WAR 05-14-2016-to-05-20-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry folks I'm a bit behind here on this stuff....

The John Batchelor Show
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/wednesday-18-may-2016
(Please go to the site for the podcasts...HC)

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com & Daily Beast.

Hour One

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Harry Kazianis, senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest, in re: J-11 Shenyang harassed a US Orion [Here Is the Chinese Fighter Jet that Harassed a U.S. Surveillance Plane] – flew within 509 feet! Directed from the top of the Chinese political system. Recall the “Guam-killer.” China is very upset at Freedom of Navigation in South China Sea. Nine-Dash Line: China says “This is our sea.’ Philippines do not agree. Whence did these Chinese planes depart – a bogus island that’s been [wholly illegally] militarized? If you were Pacific commander, what would you do? I think we need first to be more vocal; and I’d be speaking with my political counterparts to explain this whole anti-access denial of ____ program; soon will have anti-ship missiles all around there making the area vastly too dangerous -0 tremendous losses of American ships and sailors. . . . Second Island Chain; DF26: caught a lot of open-source mil by surprise – this missile was paraded down the Beijing boulevards, described as an antiship weapon with 2,500-mi range. ALCMs, and other sources of devastating strikes by China on a US aircraft carrier. Countermeasures: malware, et al.; also chaff/smokescreen to [confuse] the missile as it arrives. . . . There are ways to beat this, but we’ll have to watch and see. http://thehill.com/policy/defense/280009-pentagon-report-on-chinese-military-angers-beijing

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong, in re: China’s economy. In 1997, the rest of the world were doing well and bough t a lot of Chinese exports, pulling China out of a tight spot. If the West cannot do that next year, then Chia will have to increase its debt load, which already is extremely high. On the third hand, they have a close capital count – can't move money in and out of China very easily; their real problem isn't intl purchasing but zombie firms. . . . No plan B. Need to reduce debt without collapsing the economy, and get rid of zombie banks. They haven't been able to do this over years; can they now? Barry Eichengreen (Berkeley). . . . Debt bubble will be a problem. Bloomberg: 247%? 350% (from Davos)? Look at overall size of debt OR the growth of debt over time – if your debt has been half od your salary then suddenly jumps to three-quarters, it ‘s that that’d be alarming. China is creating debt 4X faster than nominal GDP; eventually will have to face economic reality. . . . It's thought that Xi Jinping may have published anonymous letters in Ren Min Jr Bao (China Daily) saying, “Get real.” What if the property bubble collapses – hundreds of billions of losses in a moment? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-says-we-all-have-to-worry-about-china-s-debt

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, in re: fall of BRICSA, Game of Ports.
South African GDP faring poorly; Sierra Leonean decreased by 24% last year; seeing the growth of a new economic zone/trading region emerge in the Levant and the red Sea area. Nigeria, inter al., has not dealt with the decline of resource demand. China, unlike African states’s former colonial partners, feels no need to provide social relief. Africans see they get no emotional/social support of the sort they’re used to getting from Europe and US. China intends to buy resources and land. Are putting Chinese workers in to build infrastructure; much resented locally; those Chinese workers are unwelcome back in China and are causing trouble in Ethiopia for example. Europe’s only interest in Africa is to buy off govts to stop the flow of immigrants. US wont put any money in, esp Obama Adm – which is angry that African hasn't embraced the moral values of the Obama Administration. So China has no competition there. US has one base in Djibouti and another in southern Ethiopia; may install a third one (not in Nigeria).
.. .. ..
Brazilian Pres. Dilma Vana Rousseff’s impeachment on May 12, 2016, was clearly due to consistent missteps by the president and her colleagues, but the underlying contribution to the Brazilian crisis — and crises in other countries — of the slowdown in the People’s Republic of China cannot be overstated. Brazil’s economy has been in significant decline since the second quarter of 2014, with the exception of a minor (one-tenth of one per cent) rise in last quarter of that year. All 2015 and early 2016 saw the Brazilian gross domestic product decline. Overall 2015 contraction was 3.8 per cent, the worst annual performance since 1991.
Much of this is due to the contraction of PRC mineral resource requirements from its major supplier nations, coupled with (and inducing) a reduction in commodity pricing due to the lower demand. Along with this was the global collapse of oil and gas prices (and rising availability), which affected the fortunes of the Brazilian State energy company, Petrobras. Pres. Rousseff, in the face of this, was unwilling to cut spending — or corruption — and had committed Brazil to major high-profile, high-budget projects, such as the football World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Adding to the concerns for Brazil was the emergence of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has deterred tourism to the country, leading up to the Olympics.
If the collapse of demand for commodities, spurred by the PRC, was of profound concern to major economies such as Brazil and Australia, it has had an even great impact on many African economies, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone’s GDP grew in 2014 by 7.1 per cent overall, and only by one percent after iron ore production was taken out of the equation. The GDP contracted by an estimated 21 per cent in 2015, of which declining iron ore exports accounted for 20 per cent. None of the countries which were overwhelmingly dependent on the PRC market has taken significant steps either to cut spending or to build compensatory economic mechanisms — or, indeed to stabilize social unrest and voter anger.

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, in re: Berbera within Somaliland within Somalia. [Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is a self-declared state internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. Map: Somaliland is the peach-gray upper segment; Somalia is the whole country http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/wp-content/somaliamap.jpg] Djibouti now has a US military base (a port), and soon also will have a very nearby Chinese military port. Berbera is Somaliland’s main port. US had a major air base, later taken over by the USSR. Fell into desuetude. DubaiWorld was in charge, left it now to China; instead are pumping money into Berbera. Huge rivlary ‘twixt Dubai and Djibouti. Gulf Cooperation Council Berbera (Dubai World and UAE and Saudis) and Egyptian officials there looing to mount ops. Everybody developing ports well into Eritrea. Can China sustain this – is it possibly overreach? Saw this in Brazil, Venezuela, and throughout Africa. In the Horn of Africa and down into Kenya (Lamu Island – Chinese commercial port) . . . European powers had trade following the flag; Chinese do the reverse; first trade, then the flag after profitable commercial enterprises. . . . Djibouti: A Hong Kong company, China Merchants Holding, taking over management; links with Chinese-built rail from Djibouti or Addis, then down to Lamu. Billions invested in all this, becoming money-making endeavors and linked to Pakistan and its road and rail links into China.
“…Meanwhile, it was becoming clear why Djibouti had opted to move the port management from Dubai World to the PRC. The day after his swearing-in (and the same day that DW was signing the agreement on Berbera), Pres. Guelleh met with Justin Yifu Lin, a former Deputy President of the World Bank, who currently headed Peking University's Center for New Structural Economics. Lin was accompanied by a large delegation, and handed over to Pres. Guelleh a report on the megaproject dubbed ‘Djibouti Free Trade Zone.’ The report concerned Djibouti's plans to construct a new $7-billion industrial zone entirely funded by a Chinese company, China Merchants Holding.
“Apart from this project, and the implicitly-related, $3-billion 656km (408 mile) Djibouti-Addis Ababa rail link (due to open in 2016), the PRC has a very strategic link into the Djibouti-Ethiopia framework, with logistic links further into Africa. But the PRC, too, is working to cement strategic relations with Egypt because of the importance of the Mediterranean-Suez-Red Sea sea line to China. Even so, Beijing refrains from calling its new naval base, being built in Obock, Djibouti, a ‘military base’ . . . ”

Hour Two

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Christian Whiton, president of the Hamilton Foundation, in re: Pres Obama's trip to Vietnam and Japan. Note history: Japan badly defeated by US; and not quite the same for Vietnam, yet both now look to welcome the president of the US, who apparently wants to continue his apology tour, initially in the Muslim world; here, apologizing for the US in Hiroshima for the bomb, in Vietnam for Agent Orange. It’d be good diplomacy to offer these apologies in exchange for, for example, human rights improvement in in Vietnam. Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This will all be seen as another proof that the US is weak. China buzzes US aircraft; can Pres Obama change this in conversations with Abe? Note new Filipino president, their own Trump. A strong entrepreneurship from Commander Harris and SecDef Carter: pushback on China, FON, condemn the unsafe intercept today. The question is, does th White House [try to undercut this?]. Abe’s “third arrow”(structural reform) has never occurred; is in fact a Keynesian [sigh].

Wednesday 18 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Mike Davis, professor at Hong Kong University Law School, in re: update on the Hong Kong booksellers. Also: Zhang Dejiang commented on Hong Kong [rebellion], discounted it. Made us worry about the rule of law: judges should toe the line. Will refuseniks/independentistas be annoyed or emboldened? Concerning Zhang Dejiang, they snooze. As Hong Kong is being abused, are Hong Kong citizens depressed? Yes – they’ve been lining up for passports. I personally have a Hong Kong ID card and can enter at will; this is the first time I’ve used my US passport because I want US consular cover. AS Beijing snatches booksellers off the street, all Hong Kong residents who have a foreign citizenship are bringing that front and center, with formal declarations, as protection. Zhang Dejiang’s speech: two – one on HK, one on China’s one belt/one road (trying to buy off the HK community with a lot of money). https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/05/...ng-kongs-localism-and-independence-movements/
Zhang Dejiang (born 4 November 1946) is a Chinese politician and a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of China. He currently serves as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, roughly the equivalent of a speaker of parliament in other countries. He is also a third ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, deputy head of the National Security Commission and the top official responsible for Hong Kong and Macau affairs.
“China’s Zhang Dejiang slams localism and Hong Kong independence movement” https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/05/18/chinas-zhang-deijiang-slams-hong-k...

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/tuesday-17-may-2016

Hour Two
Tuesday 17 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: Cold War 2.0: Russia to restore missile system after US turns on ... NATO Build-up in Romania and Moldova Directed against Russia ;NATO Build-up in Romania and Moldova Directed against Russia ... Romania was one of the first NATO countries to increase its defense ; Expect Intense Russian Pushback on NATO Russia's military buildup, its illegal seizure and annexation of Crimea and support for armed separatism in eastern Ukraine have caused NATO .. ; Russia Calls New US Missile Defense System a 'Direct Threat' (1 of 4)
Tuesday 17 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); (2 of 4)
Tuesday 17 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); (3 of 4)
Tuesday 17 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); (4 of 4)

NATO Escalates & Russia Fulminates. Stephen F. Cohen, NYU. Princeton. EastWestAccord.com.

https://audioboom.com/boos/4580137-...phen-f-cohen-nyu-princeton-eastwestaccord-com

05-17-2016

(Photo: ‪#NATO Secretary General Jens #Stoltenberg, center, #Romanian Premier Dacian Ciolos, center right, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work…)

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NATO Escalates & Russia Fulminates. Stephen F. Cohen, NYU, Princeton University. EastWestAccord.com.

"President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has warned that an American antimissile deployment in Eastern Europe could prompt #Russia to withdraw from the treaty. The United States last year accused Russia of violating the treaty by failing to declare the true range of two missile types.

"Last fall, Russian security officials appeared to drop hints of another military response to the missile defense system — a #nuclear-armed drone submarine. Russia, this leak appeared to say, has options.

"During a high-level security meeting, a television camera zoomed in on an open binder showing the weapon’s design, ostensibly by accident.

"The drone, according to easily decipherable text accompanying the design drawing, would be capable of carrying a large nuclear device into coastal waters and detonating it, touching off a radioactive tsunami to flood and contaminate seaside cities.

