WAR 05-12-2018-to-05-18-2018___THEWINDSofWAR

Housecarl · May 12, 2018

(320) 04-21-2018-to-04-27-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...4-27-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(321) 04-28-2018-to-05-04-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...5-04-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(322) 05-05-2018-to-05-11-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...5-11-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Well folks, due to meat world commitments I haven't been able to do the "deep diving" I try to do of late so I missed this one....HC

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/s...pursue-nuclear-weapons-if-iran-does-826989731

Saudi Arabia reiterates vow to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran does
#IranNuclear

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says Saudi will match any Iranian development of nuclear weapons

MEE and agencies
Wednesday 9 May 2018 20:14 UTC
Last update: Thursday 10 May 2018 2:33 UTC

Saudi Arabia will develop its own nuclear weapons if Iran does, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN on Wednesday, amid spiralling tensions between the regional rivals.

Asked whether Riyadh would "build a bomb itself" if Tehran resumes a nuclear weapons programme in light of Washington's nixing of the 2015 nuclear deal, Jubeir said: "If Iran acquires nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same."

In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said his country would develop a nuclear bomb if Iran does.

"Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible," MBS told CBS in an interview.

Jubeir's renewed vow came after US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of an accord designed to prevent Tehran's alleged quest for the bomb.
The United States, South Korea, Russia, France and China are bidding on a multi-billion dollar tender to build Saudi Arabia's first two nuclear reactors.

The world's top oil exporter has previously said it wants nuclear technology only for peaceful uses, but has left unclear whether it also wants to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel, a process which can also be used in the production of atomic weapons.

The government approved a national policy for its atomic energy programme on Tuesday, including limiting all nuclear activities to peaceful purposes, within the limits defined by international treaties.

Reactors need uranium enriched to around five percent purity, but the same technology can be used to enrich the heavy metal to a higher, weapons-grade level. This fact has been at the heart of Western and regional concerns over the nuclear work of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival, which enriches uranium domestically.

Jubeir's comments also came amid growing tension between the Sunni kingdom and the Islamic republic over Iran's support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Riyadh, which leads a regional coalition in Yemen's civil war battling the Houthis, accuses Iran of supplying the militia with ballistic missiles.

"These missiles are Iranian manufactured and delivered to the Houthis. Such behaviour is unacceptable. It violates UN resolutions with regards to ballistic missiles. And the Iranians must be held accountable for this," Jubeir told CNN.

"We will find the right way and at the right time to respond to this," he warned. "We are trying to avoid at all costs direct military action with Iran, but Iran's behaviour such as this cannot continue. This amounts to a declaration of war."

Comments 20

Read more:

Iran deal: How the world reacted to Trump's decision #IranNuclear

With burned flags and mockery, Iran responds to Trump’s nuclear decision #IranNuclear

The Iran nuclear deal, explained in six graphics #IranNuclear

Housecarl · May 12, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-militant-name-game-gives-terror-groups-pass/4388801.html

Extremism Watch

Pakistan's 'Name Game' Gives Terror Groups a Pass

May 10, 2018 7:33 PM
Madeeha Anwar
Mubashir Zaidi

Changing one's name in Pakistan is a daunting and lengthy legal procedure that requires extensive paperwork.

Surprisingly, that is not the case with militant groups that get banned by the government. In the past two decades, several groups accused of carrying out terror attacks have avoided a crackdown by changing their names.

Islamist cleric Hafiz Saeed, a U.S.-designated terrorist who allegedly was the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 160 people, is perhaps the most prominent leader accused of the tactic.

Saeed lives freely in Lahore, despite having a $10 million U.S. bounty on him since 2012. His Lashar-e-Taiba (LeT) group also has been designated a terrorist outfit by the United Nations, Britain, Russia and the European Union. But he has evaded a ban in Pakistan on LeT by creating multiple other organizations that critics say are merely fronts for the original terrorist group.

LeT was formed in the 1980s with a vision to liberate Indian-administered Kashmir and to eventually merge it with Pakistan. The government of Pakistan banned LeT in 2002.

Saeed later renamed LeT as Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), and its charity subsidiary Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF). Both JuD and FIF are placed on U.S. and U.N. terror watch lists.

The resurfacing of several terror factions over the years has led regional experts to question the government's willingness to hold such groups accountable.

"Banned organizations are not allowed to resume activities after changing names, according to the law," Zahid Hussain, a security expert, told VOA.

"Nevertheless, almost all of the banned outfits are working in Pakistan. It appears that the state and the government are not serious about stopping them. They only place them on a terror watch list after facing increased international pressure," he added. "We have several such examples, such as JuD, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan."

Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), an extremist group proponent of liberation of Indian-administered Kashmir, operated under a new name, Tehreek-ul-Furqan, after it was banned in 2002.

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a U.N.-designated terror group, rebranded itself as Harkat-ul-Ansar in 1993 following a ban. Its leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, lives openly in the Pakistani capital.

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a radical group that is blamed for deadly attacks against the country's minority Shiite Muslims, was banned multiple times by the government, only to reinvent itself as Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan (MIP) and Alh-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ).

Despite these examples, Pakistan's minister of state for interior affairs, Talal Chaudhry, maintains that no banned terror groups are allowed to operate in any capacity.

"The recent example is of Milli Muslim League. Pakistan's interior ministry last year wrote a letter to the country's election commission and stated MML is the front organization for Jamaat-ud-Dawa and should not be registered at the electoral body," Chaudhry told VOA.

"There are scores of organizations who are placed under Pakistan's terror watch list to make sure they do not operate in any way."

Many outside analysts say the government is willfully ignoring the problem because authorities believe the groups somehow promote the government's interests in the region.

"Pakistan has the capacity to stop these groups from changing names and operating freely, but it simply doesn't have the desire to do so," said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at Washington's Wilson Center.

"That's because Pakistan believes it has a stronger interest in letting these groups continue to operate, with different names, than in waging a full-scale crackdown," he added.

'Alarming' problem
While the problem is not new, it may be worsening.

Pakistan's general elections are scheduled to happen before mid-August, and observers say more radical groups are trying to rebrand themselves to enter national politics.

Milli Muslim League was created in August 2017 and is considered to be the political wing for JuD. The United States last month banned the organization, declaring its leadership as "terrorists."

Similarly, Alh-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat, the front for Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, aims to contest the upcoming general elections.

Political experts see the emergence of militants-turned-political parties as alarming and say they should not be allowed to join mainstream politics.

"The deep state of Pakistan is supporting the banned outfits as it has done in the past. This game should be stopped and the government should show its commitment and sincerity in disarming these groups and not to allow them to enter into politics," defense analyst Ahmed Rashid told VOA.

Even if they run, there is no guarantee the militants' parties will be able to draw much support at the ballot.

"The emergence of new hard-line religious political parties is certainly alarming, particularly as some are affiliated with actual terror groups," said Kugelman. "The good news is that religious political parties rarely do well at the polls in Pakistan.

"However, the reason for concern lies less with their electoral prospects, which are limited, and more with the fact that mainstreaming them brings them a semblance of legitimacy that only emboldens them and makes them stronger."

International pressure
Pakistan has been under growing international pressure for its inability to crack down on Saeed and other terror groups that resurface with new identities.

When Saeed was freed in November 2017 after 11 months of house arrest, the U.S. warned Pakistan of consequences.

Later, the U.S., along with Britain, France and Germany, introduced a motion against Pakistan with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global financial watchdog that monitors terror financing and money laundering around the world. The motion sought to place the country on the FATF list.

According to a decision taken at FATF's meeting in February, Pakistan will be placed on FATF's terror watch list in June this year.

Madeeha Anwar
Madeeha Anwar is a multimedia journalist with Voice of America's Extremism Watch Desk in Washington where she primarily focuses on extremism in the South Asia region.

Follow Madeeha on Twitter at @MadeehaAnwar

Housecarl · May 12, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/dead-drop/dead-drop-may-11

Dead Drop: May 11

May 11, 2018 | anonymous

HASPEL HEARING HIGHLIGHTS: Here are a few quirky things we noticed or heard from others regarding Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing this week: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) members must like living in the past. By our count, there were about 60 questions thrown at Haspel about CIA interrogation techniques (which have been verboten since 2009) or the destruction of videotapes (which were shredded in 2005.) We know those subjects are important to a lot of people but c’mon. There were less than a dozen questions about anything else. Zero questions on Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA which was in the news the day before. No questions on North Korea or Syria? Just one (yes or no) question on Russia? Here are some other observations from the hearing. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s staff didn’t distinguish themselves. Somehow, they let the Senator read a prepared question to Haspel about something in former CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo’s book – without knowing that Rizzo had very publicly corrected mis-impressions from that account about ten days before. And Feinstein said something about the destroyed videotapes having images of the interrogation of “92 detainees.” Haspel had to correct the Senator by saying – no, it was 92 tapes about one detainee. We’ll give DiFi a pass for referring to Rizzo as the Agency’s “Consul General” – because we have trouble keeping all those titles straight too.

MISSING GRACE NOTES: We understand that some folks at Langley noted that Haspel’s opening statement which described the skill and courage of Agency clandestine service officers – failed to stroke the expertise of CIA analysts, tech wizards, or support officers. Usually, in public comments it is wise for senior Agency officials to give a shout out to all the major disciplines in the CIA structure. Haspel did, however, say nice stuff about Agency analysts during her Q&A.

UNACCOUNTABLY: Following the Haspel hearing, Senator Kamala Harris appeared on CNN and said she would vote against Haspel, in part, because the nominee would not say that past interrogation tactics used by the CIA were “immoral.” That set off ex-CIA officer and current CNN analyst, Phil Mudd, who colorfully decried the “collective amnesia” on Capitol Hill. According to Mudd, in the days after 9/11, members of Congress when briefed on those tactics were “either silent or supportive.” Also, amid the flurry of opinion pieces relating to the Haspel nomination, there was an op-ed on the Washington Post website on Wednesday morning by former Senator Jay Rockefeller and ex-SSCI staffer Daniel Jones. The piece was titled: “It’s time to hold the CIA accountable. Gina Haspel’s hearing is the best place to start.” According to one CIA alumni we talked with, Rockefeller appears to be one of those people suffering from amnesia. Appearing on CNN in 2003, shortly after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured, Rockefeller was asked by Wolf Blitzer if KSM and his colleagues should be handed over to a third country “where restrictions against torture are not in existence.” Rockefeller said “I don’t know that. I can’t comment on that. And if I did know it, I wouldn’t comment on it.” That was followed by laughter. The Senator, who was then Vice Chairman of the SSCI, added: “But I wouldn’t rule it out. I wouldn’t take anything off the table where he is concerned, because this is the man who has killed hundreds and hundreds of Americans over the last 10 years.” Yeah, where DID the CIA get the idea it was OK to treat the terrorist masterminds harshly?

NEXT UP? Early reports were that Haspel seemed to win over enough fence-sitting Senators (like Joe Manchin (D, WV) and Susan Collins (R, ME) so that the prospects look good for a favorable recommendation from the SSCI and a narrow win from the full Senate. If/when that happens, Haspel’s moving up will leave a vacancy in the Deputy CIA Director’s office. Agency insiders and alumni tell us they hope that job goes to a current – or recently retired analyst (see the Grace Note above). Alternatively, Team Trump may elect to install a politico with ties to the administration. Another question is: Wither #3? CIA Chief Operating Officer, Brian Bulatao, was sitting behind Haspel during the hearing. But we keep hearing suggestions that when the dust settles, he may find his way to Foggy Bottom to follow his old friend and mentor, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Stay tuned.

GENERAL STEVE? BuzzFeed has a story that looks like it is something out of the satirical website “The Onion” – but apparently not. The site says Stephen Toumajan was in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel but he has since taken his act on the road, and now functions as a major general in the United Arab Emirates military. A UAE government website refers to him as “H.E, Major General Staff Pilot Stephen A. Toumajan.” Yet according to BuzzFeed, “His Excellency” has said in court filings that he IS a major general in the UAE – but confusingly is “not currently in their armed forces.” There is some question as to whether it is kosher for a U.S. citizen to serve in such a role. But there is no question that “General Steve,” as Toumajan calls himself, brings some unique qualifications to job. In addition to having been a helicopter pilot in the (U.S.) Army – he also ran a company called “Breast Wishes” which sold mail-order herbal supplements to increase women’s chest measurements.

SPY/CATCHER: The trailer is out for the upcoming movie “The Catcher was a Spy.” The flick, in theaters on June 22, stars Paul Rudd as Moe Berg, a major league baseball player who spoke seven languages and was called the “brainiest man in baseball.” During World War II, Berg worked for the OSS and operated under cover to find out how close the Nazis were to developing an atomic bomb. It sounds like something Hollywood would invent, but the story is true. The strong cast includes actor Paul Giamatti whose father, coincidentally, was once commissioner of baseball.

POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:

Hoop hoax: Once again mining great stuff from the CIA’s declassified archives, the folks at Muckrock.com have discovered a document that shows that the Agency had expressed interest in the Soviet Union’s stunning basketball victory over Team USA in the 1972 Olympics. There were lots of shady calls in the final seconds of the gold medal match between the Russians and the American team that (up to that point) had a 63-0 win/loss record. There have long been rumors that the game was fixed.

Our Gang: Amidst all the commentary – pro and con – about Gina Haspel’s nomination for CIA director, we noticed this tweet from self-styled whistle blower and current fugitive Edward Snowden. “If the Congress confirms Gina Haspel, who admitted to participating in a torture program and personally writing the order to destroy evidence of that crime, is “qualified” to head @CIA, it says more about our government than it does about her.” Our question is this: since Snowden has been holed up in Moscow for almost five years, when he says “our government” does he mean the U.S. or Russia?

Web Work: We went to the CIA’s website to make sure we were spelling COO Brian Bulatao’s name right – and checked out their leadership page. We were somewhat surprised to see that Mike Pompeo was still listed as CIA Director (he’s not moonlighting, is he?) Also surprised that while the COO title was listed – the webpage does not give his name. You CAN find two references to Bulatao elsewhere on the site….once to note he gave a speech to Agency retirees in March and one picture of him and Gina Haspel walking into the headquarters with White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly. We know it is a secret organization, but c’mon, you would think one lesson learned from the Haspel confirmation hearing is that unnecessarily zipped lips are unhelpful.

NETWORK NEWS: Not a day goes by when members of The Cipher Brief Network aren’t making news. Here are just a few examples from this week:

Difficult, Not Dark: Many of The Cipher Brief experts were in the media mid-week helping analyze the Haspel confirmation hearing. There are too many of them to cite. But here is one example, former Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin was interviewed by Mary Louise Kelly on NPR about the hearing. Kelly referred to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program as a “dark” period in Agency history. McLaughlin disagreed – calling it “difficult” but not dark.

Hostage Helpers: Lisa Monaco, former homeland security and counterterrorism advisor to President Obama, was named to the board of “Hostage US” a non-profit that provides counseling and legal advice to the families of Americans taken captive overseas.

Happy Birthday Israel: With the 70th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel coming up next week, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral Jim Stavridis wrote a piece for Bloomberg suggesting that to counter Iran, the U.S. should elevate Israel’s standing as an ally equivalent to that enjoyed by the U.K. and Australia – to ease intelligence and weapons technology sharing.

WHAT’S ON THEIR NIGHTSTAND? If you need a break from the talking head networks, there are plenty of new books to help you get your national security fix. General Michael V. Hayden’s second book, The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies debuted in the 8th spot on the New York Times Bestseller List. Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward came in at #4 this week. War on Peace by journalist Ronan Farrow examines the deterioration of American diplomacy and … drumroll … coming in at #1 is James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty.

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.

Housecarl · May 12, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-to-fend-off-iran-backed-rivals-idUSKBN1ID042

World News May 11, 2018 / 9:04 PM / Updated an hour ago

Iraqis vote as Abadi seeks to fend off Iran-backed rivals

Maher Chmaytelli, Ulf Laessing
6 Min Read

BAGHDAD/BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqis voted on Saturday for the first time since the defeat of Islamic State, with Prime Minister Haider Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, trying to fend off powerful Shi’ite groups that would pull the country closer to Tehran.

Iraqis expressed pride at the prospect of voting for the fourth time since the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, but also said they had scant hope that the election would stabilise a country beset by conflicts, economic hardship and corruption.

Reuters reporters said voter turnout appeared to be low at several polling stations in Baghdad as well as Falluja to the west of the capital and Basra in the south.

Voters will pass their verdict on Abadi, who has achieved the delicate task of maintaining relationships with both of Iraq’s main allies who are otherwise arch enemies: Iran and the United States.

Whoever wins the election will have to contend with fallout from President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a nuclear deal with Iran, a move Iraqis fear could turn their country into a theatre of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Related Coverage

Iraq minorities fear new upheaval in multi-ethnic city after vote

Abadi, who came to power four years ago after Islamic State seized a third of the country, received U.S. military support for Iraq’s army to defeat Islamic State even as he gave free rein to Iran to back Shi’ite militias fighting on the same side.

