “win” in a given conflict. If winning means achieving strategic goals, then that’s just every conflict in history and is too broad to be useful. If the definition of win becomes flexible, then the possible goals become too varied to pin down in a universal rule. The phrase also doesn’t account for examples of Moscow using restraint to keep the conflict below levels that invite reciprocal escalation — which is encompassed by the more holistic and useful term “escalation control.”

Another variation is “escalate to survive,” mentioned on a recent War on the Rocks podcast on this subject, meaning escalatory actions taken to preserve the existence of the state, or perhaps return to a status quo ante. But again, this term doesn’t account for more aggressive actions at lower levels of conflict where the existence of the Russian state is not at immediate risk, such as in Ukraine. By focusing on escalate to de-escalate, escalate to win, or escalate to survive, the West may fail to see what actions Russia might take at lower thresholds — and to understand why it is doing so.

Escalation Control: A More Useful Term…
Escalation control is the concept that best accounts for the range of military and diplomatic actions the Kremlin has taken in recent years. This framework, specifically applied to Russian strategy, outlines a proactive approach to controlling the process of escalation rather than militarily defeating the adversary at any given escalation level. It requires Russia to maintain the initiative in a conflict, an area in which it has excelled. In Ukraine, Russia tried a number of methods — at incremental levels of engagement, rather than at higher levels requiring decisive combat power — to achieve measured success before NATO could interdict and escalate the conflict to a level unacceptable for Moscow.

Generally speaking, Russia has controlled the pace and scale of the conflicts in Syria as well, forcing American-backed forces to react to Russian-backed forces’ actions. Since Russia first intervened in Syria in 2015, a number of incidents have raised tensions between Russia and the United States: cruise missile strikes in response to chemical weapon use, harassment and encirclement of At Tanf, and the massively successful U.S. strikes on alleged Russian mercenaries. In each case, Russia has set the tone for what happens next, kept the conflict from escalating beyond its means or desires, and remained on track to have a sustained military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Escalation control also requires a confident understanding of the adversary’s escalation thresholds. This was clearly a consideration for the Kremlin in Ukraine, where it consciously chose to incrementally increase direct action in the country’s east without escalating to decisive combat power (and probably not because it was deterred by fear of Ukraine’s military). Rather, Russia applied and refined its understanding of NATO thresholds for intervention, taking care to avoid inviting conflict. In this way, Western deterrence worked at one level of conflict but failed to some degree at another. Russia’s incremental increases were not de-escalatory actions, designed to create shock and compel and adversary to back down. Instead, they were intentionally constrained to avoid NATO intervention thresholds. This is consistent with a model of escalation control, but is not “escalate to de-escalate.”

…But an Even Tougher Problem
The nuance between “escalate to de-escalate” and a strategy that includes de-escalatory actions in its toolbox might seem like a matter of semantics, a little like knowing the exact size of a boot that is kicking you in the face. But this difference has significant implications for how the United States deals with the Kremlin.

Unfortunately, de-escalatory nuclear strikes — the victim of the “escalate to de-escalate” misnomer — are neither the only nor the most likely level of conflict that the West will see from Russia, as Ukraine and Syria have shown. Escalation control can be applied with any weapon system, including nuclear weapons, and it’s not even Russia’s idea, at least not originally. “We may seek to terminate a war on favorable terms using our [remaining] forces as a bargaining weapon-by threatening further attack … our large reserve of … firepower would give an enemy an incentive to avoid our cities and to stop a war.” This might seem like a quote from a Russian Military Thought article, but in fact it was U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962 explaining U.S. strategy to use limited nuclear strikes to de-escalate a conflict using “deliberate escalation,” specifically in a situation where NATO non-nuclear forces could not successfully defend against a Soviet attack. What was old is new again.

Whether de-escalation actions take the form of deploying advanced air defense where U.S. aircraft are operating or launching a demonstrative nuclear strike, they achieve their desired aim not through the actual effect of the weapon, but by increasing the risk of what could come next. Deterring further escalation through these actions only works if the possible consequences are both credible and undesirable, which is why it can work at many levels of conflict. Escalation control proactively uses that risk to keep more capable adversaries deterred at lower levels of conflict.

Critics of escalation control often point out that escalation is not something that a party does, but rather is something that happens, and therefore no party to a conflict can actually control escalation. Indeed, some critics make the case that Russians don’t believe they can control escalation. often focus on the higher ends of the conflict spectrum, in this case on nuclear first use thresholds, where the stakes are higher and there are fewer rungs left to climb on the escalation ladder. But at lower levels, the Kremlin has in fact successfully controlled conflict escalation in two theaters with the potential for U.S./NATO intervention in the last four years.

Moreover, Russia’s approach takes full advantage of this fear that escalation is uncontrollable. If an adversary believes that no one can control escalation, increasing the risk of a larger-scale conflict at lower levels can deter even lower-level intervention. Uncertainty increases risk, and the shared risk of escalation into a direct large-scale war can deter lower level confrontation. Through proactive and calculated escalatory actions, Russia can use the risk and uncertainty of potential escalation to enhance its deterrence of adversaries at these lower levels of conflict.

No matter the interpretation, escalation control is a more difficult strategy to counter than just “escalate to deescalate.” It can work for many desired outcomes, whether it’s to win, simply not lose, maintain a frozen conflict, or solidify a new status quo. It relies on forward-looking detailed planning focused on a limited number of adversaries. It is flexible and responsive to emerging and dynamic situations.

Russia is relying provocative, lower-level actions that use escalation risk to deter United States and avoid getting into a conflict it doesn’t want. This approach does have a weakness: It relies on a reactive adversary with known or accurately predicted thresholds. The United States has to decide which escalation thresholds it wants to communicate clearly, and which ones it wants to keep ambiguous to deter Russia. This will be complex, since it requires accounting for newer domains and means of conflict. It will also require making some tough internal calls about what is important enough to the United States to justify certain actions and certain risks, and then deciding how or whether to communicate those thresholds. Communicating to Russia that any malign act will result in direct military action is not credible. The lines need to be drawn, at least internally, and then the United States needs to decide whether those thresholds are best served by communicating clarity or ambiguity to Russia.

It’s true that this intentional ambiguity about escalation thresholds will also create an environment for miscommunication while both sides adjust to their opponents’ thresholds and posturing. But if Russia and the United States are going to have miscommunication it should happen at the lowest levels of conflict possible, rather than one party getting backed into a corner where large-scale retaliation is required. If the United States doesn’t think through its policy and posturing before a crisis occurs, it may feel compelled to act, to do something, rather than capitulate. Foresight and clarity about Russia’s approach to controlling escalation can give the United States hard choices early rather than impossible choices later — and that starts with finding the right language to describe and understand Russia’s strategy.

Jay Ross is an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton supporting the Department of Defense, and a U.S. Army Reserve Nuclear Weapons Officer, currently assigned to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He has 16 years of military and defense experience focused on nuclear technology, weapons, and strategy, and on Russian strategic military issues.
 

Housecarl

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https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/yes-it-is-a-new-cold-war-what-is-to-be-done/

Yes, It Is a New Cold War. What Is To Be Done?

Raymond Smith
April 25, 2018
Commentary

What a Cold War looks like depends to some extent on where you sit. From where I sat on the State Department’s Soviet desk during the early 1980s, it looked like telling Shirley Temple that she could not invite the Soviet consul general in San Francisco to her home for Thanksgiving. During the low points of a Cold War, not much is going on between the countries involved except the enforcement of reciprocity, which boils down to treating the other country’s diplomats the same way they treat yours.