"The submarine would “defeat important economic objects of an enemy in coastal zones, bringing guaranteed and unacceptable losses on the country’s territory by forming a wide area of radioactive contamination incompatible with conducting military, economic or any other activities there for a long period of time,” it said..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/world/europe/russia-nato-us-romania-missile-defense.html

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/monday-16-may-2016

Hour One
Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, in re: [Taliban offensive in north stresses Afghan military / http://www.longwarjournal.org] Bagram province, Afghanistan – Taliban taking over: took over the main road between Bagram and Mazar-i-Sharif. Attacks in Balkh. Nowhere in Afgh is safe from Taliban, incl areas in the west and northwest. The national ring road is unsafe. The 12,000 NATO-type troops. . . unh. Nothing near as many men as in the surge 2011-12. Taliban ergo controls the battlefield – dictate the pace of the fighting. Inspire magazine’s new cover, Ibrahim al-Khosi (co-founder of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula). Fifteenth issue, emerged on Saturday; goal is always to bring jihadis out the woodwork in the West. How to use bombs to attack economic targets (three types), etc. Ibrahim: tales of his time with Osama bin Ladin for years, and also al-Khosi recounts certain events. He was released from Guantanamo. Inspire also quotes Tom Joscelyn: Inspire has a blurb from him. (Occasional misattributions.) It speaks of Obama’s assertions that Guantanamo is a recruiting tool; Inspire laughs at that – “Nope, we aren't much interested in that”

Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, in re: As Mustafa Badreddine walking through Damascus airport, hit entirely by accident in a “lucky shot” of an artillery shell. [Syrian rebels deny Hezbollah’s military commander killed in ‘artillery shelling’] He was the second-most-senior Hezbollah commander killed, after Imad Mughniya; killed 12 Israelis in an ambush and was in charge of the Marine Barracks attack. Hezbollah calls it a random artillery shell – ha-ha. Has probably been responsible for killing thousands – maybe a high multiple – of jihadis. Israelis found th guy in the middle of Damascus and hit him, only, with a drone. Extraordinary technology; easily enough to terrify the living daylights out of the rest of Hezbollah The Syria air defenses are down and they really don't want to poke that bear. / Rescued Yusef Gilani’s son Ali in Pahktika province in Afghanistan – was held by al Qaeda; specifically, Ayman al Zawahiri. Hostage-takers had demanded release of high-level al Q members in exchange for Ali. / US airstrikes in Yemen.

Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re: . . . Mao unleashed students, the Red Guards, on May 16 fifty years ago; from that came mass murders – literally millions of Chinese people. A Xi Jinping recrudescence of the Cultural Revolution? Everyone is afraid of that. [The Twentieth Century: Hitler killed ~6 million people; Stalin killed ~20 million, mostly Russians; Mao caused to be killed ~70 million Chinese people.]

Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Francis Rose, NationalDefenseWeek.com and francisrose.com, in re: Congress looks to do the right thing about veterans’s affairs; the inability of the VA commissioner and the Obama Adm to turn round decades of abuse and depredations. A bill is introduced outside the Senate: Johnny Isaacson is trying tot bass a bill to reform; taking for e from House (Jeff Miller) who objects to it as favoring unions. People watching think Isaacson is trying to get A bill passed- something ; anything the president would sign Jeff Miller has a bill to put all VA employees in a pot where all could be fired. If these guys can’t compromise, nothing’ll pass, anyway. The Third Offensive: estimate that Russia and China are gaining on US tech advantage; problem: the end of the Obama Adm – the DoD is carrying out the Third Offset but will the next Adm do that? A sea-air-space conference in DC this week – Office of Naval Research robots on display. They’re in the water – EMILY – have already used it to rescue 300 Syrian migrants off Greece. / US losing relative ground: increasing gap because DoD had been under budget constraints for five years ahs cut it’s own R&D, asked private sector to pick up on innovation but hasn’t assured any purchase, so there’s a game of chicken between DoD and the defense-industrial crew. / Oops: Ben Rhodes will not appear before Congress to explain his infelicitous statements to New York Times. DoD-NSC discussions not always cordial: Thornberry proposed cutting NSC staff from 400 to 100.

Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block C: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Mustafa Badreddine killed while walking though the Damascus airport [looks like a CEP of 30 cm!] Hezbollah says it was a random artillery shell, or friendly fir. He had so many friends, could have been that . . . He was accused of killing Pres Hariri of Lebanon; wanted by Intl Criminal Court; also the Bulgaria bus attack; and h US wanted him. The Israelis never laid claim to having done it, stayed mum. Eke the US. Done in such a surgical way, hard to believe it was an artillery shell. He’d developed a way of using gas to amplify the power of [explosives]. Mustafa Badreddine replaced Mughniya; nobody standing in line with his stature or capability Hezbollah has loft so many key people. Shin Bet: rocket-making material going into Gaza; under intl pressure, Israel offered to extend fishing border for Gazan fishermen – who took advantage to go beyond and pick up weapons, incl missile parts. New smuggling routes. Worrisome. They float pods that the fishermen pick up and bring into Gaza Breaks controls initiated by both Egypt and Israel. What would it take for the intl community to acknowledge this is a genuine problem? Beats me. Offer to divide territory along 1972 line: 72% of Palestinians rejected. Secy Kerry was going to go to the French conference on the Middle East; France wants to be in the middle. Israel has rejected th French colloquy because Netanyahu has invited Abbas to drive from Ramallah to Jerusalem to talk, but Palestinians refuse and refuse. Would rather go to France and complain. Abbas is an 82-year-old man in the eleventh year of a four-year term. Has walked away from the best deal he’ll ever get. No intl conference has ever yielded results if not all are willing to enter into discussion – which PA is not. France voted for a resolution that strips all the places of their own Christian historical identity

Monday 16 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Ergdogan bldg. mosques in Europe – 17,00 Islamic prayer sites in Turkey plus mosques from Mali to Moscow, Ten being financed right now, incl one in Cambridge, and a huge one on Amsterdam (thousands of people worked on for 20 years), and in Tirana; a megamosque in Maryland; 30 in Switzerland; the Great Mosque of Bucharest – budget of €2 billion for this project, and a 20,00-person staff.

Ben Rhodes (WH NSC assistant) created the narrative to defeat foes of the Iran deal; White House won't let him speak to Congress . The strategy used during Iran deal. “No tone thing to correct in the NY Time article.” The Ploughshares 2000 website by Gary Sick; other sites and media. Democrats and GOP both much concerned. Find Mr Rhodes’s handiwork in less-than-savory areas. Obama Adm: to Iran: “If you launch missiles, just don't tell anyone.” Stuart Levy (now HSBC) wrote in Wall St Journal (was Undersecy for Terrorism and Financial Intell) on why HSBC and other banks would not remove sanctions. Deutsche Bank also rejects dealing with Iran. Pressure from Secy Kerry, who fights this. What?? / Iran’s annual anti-Holocaust cartoon contest: no change since Ahmadinejad. Soleimani as “my partner.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-china-usa-idUSKCN0YA0QX

Business | Thu May 19, 2016 9:13pm EDT
Related: World, China, Aerospace & Defense

China demands end to U.S. surveillance after aircraft intercept

WASHINGTON/BEIJING | By Idrees Ali and Megha Rajagopalan


Beijing demanded an end to U.S. surveillance near China on Thursday after two of its fighter jets carried out what the Pentagon said was an "unsafe" intercept of a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea.

The incident, likely to increase tension in and around the contested waterway, took place in international airspace on Tuesday as the plane carried out "a routine U.S. patrol," a Pentagon statement said.

A U.S. Defense official said two Chinese J-11 fighter jets flew within 50 feet (15 meters) of the U.S. EP-3 aircraft. The official said the incident took place east of Hainan island.

"Initial reports characterized the incident as unsafe," the Pentagon statement said.

"It must be pointed out that U.S. military planes frequently carry out reconnaissance in Chinese coastal waters, seriously endangering Chinese maritime security," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei Hong told reporters.

"We demand that the United States immediately cease this type of close reconnaissance activity to avoid having this sort of incident happening again," Hong said.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, he described the Pentagon statement as "not true" and said the actions of the Chinese aircraft were "completely in keeping with safety and professional standards."

"They maintained safe behavior and did not engage in any dangerous action," Hong said.

The encounter comes a week after China scrambled fighter jets as a U.S. Navy ship sailed close to a disputed reef in the South China Sea.

Another Chinese intercept took place in 2014 when a Chinese fighter pilot flew acrobatic maneuvers around a U.S. spy plane.

The intercept occurred days before President Barack Obama travels to parts of Asia from May 21-28, including a Group of Seven summit in Japan and his first trip to Vietnam.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the South China Sea after creating artificial islands, while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased U.S. naval patrols and exercises in Asia.

The Pentagon statement said the Department of Defense was addressing the issue through military and diplomatic channels.

China's Defense Ministry said in a fax that it was looking into reports on the incident.


"DANGEROUS INTERCEPTS"

In 2015, the United States and China announced agreements on a military hotline and rules of behavior to govern air-to-air encounters called the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES).

"This is exactly the type of irresponsible and dangerous intercepts that the air-to-air annex to CUES is supposed to prevent," said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Poling said either some part of China's air force "hadn't gotten the message," or it was meant as a signal of displeasure with recent U.S. freedom of navigation actions in the South China Sea.

"If the latter, it would be very disappointing to find China sacrificing the CUES annex for political gamesmanship."

Zhang Baohui, a security expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan University, said he believed the encounter highlighted the limitation of CUES, and shows that Chinese pilots would still fly close to U.S. surveillance planes if needed.

"Frankly, we're always going to see these kinds of incidents as China will always put the priority on national security over something like CUES whenever it feels its interests are directly threatened," he said.

The encounter took place in international airspace about 100 nautical miles south of mainland China and about 50 nautical miles east of Hainan island, a Pentagon spokesman said in a statement issued later on Thursday.

Regional military attaches and experts say the southern Chinese coast is a military area of increasing sensitivity for Beijing.

Its submarine bases on Hainan are home to an expanding fleet of nuclear-armed submarines and a big target for on-going Western surveillance operations.

The Guangdong coast is also believed to be home to some of China's most advanced missiles, including the DF-21D anti-ship weapon.

The Pentagon last month called on China to reaffirm it has no plans to deploy military aircraft in the Spratly Islands after China used a military plane to evacuate sick workers from Fiery Cross Reef, where it has built a 9,800-foot (3,000 meter) runway.

In April 2001, an intercept of a U.S. spy plane by a Chinese fighter jet resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the American plane to make an emergency landing at a base on Hainan.

The 24 U.S. air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologized for the incident. That encounter soured U.S.-Chinese relations in the early days of President George W. Bush's first administration.

Last month, the Pentagon said that Russia had intercepted a U.S. Air Force aircraft over the Baltic Sea in an "unsafe and unprofessional" way.


(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington, Greg Torode in Hong Kong, and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/content/nato-welcomes-montenegro-russia-threatens-sanctions/3338387.html

News / Europe

NATO Welcomes Montenegro; Russia Threatens Sanctions

Schwartz
May 19, 2016 8:12 PM

NATO officially invited Montenegro to become its 29th member Thursday, angering Russia, which already is threatening sanctions against what it calls a "friendly country."

NATO foreign ministers signed the Accession Protocol in Brussels, as Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic looked on.

All 28 legislative bodies, including the U.S. Senate, must ratify the protocol before Montenegro can join.

But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he expects to soon see 29 flags flying outside the organization's Brussels headquarters.

"Montenegro has already been contributing to NATO, EU and UN operations, promoting regional cooperation in the Balkans, and implementing major reforms," Stoltenberg said.

"Membership will give Montenegro the ability to help shape NATO policy. It will bring more stability and security to the region ... and it will be a clear sign that NATO's door remains open to partners that share and promote our values."

Russia, which feels threatened by NATO expansion right up to its borders, is threatening to "change its policy ... to this friendly country" if Montenegro becomes a new member.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman said this could include limiting Russian economic and other contacts with Montenegro.

She called NATO expansion another "attempt to change the military political landscape in Europe, especially in the light of the alliance's course to restrain our country."