But now that the military campaign is over, he faces political threats from two main challengers: his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, and the leader of the main Shi’ite paramilitary group, Hadi al-Amiri, both closer than he is to Iran.

Iraq remains divided among its three main ethnic and religious groups — the majority Shi’ite Arabs and minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds — at odds for decades. Past election outcomes have hinged on whether leading Shi’ite parties could obtain enough seats to marginalize the other groups.

Iran has wide sway in Iraq as the primary Shi’ite power in the region. But the United States, which invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam, occupied it until 2011 and sent troops back to help fight Islamic State in 2014, also has deep influence.

Iran’s clout has caused resentment among Sunnis as well as some Shi’ites, who have grown tired of religious leaders, parties and militias and want technocrats to rule the country.

FRONTRUNNER
Abadi is seen as the narrow frontrunner, but victory is far from certain. A British-educated engineer with no powerful political machine of his own when he took office, he solidified his standing with the victory over Islamic State.

Although he has failed so far to improve the limping economy, his supporters say he is best placed to keep more overtly sectarian political leaders in check.

“He’s non-sectarian and we like him,” said Um Laila in west Mosul, which suffered some of the heaviest damage during the war against Islamic State. “He liberated Mosul.”

Even if Abadi’s Victory Alliance wins the most seats, he still must negotiate a coalition government, which must be formed within 90 days of the election.

One of his principal rivals, Amiri, 63, spent more than two decades fighting Saddam from exile in Iran and leads the biggest group of volunteer forces that fought Islamic State. Victory for Amiri would be a clear win for Iran.

Opponents accuse Amiri’s Badr Organisation of abusing Sunni Muslims during sectarian conflicts, and of taking orders from Iran. They say he achieved little in the powerful post of transport minister from 2010-2014.

His supporters say he was pivotal in defeating Islamic State and would offer stronger leadership than Abadi.

“I voted for Amiri because he is clean leader. Without him Daesh (Islamic State) would have been here,” said Raid Sabah, 39, who is struggling to make a living as a taxi driver in the southern city of Basra. “Abadi didn’t do anything.”

Other Iraqis are disillusioned with war heroes and politicians who have failed to restore state institutions and provide badly needed health and education services.

“We need neither tanks nor jets. We need only the ballot paper through which we can rectify the political process which was aborted by those who governed Iraq,” said labourer Khalid al-Shami, 50, at a polling station in Baghdad.

Many of the poor have turned to Moqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Shi’ite cleric who led a violent uprising against the U.S. occupation from 2003-2011 but has since remade himself as an opponent of the traditional religious parties, striking an unlikely alliance with the Communists and other secular groups.

“We had hoped that lives will change but Abadi and Maliki didn’t do anything for us. We live in poverty, have no jobs and state services,” said 36-year old Hussein Yousef, who praised Sadr as a protector of the downtrodden.

Maliki, who stepped aside in 2014 after Islamic State swept through a third of the country, is seeking a comeback, casting himself as a Shi’ite champion. Opponents say his sectarian policies during eight years in power created the atmosphere that enabled Islamic State to gain sympathy among Sunnis.

Since Saddam’s fall, the post of prime minister has been reserved for a Shi’ite, the speaker of parliament has been a Sunni, and the ceremonial presidency has gone to a Kurd - all three chosen by parliament.

More than 7,000 candidates in 18 provinces are running this year for 329 parliamentary seats. More than 24 million of Iraq’s 37 million people are eligible to vote.

In the ruins of west Mosul, where Islamic State proclaimed its caliphate in 2014 and fighters held out for most of last year in the face of the biggest battle of the post-Saddam era, turnout appeared strong even though transport was shut for security reasons and voters had difficulty reaching the polls.

“We need new faces not this group of corrupt politicians currently in Baghdad,” said Ahmed Noor, a shop owner.

Editional reporting by Haider Kadhim; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff

Housecarl · May 13, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://theconversation.com/no-the-war-in-afghanistan-isnt-a-hopeless-stalemate-91130

No, the war in Afghanistan isn’t a hopeless stalemate

May 10, 2018 6.47am EDT

The war in Afghanistan has become so protracted that it warrants the epithet the “Groundhog Day War.”

Fighting has gone on for nearly 17 years, with U.S. troops in Afghanistan seven years longer than the Soviets were.

The U.S. leadership claims to have a strategy for victory even as warm weather brings in yet another “fighting season” and new rounds of deadly violence in Kabul.

Sixteen years and seven months of violence, loss, sacrifice and significant investment, without victory, is alarming – but is it without hope?

As a scholar of Afghanistan and strategy and a soldier who has served four tours in the country, I’d like to explore both the apparent stalemate and the reasons for harboring hope of an eventual resolution.

The ‘Groundhog War’
In terms of fighting battles and taking ground, momentum in the war in Afghanistan has ebbed back and forth from the coalition formed by the U.S., NATO and Afghan troops to the Islamist insurgents who call themselves the Taliban, or “the students.”

The two sides see gains and losses each year, until colder weather diminishes their ability to fight until the following spring. As the weather warms up, the pattern repeats itself. This story is told by 10 years of U.S. Department of Defense reports on Afghanistan that are required every six months by Congress.

Of course, it’s impossible to identify simple reasons for the failure to win something as complex as a war. Early on, the coalition and its Afghan partners lacked a strategy and a willingness to help rebuild the country after decades of war among Afghans, Russians, the Mujihadeen – and ultimately the Taliban – made Afghanistan one of the most damaged and destitute countries on the planet.

The Bush administration reviled the notion of nation-building, focusing instead on targeting individuals for killing and capturing. For the first several years, the U.S. relied too heavily on warlords, tolerated venal Afghan leadership and employed air power indiscriminately, thus inadvertently killing civilians. All of this aggrieved many Afghans.

Still, none of those missteps were decisive. Rather, I would argue that the war has dragged on for one overarching reason – Pakistan’s support for the Taliban.

The proof is in years of those Department of Defense reports.

A place to run and hide
The November 2013 report stated that Pakistan provides physical sanctuary to the Taliban leadership and that sanctuary is “a major factor preventing their decisive defeat.” It reported, Taliban “insurgents that attack Coalition forces continue to operate from Pakistan.” What’s more, most of the materials required to sustain the conflict, and “emanating from Pakistan,” remained significant.

Nothing had changed three years later when, at the end of 2016, yet another report noted that the Taliban – including the senior leadership of the lethal Haqqani clan that excels at high-profile terrorist attacks – had retained sanctuary inside Pakistan.

The December 2017 report affirmed “the externally supported Haqqani Network remains the greatest threat to Afghan, U.S., and Coalition forces.”

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, General Joe Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command expressed concerns about the Haqqani network, saying it “poses the greatest threat to Coalition forces operating in Afghanistan.”

Of course, Pakistan’s security establishment consistently and eloquently denies all this.

Too much tactics
A corollary explanation for the stalemate is America’s tendency to focus on strikes and operations without necessarily linking those operations to the ultimate desired outcome: peace and stability.

This was the case 30 years ago when the U.S. was supporting the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War, and it was the case with Rumsfeld’s Pentagon from the beginning years of the war in Afghanistan.

After the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan turned into a secondary and underresourced effort for the U.S. with a limited number of special operations and conventional forces conducting strikes and raids to kill or capture key leaders. There was a dearth of troops and resources committed to address the challenge of stabilizing the country.

The biannual defense department reports tell this story too. They tend to quantify the number of tactical actions – rather than assessing their effectiveness. While strikes that kill or capture enemy leaders do disrupt and damage the Taliban, their effects are fleeting, not decisive. They do not bring strategic momentum.

Not hopeless
However, with the change in policy last August, there is cause for hope.

The stated policy of the current administration is to win in Afghanistan. This contrasts to the previous policy, which was simply not to lose.

But what would winning look like?

A win, according to a definition worked out during my tours as an adviser to senior military leaders, would be a durable Afghan state, with the government, the security forces and the population aligned against a marginalized Taliban.

Another reason for hope is that this new strategy is based on conditions on the ground being met, not arbitrary timelines. The strategy calls for an increase of about 3,500 U.S. forces – to a total of over 14,000 – to advise and assist the Afghan security forces. NATO countries are also contributing additional troops, bringing the total number of Coalition troops in Afghanistan to more than 21,000.

This modest increase in troops isn’t enough to break the strategic stalemate. However, it will support growing the Afghan Special Security Forces, building the capacity of the Afghan Air Force and improving the other security forces by employing more advisers with tactical units that do the fighting. That should allow the Afghan security forces to win more battles against the Taliban and gather marked operational momentum that will complement efforts to alter Pakistan’s harmful strategic proclivities.

Perhaps most notably, the new strategy avows that “we must see fundamental changes in the way Pakistan deals with terrorist safe-havens in its territory” for the strategy to gain momentum.

Of course, just stating that there is a new strategy does not necessarily mean the strategy is working. In mid-January 2018, America’s U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, stated that Afghanistan peace talks are closer than ever before. Days later, the Haqqani network attacked the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, killing at least 30 people. Less than a week later, the Haqqani network murdered more than 100 people by detonating an explosive-laden ambulance in a crowded section of Kabul. Two more complex suicide attacks followed in April. And in early May, Islamist militants attacked a voter registration site in Khost Province, killing over 17 and wounding more than 30. Khost is next to the Haqqani sanctuary in Pakistan.

Since 9/11, the United States has explicitly stipulated that Pakistan must cease support to extremist and terrorist groups. Diplomacy and US$33 billion in aid since 2002 have not brought a change in Pakistan’s conduct. Some have suggested that withholding aid from Pakistan is a step in the right direction. Withholding funds is not nearly good enough to compel accountability, nor to punish Pakistan for years of odious actions. Pakistan has not stopped its support of terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan in any fundamental way. It is time to consider responding with punitive, lethal measures aimed at institutions in Pakistan that directly advise and fund the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

Some may wonder why it’s necessary to persist in this war – and not just bring the U.S. involvement in it to an end.

Practically speaking, Afghanistan represents an excellent base for combating Islamist terrorists in that region of the world.

But there is also an ethical argument for seeing the war through to a successful end. Afghanistan has been the good war of the post-9/11 wars. The United States went to war there for the right reasons – defeating al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and removing the Taliban regime that provided sanctuary to al-Qaida. Although imperfectly carried out, the coalition also attempted to fight a just war by avoiding the killing of civilians. It would be fair to argue that it is a moral imperative that the U.S. not quit on a commitment to its Afghan allies in a war against externally directed murderous Islamists.

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Housecarl · May 13, 2018

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/multiple...y-gunbattle-underway-officials-084505539.html

Multiple blasts and gun battle in eastern Afghan city

By Ahmad Sultan and Qadir Sediqi, Reuters • May 13, 2018

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan security forces battled for hours against a group of attackers who stormed a government building in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday after a coordinated assault that killed at least 15 people and wounded 42, local officials said.

A car bomb was detonated at the entrance to the state accounts office before a group of about six attackers armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades rushed the building, the officials said. There were multiple blasts as they fought off security forces in a gun battle that lasted much of the day.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, in a busy area of the city with many other official buildings nearby, including a school in which about 1,000 girls were trapped as the fighting raged.

It was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan this year and put heavy pressure on the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Most have been in capital city Kabul, but in January gunmen attacked an office of aid group Save the Children in Jalalabad, killing at least five people and wounding 25. That attack, also claimed by Islamic State, followed much the same pattern as Sunday's incident.

After several hours of fighting that sent plumes of smoke rising into the sky above the accounts office, Attahullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said that Sunday's clash had ended with all the gunmen killed.

Public health officials said that at least 15 people, including a child, had been killed and 42 wounded. Witnesses said the explosions had caused carnage among passers-by.

"I saw two rickshaw drivers on the ground with their arms blown off," said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who saw the initial blasts and the start of the gun battle.

Violence has escalated across Afghanistan since the announcement of the Taliban's annual spring offensive last month and there have been heightened security fears around preparations for elections in October.

Dozens of people have been killed in voter registration centres in recent weeks, leading to fears that people could stay away from elections that are seen as a major test of the government's credibility.

At the same time, Taliban fighters have stepped up the pressure on government forces across the country, from Baghlan province in the north, where they seized a district centre last week, to Farah in the southwest or Ghazni, south of Kabul.

Last year, the United States increased its support to struggling Afghan forces, announcing plans for thousands of additional advisers and more air strikes in an effort to force the Taliban to enter peace negotiations.

(Additional reporting by Rafiq Sherzad; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Catherine Evans and David Goodman)

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Housecarl · May 13, 2018

Hummm.....

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/12/...latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

Insurgent Attack Kills at Least 19 in Myanmar Town on Chinese Border

By Saw Nang and Austin Ramzy

May 12, 2018
MANDALAY, Myanmar — An attack by an insurgent group killed at least 19 people on Saturday in a town in northeastern Myanmar, on the country’s border with China, officials said.

The attack began early Saturday and lasted about three hours, beginning on the outskirts of the town of Muse in Shan State then moving into its outskirts, said Sai Kyaw Thein, a member of Parliament from Muse.

Among the dead were 15 civilians, three soldiers and a police officer, he said.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, one of several in Myanmar’s frontier areas that have long battled government forces, said in a statement that it was retaliating for a push by Myanmar’s military against another ethnic insurgent group, the Kachin Independence Army.

A spokesman for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, known for its campaigns against drug production and distribution, said it had targeted soldiers and militia members who ran a casino.

“Many civilians go to casinos and it causes many social problems; that’s why we launched a major assault,” said the spokesman, Col. Tar Aik Kyaw. He called the casino a “gateway for distributing drugs.”

The attack appeared to be a setback for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, who has said she wants to bring an end to conflicts with ethnic militias that in some cases have continued for decades.

A government spokesman denounced the attack, saying the high civilian death toll was unacceptable.

“This is not the ethnic rights movement,” said the spokesman, Zaw Htay. “This is a terrorist attack.”

Mr. Zaw Htay was quoted by Reuters as saying that the attack had involved about 100 insurgents, with small arms and artillery.

Photos posted on Facebook showed several dead who appeared to be civilians. The images could not be immediately verified.

Mr. Sai Kyaw Thein said that 20 people had been wounded and sent to a hospital in Muse, and that two who were severely injured had been sent to a hospital in the Chinese city of Ruili. Several civilians also fled across the border into China.

A statement on the official Facebook page of the commander in chief of Myanmar’s military, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said that the attack “left innocent civilians dead.”

“Now government military are clearing the area by fighting back to terrorists,” it said.

This year, the government had warned that the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army were preparing to attack the town of Lashio, which is about 75 miles south of Muse.

A flier said that people from the two groups were planning to target public places with bombs. An explosion at a bank in Lashio in February killed two employees and wounded at least 22 others.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army are among the groups that blame the government for continuing the oppression of ethnic minorities and refuse to enter peace talks.

Saw Nang reported from Mandalay, Myanmar, and Austin Ramzy from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Housecarl · May 13, 2018

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https://www.airforcetimes.com/flash...pentagon-promises-more-air-support-in-africa/

Flashpoints

Following Niger ambush, Pentagon promises more air support in Africa

By: Kyle Rempfer
5 hours ago

When U.S. soldiers in Niger became involved in a firefight Oct. 4 with local militants, it took an hour and a half for the first unarmed American aircraft to arrive overhead.

The U.S. aircraft that arrived over the battlefield, near the village of Tongo Tongo, on the southwest border with Mali, wasn’t a strike platform or a medical evacuation helicopter, but instead an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drone. Two French Mirage fighter jets arrived shortly afterward.

The French aircraft conducted four show-of-force flyovers “right at treetop level … driving the enemy forces away,” said Army Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier Jr., U.S. Africa Command’s chief of staff, who oversaw the investigation into the shortfalls leading to the ambush.

While the French jets saved the lives of the remaining U.S. and Nigerien soldiers, it was too late for Staff Sgts. Bryan Black, Jeremiah Johnson and Dustin Wright and Sgt. La David Johnson. Those four were killed during the engagement.

The Defense Department conducted an investigation into the ambush and briefed reporters at the Pentagon Thursday. One result of the inquiry is that forces operating in Niger will get more U.S. Air Force air cover, and the frequency of ground missions will decrease.

”I won’t go into details here, but we have increased the firepower, we’ve increased the ISR capacity and we’ve increased various response times,” said Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, Africa Command’s top leader.

“And what this has done is it’s allowed these teams perhaps to not to do the tempo that they would like,” he added. “But it provides adequate and more resourceful force protection measures in order to still keep up with the enemy forces on the ground. So we have beefed up a lot of things posture wise with regard to these forces.”

The Niger mission originally did have ISR drone coverage. But before December, Nigerien officials were not allowing U.S. drones to fly with armed warheads, even for defensive missions.

During the October mission, the team was participating in a capture or kill operation against a high-value militant leader named Dondou Chefou. The reconnaissance drone had been “soaking” the village where he was thought to be for roughly six hours.