I had the job of enforcing U.S. reciprocity toward the Soviet Union. Our open society made it tough to go toe-to-toe with the closed Soviet society. Ambassador (ret.) Temple had phoned me because she knew (courtesy of the Consul General himself, who had, no doubt, also given her my telephone number) that she lived in an area closed for travel by Soviet diplomats, closed in reciprocity for the many areas the Soviet Union forbade our diplomats from accessing.

As I explained our policy and the reasons for it, my staff, aware of who was on the other end of the line, gathered about my office door to see whether I would be my usual hard-nosed self. I should have said no to the request unless the Soviet foreign ministry allowed a reciprocal visit to a closed area for one of our people, which I knew Moscow would not do. But it was Thanksgiving, and she was Shirley Temple.

My present-day counterparts at the State Department have been drawing up lists of who to expel, what to close, and how to sanction, just as we did in the early years of the Reagan presidency. And, just as during those years, there is precious little going on in the relationship besides tit-for-tat reciprocity, mutual accusations and dueling propaganda efforts. It looks like a Cold War to me — although, as history tends to do, it is repeating itself in a different way.

The Cold War nadir of the early Reagan years soon gave way to negotiations that led to historic reductions in nuclear weapons, an end to the subjugation of eastern Europe, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the possibility (still unrealized) of a different kind of relationship with a newly independent Russia. In some ways, it should be easier now than it was in the 1980s to move toward a more productive relationship. Russia and the United States are not locked in a worldwide struggle for ideological and military dominance. But there are other obstacles. For one, Putin is no Gorbachev and Trump is no Reagan. For another, there is no mutually accepted agenda to serve as a basis for negotiations.

The U.S. agenda of problems that would have to be dealt with includes Ukraine, electoral interference, violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and Syria. These are all legitimate subjects for negotiation, but this agenda either does not address issues of concern to Russia or, when it does, requires Russia to unilaterally change its behavior if relations are to improve. That is not a recipe for productive negotiations – and unfortunately, it is not a new problem. For reasons that date back to the end of the Cold War, the United States has become accustomed to pressing Russia on U.S. concerns, while failing to engage substantively on issues of concern to Russia. A broader negotiating agenda, encompassing NATO expansion and Ukraine, arms control, and state sovereignty and interference in internal affairs, would have the dual merits of engaging Russia on some of its major concerns and promoting America’s fundamental interest in a more stable international system.

The End of the Cold War and Putin’s Push for Equality
During the 1989-90 negotiations on German reunification, the U.S. team led by Secretary of State Jim Baker, brilliantly (and correctly) persuaded Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that Soviet interests would be better served by a united Germany situated securely within NATO than by a neutral Germany that might decide to become a nuclear power. Gorbachev also agreed to the principle that a united Germany, as a sovereign state, had the right to choose its own security alliances. These agreements, along with a series of Soviet concessions on arms control issues, ended the Cold War, but they also contained within them the seeds of future misunderstandings.

In the 1990s, during the chaotic presidency of Boris Yeltsin, the United States became accustomed to advising Russia – at the time, facing economic collapse and uncertain of its place in the world – on its national interests and domestic policies. Internationally, this frequently amounted to convincing Russia that its interests were served by supporting American policies such as the Dayton Accords and UN peacekeeping in Bosnia. Domestically, it led to a well-intentioned, but corrupt and ineptly managed voucher privatization program that put enormous wealth in the hands of a small group of oligarchs while most of the population suffered from rampant inflation, unpaid salaries and pensions, and lost savings.

Unlike his two predecessors, Vladimir Putin falls rather squarely into a standard Russian leadership pattern: reform imposed from the top; a tendency toward increased authoritarianism over time; a desire for Russia to play a significant role in world affairs. He spent much of his first decade as leader attempting to develop a cooperative, but equal relationship with the United States.

When he talks about that relationship, Putin still regularly mentions that he wants his country to be treated as an equal. This demand for equality must be understood in a Russian cultural context, since Putin is well aware that Russia is not the economic or military equal of the United States, except in its nuclear capacity. Russians’ expectations of relationships differ greatly depending on whether they are authority-based, in which one party is completely dominant and the other completely submissive, or not authority-based, in which case strict equality is expected and demanded. Putin considers the bilateral relationship in the 1990s to have been one of authority, with the U.S. dominant and Russia submissive, reflecting an international system that the United States dominated as well. Having, from his perspective, failed to obtain the respect for Russian interests that equality demanded, his goal has been to change the terms of the relationship, in part by growing the Russian economy and reinvigorating its military, in part by resisting, subverting, and destabilizing U.S. policies that he sees as hegemonic.

A Way Forward: Expand the Agenda
For the U.S.-Russia relationship to improve, Russia needs to change its behavior on Ukraine, electoral interference, INF treaty violations, and Syria. There are, however, also issues on the Russian side of the ledger: NATO expansion, U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and U.S. interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Russia has had great difficulty in engaging the United States substantively on these issues. It sees the problem as rooted in a U.S. refusal to accept a relationship of equality. I see it as a pattern of negotiating behavior that the United States became accustomed to during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin periods, a pattern that has not been adjusted to current realties.

NATO Expansion and Ukraine
Russia made clear its concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion throughout the 1990s, including under Yeltsin. The Western response to Russia’s worries was threefold: 1) There had never been a commitment not to expand NATO into eastern Europe; 2) NATO expansion aligned with Russian interests; and 3) Every sovereign nation has a right to choose its own security alliances. The West brushed aside Russia’s disagreement with the first two assertions. The third eventually became a trope repeated each time a new country sought NATO security guarantees. The United States continues to hold out the possibility of Ukrainian admission into NATO on these grounds, as well as that of additional countries in the post-Soviet space.

The issues of NATO expansion and Russian intervention in Ukraine are inextricably intertwined. To begin unwinding the Ukrainian conflict, the United States needs to make a formal, public statement that it will not support NATO membership for Ukraine. That would mark the long overdue burial of the misused talking point that countries have a right to choose their own security alliances. A country may have the right to seek whatever security guarantees it considers in its interests, but it does not follow that providing such guarantees is in the interests of the putative guarantor. A commitment to go to war for another country should be made only if the vital interests of the guarantor are at stake. The United States has no such vital interests at stake in Ukraine (or Georgia) and should not bind itself by providing NATO membership, with its Article 5 security guarantee, to those countries. Membership was not a badly timed idea; it was a bad idea period.

Taking NATO membership definitively off the table will allow the United States to play a more effective intermediary role between Russia and Ukraine by lessening Russian suspicions about its real motives. It could also provide an opening for the European Union to engage seriously with both countries about its economic relationship with each. In 2017, Russia became the third-largest exporter to and fourth-largest importer from the European Union, while also reclaiming the place it had lost a year earlier to the European Union as Ukraine’s largest trading partner. Negotiations among the three will be difficult, since major economic interests are at stake on all sides, but that should come as no surprise to Europeans who have worked through years of difficult European Union negotiations. The Minsk agreements provide a reasonable basis on which to unfreeze the conflict in Ukraine, but have been bogged down since 2015 in mutual accusations of bad faith. Trilateral negotiations on economic relationships may provide a venue separate from American efforts for persuading both countries to live up to their commitments.