NATO has increased its military presence across Europe, including the heavily Russian populated Baltics, since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Montenegro was a republic in the now-dismantled Yugoslavia, a country that was inside the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

It was part of a federation with Serbia after Yugoslavia broke up. Montenegro eventually became an independent country in 2006 and has been relatively stable compared with the ethnic strife that occasionally rocks other former Yugoslav republics.

Montenegro has contributed to NATO missions in Afghanistan.

NATO last expanded in 2009, when Albania and Croatia became members.


Related Articles

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NATO Waiting to See What US Will Do in Afghanistan
Russia, Belarus to Develop Joint Response to NATO Missile Shield

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.globalresearch.ca/algeri...moves-closer-to-russia-anti-nato-bloc/5526122

Algeria Readies Itself for Potential Western Shift in Strategy, Moves Closer to Russia, Anti-NATO Bloc

By Brandon Turbeville
Global Research, May 19, 2016
Activist Post 18 May 2016

Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda

As the Syrian crisis drags on and hopes of a peaceful resolution or, at the very least, a return to relative normalcy in Libya seem very distant, Algeria should, by now, begin suspecting that it might soon find itself in the Anglo-American crosshairs. There is now rapidly growing evidence that Algeria is doing just that.

Having survived an attempted destabilization during the Western-inspired and Western-orchestrated“Arab Spring” color revolution, Algeria has been doing whatever it can to increase security in, on, and around its borders. For this reason, it has increased cooperation with its neighbor Tunisia, which has been the target of terrorists backed by the West and GCC nations.

Having acted quickly and with an iron fist, any attempt to disrupt the functioning of the Algerian government was quashed during the stream of U.S.-engineered color revolutions and destabilizations. Yet, even though the “Arab Spring” style protests were short-lived and ineffective, Algeria has not simply rested on its laurels in the aftermath. In fact, Algeria has moved to increase security, improve its military capabilities, and work with its neighbors to ensure that they do not fall prey to destabilizations or color revolutions in the future.

Algeria has also moved to deepen its ties with Russia and those countries that are part of an unofficial but growing and obvious anti-NATO bloc. In other words, Algeria is moving closer to joining the multi-polar collection of nations attempting to act as a counterforce to the NATO powers.

Two notable instances of increased cooperation between Algeria and the anti-NATO alliance are therecent provision of 40 attack helicopters by Russia to Algeria and the recent diplomatic visit to Syria by the Algerian government.

The helicopter, known as the “Night Hunter” in Russia, is reported to be one of the best in the world, and it is capable of carrying out its missions in both day and night as well as in adverse weather conditions. The helicopter comes with a MI-28NE modification capability that allows the ship to be flown from the pilot’s cockpit and the operator pilot’s cockpit.

The delivery of the Russian helicopters to Algeria is nothing new. In 2005-2006, Russia provided Algeria with 28 Su-30MKA, 16 Yak-130 jet trainers and 185 T-90S tanks. In 2015, a contract was signed for the delivery of 14 Su-30MKA fighters in 2016-2017. The transfer of the MI-28 helicopters is the result of a bilateral agreement between Russia and Algeria.

“The Algerian military is satisfied with the quality of Russian weapons, which has proven itself well in the specific conditions here, namely the desert with its extremely high temperatures and sandstorms. So there are good prospects for continuing close cooperation in the military-technical area on a wide nomenclature of supplies,”

Alexander Zolotov, Russian Ambassador to Algeria, told RIA Novosti in an interview.

Yet, while the deliveries are not newsworthy in and of themselves, the context in which they occurare worth discussing.

Algeria, of course, is becoming concerned with increasing amounts of ISIS activity in the region, notably in Libya and Tunisia and is focusing on policing its borders with the two embattled countries as well as with Niger and Mali for that reason. The Algerian government, which has reacted quickly to terrorist threats in the past, is perhaps worried that ISIS attacks may eventually begin to take place inside its borders, particularly as a result of Western targeting of the governmental structure in the future.

In February, Algeria and Russia embarked upon a plan to deepen bilateral military and economic cooperation.

In regards to Syria, Monday April 25, 2016 marked the first official visit to Syria since 2011 by any Algerian official, signaling a growing tendency to increase ties and cooperation with the embattled nation despite the crying and screaming of the United States, EU, and NATO. Earlier, in March, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mu’allem paid a visit to the Algerian capital where the stated goal of the visit was to deepen and strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

As Ulson Gunnar writes in his article, “Washington’s Fake War On ISIS ‘Moves’ To Libya,”


Syria is not only no longer safe for IS, it has become a grave in which IS is being buried alive. This is thanks not to a successful anti-terror campaign waged by Washington and its allies, but by swift and successful operations carried out by Moscow, Tehran, and their allies in Damascus. Indeed, with IS supply lines being cut from their source in Turkey and their forces being pushed back across Syrian territory, liquidation of their assets in Syria is well underway. Likewise in Iraq, feigned US operations to stop IS have given way to an increase in cooperation between Baghdad, Tehran, and Damascus.

What started out as an attempt to divide and destroy Iran’s arc of influence across the region has galvanized it instead.

Moving the mercenary forces of IS out of the region is instrumental in ensuring they “live to fight another day.” By placing them in Libya, Washington and its allies hope they will be far out of reach of the growing coalition truly fighting them across the Levant. Further more, placing them in Libya allows other leftover “projects” from the “Arab Spring” to be revisited, such as the destabilization and destruction of Algeria, Tunisia and perhaps even another attempt to destabilize and destroy Egypt.

IS’ presence in Libya could also be used as a pretext for open-ended and much broader military intervention throughout all of Africa by US forces and their European and Persian Gulf allies. As the US has done in Syria, where it has conducted operations for now over a year and a half to absolutely no avail, but has managed to prop up proxy forces and continue undermining and threatening targeted nations, it will likewise do so regarding IS in Libya and its inevitable and predictable spread beyond.

Indeed, Gunnar summarizes much of what Algeria knows and fears in relation to IS and the NATO/Anglo-American scheme for world hegemony. For this reason, Algeria is preparing for the potential shift in the Western focus in terms of specific battlefields, moving from Syria to Libya and Westward from there.

While not earth-shattering news, Algeria’s growing fondness for the Russian bloc of nations is yet another sign of Washington’s loss of influence across the world and the increasingly bankrupt position held by the U.S. and NATO.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.


The original source of this article is Activist Post

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/121303-A-nuclearised-Indian-Ocean

A nuclearised Indian Ocean

By Ali Sarwar Naqvi
May 20, 2016
Print : Opinion

While the international strategic community continues to be preoccupied with land-based nuclear developments in the South Asian region, little attention is being paid to the fearsome prospect of the nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean, and the adjoining waters of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

The induction of nuclear weapons and platforms in the Indian Ocean by any one state of the 32 littoral states around it will have the consequence of jeopardising the security of all the others. As the state undertaking this enterprise is India, it can directly affect the security dilemma of Pakistan, which is already concerned about India’s land-based nuclear and missile capabilities.

When India embarked upon a military nuclear programme way back in the 70s, Pakistan had to follow suit, given the conflict-ridden relationship that it had had with India. This phase eventually culminated in 1998 when the two countries developed overt nuclear weapons capabilities. As if this was not worrisome enough, India now seems bent on introducing nuclear weaponry in the seas, which would further exacerbate the South Asian security environment.

Unfortunately, the Indian Ocean is fast becoming an arena of global strategic competition, largely due to the US’s attempt to establish its influence in the Asia Pacific region, to counter possible Chinese presence in the area. In this scheme of things, the US could well be encouraging India to go ahead with its aggressive designs of dominating the Indian Ocean with the building of nuclear capable sea-based platforms. In any case, India has since long had plans for developing a strong and powerful blue water navy. The latest articulation of this ambition can be found in India’s Naval Strategy document of 2015.

India has chosen to pursue, as a key element of its naval strategy, the goal of becoming a regional hegemon in the Indian Ocean, including the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. By developing the capability of denying the other littoral states access to the ocean’s resources – including, perhaps, communication and free movement as and when it so wishes – it can directly threaten the core interests of all the littoral states through its enhanced naval power, which is a frightening prospect. As it appears, India is poised to pursue the following nefarious designs in the Indian Ocean region:

• Developing a sea-based deterrent to undermine Pakistan’s perceived notion of deterrence stability vis-à-vis India;

• Enforcing India’s presumed right to regulate strategic and economic activities in the Indian Ocean, tacitly approved by the US;

• Commanding sea-lines of communication (SLOCs) and to control key choke points to neutralise China’s influence; and

• Ensuring operational readiness to engage in littoral warfare.

Towards these ends, India is developing a sub-surface fleet of different kinds of submarines. It has been acquiring both nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) and the ballistic missile submarine (SSBN). A nuclear-powered attack submarine is designed to target adversary’s ships by using torpedoes or cruise missiles, and a nuclear-armed submarine carries long-range nuclear ballistic missiles, and its ability to survive enemy’s nuclear attack makes it the most credible nuclear deterrent to achieve assured second strike capability.

The INS Chakra is so far the first and only operational nuclear attack submarine in the Indian fleet. This nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) was commissioned in the Indian Navy in April 2012. It made India the only country besides the five nuclear-weapons states to operate an SSN. Acquired on a ten-year lease from Russia, the INS Chakra gives the Indian Navy operational flexibility that increases its effectiveness, particularly in blue-water operations.

India is currently in negotiations with Russia to acquire another submarine of this class. Additionally, the Indo-Russian joint production has helped India acquire the Talwar class frigates. The new frigates of this kind are armed with eight Brahmos missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This missile can be launched from submarines, surface ships, land and air, thereby providing additional strength to its nuclear arsenal.

India’s Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) Project, under the joint supervision of the Indian Navy, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been under development since 1999. This project produced its first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant, which has completed its critical diving tests and undergone the test launch of unarmed ballistic missiles.

The hulls of another two SSBNs, including INS Aridhaman, have already been completed and these vessels are expected to be launched by 2017. On March 31 this year India conducted a test of the K-4, an intermediate range nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile, from the indigenously built submarine the INS Arihant in the Bay of Bengal. The K-4 and the projected K-5 will thus become parts of its nuclear triad, enabling India to have second strike nuclear capability.

India’s naval nuclear developments will qualitatively alter the strategic balance between India and Pakistan in favour of the former, which might compel Pakistan to again follow suit to rebalance the deterrence stability between the two countries in the region. This would not only instigate an arms race in the region, but will also raise questions regarding India’s professed minimalist policies. India’s strategic partnerships with major powers further help it to develop its naval nuclear assets. Great proponents of non-proliferation, these powers happily ignore the fact that the vertical proliferation of a de-facto nuclear weapon state poses severe challenges to the international non-proliferation regime.

For Pakistan, the strategic stability in the region will be irreversibly disturbed by India’s on-going sea-based programmes. As regards the Indian Ocean, the danger is that it could become the most nuclearised of the seven seas. The great nuclear powers are already present there, and it is now threatened by Indian designs too. The induction of nuclear platforms in these fateful waters is a danger to the entire security environment of this part of the world.

The writer is the executive director of the Center for International Strategic Studies.

Email: sarwarnaqvi@yahoo.com

-

More From Ali Sarwar Naqvi

- India’s nuclear arsenal
- Our nuclear security
- ‘Normal’ nuclear Pakistan
- India, Pakistan and the NSG
- Regional auguries
- Seventeen years of deterrence
- The Yemen imbroglio
- A great deal of instability

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/05/how-pentagon-preparing-tank-war-russia/128460/

How the Pentagon is Preparing for a Tank War With Russia

May 19, 2016 By Patrick Tucker

Reactive armor and cross-domain fire capabilities are just some of the items on the Army’s must-have list.

When Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster briefs, it’s like Gen. Patton giving a TED talk — a domineering physical presence with bristling intellectual intensity.