“They determined that the site was cold,” Waldhauser said. But that site wasn’t where the battle took place.

After determining Chefou was not at the objective, the team tasked their drone to head north and watch crossing points on Niger’s nearby border with Mali.

The troops then began to leave the area, but stopped on their way back at the village of Tongo Tongo, where they replenished their water supply and held an impromptu meeting with village elders.

Had there still been a drone providing over-watch for the team, they may have been forewarned about the enemy ambush that had staged along their departure route — a force outnumbering the U.S. and Nigerien soldiers three to one.

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Leaked ISIS propaganda video allegedly shows deaths of US troops in Niger ambush
The Islamic State released a propaganda video Sunday that allegedly depicts the Oct. 4 ambush near the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger, that killed four U.S. soldiers.

By: Kyle Rempfer, Shawn Snow

-

Since the incident, Pentagon leadership has limited special operations missions that could result in enemy contact. Missions need a “strategic value” and must target groups that pose a “strategic threat“ to the United States, according to Waldhauser.

But even as ground missions shrink, air assets in the region are expected to continue growing.

The combination of scaled back ground operations and bulked up air cover will, it is hoped, ensure missions that do get approved in the future are properly resourced.

“The majority of DoD personnel in Niger are supporting air operations at the airfield in Niamey, or at an airfield in Agadez,” which is still under construction, said Robert Karem, the assistant defense secretary for international security affairs. “The establishment of the Agadez airfield will help provide additional ISR coverage in the region.”

Air Force officials have described the construction of Niger Air Base 201, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, as the largest US troop labor construction project in history.

MQ-9 Reapers, operated by the Air Force’s 323rd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, are reportedly already flying out of the base in Agadez, but eventually, the entire drone operation in Niamey will move there. They are expected to target several different al-Qaida and Islamic State group-affiliated fighters in countries throughout the Sahel, a sprawling region just south of the Sahara, including the area around Lake Chad, where Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency has spread.

Three hangars and the first layers of a runway have been completed at Niger Air Base 201, which is expected to be fully functional early next year. The base will eventually also house fighter jets. The drones, with surveillance and added striking capabilities, will have a range enabling them to reach a number of West and North African countries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Housecarl · May 13, 2018

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https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2...-range-missiles-reach-in-the-south-china-sea/

Naval

How far can China’s long-range missiles reach in the South China Sea?

By: Mike Yeo
May 4

MELBOURNE, Australia ― China’s deployment of long-range missiles to its artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea would further consolidate and enhance the country’s physical control over the region and further complicate the movement of American military assets through the area, according to an Asian maritime security expert.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Maritime Security Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, also called the deployment yet another indication that China is serious about ramping up activities on the disputed Spratly Islands.

He said he expects to see the future rotational deployment of high-powered assets like fighter jets and bombers to the air bases there, in time to come as part of China’s strategy of creeping control in the strategic waters.

CNBC reported earlier this week that China had quietly deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles and YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles onto its outposts in the South China Sea in the past month, quoting anonymous sources with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence reports. They did not specify on which of the Chinese-held islands the missiles were placed.

The reported deployments come in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report last month that the Chinese military was using electronic warfare equipment placed on the islands to jam U.S. Navy aircraft operating over international airspace in the South China Sea.

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China sends warning to Taiwan with naval drills near island
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has sought to downplay the drill, saying China is exaggerating the scale of the activity to create anxiety among Taiwanese.

By: Gillian Wong

-

Koh told Defense News that the presence of the missiles, with a reported range of 160 and 295 nautical miles respectively, signifies that China regards the artificial islands as strategically high-value installations and merits the allocation of such resources for protection. The islands were built with sand dredged from the seabed. They are now host to airfields, military installations, supporting infrastructure and ship-berthing spaces.

CNBC has called the missiles “defensive” in nature. However, in practice they will also allow China to engage targets far into the surrounding airspace and waters, which includes features held by the other claimants.

The Chinese-built HQ-9 is based on the Russian S-300 air defense system, although its derivatives have been improved over the years by China. It is used for long-range air defense of strategic targets, and the deployment of this system in the Spratly Islands potentially gives China the ability to target aircraft over the whole island group.

https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/o...aws.com/public/E7CXFVQ6EZFU3LX6C6FUHMIQAE.jpg
The range of the HQ-9 surface-to-air missile. (Google)

In the case of the YJ-12, it also theoretically allows China to interdict shipping in an arc stretching from the coast off central Vietnam, to eastern Malaysia’s Sabah state and the Philippines’ Palawan Island if deployed on the island province of Hainan and Chinese-controlled islands in the Paracels and Spratlys, as the accompanying graphic in this article shows.

https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/N...aws.com/public/RTMGQNSEM5FOBPOUKJHH65TFEQ.jpg
The range of the YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missile. (Google)

However, Koh does not expect the news of the missile deployments, which appear to fly in the face of previous Chinese pledges not to “militarize” the South China Sea, to generate much protest from regional countries or rival claimants. Any pushback from the region is unlikely to stop China from pursuing similar behavior, he added, or even upping the ante in the future.

“What China is doing now is precisely what gray zone or short-of-war strategies is about: Keeping its actions below the threshold of red lines that could lead to hostilities, while making calculated gambles to present fait accompli against its rivals”.

The missiles would also enable China to complicate peacetime operations and movement of American warplanes and warships traversing the area, including those carrying out so-called freedom of navigation operations, essentially extending China’s anti-access, area denial “bubble” out from the Chinese mainland into the South China Sea.

Newly appointed commander of U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Philip Davidson, who was only confirmed by the Senate last week, said during his confirmation hearing that to ensure regional security, “U.S. operations in the South China Sea — to include freedom of navigation operations — must remain regular and routine.” Yet he acknowledged that advances in Chinese military means Pacific Command needs to invest in increased resiliency in its forward-deployed force posture.

Housecarl · May 13, 2018

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https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/a...ail&utm_term=0_694f73a8dc-b86e7795ad-81835773

AIR SUPERIORITY UNDER 2000 FEET: LESSONS FROM WAGING DRONE WARFARE AGAINST ISIL

PABLO CHOVIL
MAY 11, 2018

COMMENTARY

During my time in Mosul as a member of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, a remarkably accessible and affordable device arrived on the battlefield. As my battalion helped Iraqi forces retake the city, we encountered some of the first small drones employed in modern conflict. Despite its clear military and technological superiority, the coalition to defeat ISIL in Iraq faltered in the face of devices that a 20-year-old with no formal military experience could easily obtain on Amazon. These cheap and easy-to-use devices, previously little more than toys, herald a democratization of technology on the battlefield that will change the way nations contend with adversaries.

Iraqi officers had previously reported observing drones, or unmanned aerial systems, overhead, but there was no apparent purpose for the aircrafts’ flights, and the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service didn’t feel urgency to address the potential threat. Two events abruptly altered the way Iraq’s most elite ground unit perceived these devices. The first was after the Counter-Terrorism Service escorted advisors from the 82nd Airborne Division to a meeting with an Iraqi Army unit in Mosul proper. During the return to their outpost, the convoy spotted an unidentified quad-copter overhead. Soon after, they faced inaccurate mortar fire from the city. Though the attack was ineffective, ISIL’s intentions were clear: to use small drones to supplement and coordinate its attacks.

The second event was more jarring. A few days after the attack on the convoy, Counter-Terrorism Service soldiers reported three rotary-wing drones hovering over a command vehicle. As the staff reported the initial information, the drones dropped munitions from altitude, killing and injuring several Iraqis. No longer could the Counter-Terrorism Service or its advisors ignore the threat posed by unmanned aerial systems.

Offering a mix between the methods of traditional insurgencies and the developments of the 21st century, drones will soon be ubiquitous in the world’s conflict zones, and they will not be solely in the hands of nation-states. The value of these devices, repurposed into weapons of war, far outweighs the price paid by the insurgent and extremist organizations that wage war against state governments. The fight to liberate Mosul from ISIL presented several illustrations of drones’ proliferation on the battlefield. Previously irrelevant to conventional air superiority paradigms, the strip of sky between ground forces and high-end air assets has become highly coveted terrain. Conventional air supremacy does little good against the capabilities of modified off-the-shelf drones, which now contest airspace under 2,000 feet. My unit’s success in Mosul offers lessons for the still-nascent counter-drone fight. As the U.S. military continues to develop several methods to control that airspace, ground combat units – increasingly the target of this technology – must incorporate counter-drone measures into their targeting methodology and small unit tactics. These units must also employ small drones as effective and efficient battlefield tools.

West Mosul

Despite the earlier drone engagements in east Mosul and several weeks of planning before the west Mosul assault, neither Iraqi nor coalition planners anticipated a significant threat from drones. However, ISIL displayed more imagination than expected. For a few days in the early phases of the assault on west Mosul, they owned the sky underneath coalition air power, containing Counter-Terrorism Service forces. As the Iraqis entered the Ghazlani military complex, their old compound on the outskirts of the city, ISIL unleashed several waves of drones overhead. Some officers reported more than 30 drones throughout the day. The drones hovered over hotly contested intersections and buildings and guided vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) and mortar fire onto their targets. Even with the world’s most powerful coalition of air and ground support, the elite Iraqi unit was operationally petrified. While coalition fighter jets and multimillion-dollar high-altitude drones supported the Counter-Terrorism Service from above 15,000 feet, they seldom reacted quickly enough to a VBIED coming out of a garage, driving four blocks, and detonating on the Iraqis’ halted column. The jets and drones could do even less about a DGI Phantom quad-copter, barely a cubic foot in volume, hovering over friendly forces and guiding the VBIED. From the ground, the best the beleaguered Iraqi soldiers could manage was to haplessly shoot at the drone with small arms as it darted overhead. Meanwhile, ISIL capitalized on the uncontested space and used it to guide lethal munitions to their targets.

ISIL’s drone capabilities showed an understanding of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and a willingness to both imitate successful practices and innovate amidst some of the fiercest urban combat since Fallujah. Above all, the group used drones as observation platforms. Three years of uncontested control of Mosul gave ISIL fighters ample time to construct engagement areas within the city. Using abandoned cars and debris, ISIL created roadblocks across the city, canalizing the Iraqi forces into narrower and less maneuverable terrain. Drone operators were then able to identify and observe Iraqi forces’ avenues of approach within these tight corners. ISIL, aided by high-definition cameras mounted under the drone, confirmed the presence of government forces within an engagement area while their maneuvering fighters kept a safe distance from direct fire.

By observing troop movements from their aerial vantage points, ISIL fighters were able to quickly engage Iraqi forces. ISIL mortar teams, in direct communication with the unmanned aerial system operator, engaged the Iraqis’ static positions based on adjustments from the observing drone. VBIEDs drove into roadblocked Iraqi positions using the drone to navigate past obstacles. ISIL used drones to identify high-payoff targets like command vehicles, tanks, and bulldozers. The VBIED threat was less fatal than indirect fire, but the ingrained fear of VBIEDs and drones crippled the coalition’s momentum whenever a drone appeared or a VBIED detonated. ISIL would also employ the drone as armed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, dropping makeshift 40mm grenades onto Iraqi positions. The fear of anything flying over Iraqi heads stunted momentum and forced valuable resources away from the advance on the ground.

Irregular conflict will continue to feature this type of technological democratization. An uneducated man with an iPhone and a commercially available drone quickly approaches the effectiveness of a trained forward observer with a proprietary laser rangefinder. The Department of Defense already has ample electronic warfare capabilities, and the services already field hardware capable of combating this threat on a case-by-case basis. However, those capabilities are not integrated with ground units’ tactics and won’t adequately respond to a concerted enemy drone threat. Ground units must employ counter-drone capabilities that encompass the land, air, and cyber domains.

Exploring Counter-Drone Solutions

During the first drone sightings and attacks, coalition advisors pinpointed potential drone launch sites but ultimately focused on the ground fighting within several hundred meters of the front lines. They favored either immediate strikes in direct support of maneuvering ground forces, or deliberately targeted positions supported by multiple layers of intelligence. A drone operator fell into neither category.

The Counter-Terrorism Service leadership requested coalition assistance to respond to the drone attacks. The 82nd Airborne Division advisors mounted a static counter-drone system called the Anti-UAV Defense System on the back of an armored truck and installed its operating system inside another. The next day, the system broke the deadlock by neutralizing the drones harassing the Iraqis and allowing them to continue to advance. From then on, paratroopers from the 82nd followed closely behind Counter-Terrorism Service forces. The mobile system created a cone of fire within which enemy rotary-wing drones were unable to operate freely. The system either repelled an ISIL drone back to its operator’s location or, more regularly, neutralized it by jamming its frequency. Temporarily stopping the drone often gave Iraqi forces the opportunity to shoot it down. A recovered drone contained valuable information that provided a better understanding of ISIL’s tactics.

While the coalition explored different ways to include drone information in targeting efforts, the Iraqis also co-opted ISIL’s tactics. Government units acquired their own commercially available drones, offering the same low-cost, crystal-clear image and user interface, and used them offensively. The Iraqis connected their ad hoc network of drones to the vast array of coalition air support. Instead of grainy pictures from high-altitude drones, commanders on the ground were seeing much crisper images from the smaller low-altitude drones – at a fraction of the cost. Though not a direct part of the counter-drone effort, the effectiveness of these drones in the Iraqi forces’ hands was undeniable: Coalition observation from low-altitude drones became ubiquitous during the closing stages of the battle.

Despite ISIL’s innovation, small drones have several limitations. Most notably, their range is often only a few kilometers. They are most useful in urban terrain, where their maneuverability and clear optics can capitalize on the tight spaces and infinite angles. As terrain opens up, they lose effectiveness. Small drones also lack significant protection and can be jammed easily, since they don’t have onboard software to protect their frequency bands. Once jammed, Iraqi forces could shoot the stationary target down.

Iraqi government forces and their partners achieved victory in west Mosul through a combination of targeting methods, coalition air and ground support, and emerging counter-drone technologies. The coalition developed new means to target and destroy some of ISIL’s most effective and most technologically advanced systems. The integration between ground and aerial forces grew stronger as they filled the space between the two. Finally, the Iraqis imitated their opponents’ efficient use of drones, combining it with conventional air superiority to overwhelm ISIL’s last stand in west Mosul.

Next Steps

The ongoing wars in the Middle East have become proving grounds for young American service members and the technologies upon which they rely. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected family of vehicles, now so universal in bases across the world, was born of an urgent need to protect troops from increasingly lethal IEDs. A comprehensive counter-drone solution will soon become a necessity rather than a luxury. As their capabilities increase and size and cost decrease, small drones will find their natural home on the battlefield. The 30 drones over Iraqi soldiers in Mosul constituted one of the first tactical swarms, and the potential for greater control of these swarms offers more lethality. Increasingly intrusive software loaded onto drones will be able to exploit previously impenetrable locations, personal devices, and data. Proliferation and advancement of technology closes the capability gap between conventional militaries and irregular and insurgent forces. Based on my experience in Iraq, I propose three guidelines to adequately respond to adversaries’ evolving drone capabilities .

First, U.S. targeting efforts must recognize and exploit the inherent value of small drones. Because of their effectiveness as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, drones offer a valuable link to the decision-makers of an adversarial organization. Just as coalition leaders relied heavily on high-altitude drones for intelligence and lethal strikes, ISIL’s ground leaders used small drones to gain the awareness needed to strike Iraqi ground forces. Drones offer commanders what they want most: the situational awareness required to make judicious tactical decisions. VBIEDs and indirect fire in conjunction with quad-copters are just the first examples of this connection between aerial observation and tactical maneuvers on the ground. Exploiting the link between battlefield leaders and the technology helping them fight will offer valuable perspective on the adversary’s command and control structures, communications architecture, and operational network. For instance, following the drone may prove that the high-value target is not the mortar team or the rifle squad, but rather the senior leader coordinating his troops from a hidden location while keeping an eye on the fight through the lens of a $600 drone he ordered online.

Second, counter-drone systems must become a standard piece of equipment for ground combat units at multiple echelons. The 82nd Airborne’s success with an ad-hoc counter-drone system provides an example of successfully utilizing available technology to defeat small, rotary-wing drones on the urban battlefield. This innovation, however, will not translate into victory on every battleground. ISIL’s drones flew over extremely dense terrain, in a small area, defending a fairly linear front line. The Anti-UAV Defense System was effective in dealing with drones over a single ground unit’s advance; it won’t be as useful when offensive and defensive terrain is not well-defined. Moreover, two trucks were required to move the entire system – adequate when supporting larger maneuvers, but too bulky to support smaller operations, such as a single platoon’s patrol.

Developers are hard at work. Battelle’s Drone Defender offers a portable option for small unit operations. SRC’s Silent Archer offers a vehicular package like the mobile Anti-UAV Defense System built by the 82nd in Mosul. For longer-range threats, Lockheed Martin is developing a laser-based counter-drone package called ATHENA, and an adaptation to its counter-battery radar that will enable it to detect low-power drones. Incorporating these into a ground unit’s repertoire will provide solutions to a threat that will evolve to continuously target it.