Arms Control
Russia’s concerns about U.S. missile defense programs date back to the Star Wars era and were intensified by the American withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. The Russians believe that through a combination of technological breakthroughs and superior resources, the United States may be able to nullify Russia’s missile deterrent, exposing Russia to a potential first-strike nuclear attack. These are not trivial concerns. Underlying them is a growing difference between how the United States and Russia seek to maintain nuclear deterrence. Russia remains fully committed to mutually assured destruction, which seeks to assure stability by ensuring that no country has an incentive to launch a first strike against another since the launching country would suffer an unacceptable level of damage from the ensuing retaliation. To maintain mutually assured destruction, Russia has responded to U.S. missile defense efforts by attempting to ensure its missile systems are able to penetrate any such defenses.

The U.S. also relies primarily on mutually assured destruction, but is adding a defensive component to its strategic posture that is gradually becoming larger and more effective. Its response to Russian concerns about such systems in eastern Europe has been to say that they are misplaced, since the systems are not aimed at Russian missiles. Such assurances do not allay the Russians’ concerns – indeed, they would not allay American concerns if the tables were turned. As Putin put it:

while the number of carriers and weapons is being reduced [because of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty limitations on weapons and delivery systems], one of the parties, namely, the U.S., is permitting constant, uncontrolled growth of the number of anti-ballistic missiles, improving their quality, and creating new missile launching areas. If we do not do something, eventually this will result in the complete devaluation of Russia’s nuclear potential. Meaning that all of our missiles could simply be intercepted.

This disconnect has set the stage for a new arms race. The United States has the resources to match any Russian advances in missile numbers or design, while simultaneously pursuing defensive systems. Future arms control negotiations will have to deal simultaneously with offensive and defensive systems. To ensure that the introduction of defensive systems does not destabilize deterrence, the United States should seek agreement with Russia on how such systems can gradually and mutually be introduced into each country’s strategic mix – rather than simply building them up unilaterally. If bilateral progress on these matters can be achieved, the negotiations would have to be broadened at some point to include other nuclear powers.

State Sovereignty and Interference in Internal Affairs
The two nations also need to address a deep-rooted disagreement about intervention in the affairs of other countries, which will require the United States to take a look at its own behavior. The Russian government’s effort to influence the 2016 elections is currently the most neuralgic issue in the U.S.-Russian relationship. It is Exhibit A in making the case that the United States needs to engage with Russia, and other countries, on setting ground rules for cyber activities.

The underlying problem, however, is deeper. The international system lacks agreed norms regarding when, how, and why a country may involve itself in the internal affairs of another. Consequently, as Thucydides long ago chronicled, the strong do what they can and the weak bear what they must.

Honesty requires us to recognize that the United States has contributed more than its share to this state of affairs. Formally, it stands for a rule-based international order. In practice, during this century, it has engaged in diplomatic, clandestine, and/or military interventions in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Ukraine, among others.

Russia’s position, in principle, is that state sovereignty is absolute — a country can only engage in those activities within another country that the host government authorizes and permits. Fyodor Lukyanov, a respected Russian analyst, refers to Putin’s views on state sovereignty as “Westphalian.” He views the violation of state sovereignty in the name of protecting human rights as contrary to international law and a recipe for chaos and destruction. Russia justifies its activities in Syria on the grounds that its help has been requested by the legitimate government. On Crimea, on the other hand, it cites the right of self-determination in support of its actions, pointing out that the United States intervened in Kosovo in the name of that same principle. In Putin’s own words: “Why is it that in one case white is white, while in another the same is called black? We will never agree with this nonsense.” As its military activities in Ukraine and Georgia, and its cyber activities around the world amply demonstrate, however, Russia’s practices fall short of its principles.

If the United States wants to put boundary conditions around this anarchic state of affairs, it needs to take the lead in engaging with Russia and other key actors on the question of state sovereignty and interference, broadening the agenda beyond just electoral interference. It is not clear that it is ready to do so. On the one hand, as the strongest country in the world, the United States benefits in some ways from an element of anarchy. On the other hand, in any system the benefits of stability flow disproportionately to those at the top. The U.S. interest in a stable international system is not furthered by the current state of affairs.

Paradoxically, Russian cyber activities during the 2016 elections may provide an opportunity for serious discussion of these issues. While a public mea culpa is unlikely, Russia may decide that its interest in not being targeted for cyber warfare warrants bilateral or multilateral discussions about what constitutes acceptable cyber intelligence activity. Again, this assumes the United States is willing to accept limits on its own activities. As in arms control, progress on this issue could provide a framework for dealing with it in a multilateral forum. There is an obvious need for technical as well as political discussions about creating rules of the road in this area.

Conclusion
Sanctions and other forms of negative signaling have an appropriate place in diplomacy. This is particularly the case in dealing with Russia, where the cultural expectation is that failure to object means acquiescence. As an example, rotating small NATO forces to the Baltic states following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine helped to ensure there were no miscalculations about NATO’s security guarantees to its members. However, punishment will not bring Russia to the negotiating table. Negotiations will require an agenda that addresses major issues on both sides.

Dealing with issues on the Russian side of the ledger would not be a concession, but rather serve both short- and long-term American interests. U.S. security is not improved if the introduction of defensive systems destabilizes nuclear deterrence, if it continues to provide security guarantees to countries in which it has no vital interests, or if the only limitation on interference in the internal affairs of other countries is the might of the intervener.

Underlying the deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship is the question of how to improve the stability of a multipolar system. If there was a post-Cold War American unipolar moment, it is over. The Napoleonic wars and World Wars I and II suggest that stability in the multipolar systems that emerged required that no major power consider itself alienated from the system. This history indicates as well that stability is enhanced by institutions and norms that seek to limit conflicts and the means used to pursue them — assuming the major powers are participants and adherents.

Russia believes its efforts to participate meaningfully in the post-Cold War system that the United States established have been rejected. It sees a potential alternative alliance structure built around others countries that the system has rejected — Syria, Iran, —and countries such as China, Venezuela, and potentially Turkey. The best way to avoid the destabilizing effects of such efforts is not to further isolate Russia, but to open negotiations on issues that concern both countries.

The issues that divide the United States and Russia today are not as fundamental as the ideological and military rivalries that divided the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. On the other hand, the political obstacles in the United States and the level of distrust in Russia are higher today. Reagan’s reputation as a staunch anti-communist gave him negotiating credibility that the current president, widely seen as “soft” on Russia, does not share. Putin, for his part, lacks Gorbachev’s optimism about forging a new relationship with the West. He is unlikely, therefore, to make the kinds of unilateral concessions that attracted Reagan’s attention. While we are waiting for this Cold War logjam to break up, we could probably use a few more Shirley Temples inviting a few more Russians to dinner.

Dr. Ray Smith spent more than 30 years at the State Department working primarily on Soviet/Russian affairs and arms control. He is the author of Negotiating with the Soviets, The Craft of Political Analysis, and numerous foreign affairs articles.
 

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Missile shield sends US misguided feeling of impunity — Russian Foreign Ministry

Russian Politics & Diplomacy April 25, 7:07 UTC+3
Moscow has repeatedly tried to draw US attention to the problem

MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. The so-called missile shield gives the United States a wrong feeling of impunity and pushes it to dangerous steps, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday, commenting on the US State Department’s 2017 Compliance Report.