These days, the charismatic director of the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center is knee-deep in a project called The Russia New Generation Warfare study, an analysis of how Russia is re-inventing land warfare in the mud of Eastern Ukraine. Speaking recently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., McMaster said that the two-year-old conflict had revealed that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of UAVs for tactical effect. Should U.S. forces find themselves in a land war with Russia, he said, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.

“We spend a long time talking about winning long-range missile duels,” said McMaster. But long-range missiles only get you through the front door. The question then becomes what will you do when you get there.

“Look at the enemy countermeasures,” he said, noting Russia’s use of nominally semi-professional forces who are capable of “dispersion, concealment, intermingling with civilian populations…the ability to disrupt our network strike capability, precision navigation and timing capabilities.” All of that means “you’re probably going to have a close fight… Increasingly, close combat overmatch is an area we’ve neglected, because we’ve taken it for granted.”

Related: U.S. Army Is Getting Ready for Hybrid War

So how do you restore overmatch? The recipe that’s emerging from the battlefield of Ukraine, says McMaster, is more artillery and better artillery, a mix of old and new.

Cross-Domain Fires

“We’re out-ranged by a lot of these systems and they employ improved conventional munitions, which we are going away from. There will be a 40- to 60-percent reduction in lethality in the systems that we have,” he said. “Remember that we already have fewer artillery systems. Now those fewer artillery systems will be less effective relative to the enemy. So we need to do something on that now.”

To remedy that, McMaster is looking into a new area called “cross domain fires,” which would outfit ground units to hit a much wider array of targets. “When an Army fires unit arrives somewhere, it should be able to do surface-to-air, surface-to-surface, and shore-to-ship capabilities. We are developing that now and there are some really promising capabilities,” he said.

While the full report has not been made public, “a lot of this is available open source” said McMaster, “in the work that Phil Karber has done, for example.”

Karber, the president of the Potomac Foundation, went on a fact-finding mission to Ukraine last year, and returned with the conclusion that the United States had long overemphasized precision artillery on the battlefield at the expense of mass fires. Since the 1980s, he said last October, at an Association for the United States Army event, the U.S. has given up its qualitative edge, mostly by getting rid of cluster munitions.

Munitions have advanced incredibly since then. One of the most terrifying weapons that the Russians are using on the battlefield are thermobaric warheads, weapons that are composed almost entirely of fuel and burn longer and with more intensity than other types of munitions.

“In a 3-minute period…a Russian fire strike wiped out two mechanized battalions [with] a combination of top-attack munitions and thermobaric warheads,” said Karber. “If you have not experienced or seen the effects of thermobaric warheads, start taking a hard look. They might soon be coming to a theater near you.”

Karber also noted that Russian forces made heavy and integrated use of electronic warfare. It’s used to identify fire sources and command posts and to shut down voice and data communications. In the northern section, he said, “every single tactical radio [the Ukrainian forces] had was taken out by heavy Russian sector-wide EW.” Other EW efforts had taken down Ukrainian quadcopters. Another system was being used to mess with the electrical fuses on Ukrainian artillery shells, ”so when they hit, they’re duds,” he said.

Karber also said the pro-Russian troops in Donbas were using an overlapping mobile radar as well as a new man-portable air defense that’s “integrated into their network and can’t be spoofed by [infrared] decoys” or flares.

Combat Vehicles and Defenses

The problems aren’t just with rockets and shells, McMaster said. Even American combat vehicles have lost their edge.

“The Bradley [Fighting Vehicle] is great,” he said, but “what we see now is that our enemies have caught up to us. They’ve invested in combat vehicles. They’ve invested in advanced protective systems and active protective systems. We’ve got to get back ahead on combat vehicle development.”

If the war in Eastern Ukraine were a real-world test, the Russian T-90 tank passed with flying colors. The tank had seen action in Dagestan and Syria, but has been particularly decisive in Ukraine. The Ukrainians, Karber said, “have not been able to record one single kill on a T-90. They have the new French optics on them. The Russians actually designed them to take advantage of low light, foggy, winter conditions.”

What makes the T-90 so tough? For starters, explosive reactive armor. When you fire a missile at the tank, its skin of metal plates and explosives reacts. The explosive charge clamps the plates together so the rocket can’t pierce the hull.

But that’s only if the missile gets close enough. The latest thing in vehicle defense is active protection systems, or APS, which automatically spot incoming shells and target them with electronic jammers or just shoot them down. “It might use electronics to ‘confuse’ an incoming round, or it might use mass (outgoing bullets, rockets) to destroy the incoming round before it gets too close,” Army director for basic research Jeff Singleton told Defense One in an email.

The T-90’s active protective system is the Shtora-1 countermeasures suite. “I’ve interviewed Ukrainian tank gunners,” said Karber. “They’ll say ‘I had my [anti-tank weapon] right on it, it got right up to it and then they had this miraculous shield. An invisible shield. Suddenly, my anti-tank missile just went up to the sky.’”

The Pentagon is well behind some other militaries on this research. Israeli forces declared its Trophy APS operational in 2009, integrated it onto tanks since 2010, and has been using it to protect Israeli tank soldiers from Hamas rockets ever since.

Singleton said the United States is looking to give its Abrams tank the Trophy, which uses buckshot-like guns to down incoming fire without harming nearby troops.

The Army is also experimenting with the Israeli-made Iron Curtain APS for the Stryker, which works similarly, and one for the Bradley that has yet to be named. Raytheon has a system called the Quick Kill that uses a scanned array radar and a small missile to shoot down incoming projectiles.

Anti-Drone Defenses

One of the defining features of the war in Eastern Ukraine is the use of drones by both sides, not to target high-value terrorists but to direct fire in the same way forces used the first combat aircraft in World War I.

The past has a funny way of re-inventing itself, says McMaster.

“I never had to look up in my whole career and say, ‘Is it friendly or enemy?’ because of the U.S. Air Force. We have to do that now,” said McMaster. “Our Air Force gave us an unprecedented period of air supremacy…that changed the dynamics of ground combat. Now, you can’t bank on that.”

Pro-Russian forces use as many as 16 types of UAVs for targeting.

Russian forces are known to have “a 90-kilometer [Multiple Launch Rocket System] round, that goes out, parachute comes up, a UAV pops out, wings unfold, and they fly it around, it can strike a mobile target” said Karber, who said he wasn’t sure it had yet been used in Ukraine.

Karber’s track record for accuracy is less than perfect, as writer Jeffrey Lewis has pointed out in Foreign Policy. At various points, he has inflated estimates of China’s nuclear arsenal from some 300 weapons (based on declassified estimates) to 3,000 squirreled away in mysterious tunnels, a claim that many were able to quickly debunk. In 2014, he helped pass photos to Sen. James Inhofe of the Senate Armed Services Committee that purported to be recent images of Russian forces inside Ukraine. It turned out they were AP photographs from 2008.

“In the haste of running for the airport and trying to respond to a last-minute request with short time fuse,” Karber said by way of explanation, “I made the mistake of believing we were talking about the same photos … and it never occurred to me that the three photos of Russian armor were part of that package or being considered.”

No Foolproof Technological Solution

All of these technologies could shape the future battlefield, but none of them are silver bullets, nor do they, in McMaster’s view, offset the importance of human beings in gaining territory, holding territory, and changing facts on the ground to align with mission objectives.

As the current debate about the authorization for the use of force in Iraq shows, the commitment of large numbers of U.S. ground troops to conflict has become a political nonstarter for both parties. In lieu of a political willingness to put troops in the fight, multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic forces will take the lead, just as they are doing now in Iraq and Syria.

“What’s necessary is political accommodation, is what needs to happen, if we don’t conduct operations and plan campaigns in a way that gets to the political accommodation,” he said. “The most important activity will be to broker political ceasefires and understandings.”

Sometimes that happens at the end of a tank gun.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/opinions/hezbollah-israel-tensions-miller/index.html

The next war in the Middle East?

By Aaron David Miller
Updated 12:09 PM ET, Thu May 19, 2016


Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of "The End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President." Miller was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. Follow him on Twitter @aarondmiller2. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.


(CNN) — The death in Syria last week of Mustafa Badriddine, Hezbollah's top operational commander in Syria, automatically and inevitably raised the fear of another confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah. After all, Lebanese media close to Hezbollah had been quick to accuse the Israelis of killing its storied terror operative.

Hezbollah soon suggested that Israel was not, after all, responsible. Instead, it announced that its man was killed by insurgent groups that the Lebanese Shia militia has been fighting in Syria. Yet while we may never find out the exact circumstances of Badriddine's death, and while the potential for a new and deadly war in the Middle East has, for the time being, been averted, the truth is that an Israeli-Lebanese war that could plunge the Middle East into even greater chaos remains a genuine possibility.

On the surface, this might seem a strange time to sound so pessimistic. After all, this July marks the 10th anniversary of the last major Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. And despite significant escalations, the two sides have managed to avoid a sustained large-scale conflict.

How?

Overstretched in Syria, Hezbollah doesn't want a big fight. And even though Russian intervention has backstopped the Bashar al-Assad regime -- Hezbollah's key ally -- the Syrian campaign has been costly and controversial for the Lebanese Shia organization.

In short. Hezbollah can't afford to open up what could prove to be an even more costly second front, and it cannot be certain that Israel might not strike the al-Assad regime, weakening its stake in Syria.

It's also hard to see how Iran, Hezbollah's key political and religious patron and its key arms supplier would benefit from a war now.

Iran is looking to build on the nuclear agreement with the United States and other powers to strengthen its economy and attract foreign investment. And having to rally publicly and loudly to the side of an organization that the Europeans, Americans and Gulf states regard as a terrorist entity wouldn't seem to further Iran's interests.

Since 2006, Israel and its other non-state adversary, Hamas, have engaged in three serious confrontations -- in 2008-2009; 2012; and 2014.

In contrast, Israel and Hezbollah have been much more careful and disciplined in dealing with one another. Hezbollah was surprised that Israel was prepared to launch a massive air campaign in response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers in 2006, while Israel was stunned by Hezbollah's capacity to rain thousands of rockets down on Israel and shut a good portion of the country down for a month.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has expanded its rocket and missile arsenal to 150,000, weapons, according to Israeli officials, including precision-guided systems that would put within range Haifa's heavy industries; the Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv; Israel's Parliament; and its nuclear reactors at Dimona.

Indeed, earlier this year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened Haifa's ammonia storage tanks with his missiles, an attack he claimed -- quoting an Israeli official -- could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis.

Clearly, the next war would be potentially devastating for both sides. But that does not mean it can't or won't occur.

Middle East wars generally don't happen by accident. And since 2006, both Israel and Hezbollah have been preparing for the next round.

For example, Hezbollah is battle hardened, tested and trained in offensive operations in the Syrian civil war. The group is thought by some to be planning incursions across the border with a view to holding territory, even attacking Israeli towns.

And if Hezbollah plans to change the next war's paradigm, so do the Israelis.

Frustrated with the duration and stalemated outcome of the 2006 Lebanon campaign, the Israelis promise to hit harder and bring the war to a quicker and more decisive end.

How? They won't say. But it would surely involve the massive use of air power against Hezbollah positions, even if they were located in civilian areas, In addition, unlike in 2006, Israel might be more likely to make use of significant numbers of ground forces and elite units, coordinated with air power.

So, while another war between Israel and Hezbollah may not be inevitable, Hezbollah's growing arsenal, combined with its conviction that fighting Israel is part of its identity and legitimacy, means that outright conflict is a genuine possibility. If it comes, it will be devastating -- especially for the civilians on both sides caught in the middle.

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[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/w...s-lifting-vietnam-embargo.html?ref=world&_r=0

Asia Pacific

Why Might Vietnam Let U.S. Military Return? China.

µã»÷²é¿´±¾ÎÄÖÐÎÄ°æ Read in Chinese

By JANE PERLEZ
MAY 19, 2016
Comments 197

CAM RANH BAY, Vietnam ¡ª The ghosts of the Vietnam War have finally faded at the strategic port of Cam Ranh Bay. More than 40 years ago, United States forces left this massive base where Marines landed, B-52s loaded up for bombing raids, and wounded American soldiers were treated.