Finally, every American ground combat unit must train and deploy with small drones. The agility of the Iraqi military in adopting ISIL tactics was laudable. Battalions and companies already benefit from the longer range of fixed wing drones such as the Raven or Puma. Platoons and squads should be employing small rotary-wing drones like ISIL’s quad copters on every patrol. When working in difficult terrain or amongst civilians, the drone acts as a first line of defense, covers blind spots, and gives patrol leaders more breathing room. Incorporating drones into small unit tactics helps young leaders more quickly detect changes in the environment, allowing more time to respond. One young soldier can watch over his entire platoon during an operation.

The integration of offensive and defensive counter-drone systems along with tactical and traditional aerial platforms vastly mitigated the drone threat facing the Iraqis in Mosul. The constant targeting of drone launch sites and the steady success of ad hoc counter-drone systems made ISIL’s air force exceedingly difficult to operate effectively. Still, opportunities abound for the drone battle to continue. Low cost, ease of use, and constant technological evolution will persuade organizations to continue attacking from the sky. Friendly forces have already seen their use in Syria. A concerted effort across the land, air, and cyber domains will minimize the effects of such tactics and reinforce control of the sky under 2000 feet.

Pablo Chovil is an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. He served in the 82nd Airborne Division from 2015 to 2018, including a deployment to North Iraq in 2017. The views expressed in this article do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Image: U.S. Air Force/Terrica Y. Jones

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Housecarl · May 14, 2018

Well "stuff" is already warming up I'm afraid....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44105279

Surabaya attacks: Family of five bomb Indonesia police headquarters

1 hour ago

A suicide bombing at a police headquarters in the Indonesian city of Surabaya on Monday was carried out by a family of five riding on two motorbikes, police say.

It came after another family carried out bomb attacks on three churches on Sunday, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

An eight-year-old girl from the family survived the latest attack, police say.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

The archipelago, home to 260 million people, has seen a resurgence of Islamist militancy in recent months, and the attacks in Surabaya have raised concerns about the potency of jihadist networks.

Video footage of the latest attack on the police headquarters shows two motorbikes approaching a checkpoint just before the blast. Six civilians and four police officers were injured, authorities said.

Why is Indonesia a target for IS militants?
Sent out to die: The young women used in militant attacks
More on Indonesia
What preceded the latest attack?
Indonesia was on high alert after bombings on Sunday by a single family targeted three churches in Surabaya.

A mother and two daughters, aged nine and 12, blew themselves up at Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church, while the father and two sons targeted two others.

In the first attack, the sons - aged 16 and 18 - rode motorcycles into Santa Maria Catholic Church at around 07:30 local time (00:30 GMT) and detonated explosives they were carrying.

After reportedly dropping his wife and daughters off to carry out their attack, the father, Dita Oepriarto, drove his own bomb-laden car into the grounds of Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church, police said.

Authorities originally said the family of six were among hundreds of Indonesians who had returned from conflict-hit Syria but have since said that the family did not actually travel there.

The coordinated attacks killed 13 people and injured more than 40. They were the deadliest bombings in Indonesia in more than a decade.

Inside the home of Indonesia's most notorious IS militant
Police say Oepriarto was the head of local branch of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Indonesian IS-inspired network.

Separately on Sunday:

A bomb exploded at an apartment complex in Surabaya, killing three members of a family who police said may have been planning an attack
Police said they killed four suspected members of JAD in Cianjur, in West Java province, and arrested two others

How has the government reacted?
President Joko Widodo has described the attacks as "cowardly, undignified and inhumane".

"There will be no compromise in taking action on the ground to stop terrorism," he said.

Authorities on Monday said police, backed by military forces, would increase security across the country.

What is the history of militancy in Indonesia?
The South East Asian country has long struggled with Islamist militancy. Its worst ever terror attack was in Bali in 2002, when 202 people - mostly foreigners - were killed in an attack on a tourist nightlife district.

That attack was carried out by the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant network.

But recent years have seen a number of attacks claimed by IS:

Four civilians and four attackers were killed in a series of explosions and shootings in central Jakarta in January 2016; the first attack claimed by the group
In February this year, a number of people were injured in a sword attack at a church in Sleman, Yogyakarta. Police said that the attacker had previously tried to join IS in Syria

Housecarl · May 15, 2018

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atimes.com/article/chinas-missiles-in-the-south-china-sea-mean-girding-for-war/

China South China Sea Opinion

China’s missiles in the South China Sea mean girding for war

Despite promises to not militarize reefs illegally seized in the South China Sea, Beijing has done exactly that – and it will take force to change that

By Robert E. McCoy May 14, 2018 12:55 PM (UTC+8)

The South China Sea China has the potential to become a cauldron of conflict, and China is stoking the fire. By claiming perhaps as much as 90% of the South China Sea, Beijing is trampling on the rights of other nations in the region, nations whose Exclusion Economic Zones (EEZs) and national waters are being violated.

China first laid claim to the South China Sea through its Nine Dash Line in the early 1950s. And other than pathetic vocal protestations by other nations – including the US – nothing was done about it for years. Perhaps no one took the claim seriously at the time.

To be sure, the case went to the International Court in The Hague, which in 2016 ruled against China. Unfortunately, there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with that ruling.

Nonetheless, those who have been watching Beijing knew that it would not stop there. China soon started occupying various islets and partially submerged rocks within that Nine Dash Line. Not long after, China started improving those small pieces of land, dredging up sand and rock to buttress its artificially-created land.

Little by little progress was made, and ultimately China built runways on these man-made islets. Recently, Chinese cargo planes have brought military gear and associated logistical material to support full-time occupation. Though many seem to be taken aback by this development, missiles and their associated radars are logical additions to fighters in support of Beijing’s claims to the area.

Now a fait-accompli
Earlier this year, the nominee to be the next US Pacific Fleet Commander proclaimed that China now controls the South China Sea. He was not overstating the situation. The US and the rest of world – especially Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia the Philippines and Vietnam, the nations most affected by this – have sat by and done nothing but complain.

Even though Washington and Australia have sailed warships in the general area, called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), that action has been quite ineffective in stopping the Chinese.

Now it may be too late. It is almost impossible to imagine Beijing retreating from its newly created military outposts intended to defend its claim to nearly all of the South China Sea. Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-ship/anti-cruise ballistic missiles (ACBMs), along with their necessary surveillance and fire-control radars, have been installed. The SAMs pose a threat to fighters and bombers and the ACBMs are intended to counter air or sea-launched cruise missiles. Attacking those islets is now a military challenge.

But China is also opening up another front in this issue – language designed to bolster its position. Last month, Beijing took major airlines and an American hospitality company to task for referring to Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet as “countries.” China insists these are Chinese territories and the world must refer to them as such.

This, of course, is unadulterated bullroar and nearly everyone recognizes that. Obviously, in another effort to gain support for its claim, Beijing is using the subterfuge of linguistics. If China can hornswoggle the rest of the world into using words of its choice in order to not offend the Middle Kingdom and thereby risk losing its large commercial market, so much the better.

Beijing, after a few years or decades – yes, they do think and plan that far into the future – would be able to say something to the effect that, “Look at how the entire world refers to these countries! Everyone has acknowledged that they are not countries at all; they are merely undisciplined territories of China.” China knows that names have power.

Beijing intends to do the same thing in the South China Sea. “See, we have been here for years and no one has seriously challenged us over this; these islets – and the waters around them – are clearly ours. So, stop with all that nonsense about the South China Sea – after all, it is even named after us.” As the old saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Status quo or casus belli?
Pundits have made various comments regarding Beijing in the South China Sea, but none have addressed the elephant in the room. Inaction by Washington and others in the region has resulted in China controlling Sea Lines of Communication that handle one-third of the world’s maritime traffic.

No one has faced the ever more obvious fact that the only way to get Beijing to comply with the ruling by The Hague is by means of force. That would be a difficult effort to mount since China is a member of the UN Security Council. Any resolution authorizing an international expedition to evict China from its falsely-claimed islets would be doomed to failure.

That leaves the Quad – formally, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – of Australia, India, Japan and the United States to do the dirty work. But what to do? That raises a number of questions.

Why does the US – and now Australia – downplay their FONOPs in the area, claiming that they are only routine sailings? Is China’s defiance of international law only words or is Beijing psyched up for “bloody battles”? Are the US, the Quad and ASEAN nations willing to fight for the freedom of the South China Sea and the regional EEZs violated by Beijing? Are all so afraid of a military confrontation that they are willing to concede an entire sea to Beijing through inaction?

China’s flouting of international conventions and law by refusing to accept the ruling of The Hague and its bullying of others in the region have been serious enough provocations. However, by militarizing islets in the South China Sea, something that Beijing avowed in 2015 that it would not do, China has flung down the gauntlet, effectively issuing a call to arms. How – or will – the US and its allies answer?

Comments 8

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Alan Boyd

Housecarl · May 15, 2018

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Posted for fair use.....
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-s-play-military-bases-eastern-indian-ocean

DEFENCE & SECURITY

China’s play for military bases in the eastern Indian Ocean

BY David Brewster
15 May 2018
10:45 AEDT

China is moving to establish a network of naval and air bases in the Indian Ocean to support its growing strategic imperatives in the region. This likely includes plans to build bases in the eastern Indian Ocean, in waters much closer to Australia. Australia cannot afford to play onlooker to these developments.

In July 2017, China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti, and Beijing is currently in negotiations with Pakistan to establish an additional base at or near Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

But it will not be enough for China to only have capabilities in the north-west Indian Ocean, far from Australia. China’s strategic imperatives, and the Indian Ocean’s distance from Chinese territory, mean that Beijing will likely see a need to develop a network of military facilities of various types across the ocean, including in its central/eastern zone.

These bases will be required if China wants to be able to protect the entire length of its east–west sea lines across the Indian Ocean. Just as importantly, Beijing has growing political imperatives to protect the large number of Chinese nationals and assets across the region.

Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean is forecast to grow from the current 4–5 vessels to around 20 or more surface vessels and submarines in coming years. This will require a network of naval logistics facilities, including submarine support facilities, particularly if China is to pursue a serious sea denial or sea control strategy across the northern Indian Ocean.

It is not only about naval bases. China will also require air bases in at least three quadrants of the Indian Ocean (north-west, north-east, and south-west) to provide adequate air cover for its Indian Ocean fleet. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force will not be able to provide adequate coverage with long-range maritime surveillance aircraft (let alone short-range strike aircraft), based in southern/western China. The deployment of aircraft carriers to the Indian Ocean or the use of air tankers based in China are unlikely to be enough to bridge the gap.

China’s eastern Indian Ocean gambit has been playing out for a while, with Beijing preparing the ground in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and/or Myanmar. This is a percentages game. China’s ability to achieve its goals is far from assured, and there will probably be pushback, to different degrees, from potential host governments as well as from others.

The jostling for influence in those countries between China and India is already highly reminiscent of US–Soviet competition for influence during the Cold War, and will likely grow in the future.

There has been much controversy over the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka. This sits close to sea lanes across the northern Indian Ocean and would make a fine logistics facility. The takeover of Hambantota by a Chinese company in an equity-for-debt swap last year heightened concerns that the uneconomic port may be converted into a naval base.

Sri Lanka has gone to great lengths to reassure India that Hambantota would not be used for this purpose. But Delhi remains sceptical of Sri Lanka’s claims, fearing that Chinese economic power will eventually force that country to bow to its demands.

The Maldives archipelago, located in the central Indian Ocean, would also make it an ideal location. Concerns about growing Chinese influence there came to a head early this year during a “self coup” by President Abdulla Yameen, who is seen as a close friend of Beijing.

But although the Maldives has long been within India’s sphere of influence, Delhi could do little about the coup. Despite conducting large military exercises nearby to show its displeasure, in fact Delhi’s options were limited.

India had weak grounds on which to intervene under international law (something important for Delhi), and there were real concerns that Beijing might step in to protect Yameen if it did. Indeed, China publicly warned against any intervention by India, stating that it did not want the coup to become another “flashpoint”. Concerns about a possible unintended shooting match may have been heightened by the likely presence of Chinese security personnel in the Maldives capital.

India was less concerned about restoring democracy in the Maldives and more about the potential for a Chinese base there, particularly on the island of Gan at the southern end of the archipelago.

This is the location of an old British naval and air base which was used up until the 1970s. Its position, relatively close to the US base on Diego Garcia, makes it well placed to cover the central Indian Ocean. For a decade the Indian navy has, with the consent of the Maldives Government, maintained a small maritime surveillance presence at Gan.

But the Indian presence may now have become a bargaining point. In April, Yameen ordered the withdrawal of an Indian naval helicopter from Gan. There are strong suspicions this was done to make way for China.

Indeed, the development of a Chinese naval and air base on Gan or elsewhere in the Maldives would be a game changer in the Indian Ocean, potentially threatening the US military presence at Diego Garcia. The announcement a few days ago that an Indian naval vessel would be permitted to undertake a short patrol in Maldives waters is probably part of an effort by Yameen to play Delhi and Beijing against each other.

Myanmar is another good location. A Chinese naval base there would be well placed to threaten India’s naval dominance of the Bay of Bengal and protect (or threaten) the sea lanes that cross the bay and transit the Strait of Malacca. Although Myanmar’s previous military regime was a close collaborator with Beijing for almost three decades, it was able to successfully resist Chinese efforts to build a military presence in its country (despite some reports to the contrary).

But Myanmar’s new government may not be able to resist Chinese approaches forever. Chinese companies have built a new port at Kyaukpyu in Rakhine State as the terminus of a road and pipeline that links China’s Yunnan province with the ocean. Last October, China acquired a 70% stake in the port and might well increase that share if Myanmar can’t come up with further funding.

China’s plans for Kyaukpyu port, however, may include elements consistent only with naval requirements, not commercial use.

For several decades, Australia has expended a lot of defence resources in the western side of the Indian Ocean, including on having a significant part of the Ausralian Navy chase pirates and drug smugglers. But these new challenges present more fundamental threats.

It is time to pay much more attention to the strategic environment in the eastern Indian Ocean, much closer to our shores. The bad news is that this will require a much greater commitment of defence, diplomatic, and financial resources by Australia to countries in this region.

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Housecarl · May 15, 2018

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https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...aunches-coordinated-assault-on-farah-city.php

Taliban launches coordinated assault on Farah City

BY BILL ROGGIO | May 15, 2018 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

The Afghan Taliban launched a large-scale assault overnight on the capital city of Farah province and overran an intelligence headquarters and several police checkpoints. Afghan security forces responded rapidly to the city to fight off the Taliban with support from Coalition aircraft and other assets.

The Taliban assault on Farah City should put to rest any claims by the US military that the Taliban is losing ground in Afghanistan.

Heavily armed Taliban fighters, using captured Afghan military HUMVEEs and police pickup trucks, launched the coordinated assault on Farah City overnight from multiple directions, according to local reports. ATN News reported that “at least three parts of the city came under the control of Taliban,” while Pajhwok Afghan News noted that “the rebels had captured the 3rd police district and stormed the intelligence department.” Taliban fighters also reportedly attacked the hospital and killed two police officers who were receiving treatment, and may also be advancing on the prison.

Afghan officials and the Ministry of Defense have painted a brighter picture of the fighting in Farah City. According to MoD spokesman General Mohamamd Radmanish, Taliban forces have been stopped on the outskirts of the city and are two miles from the city center, Khaama Press reported. Radmanish noted that “a large number of militants have taken part in the attack” and “scores of militants have also joined the Taliban from the other parts of the country and the neighboring provinces.”

Basir Salangi, the governor of Farah province, who took over in January after his predecessor resigned due to the deteriorating security situation, claimed the Taliban failed to capture any government buildings and will “soon they will be thwarted from the city.”

“The situation is not concerning and with the arrival of commando forces they (Taliban) will be defeated Inshallah,” Salangi said, according to TOLONews.

Resolute Support, NATO’s command in Afghanistan, also downplayed the Taliban assault on Farah City and claimed it “remains under govt. control.”

“The ANDSF [Afghan National Defense Security Forces], supported by US Air Force, including US Air Force A-10s are on the offensive against Taliban,” the command tweeted.

Resolute Support
✔
@ResoluteSupport
#Farah city remains under govt. control. #ANDSF, supported by @USFOR_A #airpower, including @usairforce A-10s like one pictured, are on offensive against Taliban. @MoDAfghanistan has stated Afghan security forces are bringing their full capabilities to bear. #AFGStrong #ForAFG pic.twitter.com/LaM12izx6D

4:34 AM - May 15, 2018
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Resolute Support made similar claims when the Taliban overran Kunduz City in 2015 and 2016, and stated the city was under government control when in fact the Taliban occupied it.

The Taliban is neither “desperate” nor “losing ground”

Today’s assault on Farah City should put to rest the US military’s assertion that the Taliban is on the path to defeat. At a May 3 Pentagon press briefing Pentagon Chief Spokesperson Dana W. White described the Taliban as “desperate” because it is “losing ground.” Additionally, White said that over the last year, “things are moving in the right direction.”