"The risk is that the availability of a missile shield may give grounds for a vile feeling of invincibility and impunity and, hence, lure Washington into new dangerous unilateral steps to achieve its goals on the global and regional levels bypassing the United Nations Security Council and in the detriment of common sense, as it has already been done twice in respect of Syria by means of delivering missile strikes on this sovereign state under far-fetched pretexts," the ministry said.

The ministry added that the "irresponsible creation of the US missile shield system has a most negative influence on the system of the international security and seriously complicates relations not only in the Euro-Atlantic, but also in the Asia-Pacific regions."

It also "turned into one of the most serious barriers on the way to further step-by-step nuclear disarmament and creates dangerous preconditions for the resumption of the arms race."

Moscow has repeatedly tried to draw US attention to the problem, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"However, despite the formal recognition of a direct link between strategic offensive and defensive weapons (including in the text of the 2010 New START treaty), the US has still failed to demonstrate readiness to cooperate and take Russia’s concerns into account," the ministry said.

"One has to realize that missile defense elements, deployed worldwide, are a part of a dangerous global project to ensure total US military advantage to the detriment of security interests of other nations," the statement reads. "Active buildup of the US missile shield systems altogether changes the strategic balance of forces in offensive weapons, and in principle creates more and more serious risks of global instability.".



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http://tass.com/politics/1001627
 

danielboon

TB Fanatic
More US, French military vehicles dispatched to northeastern Syria – reports

According to the Lebanese Al-Manar TV network, citing field sources, the United States has set up a new military base in Syria’s Al-Hasakah province, while France has sent new military convoys to the site.

Washington has reportedly dispatched military columns, including multiple armored vehicles that arrived in Al-Hasakah and later moved toward the city of Al-Shadadi in the southern Hasakah countryside from a military base north of the Khabour Dam. The field sources further told Al-Manar that three military cars allegedly under French flags followed into a Kurdish militia base in northwestern Hasakah.

According to the Fars news agency reported, citing Moraseloun website, which, in turn, referred to media activists, saying that the US Army had set up a military base between the towns of Tell Tamer and Tal Bidar in Hasakah province.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laid out his opinion on US President Donald Trump’s promise to withdraw troops from Syria.

“The US pledged that their only aim was to banish terrorists from Syria, to defeat the so-called ‘Islamic State,’ but despite all their claims, despite President Trump’s claims, the US is in fact positioning itself on the Eastern bank of the Euphrates and has no intention of leaving,” Lavrov said.

However, according to media reports, the US has established military facilities in Al-Hasakah, as well as in eastern Deir ez-Zor earlier this month, having dispatched more equipment to the Syrian army’s defense lines. France, for its part, has allegedly deployed military convoys to support Kurdish militias – a move that substantiates claims by a senior Kurdish official who told reporters in March that President Emmanuel Macron had promised to send more troops to the area to “mediate” between the Kurds and Ankara.

The foreign minister’s remark is less than a month after President Trump promised to “leave Syria, like, very soon,” apparently contradicting earlier comments by his administration, including high-ranking officials at the Pentagon and State Department, claiming that US troops would maintain an open-ended presence in Syria.

Since 2014, the US-led international coalition has been carrying out airstrikes on what it described as Daesh* targets in Syria, without either a UN mandate, or the Syrian authorities’ permission. Damascus has repeatedly dismissed the American military presence in the country as “illegal.” https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...les-dispatched-to-northeastern-syria-reports/
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Hummm....

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https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...ussian_missiles_may_be_aimed_east_113372.html

New Russian Missiles May Be Aimed East

By Norman Friedman
April 25, 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted a March 2018 speech on the state of Russia to a series of five spectacular “new” strategic weapons—though all have been known to the West for years. All five—the Sarmat ballistic missile, the Avangard hypersonic maneuvering reentry vehicle, the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic cruise missile, the Status-6 nuclear-powered autonomous underwater vehicle, and a nuclear-powered cruise missile—have Cold War antecedents. Only the cruise missile amounted to news, though analysts were aware of it even if the media were not. In spite of Putin’s declarations that some are operational—and “invincible”— he illustrated his remarks with paintings on slides, not with photographs of actual hardware. (An anonymous U.S. official told CNN there have been several unsuccessful tests of the nuclear-powered cruise missile, all ending in crashes.)Some commentators see Putin’s announcement as an attempt to force the West to take him more seriously, while others point to his reelection campaign. Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center show that the Russian population blames the West and international sanctions, rather than the Russian government, for the poor state of the economy. Putin’s claim of overwhelming strength is doubtless very popular domestically, where U.S. work on strategic missile defense generally has been taken as a direct attack on Russia instead of as protection against small numbers of ballistic missiles in the hands of rogue regimes, particularly those of Iran and North Korea.

It seems significant that Putin did not unveil some exotic means of defending Russia against Western strategic weapons. Effective large-scale missile defense is the only way the nuclear balance of power can be tipped, but neither Russia nor the United States can buy enough strategic interceptors to defend completely against the quantity of nuclear weapons the other already has. Without a new missile defense shield, Putin merely is threatening the West with what Russia has been able to do for decades. Nuclear weapons are a relatively inexpensive form of military power, made even cheaper if—thanks to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—they never need to be demonstrated.

More generally, Putin clearly still believes what he was taught as a young KGB officer - that the West and its open societies are a deadly threat to Russia. This is nothing new in Russian history.

A combination of fascination with the West and hatred of its openness goes back hundreds of years. The question for those who wanted to resist Western liberalism was always whether Russia could simply be sealed against contagion or whether it needed to take the initiative. But this fear does not explain fully Putin’s emphasis on nuclear weapons in his speech.

It is possible that his intended audience is located to the east, in China. For many years, the Chinese Communist Party has cultivated intense nationalism based on the sense that China repeatedly has been torn apart by foreign powers. The country’s enmity toward Japan and its triumphant reclaiming of Hong Kong and Macao are among the most visible evidence. Chinese maps still show one of the results of the “unequal treaties” between the Qing Dynasty and foreign powers—Russia’s possession of large swaths of Chinese Siberia, where many ethnic Chinese live today. Even while the Soviet Union supported the People’s Republic of China in its early years, the Soviets imposed the same humiliations on China as the West had done before the Communists took power. Following the Sino-Soviet split, the Chinese became openly hostile to the Soviets.

Russia and China profess friendship today, but the question, for both the West and for Russia, is how deep does it go? When the Russian government first began selling modern weapons to China in the 1990s, many Russians were uneasy. Today, that trade is less vital to an evolving Chinese military industry. Many Russians are aware of the looming reality that the Russian Army is thinly manned while the Chinese have a seemingly bottomless pool of manpower coupled with increasingly sophisticated weaponry.

The Chinese have been testing antiballistic-missile interceptors since at least 2010, with the most recent test in February 2018. Russia may have interpreted the February test as a threat to its most important military asset—nuclear weapons. At some point in the near future, China will have a national strategic defense system. But China will not be able to defeat a mass nuclear attack any more than Russia or the United States will. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party may be more willing than the United States to sacrifice a great deal if it can preserve its national leadership in Beijing. Chinese rulers might imagine that they can buy enough interceptors to achieve that.