Now, some Vietnamese say they are yearning for the American military to return.

¡°On Facebook, there was a question recently: What do you want from President Obama¡¯s visit?¡± said Vo Van Tao, 63, who fought as a young North Vietnamese infantry soldier against the United States. ¡°Some people said they wanted democracy. I said I wanted the Americans to come back to Cam Ranh Bay. A lot of people agreed with me.¡±

Mr. Obama is scheduled to arrive in Vietnam on Sunday, the third visit by an American president since the war ended. The big question he is expected to answer is whether Washington will lift a partial arms embargo and allow Vietnam to buy lethal weapons from the United States. The Communist government has long asked for the ban to be revoked, and American access to Cam Ranh Bay could be part of the payoff.

For the White House, the decision on lifting the embargo has come down to a debate over trying to improve Vietnam¡¯s poor human rights record versus enabling Vietnam to better defend itself against an increasing threat from China in the South China Sea.

Washington has for years made lifting the ban contingent on Vietnam¡¯s improving human rights for its people, and has prodded Vietnam to allow more freedom of speech and to release political prisoners. But as tensions with China have escalated in the South China Sea, the sentiment in the Obama administration has shifted toward lifting the ban, American officials familiar with the discussions said.

Vietnam¡¯s government, pressed by an ever more powerful China, knows it cannot stand up to Beijing alone and is cautiously moving toward increased ties with the United States.

Despite their shared Communist ideology, Vietnam and China fought over islands in the South China Sea in the 1970s and ¡¯80s. Two years ago, China sent an oil rig into disputed waters close to the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both countries, leading to clashes at sea and anti-Chinese riots in Vietnamese cities.

More recently, China has built artificial islands with military runways in the South China Sea just 300 miles from the Vietnamese coast.

Vietnam¡¯s needs dovetail with those of the United States, which has been encouraging maritime states in Southeast Asia to better defend themselves, an effort partly aimed at keeping the United States from being dragged into a direct naval conflict with China.

The prospect of access to Cam Ranh Bay, where the Vietnamese have built a new international port, provides another enticement for lifting the ban.

An American presence there would allow United States forces to use the port on the western edge of the South China Sea, complementing American facilities in the Philippines on the sea¡¯s eastern edge.

¡°If the United States can get regular access to Cam Ranh Bay, it would be very advantageous to maintaining the balance of power with China,¡± said Alexander L. Vuving, a Vietnam specialist at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. ¡°If something happens in the South China Sea, it takes a while for the U.S. to get there. China can get there more quickly.¡±

The Vietnamese, who shun alliances and forbid foreign bases, have made clear they would not entertain exclusive use of the facilities by the United States but would allow it to share the base with others. Singaporean and Japanese vessels this year were the first to use the facility.

Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken assured Hanoi during a recent visit to Vietnam that Washington was not seeking a base here.

Lifting the embargo would go a long way toward shoring up Washington¡¯s credibility among conservatives in the Vietnamese military who fear the Obama administration sees improved relations as a way to bring multiparty democracy to Vietnam, experts said.


Interactive Feature

What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

China has been feverishly piling sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new islets in the region and straining already taut geopolitical tensions.

OPEN Interactive Feature

¡°To get over the resistance of the Vietnamese military, the U.S. has to show its good intentions by lifting the arms embargo,¡± Dr. Vuving said. Doing so would ¡°open the door¡± to closer military cooperation, he said, and access to Cam Ranh Bay would most likely follow.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in a Senate hearing last month that he favored lifting the embargo.

But the human rights side of the equation remains problematic for a country Human Rights Watch describes as one of the world¡¯s most repressive.

Last week, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Tom Malinowski, met with human rights leaders and government officials in Hanoi for a final human rights assessment before the Obama visit. The State Department said he urged Hanoi to ¡°release political prisoners without condition¡± and make other human rights improvements.

Vietnam still has more than 100 political prisoners, activists here say, including bloggers and lawyers whose only crime was to criticize the government.

An American official who was briefed on the visit said there had been positive signals from the Vietnamese. Mr. Blinken had praised the government in a speech last month for ¡°some progress¡± on human rights, notably allowing independent trade unions for the first time.

Surprisingly, a leading dissident has come out in favor of lifting the arms embargo, telling Mr. Malinowski the issue should not be linked to the release of political prisoners.

¡°If Obama lifts the embargo totally that would be great for Vietnam and Vietnam-U.S. relations,¡± said Nguyen Quang A, the founder of the Civil Society Forum in Hanoi. ¡°The Communists say the U.S. needs to respect our legitimacy and don¡¯t make trouble. That¡¯s the negative from our point of view. But the positive is it starts a new era with the United States.¡±

Lifting the embargo is not expected to produce a windfall for American defense suppliers.

Since Washington partly lifted the embargo in 2014, allowing the purchase of nonlethal equipment for maritime defense, Vietnam has not acquired any American equipment, not even coastal radar systems for its Coast Guard, said Carl Thayer, a defense analyst in Canberra, Australia, who specializes in Vietnam. This was largely for lack of money, he said.

It would also be costly for Vietnam to switch from heavy equipment made in Russia, long Vietnam¡¯s main arms supplier, to American-made equipment.

But Vietnam wants to diversify from its reliance on Russian arms. It is using India to train its crews on Russian-built submarines, and is looking to Israel for some weapons.

Last week, Vietnamese officials met with American military suppliers, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, at a symposium in Hanoi to discuss the needs of the Vietnamese military.

Christopher W. Sfedu, who attended the meeting and is director of international expansion for EDI-USA, a Philadelphia-based supplier of communications equipment, said communications software appeared to be near the top of the military¡¯s wish list.

The Russians still have privileged rights at Cam Ranh Bay, using the base for tanker aircraft that refuel reconnaissance flights over Guam.

Protected on its southern and eastern flanks by hills looming up from the South China Sea, Cam Ranh Bay juts inland for 20 miles, the largest sheltered harbor in Southeast Asia, and its most strategic because of its deep water.

For Mr. Tao, a local resident, the return of the Americans cannot happen fast enough.

¡°The Vietnamese people are very angry at the Chinese airstrips in the Spratlys,¡± he said, referring to the disputed islands in the South China Sea. ¡°We figured out it will take them only one hour to come and bomb Saigon.¡±


Related Coverage

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Recent Comments

frank monaco
20 minutes ago
As joe Kennedy told his sons "Sooner or later everyone does business with everyone." VietNam needs the aliance with the U.S. with China...

fritzr
20 minutes ago
How about discussing with the Vietnamese how they would envision handling this problem by themselves? They cannot easily build cruisers,...

wsmrer
1 hour ago
The Asians are masterful negotiators and the US will have no problem getting back in for an arms deal ¨C US token of exchange ¨C as...

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[vestige]

How the Pentagon is Preparing for a Tank War With Russia

Speaking from experience...

The Pentagon had better really get its sh*t together on this one.

I was there... I traveled up and down US tank ranges while a T 72 turret followed me (sometimes more than one).

One puff from the turret and I was dust.

We had M 60s they had T 72s.... both now replaced by "better" tanks. (M1, T90 ?)

They had a jillion... we had a few.

Who has the "best" is good for arguing over a cup of coffee.

Who has the "most" is good for arguing on the battlefield.

Ask Rommel.

 

[Pinecone]

Thank you, Vestige.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-populist-politicians-win-voters-hearts-1463689360

WSJ

Europe’s Populist Politicians Tap Into Deep-Seated Frustration

Growing numbers of voters are supporting populist political parties that oppose accepting refugees and other migrants and are skeptical of European integration

By Anton Troianovski | Photographs by Phil Moore for The Wall Street Journal
May 19, 2016 4:22 p.m. ET

VIENNA—Supporters turned out Saturday for a barbecue hosted by the Freedom Party of Austria, a populist, anti-immigrant group that polls say could win the country’s presidency this weekend.

“Things just aren’t how they used to be,” said Celine Danecek, a party volunteer handing out fliers, cigarette lighters and headphones. “It feels strange to say this as a 17-year-old.”

Since reaching voting age last year, Ms. Danecek has cast her ballot for a party asserting that the policies of the postwar political establishment—on immigration, trade and European integration—go against the interests of regular people and urgently need to be reversed.

After the migrant crisis erupted last summer, a throng of European voters have delivered a series of electoral successes to populist parties offering such messages. From Denmark to France, the parties’ gains have heightened the sense of crisis in the European Union.

In an echo of Donald Trump ’s rise in the U.S., an increasing number of Europeans are rejecting basic principles shared by the center-left and center-right. These voters want things few mainstream parties offer: a tougher line on immigrants, weaker or no EU ties and, often, closer links with Russia. They have no confidence in ruling elites they see as aloof, corrupt and disconnected from their lives.

For decades, the major Continental European parties have held a strong consensus about the merits of European integration. That includes open borders, tariff-free trade across these borders and a common currency.

Not all ordinary Europeans shared this view. Many have expressed their reservations, as referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and elsewhere have shown.

But the firmness of the mainstream parties’ commitment to European integration has helped drive the dissent to fringe parties. It has allowed nationalists and populists to win over people disenchanted with the mainstream, pro-EU consensus, to such an extent that euroskeptic language is creeping into major parties, too, in some places as they seek to stop voters from moving away.


A Syrian immigrant held balloons given out by the anti-immigrant Austrian Freedom Party at a rally in Vienna last Saturday.
A Syrian immigrant held balloons given out by the anti-immigrant Austrian Freedom Party at a rally in Vienna last Saturday.


The Wall Street Journal explored Europe’s populist phenomenon on the ground, from eastern Germany’s rust belt and the working-class outskirts of Vienna to industrial Poland and rural Slovakia. What emerged were diverse portraits of voters united by rejection of the postwar creed that the Continent’s integration was a necessary condition of prosperity and peace.

The voters speak of sovereignty lost to Washington, Wall Street or Berlin. They cite news from Facebook pages and YouTube channels, dismissing traditional news media as agents of government and big business. They voice fears of crime and cultural change brought by Europe’s refugee influx. And many, fuming at the political class, say they simply want change.

This populist wave is particularly striking in Central Europe, where the political mainstream had long seen European integration as the way to heal the wounds of Nazism and communism.

This weekend in Austria, the Freedom Party is within striking distance of achieving a new milestone: electing a head of state. Its candidate, Norbert Hofer, carries a slight lead in the polls going into Sunday’s runoff election for the largely symbolic post of president.

Just a few miles down the Danube from Vienna, in Slovakia, a party that endorses the country’s World War II collaboration with the Nazis recently rode outrage over immigration to its first seats in parliament.

In Poland, a rocker-turned-activist’s electoral success has scrambled party dynamics, drawing nationalists and others unhappy with the status quo into his new movement.

And in Germany, an upstart anti-immigrant party this spring cemented its status as the country’s most successful right-wing populist movement since World War II.

“We have lost our identity,” said Grazyna Kupka, a 46-year-old Pole who lives on disability benefits. “We feel like slaves.”

“Germany is a colony of the U.S.,” said Todor Gribnev, a 66-year-old innkeeper and clarinetist in Germany. “Germany is governed by the U.S., just as the European Union is the long arm of the U.S.”

“What is called democracy here—that isn’t democracy,” said Milan Capák, a 46-year-old wedding entertainer and small-town councilman in Slovakia. “You cannot say what you want.”

“I want to get rid of my fear,” said Hermine Löffler, a 57-year-old retired hospitality worker in Austria.

Some of Central Europe’s populist movements are old, such as Austria’s Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s. Some are new, like the movement led by Polish rock star Pawel Kukiz, whose legions of fans propelled his surprise rise in politics last year. All got political mileage out of a refugee crisis many thought confirmed Germany’s dominance of the EU.