Yet, the Taliban has launched multiple attacks on district centers and now controls or contests nearly 59 percent of the country’s 407 districts, according to ongoing tracking by FDD’s Long War Journal. Farah City is one of several provincial capitals that is directly threatened by the Taliban. Ghazni City, Kunduz City, Lashkar Gah, and Tarin Kot are also directly threatened by the Taliban, which has amassed forces on its outskirts and controls or contests multiple districts around the city centers.

Resolute Support has downplayed its assessments of the status of many of Afghanistan’s districts. For instance, Farah City is considered to be “government influenced,” yet the Taliban clearly have had the resources to threaten it (LWJ has long assessed Farah City to be contested). Ghazni City is considered “government controlled,” yet all reporting from the city indicates it si contested, or worse (LWJ also has long assessed Ghazni City to be contested).

Resolute Support has also downplayed the Taliban’s control of more rural districts. At the end of March, Resolute Support spokesman Captain Tom Gresback claimed that Taliban operations in remote district centers “represent a significant lowering of ambition,” as the Taliban failed in its strategic goal of seizing provincial capitals.

Gresback repeating what General John Nicholson, the commander of Resolute Support, said two months prior. In Jan. Nicholson claimed Afghan forces had a successful 2017 beacuse it “[denied] the Taliban any of their stated battlefield objectives … In 2017 the Taliban failed to take any provincial capitals.”

However, Nicholoson falsely attributed a strategic goal to the Taliban that it never claimed. (For more background on this, see Afghan and Coalition forces prepare for 2018 offensive against the Taliban.)

The Taliban has explicitly stated that part of its strategy is to take control of remote areas in order to pressure more populated areas, including district centers and provincial capitals. In fact, this strategy was explained by Mullah Aminullah Yousuf, the Taliban’s shadow governor for Uruzgan, in April 2016.

Today’s assault on Farah City highlights the importance of the Taliban’s strategy to control rural areas, and the failure of the US military to properly acknowledge that threat.

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

Housecarl · May 15, 2018

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/...lights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

Iraqi Election Frontrunner Moktada al-Sadr Courts Partners to Govern

By Margaret Coker

May 15, 2018
The front-runner in Iraqi elections, the populist Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, wasted little time trying to prove to potential allies that he is serious about shaking up the government and cleaning up corruption as he worked to cobble together a governing coalition.

His spokesman, Saleh al-Obeidi, said in an interview in Baghdad on Tuesday that Mr. Sadr’s movement is seeking allies who agree to its three-plank manifesto — ending the practice of awarding ministries on sectarian quotas, fighting corruption and allowing independent technocrats to manage key government agencies.

“Sai’id Moktada wants to bring Iraq out of crisis and out of misery,” Mr. Obeidi said, using an honorific. “We want to start a whole new way of doing things.”

The surprising upset in elections this weekend by Mr. Sadr’s unlikely alliance of communists, Sunni businessmen and pious community activists comes amid long-simmering anger at the established politicians who have controlled government since Iraq’s first democratic election in 2005 after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sadr, who once called for attacks on American forces, capitalized on this widespread discontent by rebranding himself in recent years as a champion of the poor, a firebrand against corruption and a patriot who rails against outside interference by Iran as well as America.

But the path toward coalition building is not straightforward in Iraq and there is no guarantee that the party that wins the most seats in Parliament will get the first shot at forming a government. Instead, rival parties can try to pre-empt them with another permutation of seats that controls a majority in Parliament.

After the elections, Iraqi political parties shifted to the next phase — phone calls, back-room meetings and deals all with the aim of getting themselves and their allies into government.

Although the final results have not been released, most of the country’s politicians have accepted the tally so far showing Mr. Sadr’s Sairoon alliance as the surprise winner. Partial vote counts from the country’s 18 provinces indicate that Sairoon, which translates as Moving Forward, won about 54 seats, far short of a majority in the 329-seat legislature.

Two other blocs that partial results indicate came in second and third, Hadi al-Ameri’s Fatah and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Nasr appear to have won 45 and 39 seats, respectively. Mr. Ameri’s coalition largely consists of militia members who helped defeat the Islamic State. Mr. Abadi’s coalition is a cross-sectarian alliance of mostly politicians, businessmen and academics.

Mr. Sadr started his outreach on Monday night.

He posted a lyrical tweet in which he described his political goals, weaving in the names of several rival political factions as a hint that he sees them as natural allies. Included were Mr. Abadi’s coalition, as well as two Sunni alliances, and a mainstream and opposition Kurdish party.

Mr. Sadr, who is based in Iraq’s Shiite holy city of Najaf, and Mr. Abadi had a warm telephone conversation on Tuesday, their aides said. Senior leaders from the Kurdistan Democratic Party based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region also called him.

Mr. Obeidi said that he expects coalition building to start in earnest only next week, as the final results of the election are not yet tabulated and allegations of electoral fraud in two provinces are slowing down the process.

Politicians from across the spectrum believe that the government formation will take weeks if not months, given the number of political players, possible combinations of alliances and entrenched interests.

As an indication about how importantly America and Iran view these elections, governments of both countries sent top officials to assess the situation even before the final results came in.

The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps external operations, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Brett McGurk , the White House special representative in the fight against Islamic State, both were in Baghdad on Monday meeting with several political factions including Mr. Abadi and Mr. Ameri.

A senior aide to Mr. Sadr said that neither side had contacted them.

Americans recall Mr. Sadr as the leader of a vicious militia that both killed United States forces after their occupation in 2003 and spread sectarian violence and lawlessness across Iraq in the late 2000s. More recently, however, Iraqis have come to see him as a political disrupter, not a military one.

For years, Mr. Sadr has championed social protest movements, and allies from these marches and strikes, including Iraq’s moribund Communists, Sunni businessmen and pious community activists, joined him in the 2018 electoral campaign.

Several signs pointed to a rocky struggle to build a new governing coalition, including calls by several major political figures to annul the results of Saturday’s vote.

These include former prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose State of Law coalition ran Iraq for eight years. They are projected to finish a distant fifth.

Meanwhile, in Iraq’s Kurdish regions, several political factions have also criticized the vote results, alleging fraud.

On Sunday night, clashes between political parties broke out in Suleimaniyah. Vote totals in Kurdish-dominated Dohuk and the oil-rich Kirkuk region have still not been published.

The head of the Iraqi Bar Association, Ahlam Allami, who headed a large group of poll monitors, reported scattered and minor irregularities on Election Day, such as some polling stations not opening on time and campaigning occurring illegally close to voting stations. He urged investigations into these incidents.

Related Coverage
Iraqi Voters Strengthen Hand of Militia Leader Who Battled U.S.

U.S. Takes a Risk: Old Iraqi Enemies Are Now Allies
May 11, 2018

Housecarl · May 16, 2018

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Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...nuclear_edge_low_yield_in_the_scs_113453.html

Pivot With a Nuclear Edge: Low Yield in the South China Sea

By Adam Cabot
May 16, 2018

The much vaunted, U.S. “Pivot to Asia” was launched by the Obama administration in 2011. It was intended to deter China’s challenge to U.S. leadership and curb Chinese coercion in the South China Sea. The idea was sound, but the problem was lack of any real implementation. Aside from a symbolic deployment of U.S. Marines to Darwin, the Pivot failed, as discussed by Hugh White in his Quarterly Essay piece, “Without America.” China continued to systematically militarise and fortify the Spratly Islands, and in May 2018 there were reports that China had deployed land based anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12B) and long-range surface to air missiles (HQ-9B) to three islands within the chain.

This effectively means that China now can close the South China Sea if it chooses to and significantly affects the global economy. Approximately $3.4 trillion of trade passes through the South China Sea annually. It’s a major global trade route and China’s recent deployments of anti-ship cruise missiles and surface to air missiles in combination with the range of the DF-21D ‘carrier killer’ ballistic missile provides significant Area Denial Anti-Access (A2/AD) capability. In the case of war, any surface naval vessels including aircraft carriers veering within the range of these weapon systems run a huge risk of being sunk. Even with the Aegis missile defense umbrella in place, the targets face the prospect of being overwhelmed with multiple cruise missiles. So how does the U.S. combat this problem that has entrenched itself as a major trade chokepoint? Enter the low yield tactical nuclear option.

Much has been said of the Trump administration, but an area where it has stepped up to the plate is nuclear modernization. The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released in February 2018 provides answers for not only dealing with the Russian tactical nuclear imbalance but also the South China Sea A2/AD problem. As outlined in the NPR, the Trump administration aims to “expand tailored response options” by developing a low yield sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM), reminiscent of the now retired nuclear tomahawk missile (TLAM-N). In the short term, however, the intention is to modify a small number of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to significantly lower their yield. These will launch from the Ohio class ballistic missile submarines currently in service.

These tactical nuclear weapons deployed in the Pacific could be used to counter Chinese fortifications by effectively neutralizing the A2/AD capability with the appropriate yield. The thought of having to use any nuclear weapons is nothing to be taken lightly but so is the thought of a U.S. aircraft carrier being destroyed by multiple cruise missiles resulting in the loss of 5000 lives. Conventional weapons may have a degree of utility in countering this threat, but offensive operations would have to be carefully orchestrated and meticulously planned to avoid casualties from surface-to-air cruise and ballistic missiles. Advances in Chinese capabilities will only make operations more difficult and more dangerous.

By sending a strong message to the Chinese that any attack on U.S. forces such as the sinking of a naval vessel has a high likelihood of being met with a tactical nuclear strike on fortified islands, this will act to deter aggression and complement a pivot to the region, albeit delayed. The lack of a U.S. ‘no first use’ policy will reinforce this message as will the declaration that ballistic missile submarines will be fitted out with low-yield SLBMs and conduct patrols of the Pacific.

Critics of this strategy will argue that the use of low-yield nuclear weapons will lead to escalation and the use of strategic nuclear weapons by China in response. This is unlikely as long as the U.S. maintains strategic superiority. As illustrated in a study conducted by Matthew Kroenig, “The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy.” states in an inferior strategic position are less likely to run risks in a crisis due to the significantly higher costs it will incur. The Chinese strategic nuclear arsenal is dwarfed by the U.S. triad. The costs of a nuclear exchange would be catastrophic for both parties, but China would fare significantly worse due to factors such as the size of the U.S. arsenal, the population of China and the relatively small ICBM force deployed. It is highly unlikely that China would run this risk.

There are currently no deployed U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Asia. The deployment of the low-yield nuclear SLBM and SLCM will provide the U.S. with an option that will deter potential Chinese aggression to a higher level than conventional weapons. These options will be penetrable and effective against offensive weapons entrenched within the South China Sea. The U.S. “Pivot to Asia” never happened and China had a free hand in fortifying islands that don’t belong to them with advanced offensive weapons that threaten neighbors and vessels passing peacefully within range. The next step in China’s process will be the deployment of forces capable of greater projection well beyond the ‘nine dash line.’ It’s not too late to counter this militarization of the South China Sea and combat future coercion. The nuclear edge may be what is needed.

Adam Cabot has a Masters in International Relations and is currently researching Russian nuclear strategy.

Housecarl · May 16, 2018

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Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/could-the-us-navy-blockade-china-in-wartime/

Could the US Navy Blockade China in Wartime?

Blockading mainland China presents a range of strategic setbacks for the United States.

By Robert Farley
May 14, 2018

Could the United States blockade China’s oil during a time of war? The idea is appealing, as it might enable the United States to force a negotiated settlement to the conflict without having to content with China’s formidable anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) system. But would it work? A new study in the Naval War College Review expresses some skepticism.

China is deeply dependent on foreign oil, and its sea lanes of communication are vulnerable to disruption. This has allowed some analysts to ruminate about how best the United States could exploit this vulnerability during war. Blockades sometimes work, even in great power conflict; the British blockade of Germany in the First World War helped bring the latter to its knees. Although German efforts to establish a submarine blockade of Britain failed in both world wars, they caused no end of trouble to British authorities. In the waning days of World War II, the United States blockaded Japan so successfully that the Japanese economy and military ground to a halt.

Gabriel Collins has evaluated the prospects for a distant oil blockade against China in a new article at the Naval War College Review, and isn’t terribly optimistic. Building on an earlier article, Collins runs through the tactical and operational aspects of a distant blockade against China. Interdicting maritime shipments of oil would be tricky, given that many other countries in the region depend on the same sea lanes as China. The U.S. Navy would need to interdict terminals in the Indian Ocean, as well as the South China Sea. American warships might need to sink or seize neutral-flagged tankers, an action certain to have political consequences.

Mainly, however, Collins concentrates on the strategic and political problems that a blockade would present. Collins lists a number of downsides, including severe disruption to the global economy, and very heavy pressure on the United States to end the war and restore the status quo. Moreover, China could take a variety steps to mitigate the effects, including increasing domestic oil production; replacing oil with substitute fuels; importing more oil from Russia and expanding pipeline capacity; and rationing and diverting from less critical sectors in the civilian economy.

Finally, it’s worth noting that a decision not to tangle with the sharp teeth of China’s A2/AD system would likely leave China in control of whatever asset the war was about, at least for a time. It would leave China’s standing military forces largely intact, apart from what damage slow attrition could inflict. And Collins notes that China is extremely unlikely to endure the situation faced by Japan in the waning days of the Pacific War. During the last year of that conflict, Japan lacked sufficient fuel to operationally deploy its remaining air and naval assets. The largest battleship in the Imperial Japanese Navy, HIJMS Yamato, famously sailed into her last mission without enough fuel to get home. But China produces enough, can substitute enough, and can import enough oil to ensure that its military machine will never go thirsty.

These arguments are also worth thinking about in context of Josh Rovner’s suggestion that a war between the United States and China might go on for some time. Collins’ point is clear: A distant blockade is likely to fail, and we shouldn’t plan around it. Despite the vulnerability of China’s energy supply, the United States can’t rely on a blockade alone to win the war.

Housecarl · May 16, 2018

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine....g-hypersonic-flight-tests-over-next-two-years

Air Force Preparing for Hypersonic Tests

5/15/2018
By Vivienne Machi

The Air Force is gearing up for hypersonic tests as the Defense Department seeks to keep pace with China and Russia, Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski said May 15.

The Air Force Materiel Command commander said the service has been working collaboratively with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on efforts to develop new missile technologies that travel faster than Mach 5 — or five times the speed of sound — and at least two flight tests are currently scheduled in support of those efforts “within the next couple of years.”

The service has been hard at work understanding and developing hypersonic missiles and flight vehicles, Pawlikowski told reporters at a media breakfast in Washington, D.C. Russia and China have touted their own recent tests, prompting Pentagon officials and U.S. lawmakers to express concern about falling behind peer adversaries.

The Air Force is also investing in ground testing to develop hypersonic technology. It is revitalizing test centers at the Arnold Engineering Development Complex at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, that will help the service gather important information from ground tests and reduce the need for risky and relatively costly flight demonstrations, she said.

“Flight tests of any kind are much more expensive … and [it is] much harder to control the environment than in a ground test facility,” she said. Enhancing the facilities at Arnold will enable the Air Force to build better models and allow for quicker and more effective platform design, she noted. The Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA are involved in the testing plans at the complex.

Recent hypersonic efforts have focused on understanding “the ability to get to that speed and then understanding that speed,” Pawlikowski said. The service is also working to hone the precision guidance technology “to make sure you’re hitting the right things,” she added. “There is some investment we have in understanding the end-game seeker technology … which also has to survive that environment.”

The Air Force has been working to better understand the materials needed for a missile to withstand the high temperatures inherent to traveling at such speeds, she said.

Meanwhile, the service is looking at increasing rapid prototyping and experimentation as it develops its fiscal year 2020 budget request, Pawlikowski said. William Roper, the service’s new assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, is coordinating a variety of prototyping projects that will be evaluated over the coming months to determine whether they can move forward, she said.

The service is “wide open” to using prototyping and experimentation to address a variety of capability gaps or needs, she said. “I think Dr. Roper has basically said, ‘Hey, if you’ve got something you think is a candidate, let’s look at it and bring it forward.’”

However, the Air Force still needs to get more comfortable with the idea of an experiment that may never turn into a full-fledged program, Pawlikowski noted. “One of the keys to prototyping is you may not buy it, and that’s a hard thing for us … to go in and say, ‘We’re going to spend money to go do this, and we may not do anything with it afterwards.’”

The service dipped “its big toe in the water” with the light attack experiment that was launched last year to find an off-the-shelf, low-cost aircraft that could perform close-air support missions in areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.

The effort, also known as OA-X, cost the Air Force $6 million to perform a series of tests on four aircraft last summer at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. The second phase of the experiment began May 7, with pilots flying the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano and the Textron Aviation AT-6B Wolverine aircraft during a three-month, live-fly demonstration, according to the Air Force. The service has not made a decision as to whether it will purchase any aircraft at the end of the initiative.