In this context, then, perhaps Putin’s message was directed more at Beijing than Washington. He may see the nuclear cruise missile as a means of increasing Russia’s capacity to attack China—cruising over a wide area, spewing radioactive exhaust on its way to detonation—without violating treaties that have reduced the size of the Russian strategic arsenal.

Putin probably prefers deterrence over attacking China. But his goals go beyond the mutually assured destruction that has prevented nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Putin needs to discourage China from attempting to undermine Russian control of Siberia, and a shrinking army is of little help. The Russian strategic defense system around Moscow may be insufficient to defend against an all-out attack by the United States, but Putin may imagine that it would suffice to defeat a small-scale attack by the limited number of Chinese strategic weapons. He plausibly may imagine that Russia’s overwhelming advantage in warheads would lead to a fightable—winnable—nuclear war.

Dr. Friedman is the author of many books about warships, aircraft, and their weaponry, including multiple editions of The U.S. Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems published by and available from the Naval Institute Press.

This article appeared originally at U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine.
 

Housecarl

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https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...tenuous-security-sitation-in-afghan-north.php


Taliban camp in Baghlan emphasizes tenuous security situation in Afghan north

BY BILL ROGGIO | April 24, 2018 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

In a video released by the Taliban yesterday promoting its “Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour Camp” in Baghlan province, jihadists were once again marching through a town and driving in the desert in broad daylight, without fear of reprisal from Afghan and Coalition forces. The video highlighted the worsening security situation in the Afghan north, including Baghlan, where 12 of the province’s 14 districts are contested and one is controlled by the Taliban.

The Taliban video showed the group’s fighters in various stages of training as well as conducting operations in the province. The camp is named after Mullah Mansour, the previous emir of the Taliban who was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in May 2016.

The exact location of the camp was not disclosed by the Taliban. However, the group is known to control one district (Dahana-I-Ghuri), and contests the other 12 of Baghlan’s 14 districts, including the provincial capital of Pul-i-Khurmi, according to data compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal. Only the district of Andarab is considered to be “government influenced,” according to Resolute Support. However, this status indicates that the Taliban has some presence in the district and is not fully under government control.

In one scene, a company-sized Taliban force marched through a town in Baghlan with Taliban banners held high. Taliban vehicles blocked the roads to allow the fighters space to march. The movement was conducted during broad daylight.

In another clip, Taliban fighters mounted on vehicles, including a host of captured US-supplied HUMVEEs and Ford Ranger pickup trucks moved through are rural area in broad daylight, again with white Taliban flags flying proud.

Other scenes showed Taliban fighters during training, running through an obstacle course, firing weapons, conducting assaults, patrolling, and marching in the desert. The scenes from the obstacle course were reminiscent of al Qaeda training videos from the 1990s. And while many Taliban training camp videos appear to show makeshift or transitory facilities, the Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour Camp appears to be a permanent structure.

Jihadist training camps in Afghanistan

The Taliban has publicly flaunted at least 18 of its training camps since the end of 2014. In late 2015, the Taliban announced that its Khalid bin Walid Camp operated 12 satellite facilities throughout Afghanistan, and had the capacity to “train up to 2,000 recruits at a single time.” Additionally, it said the Khalid bin Walid Camp “trains recruits in eight provinces (Helmand, Kandahar, Ghazni, Ghor, Saripul, Faryab, Farah and Maidan Wardak) and “has around 300 military trainers and scholars.”

Other jihadist groups, including al Qaeda, are also known to operate camps inside Afghanistan. In 2015, the US raided an al Qaeda camp in Bermal district in Paktika, and two others in the Shorabak district in Kandahar province. The outgoing commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, said that one of the camps in Shorabak was the largest in Afghanistan since the US invaded in 2001. Al Qaeda has also operated camps in Kunar and Nuristan.

Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistani jihadist group closely allied with al Qaeda, “operates terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan,” the US government stated in 2014. The Turkistan Islamic Party, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Imam Bukhari Jamaat, an Uzbek jihadist group that operates in both Syria and Afghanistan, have all claimed to operate camps inside Afghanistan. Coalition forces have also raided Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan suicide training camps in Samagan and Sar-i-Pul in 2011.

Additionally, the US military has targeted training centers used by the Turkistan Islamic Party and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan over the past several months. In February, the US military said it struck “Taliban training facilities in Badakhshan province, preventing the planning and rehearsal of terrorist acts near the border with China and Tajikistan by such organizations as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and others.”

In March, the US military hit the Ghazi Camp in Kunar province, which was used by the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or TTP. The son of Mullah Fazlullah, the emir of the TTP, and two commanders, including the camp’s trainer of suicide bombers, were reportedly killed.

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

Housecarl

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https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...ces-onset-of-al-khandaq-jihadi-operations.php

Taliban announces onset of ‘Al Khandaq Jihadi operations’

BY BILL ROGGIO | April 25, 2018 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

The Afghan Taliban announced the opening of their 2018 spring offensive today, named the “Al Khandaq Jihadi operations” after the battle in Medina in 627 AD in which the Prophet Muhammad’s forces were significantly undermanned and besieged by Arab and Jewish forces yet still prevailed. US forces in Afghanistan are the primary target of operations, while Afghan government and security forces would be secondary, according to the Taliban statement.

The previous two spring offensives were named after the Taliban’s first two emirs: Mullah Omar, the group’s founder and first leader, and his successor, Mullah Mansour. Mullah Omar died in a Pakistani hospital in 2013, while Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2016.

“The planning and strategy of the Al Khandaq Jihadi operations are organized by the expert and proficient skilled cadre of the Military Commission of the Islamic Emirate which is based on guerilla [sic], offensive, infiltrated and various other new and intricate tactics against the new war strategy of the enemy,” the Taliban said in the statement.

Sirajuddin Haqqani leads the Taliban’s Military Commission, and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub – Mullah Omar’s son – served as a senior leader before being appointed along with Sirajuddin as one of Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada’s top two deputies. Sirajuddin is considered to be a skilled tactician and strategist, and has guided the Taliban to claim control or actively contest at least 58 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, its greatest measure of control or influence since the war began in 2001, according to data compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal.

Al Khandaq Jihadi operations are “mainly focusing on crushing, killing and capturing American invaders and their supporters.”

“Its primary target will be the American invaders and their intelligence agents,” the Taliban statement continued. “Their internal supporters will be dealt with as a secondary target while the present and future mischievous plots of the mischief-mongers will be nipped in the bud.”

The Taliban claimed that it would take care to prevent civilian casualties and warned Afghans to stay “at sufficient distance from all enemy bases and convoys so that they are not unnecessarily harmed during these operations.”

While the Taliban’s yearly announcement of its spring offensive is often viewed as a propaganda exercise, Taliban military and political operations often closely adhere to the announced goals. In 2017, the Taliban said that Operation Mansouri would focus on foreign forces as well as Afghan security forces. Additionally, it claimed that it would focus on governance in “areas that have been cleansed from the enemy.” During the 2017 offensive, the Taliban steadily increased its measure of control, and emphasized its governance of areas under control.

In 2016, the Taliban promised that Operation Omari would “employ large scale attacks on enemy positions across the country” and launch “martyrdom-seeking and tactical attacks against enemy strongholds.” The Taliban put pressure on six provincial capitals, overran multiple districts, and launched successful assaults on major military bases during the 2016 year’s offensive.