Polish rocker-turned-activist Pawel Kukiz, who spoke at a town hall in Gliwice on Monday, won 21% of a presidential vote a year ago.
Polish rocker-turned-activist Pawel Kukiz, who spoke at a town hall in Gliwice on Monday, won 21% of a presidential vote a year ago.


“German business has replaced German tanks,” Mr. Kukiz said in an interview this week in his new branch office in the southwest Poland city of Gliwice, once part of the German Empire.

The rise of these groups has pressed mainstream politicians to respond, including by accepting some of their demands.

In Austria, the centrist government this winter reversed its initial support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s welcoming refugee policy after the Freedom Party shot up in the polls. In Poland and Slovakia, governments already pushing back against her effort to get other countries to take in refugees have come under further domestic pressure. And in Berlin, amid alarm about the electoral success of the three-year-old Alternative for Germany party, Ms. Merkel has sought to stem the inflow of migrants even as she continues to speak for open borders.

Crises that range from eurozone bailouts to fears of terrorism have weakened the European establishment, making the rise of today’s version of populism more potent than previous iterations, analysts say.

“What has changed radically is the wider international context,” said Dominika Kasprowicz, a political scientist at Poland’s Pedagogical University of Krakow. “The strategy to just adapt and agree on what has been proposed by the populist right can be the easiest way out—an emergency exit for the mainstream parties.”





Austria

The right-wing Freedom Party’s presidential candidate, Norbert Hofer, won 35% in first-round elections on April 24 and leads the polls ahead of Sunday’s runoff. In one sign of the electorate’s anti-establishment mood, Mr. Hofer easily carried Simmering, a working-class section of Vienna that had long voted center-left.





Celine Danecek, 17
High school student
“People had the feeling that their fears were being ignored by the politicians… The Freedom Party said from the very beginning: there are too many [migrants] coming.”



Brigitte Hoschek, 58
Pensioner
“On the playground, the Austrians have almost no room anymore because there are only Turkish children there. The Austrians are being pushed ever more to the side.”


Hermine Löffler, 57
Retired hospitality worker
“I want to get rid of my fear.’”


Among the factors, political scientists say, is a changing view of history. In Germany and Austria, the growing distance from the Nazi era is blunting the electorate’s knee-jerk rejection of xenophobic or nationalist rhetoric. In Poland and Slovakia, a receding memory of the Communist past has helped take some of the shine off Western-style democracy. In all four countries, according to exit polls in recent elections, young people were more likely than the mean to vote for populist candidates.

“They do not have this feeling of democracy, which is absolutely crucial for the older generation,” said Grigorij Meseznikov, president of Slovakia’s Institute for Public Affairs, a liberal-leaning think tank in Bratislava. “They did not participate in either the fight against the Communist regime or the struggle for democracy.”

Ms. Danecek, the teenage Freedom Party volunteer at the Vienna barbecue, said the Nazi past no longer pushed her generation away from right-wing parties. “We young people know this only out of the history books, and we are thus more open for this kind of party,” she said. “We in the young generation were not there—but we know how terrible it was—and we simply believe that this cannot happen a second time.”


The anti-immigrant Freedom Party of Austria held a barbecue for voters in Vienna last weekend. A poster for Norbert Hofer, its candidate in Sunday’s presidential election was on display in Vienna.

She said frustration with immigration pushed her to embrace the Freedom Party. It used to be, she said, that she felt a sense of community among her Austrian neighbors in the city’s working-class outskirts. Now there are many immigrants, and “one kind of just lives next to one another.”

The Freedom Party, with its anti-immigrant rhetoric and early ties to former Nazis, was once ostracized in Austrian politics. But Mr. Hofer’s 35% support in first-round presidential elections last month, more than triple what either of two establishment parties won, signaled its arrival.

“Stand up for Austria. Your homeland needs you now,” Mr. Hofer’s campaign posters blare. Opposing free trade as well as immigration, he drew especially strong support from the young and middle-aged in April.

In neighboring Slovakia in March, the People’s Party-Our Slovakia, which venerates the Slovak Nazi satellite state that deported tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths during World War II, won 8% of the national vote and its first seats in parliament. The party has described Slovakia’s leader at the time, Jozef Tiso, as a heroic defender of national sovereignty.

The People’s Party’s leader, Marian Kotleba, initially gained notice for his tough line against the Roma, or Gypsies. This year he ran on a broader platform that took on refugees, the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a political establishment he said steals from regular Slovaks. Mr. Kotleba didn’t respond to an interview request.

One of his voters, Mr. Capák, lives in a one-story house off a one-lane road on the outskirts of the town of Rožòava. The former teacher won a spot on the city council in 2014 after he attained local prominence for voluntarily fixing potholes. He plays musical gigs at weddings and drives newlyweds in a white horse-drawn carriage parked in his yard.


Slovakia

People’s Party-Our Slovakia, which wants a tough line against the Roma minority and venerates the Slovak Nazi satellite state of World War II, won a surprising 8% of the national vote in March and its first seats in parliament.



Milan Capák, 46
Town councilman, entertainer
“Why are we accepting refugees at a time when our young people are leaving the country looking for work?”


Mr. Capák said he voted center-left and Communist in the past and grew frustrated with a political establishment he felt ignored problems with the economy, refugees and the Roma. Before the March election, he saw Mr. Kotleba’s pitch on a billboard—“We’ll bring order to the tie-wearing thieves and the parasites in the Roma settlements”—and became a convert.

Mr. Capák found Mr. Kotleba’s support of the pro-Nazi Slovak state distasteful enough to prevent him from joining the party, but it didn’t turn him off as a voter. He said the government needed to get tougher on keeping out Middle Eastern refugees, who he said would bring regressive views of women and take Slovak jobs. Under a Brussels plan adopted last year, the country of 5.4 million is supposed to take in about 1,500 people.

“Why are we accepting refugees at a time when our young people are leaving the country looking for work?” Mr. Capák asked.


Political populism is surging in Central Europe, some of it focused on immigration and Roma settlements, in areas such as Austria, Slovakia and Poland.


In Poland, Ms. Merkel’s push for other EU countries to accept refugees has fired resentment of German power. Mr. Kukiz, the Red-Bull-swigging rocker turned populist leader, has seized on that sentiment, calling for a Polish referendum on taking in refugees. After finishing third in a presidential election a year ago with 21%, he formed a political group that placed third in fall parliamentary elections with 9%.

“I never dreamed of a political career. It’s a thousand times more pleasant to be a musician,” Mr. Kukiz, in a black T-shirt picturing anti-Communist Polish resistance soldiers, told a crowd of over 100 at a town-hall meeting in Gliwice on Monday. “But there are days bordering on euphoria when I know there’s a point in it. When I see you, I see a point in this fight.”

Ms. Kupka, the Polish woman on disability, said her vote for Mr. Kukiz last year was her first in a quarter-century of Polish democracy.

“He’s genuine,” she said. “I never trust politicians. What he says is true.”

Poland

Pawel Kukiz, a rock star turned populist activist, came in third in last May’s presidential elections and formed a political group that won seats in parliament in October. He did best in parts of Silesia in southern Poland, including the city of Gliwice.

Adam Wilk, 39
Small-business owner
"I'm 100% convinced that we'll get the worse refugees and the Germans will get the better ones."


Grazyna Kupka, 46
On disability benefits
“He’s genuine...I never trust politicians. What he says is true.”


Echoing many populist-leaning voters elsewhere in Europe, Ms. Kupka said she favored less-confrontational ties with Russia and said reports about a military threat from Moscow amounted to government propaganda.

A five-hour drive to the west, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 24% in state parliamentary elections in March, surprising many.

While Kukiz voters in Poland complain of Berlin’s dominance, some German voters, such as the innkeeper Mr. Gribnev, say their country in fact lacks sovereignty, because it is hostage to the EU and its U.S. alliance.

Germany

The three-year-old Alternative for Germany won seats in three state legislatures in March, cementing its status as the country’s most successful right-wing populist party since World War II. It did best in Saxony-Anhalt, a former East German state in which it won 24% of the vote.


Peter Appelt, 56
Train-factory worker
“The other parties need to be taught a lesson. They’ve become so arrogant. One must listen to the people once in a while.” Photo: Anton Troianovski/The Wall Street Journal


Todor Gribnev, 66
Innkeeper
“Germany is a colony of the U.S. Germany is governed by the U.S., just as the European Union is the long arm of the U.S.” Photo: Anton Troianovski/The Wall Street Journal


Peter Appelt, 56, said he takes the train five hours to Munich each week to work at a high-speed-train factory because jobs are lacking in his home region of Saxony-Anhalt. The migrant influx, he said, could make things even worse.

“The other parties need to be taught a lesson,” said Mr. Appelt, who used to vote for the center-left Social Democrats. “They’ve become so arrogant. One must listen to the people once in a while.”

The AfD’s showing in Saxony-Anhalt shook the political establishment so deeply that its conservative state prime minister, Reiner Haseloff, had to ally with the environmentalist Greens and center-left Social Democrats to form a governing coalition.

André Poggenburg, chairman of the Alternative for Germany party in Saxony-Anhalt state, said, ‘The idea of the EU was perhaps not the worst thing. The question is, what has it become in practice?’
André Poggenburg, chairman of the Alternative for Germany party in Saxony-Anhalt state, said, ‘The idea of the EU was perhaps not the worst thing. The question is, what has it become in practice?’ Photo: Anton Troianovski/The Wall Street Journal

Initially focused on getting Germany out of the euro, the AfD has swung to an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform as it looks to win its first seats in national parliament in elections next year.

“The idea of the EU was perhaps not the worst thing. The question is, what has it become in practice?” said André Poggenburg, the AfD chairman in Saxony-Anhalt. “Is it really something that pacifies? Or is it something that drives apart?”

—Martin M. Sobczyk in Gliwice, Poland, contributed to this article.
top

Europe’s Populist Politicians Tap Into Deep-Seated Frustration


By
Anton Troianovski | Photographs by Phil Moore for The Wall Street Journal

May 19, 2016 4:22 p.m. ET

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-military-idUSKCN0YB23U

World | Fri May 20, 2016 3:03pm EDT
Related: World

Venezuela crisis puts influential military in spotlight

CARACAS | By Alexandra Ulmer


A teenage protester reads the constitution to Venezuelan soldiers blocking a march. Others scrawl slogans on riot shields. Some shout "thugs" and urge troops to think of their families after tear gas is fired to quell the crowd.

Amid the melee on the front line of the latest protest in Caracas, the young soldiers' faces remain impassive.

Venezuela's opaque but powerful military - a key power-broker in past unrest - is under increasing scrutiny as socialist President Nicolas Maduro squares off with an opposition coalition desperate for his departure amid a brutal economic crisis.

With authorities looking unlikely to allow a referendum to recall Maduro this year, some opposition supporters are hoping factions of the armed forces may maneuver behind the scenes to promote a vote and avoid social unrest.

There is, however, no outward sign of dissent in the military, which late leader Hugo Chavez, a lieutenant colonel, turned into a bastion of "Chavismo" after a short-lived putsch in 2002. Though his successor Maduro, 53, does not hail from the army, he has worked to keep those ties strong.

The president frequently appears at parades lavishly praising the military, has placed current or former members of the armed forces in about a third of ministerial posts, and even created an army-run oil services company this year.

But as anger over worsening food shortages, power cuts and rampant inflation threatens to spill into mass unrest unless a political solution is found, the opposition are calling out to the army.

"I want to tell the armed forces that the hour of truth is coming," opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said this week. "You must decide whether you're with the constitution or Maduro," added Capriles, who has said the opposition has high-placed allies in the army, without clarifying exactly what he wants them to do.


VENEZUELA'S COUP HISTORY

During an economic crisis in 1992, a young soldier frustrated with what he deemed elitist and corrupt leaders plotted from the barracks to stage a coup.