Pawlikowski said to expect more small-scale experimentation to occur in the near future as the Air Force pursues new capabilities. There could be more more funding for prototyping efforts in the 2020 budget, she noted.

The service has yet to make a major investment in prototyping, she said.

“The question now … is when are we going to take that first big plunge and invest some real dollars into a prototype, with the understanding that we may not buy anything when we’re done?" she said. When that day comes, it will require the cooperation of industry partners who will have to accept the possibility of building a system that may not ultimately be purchased, she added.

“The key to this is to be willing to go out and do something and not spend two years figuring out what the requirements are before you do it,” Pawlikowski said.

Housecarl · May 16, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/house-probe-china-threat/

House to Probe China Threat

Hearings to focus on military buildup, U.S. intelligence gaps

BY: Bill Gertz
May 16, 2018 5:00 am

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will begin a major inquiry into the threat from China this week in a shift from its past attention on Russian subversion.

The committee will hold a series of hearings, both open and in secret, examining threats posed by China in the military sphere, economic and industrial realm, technology arena, and Beijing's significant influence operations against the United States, said committee aides.

The new inquiry is being directed by Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and is supported by Republicans and Democrats.

"These hearings are meant to highlight the many challenges China poses to our national security through its aggressive territorial claims, unfair trade policies, espionage and cyber-attacks, and through other means," Nunes told the Washington Free Beacon.

"Our focus in the first hearing is to look at the military advances, quantitative and qualitative, and how it connects to China's broader strategy for force projection and influence," said one committee aide.

China is seeking to dominate the international order through a combination of infrastructure investment in the developing world and a network of overseas port facilities and military bases.

The inquiry will examine China's future plans and intentions and help educate both government and the private sector to the dangers.

"The concern is not the snapshot of where the Chinese are today, but where they're headed," the aide said. "It takes a long time for us to shift and realize that we have a real threat."

China unexpectedly succeeded in gaining strategic advantages over the United States due in large measure to a U.S. intelligence community that failed to properly assess Chinese goals and strategy.

Intelligence agencies for a long time "had blinders on" and misjudged Chinese activities, the aide said.

The failures included faulty intelligence estimates that China planned to limit its naval forces to regional conflicts. Instead, Beijing is rapidly building global naval warfare capabilities.

Another shortcoming involved intelligence analysis indicating Chinese island-building in the South China Sea would not be used by Beijing to bully Southeast Asian states.

Today, China has begun militarizing some 3,200 acres of reclaimed South China Sea islands with missiles and fighter jets—despite a promise by Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping that China would not use the islands for military purposes.

"Now we've got three small Pearl Harbor-like bases there with anti-ship missiles and an air defense umbrella," the aide said.

Additionally, China is using its growing military power to increase coercive pressure on Taiwan, a democratic island state Beijing claims is part of China.

China also is using its growing power against Japan in a dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea that Beijing claims are Chinese territory.

India, too, is also being pressed by Chinese territorial claims in two border regions.

The first hearing is set for Thursday on Chinese worldwide military expansion and will focus on how the Chinese are using naval and air power and developing a global basing structure for power projection.

Among those slated to testify are retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, the former intelligence director for the Pacific Fleet, and Rick Fisher, a China military expert at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. American Enterprise Institute China hand Dan Blumenthal also will testify, along with Patricia Kim, a Council on Foreign Relations expert.

The Chinese goal is to challenge the United States and coerce regional states into adopting China's vision for a new global order under an authoritarian, anti-democratic power.

The China probe will mark a shift for the oversight panel from its contentious investigation of Russian election meddling and influence operations that divided the traditionally bipartisan panel.

The Russia probe pitted committee Republicans skeptical of alleged collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia to win the 2016 election, and Democrats opposed to the panel's efforts to investigate Obama administration politicization and mishandling of intelligence.

The new inquiry could help bring the two sides together as there is a growing consensus China is emerging as a greater national security challenge than other threats such as Russia, North Korea, Iran, and terrorism.

Other inquiry topics in the coming weeks are expected to include testimony and hearings on China's aggressive industrial policies and predatory economics.

China has announced plans to dominate key high-technology fields within seven years and has engaged in a series of acquisitions of U.S. and foreign companies to further that goal.

The panel also may review China's role in financial markets.

China's intellectual property theft and acquisition of advanced technologies is another potential area of inquiry along with congressional efforts to bolster the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that has checked some Chinese purchases of American firms.

One of the committee's more significant investigations is expected to examine China's use of influence operations in the United States.

The inquiry on influence operations could go beyond China's use of cultural language centers on American universities called Confucius Institutes and Chinese student associations.

"Why is it acceptable for China to dominate and coerce Hollywood and publishing houses through these so-called, façade private companies that are basically controlled by the Communist Party?" the aide asked, noting two major think tanks in Washington are "beholden" to Chinese interests.

In 2012, under pressure from the Chinese government, the Hollywood studio MGM altered its remake of the film "Red Dawn" in late stages of production to change invading Chinese troops to North Koreans.

The inquiry will seek to deepen both public and government knowledge on the issues.

"Strategic failure comes from not recognizing and understanding the nature and scope of the threat and the environment that is being contested," the aide said.

In a related development, Bill Evanina, a senior DNI counterintelligence official, said China's efforts to undermine U.S. economic security have not been properly recognized.

"Until fairly recently, the efforts by China to use its intelligence services to advance its national development by undermining the economic security of the U.S. did not receive adequate attention," Evanina told the Senate Intelligence Committee in written answers to questions.

"The U.S. has been slow in responding, in particular, to China's systematic theft of U.S. technology across broad swaths of the U.S. economy, which represents a critical national security threat," he added.

Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the National Intelligence Council warned about Chinese subversion.

"China's government-run talent recruitment program facilitates the legal and the illicit transfer of U.S. technology, intellectual property and know-how to further China's science and technology development, military modernization, and goal of becoming a science and technology superpower by 2049," the document states.

"It's overseen by Communist Party's Central Committee, and it recruits scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and managers of all nationalities working or educated in the United States to commercialize and weaponize technologies."

Rubio said China is "basically conducting an all-out assault to steal what we've already developed and use it as the baseline for their development, so they can supplant us as the leader in the most important technologies of the 21st century."

On Chinese influence operations, Rubio said China recently threatened United and American Airlines with reduced flight routes and fines unless they conformed to Chinese descriptions of Taiwan.

The Marriott hotel chain recently fired an employee in the United States for upsetting China with a tweet about Tibet, and retail chain The Gap was forced to apologize after leaving out Taiwan on a map of China printed on a T-shirt.

"American companies are being bullied to the point where an American was fired in the United States because he liked a tweet," Rubio said.

Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary of state, told Rubio in response: "The State Department believes these actions are outrageous and disturbing. I think we're all familiar with the sharp power that Beijing wields its market access as a cudgel to reach certain economic concessions from private sector entities, like intellectual property transfer or certain joint ventures with the Chinese companies."

"China is very much well aware that it's wading to treacherous waters here," Wong said. "And they understand that if they continue along this path, continue to employ these tactics, that will negatively affect the U.S.-China relationship and that there will be consequences."

Bill Gertz Email Bill | Full Bio | RSS
Bill Gertz is senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon he was a national security reporter, editor, and columnist for 27 years at the Washington Times. Bill is the author of seven books, four of which were national bestsellers. His most recent book was iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age, a look at information warfare in its many forms and the enemies that are waging it. Bill has an international reputation. Vyachaslav Trubnikov, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, once called him a “tool of the CIA” after he wrote an article exposing Russian intelligence operations in the Balkans. A senior CIA official once threatened to have a cruise missile fired at his desk after he wrote a column critical of the CIA’s analysis of China. And China’s communist government has criticized him for news reports exposing China’s weapons and missile sales to rogues states. The state-run Xinhua news agency in 2006 identified Bill as the No. 1 “anti-China expert” in the world. Bill insists he is very much pro-China—pro-Chinese people and opposed to the communist system. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once told him: “You are drilling holes in the Pentagon and sucking out information.” His Twitter handle is @BillGertz.

Housecarl · May 18, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...ponse_to_russias_nuclear_doctrine_113462.html

The Necessary U.S. Response to Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine

By Bradley A. Thayer
May 18, 2018

After decades of neglect, the decline of the United States’ nuclear arsenal is being addressed by the Pentagon. This is driven in large measure by the growth and modernization of the Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals. Their nuclear doctrines are salient as well. While Chinese nuclear doctrine remains deliberately opaque—which is, in itself, worrisome and a threat to strategic stability—Russian doctrine and statements from officials have emphasized the need to maintain their nuclear arsenal and evinced a willingness to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

For decades, the considerable growth of the Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals did not generate an effective response from the United States. The Department of Defense’s Nuclear Posture Review, released in February, takes important steps to reverse the decline in the U.S. arsenal.

While these efforts are important, there is a menace to strategic stability. This is the “escalate to de-escalate” component of Russia’s nuclear doctrine. That is, Russia might use nuclear weapons to compel the termination of a conventional conflict. This is significant for three reasons. First, it emboldens Putin to undertake aggression because he anticipates that the threat of nuclear use may cause NATO to yield. Second, it increases the threat to the U.S. military and allies. Third, there is also an adverse psychological component for NATO decision-makers and the public. This is a Russian effort at intimidation which seeks to shape NATO allies’ perceptions of how Russia will act in a crisis or war in the expectation of coercing NATO in a crisis. For these reasons, it compels a response by the U.S. government to deter the Russians from contemplating nuclear use and to reassure allies of the credibility and strength of U.S. alliance commitments.

Though the growth and modernization of the Russian conventional and nuclear arsenals are transparent, there is a debate over Russian nuclear doctrine. The skeptics’ case is that Russian nuclear weapons would never be used in this fashion. According to this argument, Russian doctrinal statements may possess a razor’s edge but should be discounted by everyone else, as they are directed toward other audiences. Presumably, those are Russia’s major potential foes: the U.S., other NATO members, and the PRC. The result is a form of strategic ambiguity—the Russians talk about first use but, for the skeptics, the Russians would never really do what their doctrine requires.

The skeptics’ criticism is misplaced. The response of the United States must be to take its adversary at its word and deed. The growth, doctrine, and expressions of intent by Russian officials, in particular, cannot be ignored by Washington as they are not by its allies. The U.S. must respond by taking two major steps to vouchsafe its security and the security of its allies.

First, the U.S. and its allies should remove the ambiguity coveted by the Russians by developing and deploying the capabilities to deter escalation. It is incumbent upon NATO to ensure that Russia cannot control escalation or the pace of conflict through its calibrated use of nuclear weapons. Accordingly, NATO must possess a range of capabilities that enable it to respond to Russian limited nuclear use. This is necessary to convince Moscow that it will not gain anything through the initiation or escalation of a conflict. To the contrary, it has much to lose. In essence, the Russians should never have an incentive to initiate a conflict, much less escalate one.

To accomplish this requires the expansion of conventional and nuclear capabilities, including forward-deployed heavy brigades, more tactical nuclear weapons, and the return of sea-based intermediate range systems deployed in Europe. Ideally, a land-based intermediate range system could be deployed, but this is prohibited by the 1987 INF Treaty. A directly related issue is whether the U.S. should stay in the INF Treaty given Russian violations through the development and testing of intermediate-range missile systems. As Moscow has de facto abrogated the Treaty, Washington may choose to liberate itself from its limitations. Were it to do so, an advantage would be the development and deployment of a land-based intermediate force that would augment the theater rung of the escalation ladder, which has been absent for a generation, thus tightening the linkage between the U.S. and its European NATO allies and buttressing deterrence of Russia. Such a system might be deployed to other theaters, such as the Asia-Pacific to reinforce deterrence against China.

However critical, capabilities are only half of the deterrence equation. The other half concerns political variables such as willpower and credibility.

Accordingly, the second step the U.S. should undertake are the efforts taken by the administration and its allies to convey to Moscow that ambiguity will not be accepted. Were Russia to challenge the U.S. directly, or an ally, the U.S. would respond at the appropriate level of force. In general, the greater the capabilities present to NATO’s leadership, the larger the menu of responses, including nuanced, limited options. The declaratory policy of the U.S. does this to a considerable degree, including through the administration’s statements, SACEUR’s, those of U.S. allies, and the NATO Secretary General. Other actions, such as the re-establishment of the U.S. Second Fleet is also an important signal. But this should go further and be organized around a consistent message to counter and eliminate Russian ambiguity through deterrence by denial. Every NATO leader should speak the language of denial. Its grammar is straightforward: If Russia aggresses, it will be defeated. Moscow will not achieve its military or political objectives under any circumstances. Should it escalate, the costs will be far greater than any benefit.

Russia may covet ambiguity about nuclear use to advance its political objectives. But NATO cannot be ambiguous about its response. Extant and deployed capabilities and demonstrated, consistent political willpower is the foundation of NATO’s deterrence by denial strategy, and central to eliminate the value of ambiguity for Russia.

Lastly, if this situation were to increase tensions, the fault lies with Russia. It was Moscow’s decision to seize Crimea, invade Ukraine, and threaten NATO members with nuclear attacks, knowing full well that NATO is not aggressive but is a defensive alliance with no territorial ambitions. NATO had waned in prominence since the Balkans stabilized two decades ago. Putin singlehandedly reversed this and energized the alliance. If NATO’s response is more pointed than desired by Russia, that response is a direct consequence of Russia’s actions.

Bradley A. Thayer, P.hD., is the author, with John M. Friend, of How China Sees the World: The Rise of Han-Centrism and the Balance of Power in International Politics.

Notes:
For example, see Olga Oliker and Andrey Baklitskiy, “The Nuclear Posture Review and Russian ‘De-Escalation:’ A Dangerous Solution to a Nonexistent Problem,” War on the Rocks, February 20, 2018, available at: https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/n...ation-dangerous-solution-nonexistent-problem/

Housecarl · May 18, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://breakingdefense.com/2018/05/houthi-missiles-the-iran-connection-scuds-are-not-dead-yet/

Houthi Missiles: The Iran Connection; Scuds Are Not Dead Yet

By RALPH SAVELSBERG
on May 17, 2018 at 6:33 PM
13 Comments

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Savelsberg-Figure-1.jpg
Figure 1: Launch of a Yemeni Burkan 2-H missile on December 19th 2017.

DEN HELDER, Netherlands: The Saudi and US governments have accused Iran of manufacturing ballistic missile used in attacks by Houthis against targets in Saudi Arabia.

The longest-ranged flights reached Riyadh, a distance of roughly 950 km, with a missile called the Burkan 2-H (Figure 1 above).

In terms of the physical damage they can cause, these missiles with their 500 kg payload make for a relatively poor weapon. However, their speed makes them difficult to intercept (the flight time is only about nine minutes). The fact the launches are continuing a few years after the start of the conflict, shows that the Saudi-led coalition has not succeeded in interdicting Houthi missiles or destroying them on the ground. Consequently, Saudi civilians as far away from the conflict as Riyadh are not completely safe from Houthi attacks. In a broader context, it is a disturbing development that this sort of weapon is in the hands of a rebel movement fighting a war in the Middle East and aligned with Iran. The Scud is not dead yet.

But are the Iranians really behind these, or are they modified missiles from North Korean in origin? Visually, the similarities between the Burkan 2-H and the Iranian Qiam-1, which is a development of the Soviet Scud missile, are hard to deny. The missiles have the same configuration with a so-called triconic warhead and without the large stabilizing fins common to other Scud versions. In a briefing on December 14 last year, standing in a DC warehouse in front of debris of a missile recovered in Saudi Arabia, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, pointed at other similarities such as the location of valves and vents in the tanks. Furthermore, the logo of an Iranian manufacturer was visible on some of the debris.

The most common version of the Scud, known as the SS-1C Scud-B, had a much shorter range of roughly 300 km with a 990 kg payload. It first flew roughly 70 years ago. It seems surprising that a variant of such an old missile would have the range to reach Riyadh. There has also been speculation that the missiles used against Riyadh are indigenous Yemeni developments of missiles delivered from North Korea.

In this article I take a closer look at the Burkan 2-H and how its increased performance was achieved. I do this using computer simulations of ballistic missile trajectories, with missile parameters based on properties of the Scud from open sources and an analysis of photographs and a launch video. The simulations confirm the similarities with the Iranian missile: a Scud-variant with the size and initial acceleration of the Burkan 2-H can only fly from Northwest Yemen to Riyadh if it carries as much propellant as the Qiam-1. Other versions of the Scud do not fit the data.