The Taliban’s 2018 offensive may shape up to be the most important in the war. The Trump administration has deployed several thousand additional troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to halt the Taliban’s recent gains. However, US and NATO officials believe that military pressure can force the Taliban to the negotiating table. This strategy failed under the Obama administration, which had more than 120,000 American soldiers in country. Currently there are more than 15,000 US soldiers on the ground.

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

Housecarl

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https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australia-s-chinese-ballistic-missile-problem

CHINA | AUSTRALIA | DEFENCE & SECURITY

Australia’s Chinese ballistic missile problem

By Peter Layton
26 April 2018
06:00 AEDT

Late last year in Australia, there was sudden interest shown in ballistic missile defence (BMD). Although the driver was North Korea’s missile testing, the real issue is China.

China’s latest ballistic missiles, combined with its new island bases, are steadily undercutting Australia’s ability to defend itself without relying on foreign combat forces. Our four decades–long defence policy of self-reliance is in danger. China is altering the local strategic balance, and Australia’s defence force structure may need to change in response.

Before proceeding, it must be stressed that China is not a threat, which in defence planning is defined as the sum of a nation’s military capabilities and its intent. But China is taking deliberate, long-term measures to significantly improve its military capabilities in our region, including by building six new islands in the South China Sea. Intent, of course, can change overnight.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force is the world’s largest, with some 2000 ballistic missiles available for attacking well-defended land and maritime targets. Many are solid-fuelled missiles with road-mobile launchers, able to be readily transported by ship.

Beijing’s new South China Sea bases are some 2–3 days’ sailing time from the Chinese mainland. Three of the islands are large and include significant airfield and port facilities. As incoming US Pacific Commander Admiral Philip Davidson recently observed:

Today these forward operating bases appear complete. The only thing lacking are the deployed forces. Once occupied, China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania.

The main weapons of concern to Australia are the DF-21C/D medium-range and the DF-26 intermediate-range missiles. Both reportedly have land-attack and anti-ship variants.

From Chinese bases, DF-21s can reach into the Philippines and most of Malaysia, and DF-26s can extend further across the Indonesian archipelago and into West Papua. From China’s new islands in the South China Sea, DF-21s could reach Singapore, Malaysia, and most of Indonesia, while DF-26s could reach into northern Australia, including Darwin, Katherine (Tindal), and Derby (Curtin).

ADF units may be within range of DF-21 or DF-26 missiles when operating in Southeast Asia, and DF-26 missiles could reach northern Australia if deployed to the South China Sea islands.

The DF-26 is the world’s longest range conventionally armed ballistic missile (3000–4000 kilometres) and can deliver a 1200–1800 kilogram payload. It has apparently been developed principally for precision attack of distant fixed-land targets, in particular the Guam airbases and port facilities.

Plans for a second DF-26 brigade were first revealed publicly in late 2015, and the commission was made in mid-April this year. It seems likely that some 44 missiles are in service, with more being built.

The problem should not be overstated. China operates large rocket forces, but there are more important targets for them than deployed ADF units or mainland Australia. And ballistic missiles are a wasting asset. Once fired, they cannot be reused. Neither can stocks be easily replenished, given any war is likely to be short, not allowing enough time to manufacture new missiles.

Any adversary using ballistic missiles will husband them, carefully protect them from attack, and try to use them prudently. The numbers of ballistic missiles that might target ADF units is likely to be low.

However, even small numbers of these missiles could cause huge damage because they can accurately deliver a range of warheads optimised for the target being attacked, such as airbases, port facilities, or docked warships.

There are several implications for Australia.

First, while the number of missiles that threaten northern Australia is likely to be low, they may need to be countered by Australia alone. US forces are very capable, but are limited in number and may have higher priority tasking elsewhere in a time of conflict.

Successive Australian governments since the 1970s have stressed the ability to defend the continent without relying on foreign combat forces. It seems sensible for this policy to continue even in a time when non-nuclear ballistic missile threats are emerging.

Second, there are plans to modify the Navy’s three Air Warfare Destroyers (AWDs) to carry the BMD-capable SM-6 missile by late next decade. Moreover, our nine planned Future Frigates will apparently now be fitted with a similar capability.

The SM-6 missile is capable against medium-range ballistic missiles but not against intermediate-range missiles, which are are too fast. The planned BMD capability is therefore unsuitable for defending northern Australia.

Third, our AWDs (but probably not our Future Frigates) could be upgraded to use the new SM-3 Block IIA missile jointly developed by the US and Japan. This missile can engage intermediate-range ballistic missiles flying in their mid-course phase beyond the atmosphere.

However, using ships as relocatable missile defence batteries poses difficulties. While the Navy will get three AWDs, it is usually only practical to deploy one ship forward at any one time.

A lower-cost BMD alternative, easier to crew and which won’t denude the Navy of scarce sea control assets, might be to acquire the Aegis Ashore system for Darwin. Effectively an AWD on land, this system is now operational in Europe, and will be operational in Japan from 2022.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is another viable option, although it offers a much smaller coverage area than Aegis Ashore. Two or more THAADs would be necessary to defend the Darwin/Tindal axis.

Intercepting ballistic missiles may sound like science fiction, but the threat is already present across large parts of Southeast Asia. China could make such a threat real to northern Australia within a couple of weeks. China’s new islands and latest missiles have changed our regional strategic balance.

Australia’s current plans are inadequate for present circumstances, let alone for the next decade. If we start now we may have a light BMD screen in service by 2030. If we wish to maintain our self-reliant defence posture, we need to get underway as soon as possible.

Related Content

Australia, Vietnam, The Diaspora And Generational Change
 

Housecarl

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https://www.cfr.org/blog/energy-int...re-asymmetric-risks-and-middle-east-conflicts

Energy Intelligence Briefing: Automated Warfare, Asymmetric Risks, and Middle East Conflicts

Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Amy Myers Jaffe
April 24, 2018

Geopolitical risk is always a major feature of global oil and gas markets, but the interplay of wars without end, powerful non-state actors, and the proliferation of new weapons technologies across the globe is raising that risk. Energy Realpolitik sits down with Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) National Intelligence Fellow Michael Dempsey to discuss a host of risks that might impact the energy sector in the coming years. Topics are drawn from recent discussions by CFR fellows at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy.

What are some broad trends that could influence the energy sector’s outlook in the next few years?

Mike Dempsey: First, it’s clear that the underlying conditions that brought us the Arab Spring in 2011 have not been resolved.
Just consider, according to the most recent Arab youth survey, youth unemployment remains at around 30 percent in the Middle East, and countries in this region by 2025 are projected to have a population of nearly 60 million between the ages of 15-24.

That’s a sizeable slice of the region’s population, and one-third of them are likely staring at long-term unemployment, especially if regional growth rates stay mired in the 1 to 3 percent range.
The young are not only restive, they are connected. So, during Iran’s protests in January, Iranians used forty-eight million iPhones to spread the word, and the protests spread to more than eighty cities across the country. In 2009, estimates are that 15 percent of Iran’s population had iPhones; today it’s about half.

Just ask yourself, would we have imagined last December that protests in countries as diverse as Tunisia and Iran would be sparked by many of the same underlying conditions?

That’s not, of course, to say that there aren’t some positive trends in the Middle East (the increasing influence of women, a renewed focus on education and technology, etc.) but the negative trends are still dominant, in my view, and are likely to trigger rapid, unexpected crises in the future of the sort that we’ve experienced in recent years.