The soldier, Chavez, ultimately failed and spent two years in jail, but the incident propelled him to fame and he was elected president in 1998. Four years later, he was himself victim of a 48-hour coup in which some army commanders pressured for his resignation and then another group reinstated him.

Once back in Miraflores palace, he purged the military and its top brass appears fiercely loyal to his self-described "son" Maduro, a former union leader and bus driver elected in 2013 after Chavez died of cancer.

Volatile Venezuela's history of coups mean rumors always abound on its buzzing social media scene.

The roughly 140,000-strong armed forces' current leader, General Vladimir Padrino, doubles as defense minister and sees his mission as protecting the "socialist fatherland." The forces were holding military exercises on Friday and Saturday against what Maduro says are threats of a foreign invasion.

In a recent speech praising Chavez, Padrino said those seeking Maduro's ouster were aiming to break the socialist revolution and to "re-implement a neo-liberal model".

The Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Padrino and the rest of the top brass could be at risk if there is a successful recall referendum this year, as that would trigger a presidential election Maduro would almost certainly lose.

The opposition frequently accuses the military of being the corrupt, violent arm of a dictatorship - sweetened by lucrative business deals - and if in power would likely overhaul it.

In addition, U.S. prosecutors have unsealed indictments charging at least five former Venezuelan officials with drug trafficking crimes over the past four years and suspect the armed forces are involved in the cocaine trade.

Venezuela has rejected the accusations as part of an imperialist plot to sabotage leftism in Latin America and has touted its success in cracking down on cocaine flows from neighboring Colombia.


SOLDIERS SUFFER

While there are no public cracks in military support for Maduro, one former army commander who participated in the 1992 coup and still considers himself "Chavista" caused waves this week when he backed the recall referendum.

"'Chavismo' has to continue and prevail. But we have to prevail by doing things right. The recall referendum is an exit to this crisis," Cliver Alcala told TV channel Globovision, complaining of corruption and mismanagement in the military.

That might resonate in the barracks, where young soldiers are drafted in from poor provinces to keep order at hot, unruly lines for food or at sometimes-violent protests.

The bolivar currency's near-collapse on the black market has them earning just $25 a month. Local media reported that five soldiers stole a goat in Lara state earlier this month because they had run out of food at their base.

"They come and repress us when in their homes they're suffering too," said Maria Olivares, 28, an education student at a protest in Caracas on Wednesday, after a hefty National Guard and police contingent tear-gassed demonstrators. [L2N18E28E]

Protesters threw stones, shouted at the guards to let them through, and taunted them as "submissive public servants." Two soldiers declined to respond to questions from a Reuters reporter, raising their shields to cover their faces.

"They're going to open their eyes at some point and come over to our side," said Olivares, whose grandmother and sister were waiting in a food line because the family only had oatmeal left at home.


(Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Brian Ellsworth, Stuart Grudgings.)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-b...rkey-no-friend-of-israel-or-the-united-states

May 20, 2016, 01:00 pm

Turkey: no friend of Israel or the United States

By Bradley Martin
Comments 4

There is no reason to believe that Turkey’s facilitation of ISIS operations in the region, and its link to ISIS both economically and politically, will cease.

With Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announcing that he would step down at the end of the month due to a falling-out with the Turkish president, it is very unlikely that a major shift in Turkish foreign policy will take place anytime soon. This move is expected to grant even more powers to Turkey’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, who cited Nazi Germany as an example of effective governance that he sought to establish in his own country. Expect an imminent government purge of at least 1,800 members of the current leadership to include Defense Security Staff members who have sided with the outgoing prime minister. The reality is that not much action is expected by the Turkish military on behalf of Davutoglu.

It is important to understand that Turkey’s reasons for this foreign policy are deeply rooted in the history and geography of the country itself. According to Lt. Col. Sargis Sangari, Chief Executive Officer of the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement, Turkey still views as its historical property the territories it once held as part of the Ottoman Empire.
“These created Sunni states which were established as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement consider Turkey as a ‘big brother,’ as a competitor in the region and on the global stage, a hated competitor,” said Sangari. “Turkey looks at the Arabs and other Sunnis to include Kurds as its previously owned subjects, who now control the oil and resources of those lands, while Turkey has no natural resources within its borders to allow itself to be stable and truly independent geopolitically and to compete globally with the EU, other Western countries and Russia.”

“Internally, Turkey has a problem with its populace, given that their government is blamed for losing these territories and its inability to reclaim economic, political, and religious influence over the same Arabs it looks down on. This is why civilian governments in Turkey do not have the support they need to be successful, while the military has played a popular role in Turkey’s history,” said Sangari.

It also doesn’t help that Turkey is currently experiencing a major economic downturn. In January, it was reported by The Guardian that Turkey expected to lose 4.5 million Russian tourists this year, after Russia banned tours to the country. Tourism accounts for 11 percent of Turkey’s GDP, with Russians serving as the country’s second-largest tourist group. According to The Wall Street Journal, “hundreds of hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and boutique resorts have been put up for sale” in Turkey. This came as a consequence of Turkish F-16s shooting down a Russian military jet along the Syrian border.

“Agriculture in Turkey is dying on the vine,” said Sangari. The food that has been produced is now an economic loss.” Turkish Agricultural Minister Faruk Çelik estimated that Russian sanctions will cost Turkey an annual $765 million worth of food exports.

Sangari explained that there was also a religious dimension to this historical resentment, which must be taken into account.

“Turkey wants to be the leader of Islam, given it believes itself to be the guardian of Islam as the Sultan was,” said Sangari. “Now, Saudi Arabia is in the lead of Islam, holding Mecca and Medina while being a major oil power in the region.”

It is because of these religious, historical, and geographic realities that Turkey acts like a bully in the region. Turkey does it in order to ensure its survival. This explains why it sometimes acts against American interests. Its use of the Syrian refugees as a weapon against Europe will only get worse now. Starting this month, millions of Turkish citizens will be permitted to travel visa-free to Europe, in exchange for Turkey’s “help” in stopping the migrant crisis. There is no reason to believe that Turkey’s use of Syrian refugees as a form of extortion against Europe will stop.

“Once ISIS falls, more documents will be revealed detailing the relationship between ISIS and Turkey, no different than what was revealed with the death of Abu Sayyaf, where it was revealed that Turkey was buying stolen oil from ISIS for $1 a barrel, in turn selling it to Europe for $20 a barrel,” said Sangari.

The Delta Force raid on Abu Sayyaf’s compound has found undeniable links between Turkish officials and the Islamic State. ISIS makes up to $10 million a month selling oil on black markets, aboutthree times as much as previously thought.

Turkey has proven itself to be a bad partner for NATO and has not treated Israel any better. In 2013, Turkey divulged to Iran the identities of up to ten Iranian citizens who were spying for Israel and gathering information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Former Chief of the Mossad, Danny Yatom, described this incident as a major blow against Western agencies trying to gather intelligence on an Iranian nuclear bomb.

If Turkey has proven itself to always be on the wrong side with its foreign policy and be a headache for its allies, should Israel dedicate its time, resources and other efforts to strengthening its relationship with Turkey?

As Israel struggles to answer this question, in light of Turkey’s current and historical role in the region, Israel needs to consider the problems the United States and NATO have experienced with regard to their ties with Turkey.


Bradley Martin is a Fellow for the Haym Salomon Center and Research Assistant for the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.france24.com/en/20160520-video-reporters-el-salvador-maras-gangs-criminals

REPORTERS

El Salvador
Latest update : 2016-05-20

El Salvador held hostage by gangs

Video

Last year in El Salvador, more than one person in every 1,000 was killed, a figure more typical of a country at war. The vast majority of these victims are young men, members of the Maras, Central American gangs who rule the neighbourhoods. Our reporters Laurence Cuvillier and Matthieu Comin went to meet them.

In 2015 in El Salvador, there were 70% percent more homicides than in 2014: 6,650 out of a population of 6.4 million. This small Central American country has become one of the most dangerous in the world.

Enlisted whether they like it or not, young Salvadorans often perceive the Maras, the criminal gangs, as the only way to "become somebody". In El Salvador, the Maras spread terror and have become a parallel authority. They control whole neighbourhoods and worry police and politicians, who are now unsure whether to confront them or negotiate with them.

>> Also watch our documentary: "El Salvador, Gangland hell"

In El Salvador, one in 10 people work directly or indirectly for them. They have acquired so much political clout that they may soon form their own parties. These criminal gangs are even courted by the traditional parties, who need their support to win elections in some cities. With a failing state powerless to stem the violence, the Maras are now becoming the real masters of the country.

One of these gangs, the Mara 18, even has a spokesperson. "Santiago", as he is known, is a taciturn young man, with a stern, piercing stare. Sitting down with him to gain his trust is a particularly intimidating moment. He says we can ask him all the questions we want, but demands "fees" in order to grant us the interview. Mareros are affordable... if we abide by their rules.

Although Santiago tells us he is still "active" in the Maras, he does not reveal how. The young gangster assures us that "18" is on the side of the poor and disenfranchised, although the poorest are shaken down by Santiago’s men all over the country.

So what happened? There are several explanations. First, the end of a truce signed in 2012 between the two Maras that dominate the country, "MS" and "18”. There is also the iron fist of the new president, who broke off the dialogue his predecessor had begun with these gangs and is having them jailed for terrorism. Finally, there is the new strategy of the Maras themselves, who no longer hesitate to detonate car bombs at police stations.

And despite this, despite all the murders, extortion and threats, the Maras continue their seemingly unstoppable path towards recognition and integration.

By Matthieu COMIN , Laurence CUVILLIER

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-guzman-usa-idUSKCN0YB2H4

World | Fri May 20, 2016 5:02pm EDT
Related: U.S., World, Mexico

Mexico to extradite drug boss Guzman to U.S., won't face death penalty

MEXICO CITY | By Luis Rojas and Gabriel Stargardter


Mexico approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States on Friday after receiving guarantees he would not face the death penalty, and the kinkgpin's lawyers vowed to block the move.

Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman's lawyers, told Reuters he would file "many" legal challenges in the coming days, which could delay the drug lord's eventual extradition for weeks.

Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was the world's most wanted drug kingpin until his capture in January, six months after he broke out of a high-security penitentiary in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel burrowed right up into his cell.

Mexico's foreign ministry said he would face charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and murder in U.S. federal courts in California and Texas. The ministry said it was given "sufficient guarantees" by the U.S. government that Guzman would not be executed. It was not immediately clear where Guzman would be sent in the United States.

Asked whether he would file legal challenges on behalf of Guzman, Badillo said: "Of course. Five, 10, whatever is necessary."

Guzman's escape last year was a major embarrassment to President Enrique Pena Nieto, who entered office amid a bloody war between the government and drug cartels launched by his predecessor.


Related Coverage
› Mexican drug boss Guzman to challenge extradition ruling: lawyer

Pena Nieto dialed back cooperation with the United States after taking office in 2013, but soon after Guzman's recapture in January he said he had taken steps to ensure the kingpin would be extradited as soon as possible.

Earlier this month, Guzman was moved from a jail in central Mexico to a prison in Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border, seen as a step closer to extradition.

Mexican authorities say they tracked Guzman down after he sought to make a movie about his life and met with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, who published an interview with the drug boss in Rolling Stone.

In a plot worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, the trio met at a jungle hideout, unwittingly monitored by Mexican security forces. Guzman was finally apprehended around 3 months later as he sought to flee through drains from a safehouse in his native state of Sinaloa along with his chief hitman.

Guzman, whose nickname means "Shorty", first escaped prison in 2001 by bribing prison officials, and went on to dominate the world of Mexican drug trafficking.

He was recaptured by Pena Nieto's government in 2014 but escaped in July by capitalizing on the drug-tunneling skills his cartel honed on the U.S. border.