Scud missiles were widely exported and formed the starting point for the ballistic missile programs of North Korea and Iran. North-Korean variants include the Hwasong-5, similar to the Scud-B, and the Hwasong-6/Scud-C. The range of the latter has been increased to 500 km, thanks to more propellant, a lighter airframe with a shared bulkhead between the fuel and oxidizer tanks, and a payload reduced to roughly 750 kg. North Korea has built other longer-range Scud versions. A drawing of a missile usually referred to as the Scud-D was uncovered in 1999, when Indian Customs officials inspected the North Korean freighter Kowulsan, believed to be heading for Libya. The drawing shows a longer and heavier missile. In September of 2016, the DPRK launched several Scud-like missiles towards the Sea of Japan. These missiles, known as the Scud-ER, appeared to have a larger diameter than other versions and covered a distance of roughly 1,000 km. Variants of the Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6 are in service in Iran, where they are known as the Shahab-1 and Shahab-2, respectively. The Qiam-1 is a more advanced version first unveiled in Iran in 2010.

Before the current civil war, Yemen also received Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6 missiles from North Korea. Fifteen of these were uncovered in 2002 aboard another North-Korean freighter, the So San. This was intercepted in the Gulf of Aden by the Spanish Navy, but ultimately allowed to continue its journey because there was insufficient legal ground to detain it. Some of the ballistic missiles used by the Houthis likely are of North-Korean origin, but the Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6 lack the range to reach Riyadh. In 2016 the Yemeni Houthi Ministry of Defense unveiled the Burkan-1, described as being 12.5 m long, with a mass of 8 tons and a range of 800 km with a 500 kg payload. These numbers match the rumored Scud-D.

The first confirmed attack against Riyadh took place on November fourth last year, when a missile was launched against King Khalid Airport, north of the Saudi capital. On December 19th there was another attack against the city with the missile shown in Figure 1. The next attack, involving multiple missiles, occurred on March 25.

Saudi Arabia has claimed successful intercepts of the incoming missiles using Patriot surface-to-air missiles. Video footage of the March engagement on social media, however, shows one interceptor exploding shortly after launch and another spectacularly veering of course before impacting the ground. Falling debris from the interceptors or the Yemeni missiles, caused at least one fatality. Further missile attacks followed on April 11 and on May 9.

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Savelsberg-Figure-2.jpg
Figure 2 shows a comparison between a Shahab-1, Shahab-2 and the Qiam-1 and Yemeni Burkan 2-H, with estimated tank sizes and lengths. The lengths were found by scaling with the 0.88 m diameter typical for most Scud variants.

Externally the versions can be distinguished by comparing the lengths of the cable raceways that guide wiring past the propellant tanks. The wiring connects the guidance equipment, located near the top of the booster, to actuators for thrust-vectoring vanes in the exhaust nozzle used for steering. The lengths indicate that the Qiam-1 uses a different airframe than the Hwasong-6/ Shahab-2, with longer tanks. The dimensions of the Qiam-1 and Burkan 2-H are practically identical, within the error margins of the measurements, and in the simulations they are treated as the same.

Finding the Missiles’ Parameters

The Houthi group Ansar Allah released video of the December 2017 launch. By measuring the missile position in the image as a function of time and scaling this with the missile length, we can measure the initial acceleration of the missile.

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Savelsberg-Figure-3.jpg
Figure 3: Acceleration measurement of the Burkan 2-H launch based on a launch video, with one per five frames shown. (Original video: Ansar Allah.)

Events in the video match the accompanying sound, which makes it unlikely that the video framerate has been manipulated. The measured acceleration is 12.2 m/s2 with an uncertainty of roughly 5 percent. This gives a take-off thrust-to-weight ratio of 2.25. The mass flow rate, propellant specific impulse, burn time and thrust for the basic Scud-B are known. The total weight of the Qiam-1/ Burkan 2-H can now be matched to the thrust of the Scud engine and the measured thrust-to-weight ratio. The volume of the propellant tanks can be found using the locations of visible welds in the body and the length of the cable raceways.

There is some uncertainty in the exact shape of the tanks, in how much of the tanks is filled with propellant (there usually is some empty space to allow the propellant to expand and the pipe that connects the fuel tank to the engine takes up volume inside the oxidizer tank) and in how much propellant is left at burnout, but using the densities of the fuel (kerosene) and oxidizer (inhibited fuming red nitric acid) and their mixing ratio, the propellant mass can be estimated. With the weight of the missile known, this fixes the sum of the missile empty mass and payload. Parameters for the Scud-B and for the Qiam-1/ Burkan 2-H are listed in Table 1.

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Saveslberg-Table-1.jpg
Table 1: missile parameters used in the simulations.

Based on the estimated tank volume, the Qiam-1 and Burkan 2-H can carry almost 25 percent more propellant than the basic Scud-B. Since the engine propellant burn rate is fixed, the burn time is increased proportionally. The thrust-to-weight ratio from the video indicates that the overall mass of the Qiam-1 is only marginally larger than that of the Scud-B, which means that the sum total of the payload and the burnout mass of the booster has to be smaller. The analysis does not allow making a distinction between the two. The booster burnout mass can be expressed in the deadweight mass fraction: the mass of the booster at burnout including leftover propellant as a percentage of the mass of the booster on take-off. For the Scud-B, which is a relatively heavy design, it is 26.2%.

With a 500 kg payload, as claimed for the Burkan-1, the corresponding value for the computer model of the Qiam-1 and Burkan 2-H is 16.1%. This requires a significantly lighter missile airframe and probably less leftover propellant at burnout than on the Scud-B. Removing the stabilizing fins and introducing a shared bulkhead between the tanks can account for some of the weight reduction. Replacing the relatively heavy steel used in the Scud-B airframe with a lighter aluminum construction and a smaller and lighter guidance package can account for the rest. The 16.1 % is comparable to values achieved in other liquid-propelled Iranian missiles such as the Shahab-3. The simulations include a model for aerodynamic drag, with a slightly lower drag coefficient for the missile without fins.

If the parameter set is representative for the Burkan 2-H, the resulting missile should have sufficient range to reach Riyadh from Northwest Yemen. Results of computer simulations of maximum-range trajectories for these missiles can be seen in Figure 4. It shows graphs of the maximum range of the missile as a function of the payload.

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Savelsberg-Figure-4.jpg
Figure 4: Range as a function of the payload for the Scud-B and Qiam-1/ Burkan 2-H.

The listed range for the Scud-B, 300 km with a 990 kg payload, is matched by the simulation. With its 500 kg payload the Qiam-1 missile range is 918 km, which is just short of the distance to the Saudi capital. However, this is the range when launched from sea level and without Earth background rotation. The December missile launch took place in a mountainous region in Northwest Yemen at a fairly high altitude. This geometry alone is enough to increase the range by a few kilometers, but the higher altitude also increases the engine thrust due to reduced atmospheric backpressure and the lower atmospheric density reduces aerodynamic drag. Furthermore, to reach Riyadh the missile has to fly towards the north-east, which means that Earth rotation further increases the range.

https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Savelsberg-Figure-5.jpg
Figure 5: Maximum range for the Burkan 2-H when launched in Northwest Yemen with a 500 kg payload (purple) and a trajectory towards Riyadh (red).

Figure 5 shows a visualization of a simulated missile trajectory to Riyadh, with a launch site at an elevation of 1.8 km and with the effect of Earth rotation included. The initial trust-to-weight ratio in this simulation is 2.26, which is a near-perfect match with the acceleration measured from the launch video. Figure 5 also shows the maximum range the missile can fly when launched from the same location with a 500 kg payload, with Riyadh just in reach. Launching from a location slightly further to the Northwest puts the Muslim holy city of Medina in range. Given the territory under control of the Houthis, reaching Dubai or Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, allied with Saudi Arabia in the Yemen conflict, is only possible with this missile by reducing the payload, as they are too far east.

There is some uncertainty associated with all of the parameters and measurements, but the computer simulations of the Qiam-1 and the Burkan 2-H are consistent. Using properties of the Scud-B engine and the acceleration measured from the launch video, the computer model can reproduce trajectories that reach all the way from Northwest Yemen to Riyadh with a propellant volume that matches the tank sizes from photographs of the Qiam-1. This range is possible by using a far larger proportion of the missile take-off weight for propellant than on the basic Scud-B, with a lighter warhead and airframe construction. The required missile deadweight fraction is similar to that of other Iranian missiles.

It has been speculated that the Burkan-2H may be an indigenous Yemeni development using a North-Korean Hwasong-6 as its booster. The computer modeling indicates this is unlikely. The Hwasong-6 carries less propellant than the simulated missile. For the initial acceleration to remain the same, the deadweight fraction has to be higher. However, in that case the missile can no longer achieve the required range. The missile data does not fit the rumored Scud-D or Scud-ER either. These are usually described as longer and heavier. Scaling the vertical position in the acceleration measurements, shown in Figure 3, with a longer missile would give a larger acceleration, while a heavier missile with the same engine would actually have a smaller acceleration.

Of course, it is theoretically possible that the Burkan 2-H airframe was produced in Yemen rather than in Iran. However, this would be far beyond anything previously seen from Yemen’s limited industry. That also applies to the more advanced flight control system required for a missile without stabilizing fins. It is also possible that the Qiam-1 and Burkan 2-H both originate in North Korea, although there are no known North-Korean Scud variants without stabilizing fins. All in all, even without a detailed forensic investigation of the wreckage, it seems unlikely these missiles originate from anywhere other than Iran.

Ralph Savelsberg is an associate professor at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Den Helder, specializing in missile defense. The author would like to thank James Kiessling for his valuable comments. This work does not reflect any official position or policy of the Netherlands Government.

Housecarl · May 18, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pressu...enezuela-military-as-economy-dives-1526635801

LATIN AMERICA

‘Pressure Cooker’: Discontent Rises in Venezuela Military as Economy Dives

As President Nicolás Maduro runs for re-election, the armed forces grapple with shortages of food, evaporating salaries and desertions

By John Otis and Juan Forero
May 18, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET
228 COMMENTS
CARACAS, Venezuela—The coup plot by disgruntled Venezuelan military officers in March was audacious: Seize control of the capital’s military bases, arrest President Nicolás Maduro and install a provisional government to replace his authoritarian regime.

To avoid detection for a year, conspiring officers eschewed phone calls, texts and emails, and instead sent messages via couriers, said an Army captain who helped plan the thwarted coup. They plotted during seemingly impromptu soccer matches.

Before they could act, though, Mr. Maduro’s intelligence services discovered the plot—described by military analysts as the most serious to date against his government. Authorities quickly arrested nine of the rebel officers, including the head of the largest armored battalion in the capital, and Mr. Maduro’s former interior minister.

As Mr. Maduro runs for re-election on Sunday, discontent in the barracks is at an all-time high, current and former military officers say. Shortages of food, evaporating salaries and desertions have turned the armed forces into a cauldron of conspiracies against Mr. Maduro, these people say.

“The Venezuelan military is a time bomb, a pressure-cooker,” said the Army captain, who was interviewed in a foreign country where he fled. “It could explode at any time because everyone is unhappy.”

The Information and Defense ministries didn’t answer calls or emails seeking comment.

The Maduro government has arrested dozens of officers this year and cashiered others in a military purge. Official data isn’t available. But military analyst Rocío San Miguel said that in just January and February at least 124 servicemen were imprisoned on rebellion, mutiny, espionage and other charges, far more than in other periods.

“Maduro is conscious that the armed forces are his Achilles’ heel,” said Ms. San Miguel, president of Citizen Control for Security, Defense and the Armed Forces, a policy analysis group that has contact with military personnel.

The nine arrested would-be conspirators are in prison awaiting trial, said a defense attorney for some of them. Other plotters escaped.

Amid the worst economic crisis in decades, many Venezuelans are urging the armed forces to take matters into their own hands, in a country where the military has long been the ultimate arbiter of power. That is despite past coups in the country leading to less democracy, not more, analysts say.

Such an uprising also has supporters within foreign governments, including the U.S., that are trying to weaken Mr. Maduro’s hold through economic sanctions and political isolation.

“I think the world would support the Armed Forces in Venezuela if they decide to protect the people and restore democracy,” said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) via Twitter in February.

Juan Cruz, President Donald Trump’s top adviser on Latin America, told a conference on hemispheric security in Miami last month: “There has never been a key moment in Venezuelan history that has not involved military participation.”

The Sunday election comes as the U.S. urges officers with information about crimes in the military, like drug trafficking, to become informants for U.S. antinarcotics officials or desert, said Martin Rodil, a Washington contractor who works on such operations.

The Venezuelan government uses carrots and sticks to ensure loyalty. Active-duty or retired officers run 10 government ministries and manage vital entities including the state oil company, the state arms factory and food-distribution networks, giving them lucrative business opportunities. Officers heard to question government policy wind up in “democratic reconditioning” classes in Caracas, said Cliver Alcala, a retired major general who participated in the failed 1992 coup that foreshadowed the Socialist government.

Those considering betraying Mr. Maduro face a pervasive intelligence unit, overseen by Cuban military advisers, which has snuffed out numerous plots in the planning stages, current and former officers say. In his five years in office, Mr. Maduro has put intelligence officers in each unit, stripped pensions and benefits for families of officers accused of plotting, and thrown some in jail alongside common criminals.

“There have been informants on all of the intended (coups), all of them,” said one high-ranking military officer who has helped plot against the government. “They infiltrate a lot of people, and some sell information for money.”

Another factor dissuading would-be conspirators is their doubts on whether Venezuela’s divided opposition can be counted on for support.

For some officers, the fate of Óscar Pérez stands as a cautionary tale. A former police pilot, he fired on government buildings from a stolen helicopter last year and raided arms depots while calling on people to rise up. But opposition leaders ignored him. Security agents gunned him down in January while he was trying to surrender.

“Military officers fear that the opposition isn’t up to the task,” said Ricardo Sucre, a Venezuelan navy veteran and psychology professor at the Central University in Caracas. “The first thing they say is: ‘What guarantees do we have that the civilians will do their part and that we won’t end up being sacrificed?’”

There are other, more mundane obstacles in a country reeling from shortages, said Jose Arocha, a former army lieutenant colonel. “To launch a coup, you need people, you need time, you need logistics,” he said. “You need transportation. There isn’t even transport or tires or anything these days.”

Impatient for change and increasingly desperate, some troops are simply going AWOL.

One army veteran estimated that as many as 1,000 soldiers, including cadets and mid-ranking officers, have deserted in the past year and said that many more have requested formal discharges. The government has begun running ads in Caracas newspapers demanding missing troops return to their posts.

One air force lieutenant, who deserted in March after a decade in uniform, said in a telephone interview from Argentina that the collapse of the currency had reduced his monthly paycheck to the equivalent of $10. Unable to afford a car or an apartment, he rode a bicycle to the base and moved in with his wife’s parents.

“What kind of military forces its officers live with their in-laws?” he said.

While rank-and-file troops suffer, the air force lieutenant said, commanding officers have been getting rich through a variety of scams, such as using military aircraft to transport gold from wildcat mines back to Caracas, former and current military officers said.

An Army lieutenant, who was stationed along the Colombian border and deserted in February, said his commanders were deeply involved in smuggling cocaine across the frontier.

All of these factors fueled the March coup plan.

Several armored battalions were to secure the capital while special forces in a nighttime raid planned to snatch top officials including Mr. Maduro and Vice President Tareck el-Aissami and fly them out of the country.

But as the final stages approached, a female army lieutenant loyal to the government learned of the plot and alerted her superiors.

Miguel Rodríguez Torres, the former Interior minister who commands wide respect among troops because of his military background, was arrested along with Lt. Col. Igbert Marín Chaparro, who commanded the Ayala Battalion, the best-equipped army unit in Caracas, tasked with defending government buildings and public officials.

In a March 1 comment on Twitter, his last before he was arrested, Mr. Marín wrote: “If you maintain honor and dignity, you may lose the battle but you will never be defeated.”

Write to Juan Forero at Juan.Forero@wsj.com

Appeared in the May 19, 2018, print edition as 'Venezuela Military’s Unease Grows.'

Housecarl · May 19, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...ve-encompasses-all-regions-of-afghanistan.php

Taliban’s 2018 offensive encompasses all regions of Afghanistan

BY BILL ROGGIO | May 17, 2018 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

The Taliban’s 2018 offensive, which it calls Al Khandaq Jihadi operations, has targeted Afghan government forces in nearly all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. While Afghan security forces appear to be focusing on Taliban forces in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar – the birthplace of the Taliban and its traditional strongholds – the jihadist group is effectively counterattacking in the other regions of Afghanistan.

The Taliban appears to maintain the initiative throughout Afghanistan, while the Afghan military is forced to react to Taliban offensives, such as the latest incursion into Farah City. Since the beginning of Al Khandaq Jihadi operations, the Taliban has overrun five district centers in Badakhshan, Badghis, Faryab, Ghazni, and Kunduz. These provinces span the western, northern, and southern Afghanistan.

News such as suicide attacks in Kabul or Jalalabad, or the Taliban entering Farah City and the Afghan military’s efforts to retake it tend to grab the headlines in the Western press. However, a closer look at reports in the Afghan media of Taliban activity provides a disturbing look at the group’s efforts.