Second, a more serious debate is underway in the Middle East and beyond about the future of Political Islam. This issue is obviously being discussed in Saudi Arabia—with some encouraging signs, but also concerns—and is playing out in different ways in Egypt, Iran, and across the globe from parts of Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia and beyond. How this debate is resolved will obviously have profound implications for future political stability.

Third, if evolving economic and religious trends are shaping global stability, so too is technology. I won’t go into detail on all of the widely recognized positives that flow from recent advances in technology—energy experts certainly know the effects on the sector better than I do—but there are emerging risks that also have to be considered.

Recall on the security front: a decade ago, the U.S. military was the only country operating armed drones over Iran and Syria. Today, there are more than a dozen countries and non-state actors such as ISIS and Hezbollah that are doing so.
In fact, during the U.S.-backed coalition advances on both Raqqa and Mosul, ISIS used armed drones against U.S. forces.
And consider press accounts concerning armed drones being used in Syria only three months ago.

During the evening of January 5 and into the next day, the Russian military reportedly faced two separate swarm attacks using miniature drones against two of its bases. In total, thirteen drones were used by the attackers, each carrying ten bomblets; ten drones targeted the Russian airbase in Latakia, three the Russian naval base in Tartus.

According to press accounts, the drones each carried an explosive charge weighing about one pound, and included strings of metal ball bearings that were intended to harm individuals in the open.
There are reports that several Russian fighter jets were damaged on the ground, though Moscow denies this.

Most of the individual components in the drones, including the motors, are commercially available. The drones used an onboard GPS system for navigation, but again, this technology is easily available for purchase online.
So, is it really hard to imagine in the next few years that similar attacks will be launched at other bases or sensitive oil infrastructure facilities around the world?

And here is the final kicker to the Russian story. To this day, it’s impossible based on open source information to determine who conducted the attack. So, how attractive could this type of plausibly deniable operation be to terrorists or even criminal elements in the future?

One final word on drones, if you’ve ever seen drone races you’ll know that the tiny drones used fly at great speeds—more than 150 mph—and with incredible maneuverability. That type of speed and maneuverability already poses a clear and present threat to those charged with protecting important government and commercial facilities.

And while we are discussing security threats, consider that in Yemen, as many of you are well aware, the Houthis within just the past few months have struck a Saudi tanker in the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait and fired drones and missiles of increasing accuracy and range into Saudi Arabia, producing the first casualty in Riyadh.

So, how different would the global energy outlook be tomorrow if a barrage of Houthi missiles hits Riyadh? Would that not trigger a broader regional conflict?
Or how about if Houthi missiles penetrate Saudi air defenses and strike Aramco?
I don’t mention these threats because I think they will happen, but I, unfortunately, absolutely believe they could.
I could go on about other threats, including cyber intrusions and the long-term threat posed by autonomous weapons, but here is the bottom line: technology is going to make working in the energy sector in the future much easier, but also, in some ways, perhaps much harder.

Fourth, while I am always worried about sudden country-specific crises that could influence the energy market, I’m frankly also concerned about a growing number of transnational challenges and their potential to trigger broader instability. Some of these challenges include the rapid spread of preventable diseases, as well as today’s unprecedented human displacement crisis.

Today, more than sixty-seven million people (or one of every 110 or so humans on the planet) is a displaced person, which is fueling instability in countries from the Middle East to Western Europe. I fear we are losing entire generations of young people in countries such as Syria, and the long-term effects on regional and international stability will be profound.

This trend is especially worrisome because it’s largely owing to the international community’s inability to end the conflicts that are driving instability and displacement—witness our seventeenth year of conflict in Afghanistan, seventh in Syria, and fourth in Yemen.

So, conflicts and threats that should be preventable or bounded, now seem to grind along into deeper crises with pernicious effects that we often don’t recognize until it’s too late. Just recall how the flow of people fleeing violence in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have affected Western Europe’s political landscape.

This challenge is made even more difficult by the inward turn of Western states. In my view, this is an especially problematic time for the West to retreat from the world stage and to turn its focus inward.

A fifth trend that will certainly affect the energy sector surrounds issues of transparency and corruption.

The push for greater transparency around the globe is a hugely positive development, in my view, that could eventually increase business and government efficiency, improve governance at many levels, and deepen public confidence in both government and business. As you know, the pernicious effects of corruption are well documented. For example, the IMF estimates that the cost of bribery alone (one subset of corruption) costs between $1.5 and $2 trillion a year, equal to about 2 percent of global GDP.

This cost has been evident in many countries for some time. Venezuela is a good example of this, where PDVSA has been raided for years both to pay for government expenses and as a patronage cash cow, all while the company’s infrastructure was neglected.

Indeed, the fight against corruption is now a first-tier issue in countries of significant importance to global energy markets, from Brazil to Mexico and from Nigeria to India.

In the short-term, the anti-corruption fight could generate increasing political instability, but if it eventually leads to more transparent and better governance in these countries, I’m certain that it will invariably help their economic performance in general, and the energy sector in particular.

So, in my view, these are five critical trends that will influence the world’s energy market in the coming years.

Are there any current developments that you are following that could influence energy prices in the near-term?

MD: Sure. These include the outlook for the Iran nuclear deal after May 12, the prospects for the upcoming U.S.-North Korea Presidential Summit, Libya’s lack of progress toward political reconciliation and the recent terrorist activity against the country’s energy industry, and the ongoing negotiations concerning the global trade agenda, especially the near-term outlook for NAFTA.

How do you then view geo-strategic trends and the likely effects on global energy prices over the next year or two?

MD: I’d say the geo-strategic backdrop for the near-term leans heavily toward increased risk, with the potential for worrisome surprises—and potential oil flow disruptions—across a range of countries including Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. But I hope I’m wrong!

Do you have any final advice/tips for energy analysts or those tracking the industry?

MD: Yes. In my view, the international environment is quite fraught at the moment, which means it would be a good time to:

Routinely challenge your underlying assumption about the energy market. There are enough gathering threats (from simmering regional conflicts that have the potential to spike on short notice to asymmetric threats such as cyber and other non-traditional weapons) that this isn’t a good time for analytic complacency.

Think deeply about the quality of leadership and governance in the countries you’re following. It’s always amazing, after the fact, to examine how signals were missed and how seemingly stable countries (and companies) can experience unexpected periods of profound turmoil. As a useful exercise in humility, for example, it’s worth going back and reviewing the leading investment banks’ economic forecasts in 2006-2007, right on the eve of the Great Recession. In both the intelligence and business sectors, then, it’s worth remembering that it’s easy to develop analytic blind spots, fall victim to straight-line analysis, discount worrisome alternative scenarios, and underestimate critical drivers of change.

Along these lines, I really would encourage everyone to look hard at physical and data security issues and to constantly re-evaluate how they are postured against the next generation of challenges.
And finally, I would urge folks to think broadly and systemically about the issue of risk. Is protecting one particular company good enough today? Or do industry leaders need to cooperate more in protecting the whole system they operate in? For example, if a cyber attack cripples one energy company, isn’t it possible that attackers will learn from that experience and attack others, and that the public’s confidence will be undermined in all parts of the industry? The issues we face today are less about competitive advantage than about preventing systemic risk or failure.