A mile-long tunnel equipped with electric lights, rails and a motorbike came out directly into the shower of his prison cell and he simply slipped away.

Dozens of people were arrested over the jailbreak, though details of who Guzman bribed and how his accomplices knew exactly where to dig into the prison remain scarce.

With Chapo back behind bars, his more discreet partner, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who jointly heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, is the last major Mexican capo standing.


(Writing by Michael O'Boyle and Simon Gardner; Editing by Tom Brown and Andrew Hay)

 

[Housecarl]

Iraqi Protesters Storm Baghdad's Green Zone, Shooting Erupts
Started by Possible Impact‎, Today 09:35 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...rs-Storm-Baghdad-s-Green-Zone-Shooting-Erupts

Iraq-IS War (30 March 2016) Obama to decide on increasing troop levels in Iraq soon
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...on-increasing-troop-levels-in-Iraq-soon/page2

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-politics-sadr-idUSKCN0YB2BU

World | Fri May 20, 2016 1:36pm EDT
Related: World

Iraq's Sadr condemns use of force against Green Zone protesters

Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr expressed support for protesters who stormed into Baghdad's Green Zone on Friday and condemned security forces' use of force against them.

"I respect your choice and your peaceful spontaneous revolt," Sadr said in a statement. "Curse the government that kills its children in cold blood."

Witnesses said earlier that dozens of people were wounded when the security forces fired tear gas and bullets at the protesters.


(Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Saif Hameed; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...aking-North-Korea-SLBM-secrets/7441463762824/

Military official sentenced for leaking North Korea SLBM secrets

By Elizabeth Shim Contact the Author | May 20, 2016 at 12:59 PM

SEOUL, May 20 (UPI) -- A South Korean military official has been sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison for leaking classified government information on North Korea's submarine-launched ballistic missile program.

The South Korean army captain identified as "A" by local press was charged with violating laws on military secrets, Yonhap reported.

The defendant allegedly leaked military secrets related to North Korea's SLBMs between Nov. 3 and Dec. 15, including "Level 2" classified information, Newsis reported.

South Korea's defense ministry investigations into the matter revealed the defendant began sharing the information with a reporter, including documents on North Korea's ground troop movements.

The reporter had asked for information related to North Korea's missile launches, according to press reports.

The defense ministry's prosecutor's office said the actions are a violation of military protocol.

The defendant was charged in February.

South Korea has been on alert since North Korea launched a series of projectiles in April. Pyongyang has also contributed to tensions with a fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6, and a satellite launch in February – actions that have led to tougher sanctions against the country.

Seoul's defense minister has previously said South Korea may not have enough time to respond to an incoming SLBM.

North Korea launched a SLBM in late April that traveled 20 miles before exploding in midair, and Pyongyang is making "advancements" in its nuclear capabilities, Han Min-koo has said.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aei.org/publication/is-irans-regular-military-pivoting-to-force-projection/

Paul Bucala
May 19, 2016 3:49 pm | AEIdeas

Is Iran’s regular military pivoting to force projection?

Foreign and Defense Policy, Middle East

The announcement last month that elements from Iran’s conventional military, the Artesh, had deployed to Syria marked a fundamental shift in the Artesh’s constitutionally-defined mission of defending Iran’s borders. Tehran’s other military service, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has historically been responsible for executing the regime’s missions abroad.

At first glance, the decision to deploy Artesh troops appeared to be driven in part by the casualties taken by the IRGC in Syria. However, a deeper dive suggests that the Iranian regime has decided to fundamentally re-posture elements of Iran’s regular military to support Tehran’s expeditionary capabilities.

Cooperation between the Guards and the Artesh has been limited by an institutionalized rivalry between the two organizations that dates back to the early days of the Islamic Republic. After the 1979 revolution, the new regime purged the Artesh out of fear that the officer corps harbored loyalties to the Shah. To serve as a loyal counterbalance to the regular military, the revolutionary leadership formed the IRGC. In the years since, the Guards have managed to overshadow the Artesh thanks to greater access to decision-makers and the regime’s financial resources.

It appears that the Artesh’s marginalization may be drawing to an end. Recent reporting on the Artesh’s operations suggests that its Special Forces are integrated within the larger IRGC command structure in Syria. The ability to place Artesh troops under the IRGC demonstrates a capability on the part of the Guards to manage inter-service friction between the two organizations. It also represents the natural development of recent efforts by the regime’s leadership to elevate the role of the Artesh in the armed forces, probably in an attempt to consolidate its force structure in the face of growing regional threats. Artesh commanders are likely more than willing to accept missions alongside the IRGC in order to prove their relevance to regime leaders.

The rhetoric from the Artesh leadership indicates that the Artesh may be undergoing a larger transformation towards supporting Tehran’s missions abroad. The deputy Artesh commander, for example, recently suggested the regular military has come to redefine its previous defensive posture to include deployments abroad as part of a preemptive doctrine to protect Iran’s borders. The fact that the Artesh recently announced the formation of quick response units designed to mobilize rapidly to counter threats in the region provides further evidence that the Artesh is pivoting away from its mission of static defense.

The IRGC is likely facing manpower constraints as it juggles operations in several theaters from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The Guards have also just suffered their first significant setback in the defeat at Khan Tuman south of Aleppo. If Tehran continues developing the ability to integrate Artesh units within the IRGC’s missions abroad, it would constitute a dramatic increase in the number of forces that could be sent to support the IRGC’s expeditionary deployments.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/2016/05/missing-m...gon-report-on-chinas-military-didnt-tell-you/

Missing missile mystery: What the Pentagon report on China’s military didn’t tell you

By Harry Kazianis on May 18, 2016 in Asia Times News & Features, AT Opinion, China

If you were trying to connect with your friendly neighborhood Asia defense geek last Friday around 2:30 pm EST you were likely greeted with voicemail, an unanswered text or silence on your preferred social media channel. The reason you were ignored: The Pentagon decided to call a press conference to announce the findings of its latest annual China military report. And while the report was as comprehensive as ever, it’s what was left out that is the real story — and the omission is a glaring one to say the least.

But before we get to that, let’s give credit where credit is due. The Pentagon, on most years (the 2014 report was almost universally panned as lacking any depth—but that is for another column), delivers a stellar overview of not only the rise of China’s military, detailing key pieces of hardware that policymakers and experts should be in the know on but also why Beijing is driving so hard towards developing a modern fighting force that in many areas is catching up or is passing Washington in key areas.

The report is comprehensive and filled with details and informational tidbits that are rarely all lumped together. The document also undertakes the arduous task of having to also speak to the challenges of the US-China strategic dilemma while highlighting areas of cooperation—not an easy thing to pull off in one unified narrative.

Speaking for myself, the report has always been a go to read and I would assign sections to new interns while serving as Executive Editor of The National Interest to ensure they had a clear understanding of China’s growing military power—something we published on quite frequently.

The DF-26 hole

And yet, there is an obvious hole in the 2016 version of the report that leaves it incomplete. Over the last few months, there has been a flurry of articles detailing a new version of China’s anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), named the DF-26. This new variant of the widely successful Dong Feng ballistic missile family builds on the success of the DF-21D, many times referred to as Beijing’s “carrier-killer.”

The DF-26 sparked tremendous debate back in September of last year when the missile cruised down the boulevards of Beijing—labelled in English, just in case western defense audiences missed it—during a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. An announcer for the parade described the missiles in Chinese as coming in a “Conventional-/Nuclear-capable formation. The DF-26 can perform medium-to-long-range precision attack on both land and large-to-medium-sized maritime targets. A new weapon for strategic deterrence.” But perhaps the biggest reason the missile made news: it has a reported maximum range of 2500 miles—something the US Navy has to take very seriously.

So what does the Pentagon’s new report tell us about the DF-26? Very little, at least when it comes to the anti-ship variant of the weapon—which I would argue could be a game changer when you consider its possible range. To be clear, there are several DF-26 non-ASBM mentions, noting that, “when fielded,” it “will be capable of conducting precision strikes against ground targets and contribute to strategic deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region” and “if it shares the same guidance capabilities, would give China its first nuclear precision strike capability against theater targets.” The report later strikes a similar note explaining, “this system is capable of conducting intermediate precision strikes against ground targets, which could include US bases on Guam.” All of major importance, but if US aircraft carriers and surface combatants are now under threat now from as far as 2500 miles away from the Chinese mainland, that is a huge concern. And yet, there is no direct mention of this possibility.

In fact, if you dig a little deeper, there is what I would call a “sort of” mention of the DF-26 in ASBM format, but is very hard to find, and is in an indirect format to say the least:

“Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) (3,000-5,500 km): The PLA is developing a nuclear and conventional road-mobile IRBM, which increases its capability for near-precision strike out to the “second island chain.” The PLAN also is improving its over-the-horizon (OTH) targeting capability with sky wave and surface wave over the horizon (OTH) radars, which can be used in conjunction with reconnaissance satellites to locate targets at great distances from China, (hereby supporting long-range precision strikes, including employment of ASBMs.”

Considering how this report, and many prior Pentagon reports, have discussed in varying levels of detail the DF-21D, why not some analysis of the DF-26 ASBM?

The easiest explanation I can think of is that the US military has very little information (beyond what is in open sources) on the system’s true ASBM capabilities. In fact, when discussed in non-ASBM areas, as noted above, the report itself refers to the missile with terminology such as “when fielded” and “is developing” but then uses terms like “this system is capable of conducting.”

Anti-access nightmare in Asia

While this is a little confusing, this could be a reflection of real debate inside the US military of how effective this weapon could be against fixed land targets and to a greater extent against a moving target at far away ranges. If this is the case, why feed a narrative that US carrier strike groups would now face volleys of advanced Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles starting at the second-island chain if they did not have clear intelligence confirming such a disturbing fact?

From this perspective, you can see rather quickly why the Pentagon would want to get this right: combining a 2500 mile-range ASBM with the likely more reliable DF-21Ds (being operational for several years now) with a range of roughly 900 miles and various types of anti-ship cruise missiles being fired from land, air and sea in various types of salvos/saturation strikes—the US Navy is quickly facing an anti-access nightmare in the Asia-Pacific that is growing worse year by year.

In the past I have described the challenge of Chinese anti-ship missiles as a “great complicator” for the US military—but it would be sure nice to know what the defense gurus of the Pentagon thought of this latest weapon, even if it was a statement to the effect that they were still formulating an opinion. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait until some random Friday late in the day next May to find out.

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is a Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest and is now a Senior Editor at The National Interest. He is the author of a new monograph on China’s military modernization: The Tao of A2/AD. The views expressed in this article are his own.

 

[Be Well]

Sorry folks I'm a bit behind here on this stuff....

The John Batchelor Show
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedul...ay-18-may-2016
(Please go to the site for the podcasts...HC)

You carry a huge load of posting news along with some others - thank you!

 

[Be Well]

World | Fri May 20, 2016 5:02pm EDT
Related: U.S., World, Mexico

Mexico to extradite drug boss Guzman to U.S., won't face death penalty

MEXICO CITY | By Luis Rojas and Gabriel Stargardter


Mexico approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States on Friday after receiving guarantees he would not face the death penalty, and the kinkgpin's lawyers vowed to block the move.

Total crap. He deserves the death penalty RIGHT NOW. So what if MX doesn't "like" it? If he committed capital crimes in the US he should get the death penalty, which should be reinstated a heckuva lot more.

 

[Be Well]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-...rts-1463689360

WSJ

Europe’s Populist Politicians Tap Into Deep-Seated Frustration

Growing numbers of voters are supporting populist political parties that oppose accepting refugees and other migrants and are skeptical of European integration

By Anton Troianovski | Photographs by Phil Moore for The Wall Street Journal
May 19, 2016 4:22 p.m. ET

And this is just the beginning!

They try to make the word "populist" a dirty words.

It's not working.