Below is a sampling of press reports from the Afghan media. The list below only includes major Taliban attacks in the provinces, and excludes high profile suicide attacks in the capital of Kabul. There are numerous other smaller Taliban attacks that go unreported. If all of the Taliban’s claims on its Voice of Jihad website were included, this picture would be much darker. Voice of Jihad is often dismissed as Taliban propaganda, nearly all of its claimed attacks, when reported in the Afghan media, can be verified.

The list below only includes reports from a three week period since the Taliban announced its 2018 offensive on April 26. In these reports, at least 198 Afghan soldiers, policemen, and pro-government militiamen and 30 civilians have reportedly been killed. The actual number is much higher.

The list details Taliban activities in 13 province: Badakhshan, Kunduz, and Baghlan in the north; Khost, Nangarhar, and Logar in the east; Zabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar in the south; Farah, Faryab, and Badghis, in the west; and Ghor in the center.

Again, the reports below are merely a sampling. The in the past three weeks, the Taliban has been very active in many other provinces, as Helmand, Uruzgan, Paktika, Paktia, Kunar, Nuristan, Jawzjan, Sar-i-Pul, Balkh, Herat, and Takhar are known Taliban hotspots with significant activity.

The US military would like for you to believe that the Taliban is a “desperate” and “losing ground” in Afghanistan. A cursory survey of press reports from Afghanistan contradicts the US military’s portrayal of the security situation.

A sampling of reports of Taliban activity over the past three weeks from the Afghan press:

Taliban kill 18 Afghan forces in Ghazni
The Taliban overran Jaghatu district.

Taliban ‘Pushed Back’ In Farah City: Governor
“… 15 army soldiers, 10 policemen and five civilians were killed in the clashes.”

Heavy Clashes Ongoing in Two Districts of Ghazni
“He [an Afghan official] claimed that 13 security forces, mostly police, were killed in Zana Khan and nine police were killed in Jaghato

Heavy Clashes Ongoing In Ghor Province
Local officials confirmed that the village of Oshan fell to the Taliban after insurgents attacked the village.

Taliban seize strategic area of Balcharagh district
“… 10 security personnel were killed, 14 wounded and 30 others captured by the assailants as reinforcements could not reach in time and the area fell to the Taliban.”
The Taliban overran this district center but left it after one day.

Four Checkpoints Collapsed to Taliban in Zabul, 22 Police Killed

Nangarhar governor resigns amid tense security situation
“Violence carried out by the Taliban and the Islamic State has recently intensified there.”

Taliban Attack Two Checkpoints in Farah, Killing 43 Soldiers
A presage to the Taliban entering Farah City.

Taliban Suffer Heavy Casualties in Kandahar
Both Afghan and Taliban officials routinely inflate its enemy’s casualties. Afghan officials did confirm five policemen were killed in attacks initiated by the Taliban.

Residents Call For Large-Scale Operation In Badakhshan
“Some residents of Badakhshan called on government to launch large-scale military operations to remove “serious threats” to Faizabad, the capital city of the north-eastern province.”

Taliban Attack on Voters’ Registration Center in Badghis Kills 8 Soldiers

Taliban Kidnaps Seven Indian Nationals from Afghanistan’s Baghlan

Bomb Blast Inside Mosque Kills 19, Injures 33
This attack remains unclaimed, but it is very likely it was carried out by the Taliban. Khost is Haqqani Network territory and little goes on there without its approval. Also, the Islamic State is not shy about claiming attacks it did not execute.

11 Children Killed as Car Bomb Targets Foreign Forces Convoy in Kandahar

Taliban Attack Kills 30 Afghan Policemen in Badakhshan’s Teshkan District

Deputy Governor of Logar Killed in Taliban Ambush

Taliban Kills 14 Soldiers in Kunduz
Also, two policemen were killed in an attack in Baghlan.

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

Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban

4 Comments
don says:
May 17, 2018 at 1:19 pm
Just curious, but do the Taliban call this the Ramadan offensive? Is this normal for Muslim culture? Was there a declared cease fire in place? If so, is this cease fire a normal yearly phenomena or is it a western calendar bias similar to previous western labels for indigenous military activity, like the Tet Offensive or the Arab Spring? I gather these offensives are probably weather based to a certain extent, preferring summer or dry seasons for military operations as apposed to snow and the monsoons while taking into account the domestic politics of the “enemy” back in CONUS.

Reply
Victoria Martin-Iverson says:
May 17, 2018 at 8:50 pm
There is no declared cease fire in place. Why would there be? Why would you imagine there would be? I am quite puzzled by the question. The Taliban continue to refuse to participate in any peace process. One participates in a peace process when there is something to be gained from it. The Taliban have nothing to gain from a peace process at this time; and everything to gain from continuing the war process.

They are essentially winning and expanding influence throughout the country in the Pashtun areas. Yes it is a yearly offensive that indeed directly relates to the weather. This is a mountainous nation and the roads, such that they are, are largely impassible in winter outside the major ring road.

The spring push isn’t related to Ramadan for any religious reason, it just happens to coincide with it.

Reply
John Barr says:
May 18, 2018 at 3:14 am
It is purely concidental that this year’s spring offensive happens to be launched around the same time as the holy month of Ramadan. This period is determined by the lunar cycle and it will change every year. It is not normal for Muslim culture to indulge in war fighting or tribal feuding, mainly because it isn’t practical in the first place. People tend to starve themselves silly to the point where nothing actually gets done in the working day, and this period can often reflect the lowest rate of a country’s overall industrial productivity. For instance, whilst I was deployed in Helmand as an embedded operational advisor with 205 Corps of the ANA, the askars wouldn’t deploy on operations, or if they did you couldn’t get much out of them for very long. Likewise the Taliban wouldn’t be game for a tear up over this period. The difference between back then and now is that this could possibly be a pivotal year for the Taliban. The US government has cleverly signalled that they will be here for the long haul, despite the fact that they accept that it’s effectively a stalemate and short term victory is wholly unlikely. This isn’t the news the Taliban wanted to hear, especially after 16 years of attritional war. From the Taliban’s vantage point it’s either now or never, so they can’t afford to take their foot of the gas and will attempt to maintain the operational tempo for as long as possible to tip the balance. So there may not be the traditional adherence to Ramadan as there has been during previous offensives.

JWB from Kabul

Reply
Observer 1 says:
May 18, 2018 at 5:24 pm
thanks for the info

Reply

Housecarl · May 19, 2018

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-b...elan-collapse-could-draw-in-the-united-states

How a Venezuelan Collapse Could Draw in the United States

Michael Carvelli May 18, 2018

It appears Venezuela is heading towards a political and economic collapse. President Nicolas Maduro’s United Socialist Party lost its majority in the National Assembly during the 2015 parliamentary election. In March of this year, Venezuela’s Supreme Court announced that it was taking over the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Maduro’s party is continuing to consolidate its domestic power. Meanwhile, the country is running out of food, hospitals are overcrowded, and electricity is not guaranteed. The results of this political and economic turmoil could plausibly create a destabilizing situation in the Western Hemisphere.

The history of Venezuela’s recent turn to turmoil is not a short tale. President Hugo Chavez’s election in 1999 marked the beginning of deep changes in the country’s ideology. His ideology, and that of his successor, President Maduro, have shifted the country’s government towards socialism, further fracturing the domestic balance of power. As perhaps the most unstable government in South America a collapse of the Venezuelan government, and the resulting uncertainty could draw the U.S. and its competitors into the crisis. The U.S. would face a complex situation if a collapse materializes.

WHY A COLLAPSE MIGHT MATERIALIZE
Under President Chavez, Venezuela changed its political ideology, as reflected in its renaming in the early 2000s as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Bolivarianism focuses on economic and political sovereignty, grassroots participation, economic self-sufficiency (i.e. oil), nationalism, and fair distribution of natural resources.[1] This rebranding was part of Chavez’s attempt to break Venezuela away from the perception of long-standing U.S. imperialism that existed in South America for decades. Instead, Venezuela chose to move towards regional independence void of U.S. power.[2] This ideology has set the tone for the country’s foreign and domestic policies since its inception.

Relations between the United States and Venezuela steadily deteriorated in the early 2000s as the Venezuelan government increased its repressive practices. In 2002, the Venezuelan military staged a failed coup d'état to remove President Chavez. Chavez blamed the attempt, in part, on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Although the link to the CIA has not been clearly established, the coup attempt was purportedly traced back to President George W. Bush’s administration. Domestically, Chavez silenced opposition groups, suppressed the media, and used military force to suppress protests. This fueled a distrust of the United States and its policies that endures to today. After Chavez’s death in 2013, President Nicolas Maduro rose to power and continues to arrest protestors and political opponents. As a result, the U.S. enacted sanctions against individuals it believed responsible for human right abuses to “support the people of Venezuela in their aspiration to live under peace and representative democracy.” Relations between the U.S. and Venezuela have yet to recover.

Despite their mutual distrust and cooling relations, Venezuela's largest economic trade partner is the United States. Venezuela exports crude oil with a high sulfur content that requires special processing equipment. Accordingly, the United States owns the most extensive sour crude refining capacity in the world, thus making the two nations a natural match for oil trade. However, as relations have strained, Venezuela began to look toward Asia, instead of the United States, for increased economic support. Since 2007, Venezuela has received $50 billion in loans from China meant to help “Caracas reduce reliance on U.S. energy markets.”[3] Venezuela continues to separate itself from the United States’ economic interests.

A VENEZUELAN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN SOUTH AMERICA PRESENTS A RISK TO THE U.S. AND AN OPPORTUNITY TO ITS COMPETITORS.

While the Venezuelan government passed along oil revenue to its populace in the windfall of a booming global market, its policies have proven to be short-sighted. Subsequent drops in oil prices during President Maduro’s tenure placed the country’s economy in a severe recession resulting in hyperinflation of its currency. The dire economic situation has prevented over ninety percent of the population from buying enough food, exacerbating malnutrition and resulting in national protests. The results of Maduro’s short-sighted policies have also created a refugee crisis, forcing over one million Venezuelans to flee the country, with neighboring Colombia receiving the largest number.[4]

Domestically, President Maduro continues to concentrate his authoritarian rule over Venezuela. Although the opposition party gained a parliamentary majority in 2015, he has made other moves to thwart their power. In 2017, Maduro created the Constituent National Assembly charged with rewriting the constitution to restrict the opposition’s power and solidify his grip on the government. His political maneuvering continues to consolidate power within the United Socialist Party as the country prepares for another national election this year.

The effects of government corruption and decreasing oil prices have worsened the Venezuelan economic and humanitarian crises. Insufficient food and medical supplies continually force hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee into neighboring countries creating an ideal environment for human traffickers to exploit. Although Venezuela has been South America’s economic leader for decades due to its massive oil reserves and access to the maritime commons, it is now on the brink of a breakdown. The result of these political and economic factors, along with Venezuela’s distrust of American intervention, is that the United States has few options should the country’s political and economic institutions fail.

U.S. INTERESTS IN VENEZUELA
A Venezuelan political and economic collapse in South America presents a risk to the U.S. and an opportunity to its competitors. American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere has been a mainstay for decades. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a vow of keeping the U.S. as the region’s “steadiest, strongest, and most enduring partner.”[5] To do this, the U.S. needs to keep its competitors at bay while finding a pragmatic path to intervene in a plausible Venezuelan collapse. Venezuela also represents a chance for the U.S. to act as a responsible partner and perhaps begin to repudiate some of history of poor U.S.-Venezuela relations. On the other hand, Russia, China, and Iran could use such a scenario to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its historic relations within the hemisphere. To be sure, it will cost the U.S. more to keep its hegemonic stance in South America than it could cost its competitors to upend the status quo.

A legitimate Venezuelan government capable of securing the country and its populace, both physically and economically, aligns with U.S. regional interests. For decades, stability in South America has been a mainstay, allowing the U.S. to focus its diplomatic and economic activity elsewhere. Friendly political and economic relations underwrite U.S. domestic prosperity and regional security. This includes the security of Colombia, the U.S.’s closest partner in the region. The reestablishment of a legitimate government in Caracas could become the U.S.’s main political goal if a crisis were to materialize.

ANY U.S. RESPONSE TO A BREAKDOWN OF VENEZUELA’S GOVERNMENT WILL REQUIRE NOT ONLY A WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT BUT ALSO A MULTINATIONAL APPROACH TO SOLVE THIS PLAUSIBLY COMPLEX SCENARIO.

The challenges the U.S. would need to navigate in the potential application of military force in response to a Venezuelan government failure are manifold. Venezuela’s historical distrust of the United States, a range of economic stakeholders capable of inflaming corruption, transnational and transregional threat networks, and the existing large-scale humanitarian crisis all present significant complexities in the region. Additionally, Venezuela’s geography—a vast coastline, multiple dense urban environments, and a heavily forested border—complicates any application of military power. Most importantly, any U.S. intervention in Venezuela could incite regional Bolivarian sentiment in South and Central America, worsening the effects of the collapse. To be sure, this plausible future presents a challenging environment for any use of military force as a means to ensure U.S. political goals can be achieved.

MILITARY INTERVENTION
Deploying the U.S. military to Venezuela could be a likely scenario depending on the administration's view of Venezuela as a vital or important national security interest. As President Donald Trump tweeted in September 2017, “We call for the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela.” Further, President Trump also said that he will not rule out a military option. Any military option would likely involve not only U.S. forces, but also those of other nations.

The U.S. military could help to reestablish a legitimate Venezuelan government after a collapse depending on how the situation materializes. A few options include: securing the country and provision of humanitarian aid. Securing the country could provide the time and space for a new, democratically elected, government to develop into a stable political order. Furthermore, foreign humanitarian aid could ease the proximate human suffering resultant from any collapse. To be sure, both of these tasks would not independently recreate the government. However, each task can help create the conditions that would lead to the reestablishment of a legitimate government dedicated to the wellbeing of its people and thus in closer alignment with the broader values of both Latin America and the United States.

In order for any possible military intervention to be considered legitimate, an international mandate and/or an invitation from the Venezuelan government would be necessary. A coalition or multinational effort, especially one entailing South American governments, would ensure that the international community does not see the U.S. acting as an imperial power attempting to recreate Venezuela in its own image. External legitimacy in the form of a mandate for a multinational effort would also gain the U.S. broad international support. Finally, domestic legitimacy would be increased if remnant Venezuela authorities were to request, with the broad support of the Venezuelan populace, U.S. assistance. This predicates that the Venezuelan government is acting on behalf of the people’s immediate interests.

CONCLUSION
A stable Latin America is not only well and good for U.S. political and economic interests in the Western Hemisphere, but also for Latin America itself. The deteriorating situation in Venezuela provides U.S. competitors with an opportunity to exploit the country’s mounting political, economic, and humanitarian troubles. Political and economic turmoil in the Western Hemisphere offers an added dilemma for the U.S. to face on top of its present global engagements. Military force might help achieve stability if Venezuela’s government were to collapse. However, a wide array of complex challenges will inevitably challenge any application of force in Venezuela that goes well beyond the capability and capacity of the U.S. military. As a result, any U.S. response to a breakdown of Venezuela’s government will require not only a whole of government but also a multinational approach to solve this plausibly complex scenario.

A collapse of the Venezuelan government would draw the U.S. and its competitors into the emerging crisis because of various national interests in the country and the region. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio recently stated, “[Venezuela’s] socialist government has become a danger to its neighbors and [U.S.] national security.” This suggests U.S. legislators see Venezuela as a challenge to its regional security and South American interests. To be sure, a dialogue between the U.S. and its regional partners, as well as within the U.S. government itself, must continue even as the situation evolves. Further, these discussions must include options that consider even military force should Venezuela continue down the path to political and economic collapse. Through this continual dialogue, the U.S. can make prudent and informed choices about any potential Venezuelan collapse to avert disaster within its own hemisphere.

Mike Carvelli is an officer in the U.S. Army. The view expressed in this article are the author's alone and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

NOTES:
[1] Carlos De la Torre, "Hugo Chávez and the diffusion of Bolivarianism," Democratization 24, no. 7 (2017): 1271-88, doi:10.1080/13510347.2017.1307825.

[2] Anthony Swaminathan, "Bolivarianism: A Fanfare for the Common Man?," Berkeley Political Review, March 7, 2018, accessed March 13, 2018, https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2017/01/16/bolivarianism-a-fanfare-for-the-common-man/.

[3] Ben Blanchard, “China Rebuffs US Criticism of Relations with Oil-Rich Venezuela,” Reuters, February 5, 2018, accessed March 7, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...lations-with-oil-rich-venezuela-idUSKBN1FP0ZF.

[4] Shannon K. O’Neil, “A Venezuelan Refugee Crisis,” Foreign Affairs, February 15, 2018, accessed March 2, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/report/venezuelan-refugee-crisis.

[5] Robbie Gramer and Keith Johnson, "Tillerson Praises Monroe Doctrine, Warns Latin America of 'Imperial? Chinese Ambitions," Foreign Policy, February 2, 2018, accessed March 8, 2018, http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/02...nafta-diplomacy-trump-trade-venezuela-maduro/.

WAR 05-12-2018-to-05-18-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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