More on:

Iran Geopolitics of Energy Oil and Petroleum Products Saudi Arabia Russia
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://sldinfo.com/2018/04/one-third-up-the-escalation-ladder/

One-Third Up the Escalation Ladder

04/25/2018

By Paul Bracken, Yale University

The United States has recognized a return to major power rivalry in recent official documents such as the National Security Strategyand the Nuclear Posture Review.

This is a useful step that catches up to a reality that analysts and many others have argued has been underway for some time.

It is especially important because it opens up new pastures for exploring strategy that have been overlooked because of the nature of American involvement in low intensity wars of counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism for nearly two decades.

In low intensity environments certain things are taken for granted, like air superiority, cyber dominance, and freedom of strategic access.

Obviously, these conditions cannot be assumed to hold in an environment of major power conflict.

Recognizing the change from a low to a more intense conflict environment in official documents is one thing.

But reshaping operations and strategy for this environment is something else altogether.

One of the main reasons the outbreak of World War I was such a surprise to everyone was that the preceding two decades had seen repeated political crises where there was a show of force – but no actual combat between the major powers.

They had grown accustomed to this and believed that every crisis would play out this way, with strong messages and force maneuvering, but without combat.

There was no crisis management that existed for actual combat, especially the early clashes of the campaign.

No one, for example, had conceived of limited strikes or retaliation, force disengagement, or messaging once the shooting started.

The result was that the generals and mobilization plans took over.

The key point for today is that there are many levels of intensity above counterinsurgency and counter terrorism, yet well short of total war. In terms of escalation intensity, this is about one-third up the escalation ladder.

Here, there are issues of war termination, disengagement, maneuvering for advantage, signaling, — and yes, further escalation — in a war that is quite limited compared to World War II, but far above the intensity of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While a full-scale replay of a “1914 scenario” is always possible, there are several reasons to think that a limited war is more likely than an all-out one.

Two factors stand out.

First, the fact that an actual shooting war had started between the United States and Russia or China might produce a mutual shock reaction that swamps politics.

Whatever the differences were – protection of Taiwan or the Baltics – would pale in comparison to the fact that the United States and Russia were fighting.

Second, while we are talking about limited war, it is a war between thermonuclear powers.

The political focus in an early clash is going to be on “where things might go” if it goes on.

There are many implications of focusing on “one third up the escalation ladder” wars. Attacks are designed more to end the conflict than to destroy enemy forces outright.

A particular area of focus should be exemplary attacks.

Examples include select attack of U.S. ships, Chinese or Russian bases, and command and control.

These are above crisis management as it is usually conceived in the West.

But they are well below total war.

Each side had better think through the dynamics of scenarios in this space.

Deep strike for exemplary attacks, precise targeting, option packages for limited war, and command and control in a degraded environment need to be thought through beforehand.

The Russians have done this, with their escalate to deescalate strategy.

I recently played a war game where Russian exemplary attacks were a turning point, and they were used quite effectively to terminate a conflict on favorable terms.

In East Asia, exemplary attacks are also important as the ability to track US ships increases.

Great power rivalry has returned.

A wider range of possibilities has opened up.

But binary thinking — that strategy is either low intensity or all-out war – has not.

This lesson is too important to learn in the real time pressures of war.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.military.com/daily-news...-us-will-keep-small-troop-presence-niger.html

In Wake of Ambush, US Will Keep Small Troop Presence in Niger

Military.com 26 Apr 2018 By Richard Sisk

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday that the U.S. will maintain a long-term but smaller troop presence in Niger, where serious command failures reportedly led to the deaths of four members of the Army's Third Special Forces Group last Oct. 4.

Currently, there are about 800 U.S. troops in Niger, according to U.S. Africa Command, but many of them are involved in the construction of a drone base near Agadez, Mattis said.

"And they will come out when that construction is done," he said.

"I do not see any significant increase" on the horizon in the number of troops that would remain, Mattis said, but "there could be temporary increases" as the U.S. works with local forces to combat an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) offshoot and other terror groups in the trans-Sahel region.

Related content:

Soldier Deaths in Niger Linked to Complacency, Culture of Risk: Report
US Building Drone Base in Niger, Crossroads of Extremism Fight
Families of Soldiers Killed in Niger Get Ambush Investigation Findings

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, he said the Pentagon's focus is on working "by, with and through" partners in Niger, and "that is something that does not call for large numbers of U.S. troops. Our Special Forces are ideally suited for that sort of thing."

Mattis spoke as several news outlets reported that an Article 15-6 fact-finding investigation into the four deaths last year concluded that command failures, poor attention to the rules of engagement, and a "culture of excessive risk" in the Special Forces contributed to the ambush of a joint patrol near the village of Tongo Tongo.

The reports cited officials who had reviewed the 6,000-page investigation led by Army Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, chief of staff to Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander. The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the investigation's findings.

The patrol of 11 U.S. and about 30 Nigerien troops set off in pickup trucks from a base near Niamey, the Nigerien capital, on Oct. 3 on a mission to meet with local village chieftains. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford has said that mission was expected to pose little risk.

The patrol had no air cover or nearby ground backup, but lower-level commanders worked through the chain of command to get approval for a change in mission to one involving a search for a local militant leader.

At least one of the low-level commanders copied and pasted orders from a separate mission onto the assignment for the joint patrol, in order to get approval from his superiors for the raid on the military leader's suspected compound, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The patrol found only an abandoned camp but was later ambushed by a force of more than 50 fighters, suspected to belong to a group called ISIS in the Greater Sahel.

Helmet-camera video included in the investigation report showed the Americans taking fire behind the pickups while fighting back in an attempt to break out of the ambush.

In addition to the Article 15-6 investigation, the FBI conducted a review of the national security implications from the ambush that killed Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida; Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia.

Four Nigerien troops and a Nigerien interpreter also were killed in the attack.

The body of Sgt. La David Johnson was not found until two days after the ambush in northwestern Niger near the Mali border, about 120 miles north of Niamey.

Despite the command failures, the Article 15-6 investigation did not recommend disciplinary action against those involved. However, the Army or Special Operations Command could eventually pursue court-martial actions or other disciplinary measures, the Journal said.

The investigation, which included an animated video reconstruction of how the ambush took place, also listed a series of directives from Mattis on training and operational guidance to improve communications across the chain of command.

It was unclear when a redacted version of the classified Article 15-6 investigation would be released to the public. The Pentagon's priority is to brief the families of the fallen first on the findings; the family of Sgt. La David Johnson is scheduled to be briefed next week, the Journal said.

The sergeant's death set off a bitter dispute between his widow, Myeshia Johnson, and the White House over a condolence call President Donald Trump made to the family.

The president said, " 'He [Sgt. Johnson] knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway,' " Myeshia Johnson said in an ABC News interview. "It made me cry because I was very angry at the tone in his voice and how he said it."

She also said that Trump "couldn't remember my husband's name. The only way he remembered my husband's name is because he told me he had my husband's report in front of him and that's when he actually said 'La David.' "

Trump denied that he forgot the name and that he said Sgt. Johnson knew what he was signing up for. He said, "I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation."

Currently, there are about 6,000 troops deployed or on temporary assignment in Africa, many of them at the major U.S. base in Djibouti on the Red Sea.

President Barack Obama first sent U.S. troops to Niger in 2013 as unrest spread in the region.

Under Trump, U.S. troops have been given wide discretion to act without first getting approval from Washington.

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